First k-01 Experiences

Picked up a K-01 from SRS via eBay body only for £219 (pentax ex demo) as a spare ody. Used it at an event over the weekend, very impressed so far, colours from the JPG engine seem better. Also found the CDAF to be perfectly acceptable, even for action shots if you pre focus. Thought I'd share a few shots.




IMGP5954 by Pheo, on Flickr



IMGP6050 by Pheo, on Flickr



IMGP5689 by Pheo, on Flickr

Happy to answer questions if anyone has any!

Really good, I'm desperately trying to find an excuse to have one of these....

I got a K-01 from SRS as well, though the poor weather hasn't given me many outdoor opportunities to have a play. I shall be taking it on a trip to Cape Town next month. One glitch, a Miranda 28mm with a PK-A mount will not fully turn and click when attaching to the K-01, whereas it fully engages on my K-m. Odd, but not a train smash.

Superb quality... the lighting looks very good.

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+1 these look really good.

+1 - very impressive performance by both camera and photographer (and dancers!)

Great Pics, Is the Mono (1st pic) out of camera,or is it converted with photoshop? u have some great pics on ur flickr account...

Sorry for the delay in answering these - been rushed off my feet going thru all the photos from this event.

All conversions done after the fact in Apple Aperture only. What I just can't figure out is why the K-01 has much better punch than my K-30 - I'm much prefering the output. Could be the lens I was using, but I'm not sure. And this is despite being on the same JPG setting - I thought these cameras had the same sensor and same engine, perhaps I was wrong.

Tempted to sell the K-30 and pick up a K5II at this rate. Although I'd prefer a Pentax FF body lolz

So here's my first impressions then: I've just obtained one specifically for a series of indoor bad light shots where previously I was barely able to achieve reasonable shutter speeds , despite shooting at f2.5 and pushing the ISO as high as I can tolerate (3200 on my K7).

After considering my options I decided to take advantage of the cheap K01/40mm lens combos around rather than stumping up for a K5 something just yet. Not an easy choice for me as I have generally hated all cameras not posessing a decent optical viewfinder. So what did I find:

High ISO. This is of course why I bought the camera and it has lived up to my expectations. I can shoot at 6400 and get cleaner results than 3200 on the K7, very little PP attention being needed to get the noise under control.

Focusing. Not a problem for me as my fast glass is all old MF stuff anyway. I did try AF with my 50/1.4 and under these conditions it did a significantly worse job than MF so I turned it off quick again and to my surprise I absolutely loved the focus peaking feature in MF mode. Quick tests with AF outside seem to work fine.

Operability: As expected I detest using the LCD instead of OVF in general us - For my specific indoor use case it actually works OK though and the old fashioned manual exposure, manual focus plus focus peaking is really nice for the fairly static conditions I have. It is SLOW though compared to a DSLR and that is my biggest crticism, trying to catch moving expressions on faces is a real problem and my main criticism. I think that quality wise it feels in the hand like an absolute gem (except for the horrible rubber cover over the card slot etc.)

All in all, I'm very happy with it. I'm less pleased with the unbelievably noisy 40mm lens coming with it but haven't given that a fair test yet. Neither have I tested the movie modes.