K10D 22Bit D/A vs K5's 14 bit

Folks,

Like many, I too have "bin thinking" about upgrading from my K10D to a new K5...

I'd like to find out if anybody has checked out the K10Ds 22Bit A/D Conversion vs K5's 14 bit, apparently this was the highest from any camera at the time, and produced rich tonal gradations, offered great highlights etc... (?!)

The K10D's CCD - is it better for daylight use vs the K5's CMOS, which is better for low light ones?

Comments, experiences about this & any advice highly appreciated!

Regards

Ravi.

In a practical sense, the K-5 produces much better images than the K10D, so how many bits the A/D converter has is merely a technical curiosity.

I have used the *istDS>K10D>K20D>K-5 route inj my purchases and every step has been a "sea change" in terms of quality.

The 22-bit A/D conversion doesn't seem relevant. Maybe it was overkill, or maybe it was the only electronic component readily available to use at the time, at the right price.

The 22-bit AD converter in the K10D is just to read off the CCD which is an analogue device, this 22-bit output is then sampled to a 12-bit RAW. I don't think the sensor is really capable of using that 22-bit AD converter.

CMOS sensors are still analogue but you can build all the relevant AD and other circuits directly onto the sensor. The readout is 14-bit so there will be a lot more information than with the K10D. Plus the sensor is 4 stops better in almost all respects.

I'm not familiar with the technicalities but echo Johns comments - I was impressed by the IQ difference when moving from K10D to K20D and although it's early days with the K5 I'm even more impressed by the difference between K20D & K5

Simon

I have owned a K10D, K20D and now K-5s. The K-5 blows the K10D image quality away in every respect.

The sensor in the K5 is a real step forward so under almost any circumstances it will probably preform better.
With the Smasung sensor in the K20D and the K7 some said the K10D was better under daylight.

I never owned a K10D but I do know a bit about D/A conversion and digital data processing generally. Bottom line, the K-5 produces a 14-bit RAW file versus the K10D's 12-bit RAW file. The K-5 will therefore be capable of producing images with far more subtle tonal gradations than the K10D regardless of the number of bits used in the D/A conversion process. All those extra bits make little or no difference once you reduce them to 12 because you are throwing that data away. It's possible the extra bits might be used to aid the anti-aliasing process and effect some other subtle improvements to the final output when reducing them to 12 but I don't see a great deal of use for them beyond that.

At the end of the day an extra 2 bits you keep are of far greater value than an extra 10 bits you throw away, regardless of what you use you make of them before ditching them.

You can only assume that people who say tings like that spend all their time comparing images at 100% on a computer screen, rather than taking and printing pictures!

I've the K5 now and also the K10D and at the photo-school there is a plotter so i could do some tests

There is something else behind the reason to use a 22bit A/D converter, what you are comparing are two different things actually.

From what I know Pentax used a 22bit converter because the extra steps it could generate would make sure that all the data in the sensor would be pulled out and converted into numbers, only then it's "digitally" converted back to 12bit for RAW or 8bit for JPG.

I've no idea what kind of A/D converter is used with the K5 and since the actually converter is on the sensor itself there is already less lost to begin with so the benefits would probably be lower.


ps. it's great the K5 has 14bit raws but those 2 extra bits are only usefull in some circumstances if you use for example high ISO the information would probably fit in a 12bit file as well.

OK! That's a lot of information!
Thanks a lot friends, forum members for all this information!
I guess I should be ready for an upgrade - will wait for a good deal to come by!

Sorry but that's a misinformed statement and something I completely disagree with

The extra 2 bits are useful at all ISOs and in all situations.

14bits of info will never fit into 12 bits without trunctating the info.

High ISOs There's more noise at high ISOs, but the wanted information is mixed in with the noise.

The K-5, having an extra 2 bits, has an amazing ability to boost the fill light or underexposed areas of a pic without degrading the pic significantly or intrusively.

This means you can shoot in extremely high contrast situations and avoid clipping the highlights and then bring up the low lights to compress the DR of the pic.

The more bits the better. I look forward to 24bit files ( matching the DR of professional digital audio ), giving 24 stops of DR.

I won't go so far as to disagree with the others, but I will say the k10 is still a fine camera.
In studio use with powerful strobes, I cannot say the kr beats the k10 for final image quality, so if the k5 does in fact beat the k10, I doubt the differences would be measurable in anything up to a 20x30......not without expensive measuring equipment anyways... so I beleive the original assumption that the k10 can at least hold it's own under good light... has some merit. But how often does the average user get a studio to themselves with top quality lights and an incident flash lightmeter? the k5 would certianly be the better choice.
do not worry about bits and bytes and megapixels, worry about your photography skills, use what you got to it's limits, and if you hit the ceiling, upgrade.

And here we come to a point that you're theoretical correct but I doubt you will see any difference at the higher ISO's though.

The Dynamic range actually drops almost linear at ISO80 you've got 14,12 EV but at ISO1600 you only have 10.36EV and I beleive that should be able to fit inside a 12bit file or not without much lost?

I never upgrade. I buy additional kit. My D700 was never bought as an upgrade to any of my Pentax bodies.

I live and work in bright, sunny climates so an istD, K10 and K7 will always produce great daylight IQ. My K10 has also turned out some very acceptable night time shots.

By all means get a K5 but use it for the Hi ISO, low noise shots that your K10 can't achieve. Nothing wrong with using two bodies and removing a lens change.

Best regards