K-3 20 page review out

PentaxForums have published their full 23 page review today, and I found it very comprehensive and a good read for anyone, like me, thinking of upgrading.

From a quick read great stills camera as we expected, not so good for video (not my thing) and AF improvement more down to beefed up screw drive motor than focus point changes.

From Roger Cicala of Lens Rentals Fame (Look it up!)

"Glad to see the review. I'll add that yesterday I took a K5, D7100, and 70D, each armed with a 300 f/4 lens out back and took a dozen shots with each. Came back inside looked at the images for 10 minutes, and placed my K3 order immediately. It wasn't close."

At least he liked the K5 and DA*300

Bill, Re: the AF, it seems a great improvement to me, although not in speed terms with SDM's, at least. Unfortunately I have no other type of Lens to test it on I'm pretty much all SDM!
They will need to produce some shorter throw Lenses to get anywhere near the speed gains of the big two.
The AF system goes about it's business differently to Canikon and until I really know what I'm doing/know what it's doing in any given situation, I'll withhold judgment. I Have to admit that I'm not expecting miracles and don't care if it doesn't spring into action like a 51 point Nikon system as long as it works. I expect use of the colour meter in the focusing may cause some focus confusion on busy backgrounds but My Nikons used to misfocus too. I have never been convinced of Nikon or Canons Autofocus claims but agree they are better than a K5 by a margin but not as good as they say they are either
How many focus points were reviewers using, what focus hold delay did they use, was the SR on, was the focus target a viable one, AFS, AFA, AFC??? List goes on...

I found the AF on the k-3 to be an outstanding performer in very low light. I tried it yesterday evening with the DA*16-50 on subjects that were lit by a nite lite situated about 5 meters away, and it "nailed" it everytime.

Unfortunately, it doesn't spin the SDM motor in the lens any faster...

Dead on!

Whilst generally impressed by the low light focussing abilities of the K3 I was rather disappointed last night while 'just mucking about' to find my 55mm 1.4 hunting to and fro constantly while pointing at a plain apple green cushion about three feet away. All AF settings tried, no difference.

It 'nailed' more distant and worse illuminated items first time but the weave in the cloth just didn't provide enough contrast.

Plain objects have no contrast for the AF to lock-on.

Oh dear - and I mean that with regard to the testing

As a person to whom fast af means about as much as the 'may contain nuts warning' on a menu I don't really care if the K3 improves that much for my own needs but clearly others will and do, so why is it that the test for the speed of af tracking used the 60-250 f4 which many users refer to as being very slow to focus (I don't have one) and compare it to a Nikon with a 70-200 f2.8 lens

I am not suggesting that the K3 will match the Nikon but surely they should pare it up with an equivalent optic 70-200 f2.8 (perhaps a Sigma) as the f2.8 optic will allow more light in and dependent on choice maybe focus faster and more accurately and therefore allow a fairer comparison with results that are at least beginning from the same point

I accept that they mention the lens issue in a way but surely this does not make up for such an ommission

Moan over for now - I think

Trouble is Stuey that the 50-135mm or 60-250mm are the nearest thing that Pentax make when compared to Nikons 70-200mm f2.8. Why should we have to rely on a 3rd party lens maker to get the best out of our camera, surely that's the manufacturers job at the end of the day. A better comparison would have been Nikons 70-200mm f4 but that would give exactly the same results.

As I have said before, Pentax need to dump SDM and run with the DC lens motor ... although that would mean a large outlay for people that have the DA* lenses. (owch)

I like the US forums, but not their reviews. I'm sure that the K3 is a very solid and capable camera, even if the IQ has gone down a bit compared to the K5s, but I really can't stand PentaxForum's reviews of anything. They make it very clear that the outcome of the review was decided before the equipment even arrived, dismiss major problems as minor ones, and are very poorly written.

That is absolutely not the case.

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Agree with John from what I've seen . (Is this type of comment the DPreview pics kicking in?)

I agree that the low light autofocus is very very good.

There is a niche market here that Ricoh are missing out on. A WR K3 and WR lens could be the perfect stills security camera. Mount it high up on a wall and it will get brilliant images of the crims as they approach your property, even when its raining.

Best regards

He actually meant the K3, so to clarify, Roger Cicala's qoute should read:

"Yesterday I took a K3, D7100, and 70D, each armed with a 300 f/4 lens out back and took a dozen shots with each. Came back inside looked at the images for 10 minutes, and placed my K3 order immediately. It wasn't close."