Pentax for Video

I agree with what Steve Ledger has written above. I have a K-5 and the video is not rubbish. We also have two K-01's in the family which are used for video, and they too are pretty good, as long as you turn off the Movie SR. We have used the K-5iis and the K-01's to video a wedding event and the results were very good.

I also think Steve is on the money with the Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4. I have the same version with in-lens SR and Steve's comments have got me thinking about its video capabilities, it's something I haven't tried to date but I suspect it would work brilliantly.

Thanks for the tip Steve, what you're saying makes perfect sense.

Regards
David

Yes it worked perfectly. I bought mine second hand so I don't know if it was a quirk of the lens design or a fault but in video mode I had to keep the shutter button depressed to keep OIS active during video shots. This was no problem as SR was (and still is with my OMDs) only used when hand held, leaving SR enabled when tripod mounted can actually result in SR induced wobble.

What software do you use for movie editing?

I think user technique will be significant .... If you support the camera well and make controlled, smooth steady movements, then the sensor SR is superb ...(it is on my K7 anyway). It can look like you're using a professional film rig, racks and rails etc, especially at wide angles.

The real comparison here is surely between Sensor Shift SR and the software 'movie SR' that Pentax have offered more recently. No prizes for naming which type is mostly preferred by Pentax users generally .....

By not offering the choice and ability to switch SR on and off when needed in Video mode, Pentax have not valued their more experienced and ambitious video customers.

Enough talk of trolls if you please....

Let's all get along and accept that some users have different priorities. I will however take Nigel to task (slightly!) on his assertion that Pentax don't listen. They have actually introduced almost everything members of this forum have ever asked for over the past 10 years. Video is the last bastion of the Things to Do list, probably quite rightly as it is a fairly minority interest for a marque that concentrates on stills photography. I predict that it will come in time, as development and money become available for it.

But to go back to the point, we wanted a digital Auto110, we got the Q sustem. We wanted full frame, we got the K-1. We wanted a longer lens than 300mm, we got the 150-450mm and the 560mm. We also got quite a few surprises we didn't know we wanted, such as taking the AA filter away and introducing Pixel Shift technology. Oh, and Astrotracer....and....well you name it.

I think Pentax do listen, and do what they can, as and when they can.

I love you too Algernon,

Your arguments against video on a Pentax are comprehensive and eloquently delivered.

Da Vinci Resolve (current version 12.5) and ShotCut.

@John: Pentax might listen, but they don't always hear. There are many examples of this.

Da Vinci Resolve is definitely a top class option. When you compare the differences between the paid studio versions and the free offering, they've been quite generous to the free option users. They were once almost totally colour grading orientated, but now offer a pretty good editor in there also.

I use Adobe Premiere. Only because I always have.

The really cool thing these days is that it's hard to find anything that's really bad. Both in terms of cameras and editing software. The one you use early on is often likely to be the one you like the most moving forward, because it seems familiar and right to you.

Hitfilm Express is another pretty highly featured free editor I discovered about a year ago. They have cool youtube tutorials to support it also.

Once you get past the entry level offerings (such as iMovie on the apple and Windows movie maker on the PC ) there is going to be a steeper learning curve to get to
grips with the new software.

I started writing a guide on how to give video a go a while back, but was stuck in recommending a free editor. This question makes me think I should revisit that again, given there are real options available out there now in this regard. Let us know how you get on

I do agree that plenty of 'wish list' items have been adopted, and the K1 perhaps was quite a major bringing together of a number of things in a single package .... the tilting screen is a good example. I think the 'not listening' complaint is hard to shake really because of the time scales going back. There have been delays and lack of responses to ideas that have allowed many users to drift off elsewhere. Lets hope the more recent improvements have now turned this around.

The firmware idea for video SR is going to help a lot, and will bring a sense of more confidence in the brand. I think they have not recognised the increasingly sophisticated video user, and that is evident by the reason given for removing 'mechanical' SR ... ie because of the possible noise issue through the built-in mic. Well, of course, as often written about here, these more sophisticated video users will not be using the built-in mic as their primary audio input, and so it may have seemed a bit patronising to some of them. I don't remember seeing many complaints from K7 and K5 users about sensor noise on their videos, so why it was seen by Ricoh as an issue is unclear .... ? Or was it just magazine and YouTube reviewers they were worried about ......?

Nailed it...

I still have a number of video files from my K-7 where I've hand held for the duration. There is gentle movement and also shaky hand movement to compensate which the IBIS does extremely well - no SR noise at all.
I do think that a lot of 'bad press' comes from reviewers who expect too much of 'shake reduction' and so shake and jerk the camera around more than is reasonable.

No doubt true .... You wouldn't see any reviewers suddenly jerking the camera around at the moment of capturing a still image, so why do it with video? We all try and hold our cameras as steady as possible for photographs, even with SR activated, and we should all try and do that also for video.

You just described every gimbal review on YouTube.

Of far more concern is the dampening from smaller shocks, such as when you are walking or hand holding unsupported and physically trying your best to be stable to start with.

Precisely.. The thing I always try to remember [when recording video] is that the subject/s should provide most of the movement, not the camera!

Exactly..!

Anyone using a K-5 for video will find the following donationware program handy for dumping the MJPEG files into individual frames as BMP's. I used to dump to a 4GB Ramdisk and then pick out what I wanted. Would have been useful for the canon in the previous post except it's not MJPEG

It will also detect scene changes.

http://www.avcutty.de/english/index_info.htm

From the Manual (translated)
"Save Image Sequence":
With the help of this function, all images of an
AVI file can be saved as BMP images (since only
BMP images can be exported at this time, a lot of
hard disk space is required for larger AVI files).
When the corresponding button "Start" is clicked,
a file selection dialog opens, in which one or
more AVI files can be selected. Then a second
dialog opens, where the target directory can be
selected. The generated BMP files are stored under
"Original file name + name add."


--