K20D post shoot processing times!!!

K20D post shoot processing times!!!

Hi folks

Something which is starting to concern me after playing with my new K20D for a day is the time it takes to process a pic before it can be previewed.

This time seems proportional to the shutter speed. For example if I take a shot at usual less than 1 sec speeds the camera is available for use and a preview can be seen pretty much straight away.

Last night however I was taking some tripod, 30 sec shutter speed shots and I noticed it must have been about 30 seconds before I could access the camera and/or preview the shot.

Tonight I just took a 5 minute exposure in bulb mode and it was at least 5 minutes ( or it seemed like it ) before I could preview the shot or access the camera.

I noticed that the "how many shots left" display was blinking throughout this waiting time and then counted down at the moment I could preview the pic.

Surely the amount of time the shutter is open shouldn't make a difference to the time it takes for the camera to do it's stuff following a shot?

Anyone got any ideas? Cheers

Ok fixed OP now. I've found that if you post a 'less than' sign,the character and anything following it doesn't post

When noise reduction is turned on, in the camera menu every exposure using bulb will take as much time to process as the exposure on it self took. So basicly.... a 30 sec. exposure will take a minute before you can take another one. This I know about my K10D. I reckon the K20d is no different.
You can turn NR off, but noise will be a problem than. No free lunch, I'll guess.

OK found the issue ....

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/pentax-k20d-k7-c227267.html


Apparently the K20D suffers from a ridiculous Noise Reduction algorithm that takes as long as the Shutter speed is open. According to that link it looks like the K7 also suffers from it.

ARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!

Oh you can turn it off? Excellent!! - The person in the link above claimed otherwise. I'll check the menu..

I dearly hope you are right!!!

Ridicules or not. It works and gives noise free very clean pictures.
Choices......

Not ridiculous but actually rather clever and resulting in nice noise free images from very long exposures.

Yes, we have to wait for the dark frame subtraction, but for night shots of say fireworks it works a treat.

Sorry to spoil your hopes but I don't believe you can turn it off with the K20D, you've the options ON & AUTO, so no off.
I knew some star-photographers here were complaining about that.

Having some noise reduction in itself is obviously not ridiculous and a cool feature but implementing processing time that's equal to the shutter speed most certainly is.

If one takes a 3 hour exposure then it's highly ridiculous to have a 3 hour noise reduction processing time?

And the bad news is that you cannot turn it off. I've just checked the menu ( custom setting 17 ) Slow shutter speed noise reduction and the only options are 'auto' which it was set to and 'ON' "activated for shutter speeds of 0.3s and slower". There's no 'OFF' setting.

Sorry for the misinformation from my part. I checked and indeed there is No turning off. (but I am happy with that.:wink

The shutter will operate up to 30 seconds, meaning at worst a 30 second delay for the dark frame exposure.

Does anyone know if noise reduction is active on "B" or not? I'm not sure that these sort of cameras are best suited for exposures of many hours. The sensor might get very hot and noisy in that sort of time.

sigh - yeah just found it. I'll have to see if there's anyone at Pentax to talk to about this. Given it's only software would probably take them 5 minutes to recompile a firmware update with an extra option for 'OFF'. The daunting thought is that from experience I know that actually getting the message through the many layers of corporate Borgs is the hard bit.

Crikey star photography of many hours. ARRRGGHHH!!!

It's not "processing" anything per se - just taking a dark frame.

For example: Your 30 second shot will generate a certain amount of noise. The camera then takes another 30 second shot with the shutter closed. The second shot consists of noise only (the dark frame) and this information is then deleted from the first shot to make a noise-free image. It's quite simple but utterly foolproof and quite genius actually!

But no, it's a shame you can't turn it off in the K20D / K7 - but we K10D owners need at least one feature to crow about...

Yes sadly it does as stated in the OP I took a 5 minute exposure earlier and the camera locked up for around 5 minutes which I now know to be a NR algorithm.

According to the complainant in the link I posted above other makes of DSLRs don't suffer with this.

It certainly is - I've done 10 minute exposures with a 10 minute dark frame to follow.