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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-29-2018, 05:19 AM
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I think Pentax would be better off with some kind of advance announcement. Even one of those cheesy, dark, half-revealed photos of something mysterious posted on a Ricoh web page. With their near-zero North American marketing budget and tight-lipped secrecy pre-launch, if you're not monitoring sites like this you might not even notice something has been released.
It's a little like new music, where you have to go out and find your favorite niche band's new album and you might not think to do that for a while and when you do you realize it has been out for months.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-24-2018, 04:36 AM
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I appreciate the response, and I get that sensor temperature has an impact on noise performance. But... I don't think this makes a lot of sense from a practical standpoint. I don't know that a mirrorless sensor is really 20, 30, 40, 50°C hotter than a DSLR sensor in typical use. Fuji, Sony, even Pentax have had mirrorless cameras for years. I don't think that I've heard much criticism of those cameras based on sensor noise. And knowing the internet, there would be a gigantic backlash against mirrorless manufacturers if the typical use case resulted in an ISO 800 performance equivalent to ISO 3200 in a DSLR. Or base ISO being the same as 400 or 800 in a DSLR.
You're basically saying that the best Fuji or Sony should have the high-ISO noise characteristics of a DSLR from 15 years ago. Or worse. That certainly doesn't appear to be the case.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-23-2018, 11:52 AM
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What is the practical implication of having a sensor that is on more often and might be somewhat warmer? If you were shooting hundreds of frames in a few minutes at high ISO how noticeable is the noise from the heat? Is a DSLR at ISO 3200 the same as a mirrorless at 800? Or is it more of an edge case, where you really have to pixel peep a comparison scene and know what you're looking for?
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-19-2018, 04:16 PM
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The vast majority of today's photographers expect good autofocus. Manual focus is a niche. Pentax they can't design whole new cameras to cater to a niche of their already small niche. How many hundred of these do you think they'd sell?
Leica might be able to do it because they can make $3000 profit on a camera body.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-15-2018, 11:17 AM
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The only store within 200 miles of me, Dominion/Ace Camera is on the far side of the beltway, 54 miles away. And their website lists a new old stock K-7 for the low, low price of $1099. Although they do have a K-1ii for only $103 more than B&H. I considered going by a month ago when I was in the market for a 55-300 PLM but they don't have it in stock.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-15-2018, 08:31 AM
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I live not terribly far from Washington DC and there is one authorized Pentax dealer within 150 miles of my house.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-08-2018, 01:01 PM
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I was going to reply to the "not serious photography" comment, but luckily you got there first with a more elegant response.
I think we need to have a thread for "Post your ISO 6400+ Images". I'm sure there would be no shortage of excellent shots.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-08-2018, 11:19 AM
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I'm not saying it's true - I'm sure the Nikon does very well in low-light situations. My point was that many people who grew up in the film era still treat ISO 1000 as a stratospheric number, because 15 years ago it was. That's why many people might not still shoot handheld in dark conditions.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-08-2018, 08:46 AM
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Isn't that primarily because it was nearly impossible from circa 1839 until roughly 10 years ago? My one photography buddy at work has a higher-end Nikon body with pro glass and he's told me he really tries to keep ISO under 400 or so because, you know, things get super grainy and unusable in that range. He was pretty amazed that my K-3ii can produce good images at ISO 10,000+. Whatta you know about that...
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-04-2018, 07:49 AM
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I refuse to carry a camera that doesn't have every available void filled with lead ballast. Sometimes I hang a carabiner off the tripod mount and attach a cinder block just to add a little heft I thought was missing.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-03-2018, 07:25 AM
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But what are the practical implications of this, and what are the other tradeoffs of not having this functionality? Without pixel peeping a comparison scene can you tell?
For example, many people would take a very slight image degradation that's usually not even visible in normal viewing in exchange for dramatically better autofocus performance that might mean the difference between an in-focus shot and an out-of-focus shot.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-02-2018, 05:07 AM
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None? That's the classic example of where Pentax autofocus lets me down: Pull out K-30 or K-3ii, attach 55-300 screw-drive lens, point at bird or airplane flying in bright blue sky, hit autofocus, and whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... everything goes blurry, and the flying thing is gone.
Can you use techniques to help with that, or minimize it? Sure, quick shift to get close, f/7.1 or more for depth of field and let ISO float high, keep everything centered, use back-button. Buy a PLM. But I've had that happen multiple times every time I've tried to shoot birds or airplanes. Sometimes it happens with other subjects like sports.
I doubt a Nikon shooter would claim he has no issues with BIF.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-29-2018, 12:05 PM
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There are a lot of benefits to mirrorless. Like better reliability due to fewer moving parts. Smaller bodies that could be paired with lenses designed like the Pentax limiteds to give you a brilliant, small, high-quality system. The EVF has advantages like focus-peaking for manual lenses in the viewfinder. More information displayed in the viewfinder like histograms. Better low-light performance of the viewfinder.
Mirrorless could be cheaper, but most of the new bodies being released are fairly high spec premium systems. Even small sensor micro 4/3rds systems aren't any/much cheaper than a midrange Pentax DSLR.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-22-2018, 08:32 AM
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I guess I don't have any first hand experience with cameras with good low light properties, but I've gotten what I consider pretty reasonable results from a K-3II and ISO 10,000.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 04:26 PM
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See second half of this thread. I've gotten better results after the suggestions and changes from that thread, but basically I have to stop down to something like f/7.1 for greater depth of field, use back button focus, center point, and I get decent keeper rates. That often drives ISO in non-ideal lighting to 1600, 3200, sometimes higher. Shooting wider open for greater subject separation or lower ISO is basically a non-starter.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 09:24 AM
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Yes. The camera couldn't successfully differentiate between the moving subjects the camera was pointed at, and the static stuff in the background. Over the past year or two I've improved my technique and my keeper rate, but I still get more than a few like I described.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 09:10 AM
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I have probably dozens of pictures of my kids playing soccer where the focus locked on the goal, the trees behind the field, the mostly static parents sitting behind the players in motion, etc.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 08:23 AM
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I wouldn't be thrilled. I have something like nine lenses. All of my workhorses are APS-C, although I think my 40mm LTD works on FF. My three other FF lenses are manual focus, two special purpose (Lomo Daguerreotype, Helios).
Any push to full frame would mean $1000s in new lenses or a retreat to old manual glass that won't give me the results I currently get from the K-3II.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 05:33 AM
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All I know is the K-3ii.
I'd like improvement such that the 55-300 PLM review doesn't have to read "fastest autofocus ever for Pentax lens, but there's only so much you can do given the bodies."
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-11-2018, 05:00 AM
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What I want is a big positive change in autofocus, the KP's image quality and IBIS, and everything else can be a K-3ii equivalent.
I don't know anything else I'd want in an APS-C DSLR.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-30-2018, 04:51 PM
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I think he was trying to untangle a Yogi Berra-ism. Yogi once said that no one ever goes to a certain club any more because it's too crowded.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-05-2018, 05:50 AM
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I think that will be a difficult time for the existing manufacturers. It's quite hard to break through into the luxury market.
Maybe this doesn't fully translate, but look at cars. You have the hyper brands like Bentley and Rolls Royce and Ferrari and Lambo. And the more consumer-luxury brands like Mercedes and Audi and BMW, maybe Lexus. When someone tries to break into these segments it's, hit or miss, at best. Hyundai is trying with Genesis, but nobody really thinks those are on par with the Germans. Even if objectively they're close you don't brag to your coworkers that you have a Genesis. Cadillac was once every bit as prestigious as a Mercedes, then spent years building crappy barges with velvet and chrome and no amount of technical achievement and pricing schemes has really put them on a subjective level with the other established luxury brands. They can't shake the idea that your grandmother drives a Caddy. I know, I cross-shopped a CTS with my Audi. I couldn't do it.
That's what I fear in cameras. Leica isn't a miracle brand. Some of their cameras are thinly disguised Panasonics. They're technically only fractionally better than cameras costing far less. But they're Leica. They still get people to buy $6000 rebadged Panasonics. Pentax will probably never get people to buy $6000 K-3IIIs, even if they paint a red dot on them and put them in exclusive storefronts in London and New York.
Is Pentax Cadillac? Once great, had a down period, now makes objectively very good products but they can't fully shake the idea that their time was long ago?
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-29-2018, 11:22 AM
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If you don't like all of the options for functionality and customization you're free to use even a K-1 like a cell phone or a polaroid: Ignore the fact there's even a menu, put it on green button auto, and fire away. Or if you'd rather it be like your 1970s vintage Pentax then turn off the review on the screen, put it on manual, flip the switch to manual focus, and never dig through a menu again.
But I think for every option you don't want and could eliminate you'd find a small pitchfork-wielding mob here ready to fight you for it.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
12-31-2017, 06:48 AM
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But how does the size advantage square with the trend towards highly compensated, huge, heavy lenses? Aren't you just going to end up with a multi-pound lens attached to a tiny camera body? Unless some manufacturer makes the Pentax Limited choice, and puts out brillant little gems of lenses that may not be hyper-corrected or f/1.8. Is that Fuji?
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
12-30-2017, 02:39 PM
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Sure you do... the interwebs. Unroasted green coffee beans last a long time.
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