K-S2 Revew on CNET

Here. The author was reasonably impressed, apart from video performance, but didn't rate the 18-50mm collapsible lens.

There is also an initial article on the K3 II.

What on earth is she on about saving the DNG as a TIFF then opening it in Lightroom?

Thanks for the link.

Pentax is never going to score well in these comparison reviews unless they address the autofocus limitations and up their video game.
They get nailed on video here in the very first section! followed by autofocus in the next section of performance.

Basically I wish the first page could be as positive as the second, where the screen, viewfinder and new wifi app are all reviewed favourably.

I think they were saying that silkypix couldn't save as a DNG to use in another program. I assume they didn't find the option in the K-S2 menu to save as DNG rather than PEF? (It's there isn't it?)

What amazes me is the difference between this and the ephotozine review. It sounds like a different camera and especially the lens.... At least CNET review mentions the faults in the video SR. This is a real pain on my K30 which I wish Pentax would fix, please.

It wasn't a terrible review, the video and AF is always going to cause a problem for some reviewers. That said, Photography Blog gave the K-S2 an almost a perfect score and loved it. And the Camera Store TV also loved the K-S2. I think most reviewers are seeing the K-S2 for the good camera it is. Pentax make brilliant stills cameras with awesome IQ and colour reproduction. They are not first choice for a sports photographer. The video mode is there and working but if you are You Tube blogger or just take your video seriously, the last camera brand on earth you'd choose is Pentax.

Now on Tech Radar 4.5 stars...
Only a couple of gripes...

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cameras-and-camcorders/cameras/digital-slrs-hyb...

Can't say I fully understand/agree with pages of JPEG analysis. My personal workflow sees me using the DSLR for every photo I want a quality shot from and I personally 'develop' every single DSLR photo in Lightroom. I couldn't care less for JPEG's and I use the camera as an image capture device. That's just me, but I don't see how you can really compare true ability from a JPEG file.

Funny to see the Canon way down the bottom in most tests. Seriously they are stuck in the past and aren't going anywhere these days. Nikon and Pentax have traditionally been much closer, often sharing similar hardware. Cool that they identified the Olympus as a competitor too.

I'm peeved to see a kit lens with more chromatic abberation now. For the size gain I don't think it's worth trading off what has been an awesome kit lens offering. CA is something i hate with a passion, and it's not always that easy to remove.

Overall though a really good review, and the K-S2 is an awesome camera for this price point!

I kind of agree with you Richard but then we are not the norm, most buy the kit one other lens or the two lens kit and happily shoot Jpeg for ever! Me like you shoot RAW and want to squeeze every bit of goodness out of that sensor that it's possible to get, for people like that the Jpeg quality is irrelevant but we are not the majority.
One of the major problems with modern lens design is the abbberation and distortion, as the percieved need for ever more wide ranging standard or compacted lenses progresses. I noticed it most strongly in my Nikon kit, almost every consumer/pro-sumer grade lens made by them in recent years has had two main characteristics, very sharp at the cost of extreme bendyness or abberation (Is bendtness a proper word?) As you point out removeing fringing etc, is not always as simple as ticking the boxes for correction and colour fringing in lightroom, with some lenses it is a compromise at best but overall from my personal stand point I want the sharpness because without it I don't have a picture.

I think overall the K-S2 is the more interesting of this years offerings (So far), the kit lens being a little dissappointing but then they are kind of giving them away. They have with the K-S1/K-S2, tried to mimic the the small size characteristics of Mirrorless while still retaining the mirror, a hard ask to be honest, with the K-S1 they almost succeded but at the cost of handling, despite it handling better than almost every CsC I've ever picked up except the "Pro" models. Pentaxians when they see a DSLR they want a DSLR and thats what the K-S2 is, new starters probably don't think they want the mirror and OVF, a brilliant victory for marketing over logic...

I accept that many people buying this camera will not know anything about RAW or much about image ' development', and for them the look of what ' comes out' of the camera is clearly important ... If it doesn't look good straight away then the camera's no good, right ... ?

The problem with camera JPEG testing is that it's really image processing going on, and the results depend entirely on the actual settings applied for each specific type of shot and lighting conditions. And it is going to be the more adventurous and knowledgeable camera user who will get those settings right, just as the most knowledgeable software users will get the best results on the computer. Sure, you could just compare the JPEG presets, but that misses a lot of the equation. The presets are start points for finer control, and the best results will be from when that finer control is taken.

I suppose there's good value in looking at colours for example .... The processing has to be optimised to bring out the best colour qualities that the sensor is recording .. That's important to see if you're a jpeg shooter.

I fully agree with both of the above comments guys.

Fundamentally it's a really solid offering, the best of this type of thing I've seen in a while from Pentax.

Any camera is going to be a mix of components and design intentions/philosphies. This mix seems pretty well targeted to be honest.

I do believe there is still a place for a product that puts it all in. Put in a touch screen, gps and a flash, mechanical stabilisation of an APS-C sensor during video, significantly developed autofocus ~ perhaps even on sensors phase detection points and tracking for use during live view. No one is doing the lot. Not related to the K-S2 discussion directly, but just a passing comment.

One point though is that Pentax traditionally under exposes shots, relying on having the ability to recover the shadow detail. If you're comparing JPEGs then Pentax will be knocked for this approach, as the others look more bright and vibrant, at the expense of the highlights. That and their ridiculous higher HDR settings are things they'll need to look at if reviews are going to study JPEG outputs. Also the use of the PEF? RAW format, as several I've read lately have pointed out that they couldn't do anything with these in the common photo applications.

Sorry Richard, just wanted to question what you meant there by 'riidulous HDR settings' ...? The K7 has low, med and high, and the two lower ones are quite mild and realistic .. The high setting produces a quite strong HDR look which is more stereotypical. Has something changed with the later models that is more 'ridiculous' ?

I thought that a bit rough at the time, so I said 'higher' ones, but basically anything above Auto/1 is too over the top, even for people who like that sort of thing. Just mentioning it in regards to an external review, as I don't think it would fare particularly well.

Fair enough .... It seems that the reviewers will always latch onto something to criticise. Bye the way, what did you make of Russ's comment above about anyone who takes video seriously needed to forget Pentax ? You've been successful with serious video work, even with your old legacy 'pro-sumer' camera

Nice one Nigel
You could easily go down the road of making the most of the gear you have, and Pentax can do video quite well right now, if you stay in the safe zone. No fast movement or complex scenes, tripod base or very slow movements etc. It does a lot well already, and you can get those narrow depth of field shots easily, that aren't possible on camcorder type video devices. However, that said, it could still be significantly improved though very easily.

Just to say that i made that statement based on stuff i've read not through experience. The video mode on my K5 was 100% perfect for my needs, which means the K-S2 will be overkill for me personally. We even uploaded videos to my sons Pokemon You Tube channel. And i'm not saying its not possible to get serious video from them. But unless you are a true Pentax fan and already into the brand as we are, i don't think any serious videographer would have a Pentax on their shopping list starting from scratch. Not when there are other cameras (Panasonic GH4 or Sony A7S) that can do it so much better.