Happy upgrading to K-1?

I have had my K-5 for almost 3 years now. I use it mainly for travel and street photography and occasionally for portraits at family functions. I am happy with its performance especially in low light.

With the full frame K-1 available in the market now, I am wondering whether it will be worth the extra investment to upgrade. I want to hear from those who have upgraded from APS-C. Are you happy with the upgrade?

I am attracted to the features like Astrotracer, GPS, larger view finder etc. I also have a collection of old M and A lenses in very good condition.

I use my K-5 with 18-135 WR which gives reasonable quality images. Is it worth investing on some DA* or Limited lenses instead, to get super sharp pictures? Will they a good investment in the long run?

I would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks
Gajan

The K-5 is still a very capable camera and will deliver very sharp A3 prints with no difficulty.

The K-1 is faster in operation and delivers, potentially, even sharper images at greater print sizes. It's a beautiful camera to use and well worth the upgrade. How much better the images are will depend upon our photographic technique. The results can be stunning.

The K5 is now a relatively old model, and really, any of the newest Pentax DSLRs will offer that extra responsiveness, better AF and low light focusing, improved interfaces and control operations. All of these things will make photography more fun again, and give that new camera boost to things ... And the K1 will pack the biggest punch of them all in that respect.

Whether or not it leads to much better images, I think, and as John has hinted at there, depends on the photographer, their approach and knowledge, plus the lenses!

For the sort of photography you mentioned, I'd say you could get a good kick and step up from looking at better and faster, plus longer glass. But, perhaps like me, you might choose to only consider FF compatible options from now

It would be wrong to call moving from the K-5 to K-1 an upgrade. I would call it an extension...K-3ii is the logical upgrade.

The reason for this is that you're going from APS-C to FF demands a different style of photography. If you do wide views and need the resolution then get the K-1 - but don't bin the K-5 which is an excellent camera.

To get the best out of the K-5 (and K-1) there is no harm in looking at your technique to see if you can make any improvements that will help make your images stand out more. You only have to look at Nigel's photos, and what he can achieve with the K-7 (which is considered inferior by some).

I have only used my K3ii once since buying the K1 on Day One. A week or so after that purchase but didn't see the point of using it again.

The K3ii is effectively binned. The PQ of the K1 can be stunning and I have not lost a single shot due to poor focus. All AF.S but very often point and shoot very quickly.

It probably helps that I have four new FA lenses. The 24-70 has not got the build quaiity of a true Pentax lens.

The K-1 will give better performance in low light and much easier to reduce noise in Lightroom but I can only compare to a K50. Using the wifi to tether to an iPad is a bonus if you want a large live view image. Unfortunately I cannot get my iPhone 5 to synchronise for some reason as I fancied it as a remote shutter release, maybe a later iPhone will work. As for the DA* lenses, I believe only the two longer ones will be effective at FF so if you change you will then have to accept the cropped sensor. There are some new primes in the roadmap next year so I am hoping they will be equivalents in FF.

I'll buy the K-3ii off you for £5

Well I use my DA 12-24 from about 17mm. Given that it looks like the 15-30mm can't take filters, I'm not in a hurry to get it. I recently posted a bit of the milky way taken with the 10-17. Add to this an old screw drive Sigma 24-70 and the Tamron 70-200 (the only lens I've bought specifically for FF), I'm happy for now. All my long lenses are fine.

Add to this many will have some of the cheap newish primes the 35mm f2.4, the 40mm f2.8 XS, and the 50mm f1.8, which are all fine. Also the 70mm f2.4 seems ok.

From what I've seen on here, bearing in mind the resolution on the site is poor, the K-1 blows all other previous Pentax DSLR's a mile out of the water. It's not for me at present because I don't have enough AF lenses to get the best from it, but I would not hesitate in upgrading if I had the funds to replace some of my lenses.

The K-5 and K-3 series are still serious photographic kit though and unless you need the resolution and low light capabilities of the K-1 for particular professional applications, I think the decision to upgrade is more about 'want' than 'need' for most of us.

Regards
David

This came up recently, the Lee Filters SW150 system will fit using the Tamron 15-30mm attachment, but it ain't cheap!

Thank you all for your thoughts.

I do see the points above. It is also to do with the photographer not just the equipment. I keep improving my skills as I shoot more and more. I can see Nigel has managed some brilliant shots with relatively old equipment.

When I switched from K100D Super to K5 it was a pleasant experience. It was a big jump from 6MP to 16MP sensor as well as great improvements on IQ, handling and features.

I hope I will have a similar experience with K-1 going for it directly from K5 (not having experienced K5 IIs, K3 or K3 II etc).

Cost wise, the K5 was not a big investment over K100D Super. It is not going to be same with K-1 though.

From your comments, I can see there are lots of benefits with the K-1 (low light performance, better resolution, focusing etc). I can also see that the IQ is noticeable when presented on a relevant medium such as a larger print or display. As with David 's comment, the decision to upgrade is going to be more about 'want' than 'need' for me.

Who wouldn't wish to own a new toy loaded with the latest stuff anyway?

Yes, we all like new toys! And thats fair enough ... sometimes its all it takes to revitalise the interest and get going with photo ideas again.

But I think we should ideally also take a cold, hard technically-minded look at our own personal needs .... I would love to have had a K5 - K3 - K1 over the years as well, of course, but I chose instead to spend the small amounts I could on other parts of my system .... because a DSLR is a 'system' camera. Its only one part, admitedly the centre of it all, but its often the other elements to the system that can make the bigger actual impact on your own images .... eg, lenses, tripod, remote control, filters etc .

In my case I have been really into flash, and have spent money there. This is becasue I have seen a huge impact on my images as a result of using flash techniques ..... an impact that a more simple camera 'upgrade' could not deliver.

Here's an example, from a personal perspective. I like to take loads of shots that are like these .....

















Now, I can say, fairly I think, that none of these would be / could be significantly improved 'just' by upgrading to a K1 ..... WHAT?? (you might say) ...

No .... I don't think so really. The big technical issue here is being outdoors, and the contrast range created between the backgrounds and the foreground subjects. In all these shots the backgrounds are quite bright, and any non-flash exposure that correctly exposes the backgrounds, will underexpose the subjects. Flash comes to the rescue by lighting the subjects, creating effectively two independent exposures in the one frame. I can dial down the background to get nice colours and depth, and bring out the subjects with the flash.

Now, some might say they don't need flash because their camera is really good at high ISO .... indeed, the K1 is ..... but .... its not going to help at all here .... with flash, outdoors, there is rarely any advantage to increasing ISO, because you quicky reach the Max Sync speed .... and going beyond that, into High Speed Sync mode, causes additional power loss that can't be replaced by higher and higher ISOs, becasue doing that simply makes you adjust the shutter speed quicker and quicker in order to keep the background under control, and there's nothing gained! So really you might as well stick to ISO 100!! And the K7 is pretty good at ISO 100

So thats just one example, a personal one, of when a camera upgrade is not the most effective image improving step to take ......

Lovely shots again Nigel, I can see the benefit of using flash outdoor from these pictures.

I use the built-in flash on my K5 where necessary and when the subject is within range. This is something I am going to miss from K-1.

Where I cannot use flash, I correct shadows in LR using the Adjustment Brush, it helps, though the effect would not be same as using proper lighting.

As you pointed out in detail, there is no point in increasing ISO when the scene has high dynamic range. I think the better low light capability of K-1 can bring out more details during post processing. I view histogram of each shot on the camera to ensure there is no or minimal clipping with exposure.

I have noticed your guide on Pentax Digital Camera Flash Lighting System, which, I think, will be very useful for me to go through.

You are quite right Nigel, for such photos in conditions with good lighting I dare say you would be hard pushed to really see much difference. I have found using a 50mm f1.8 lens on a K50 with a tripod, live view and a cable release I have been able to achieve remarkable levels of detail and sharpness.

Fill flash works with the K-1 too Nigel. And with the sensor size there is more detail. That's even after cropping. Its 5.7k pixels on the long side.


Harvest Mouse on ear of wheat by Alan Wennington, on Flickr