Boring first shot

Only had half an hour spare, but I was desperate to get out with the newly acquired K5 and play.

Just a handful of captures. Straight 'out of the box' so to speak, so I have not done anything with settings or figured out much so far. K5 with 35mm 2.4 DA. RAW conversion on Photoshop, but almost no processing. Just a little warming, as it was very overcast, and a slight crop.

Really very, very happy with this. Aplogies for the boring traditional subject matter, but the garden was the only accessible place today!

Enjoy your new camera. Most folks still rate the K5 very highly. You are wise to shoot RAW...

Thanks Andrew.

I've always shot RAW, even with compacts where the option has been available. Plenty of disc space here and plenty of backup space, so file size has never been an issue. I am really impressed with the IQ without playing at all with settings. All I've done is to reset most things and install the latest firmware. I changed the file save to RAW, but other than that I have yet to change anything else.

Manual will be bedtime reading for quite a few nights to come!

It's not that boring, nice colours and the water drops look good. Glad to hear you're pleased with the new camera and welcome to here also. There's plenty to learn from the manual ..... They're not the best written but there's a wealth of useful info on what is really an extraordinary machine.

RAW here has given you good results. The only suggestion I'd make is that it looks like you could add some extra sharpening to that image ... You may find the default in ACR a little soft for that camera.

The K5 is very complex: there's al sorts of things buried in the menu, I've never got to grips with it. In fact, it's rather wasted on me. Some things are plain daft: why would anyone in their right minds want to convert a RAW file in-camera and process it half way up a mountain, or anywhere, really?

I keep it on aperture priority and auto ISO capped at 1600ASA and just get on with it. Its images are not as immediately appealing as the old CCD sensors, I feel, but it copes so well with low light and sits nicely in the hands. Lovely camera and a "modern" classic.

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

It was not rot really good enough to post, but I was just so pleased to get a sensibly sharp image after some serious DSLR grief over previous years. Papa Laz is a friend, who directed me to this place and has been gently pushing me towards Pentax for a couple of years. I didn't need much persuading frankly.

Even with a quick play, I actually find the menus and settings very intuitive. There are obviously a great many hidden depths, but it does seem designed to be used to take pictures, rather than an exercise in software engineering. Frankly, it's everything I always expected in a DSLR but haven't had before.

I am, tonight, like a pig in the proverbial.

I am probably one of the few that hates the k5
I had nothing but trouble with mine could not get it to do what I wanted
And the photo quality straight out the camera was poor
I'm not a big believer of playing with them on the computer
If you can't do it on the camera then it's not for me

Chuffed to bits that it's working out well for you mate.
We'll have to meet up soon and go out for a photo walk (perhaps with Vic too).

Look forward to it Phil. Need a few more hours of learning first though!

Interesting comment Stu, but it seems to go against general opinion. That said, my last DSLR was a Canon 50D with some more than reasonable lenses. I don't think I ever got a properly exposed and sharp image out of it, yet most people really rated it. Maybe just a rogue one?

The Jpegs from my first few shots are fine, but I don't see anything at all wrong with a little post processing, certainly for minor sharpening and colour adjustment. Going back (more than) a few years, it's no different to what we used to do in the darkroom.

But Stu, that's the whole point: K5 images are meant to be manipulated. I too was disappointed at first and found the images to be flat and dull, but shoot in RAW and process correctly and good results can be achieved. My Canon EOS M, by comparison, produces great shots straight from the camera. The JPEGs are most satisfactory which is one reason the company's cameras are so consumer friendly and popular, maybe. Just a theory.

Ricoh's Pentax offerings seem to have improved on the out of camera jpegs (the K-1's jpegs are really good). The reason for the inbuilt raw converter isn't necessarily to process the images half way up a mountain (though one can if one wants) but to produce an improved image using the camera's inbuilt filters and adjustments, i.e. redevelop' the image in camera, possibly back at base camp when its too late to consider retaking the image!