Pentax KP Review
High ISO Daylight Performance
In order to evaluate how and when the rendering of colors break down at high ISO we volunteered our patient model for a series of images with he KP and K-3 through their entire ISO range. The light was daylight indoors. The lens was the smc Pentax-D FA 100mm F2.8 Macro WR set to F9.5.
Custom Image was Natural with its default settings, and all image enhancement features that can be turned off were turned off except for high ISO noise reduction, which was set to the default.
The table below compares JPG images as produced by the cameras. It is possible to achieve images with less noise but at the price of less detail when developing from RAW as this ISO 409,600 image from the KP attests to (but we didn't get the colors quite right):
Links to the original ISO 409,600 files in case you want to try your luck: DNG RAW | JPG from camera.
Which image is best is a matter of taste and of the intended end use, so rather than fretting over which RAW development settings to use we're letting the camera do the job in the comparison below. Click any thumbnail to browse 1000 x 1500 pixel 100% crops.
ISO | KP JPGs | K-3 JPGs |
100 | ||
200 | ||
400 | ||
800 | ||
1600 | ||
3200 | ||
6400 | ||
12 800 | ||
25 600 | ||
51 200 | ||
102 400 | ||
204 800 | ||
409 600 | ||
819 200 |
In the above example we noticed that the colors start breaking down at ISO 102,400.
Verdict
As already mentioned the high ISO perfomance of the KP is impressive and not until ISO 102,400 does the color rendering becomre problematic.