Pentax K-3 Review
Detail and Noise
On the next few pages, we will take a look at two key aspects of the K-3's image quality: the detail and the noise. A higher megapixel count means you get more resolution and thus, one should be able to capture fine details with the K-3 that no earlier Pentax body could resolve. Because of its high resolution, the K-3 has a smaller pixel pitch, however, which could mean that you'd observe more noise earlier than with lower-resolution cameras. But given the fact that the K-3's sensor is more modern than the one in the K-5 and earlier cameras, will this really be the case? Let's find out!
Detail
Our first test scene is a distant mountain with a diverse array of radio antennas at its summit. These antennas are very hard to spot with the naked eye and they are therefore the perfect test subject when it comes to gauging detail reproduction. For this test, we used a lens with a normal field of view (the DA 35mm Limited) and compared the results from the 16-megapixel K-5 IIs to the 24-megapixel K-3.
The location of our test subject
Below are unscaled 100% crops of the mountain's summit taken with both cameras at various ISO settings. Links to larger crops that include the houses below the mountain are included.
Pentax K-3 | Pentax K-5 IIs | |
| ISO 100 |
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| ISO 200 |
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| ISO 1600 |
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These results show that the K-3 has a significant advantage when it comes to rendering detail. It does start to exhibit more noise as early as ISO 400, but its higher resolution will make the noise easier to combat during post-processing.
Next, let's take a closer look at the noise performance itself.
