Pentax K-3: REDEMPTION

Food for thought

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHImZGBRto8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUnGQjVXHOC7...

Jeez this is tedious. He takes 10 minutes to say what he could say in 30 seconds! rambling waffle!!!

I'm losing the will to live...


Can't stand anymore of it..... ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!






.

Started to watch Cloud Atlas this evening and must admit - gave up on it. Logged on here for a catchup on the days posts and unfortunately followed the link. Not sure which was the worst experience!

After about 10 minutes of vacuous and wandering waffle he finally says that the NR on the K-3 is too aggressive and that was what was making his K-3 images not sharp. I gave up the will to live after that, so I dunno what else he said. Not much given the video lasted another 12 minutes.


I can imagine the more aggressive noise reduction is to compensate for the noisier sensor. Anther reason to stick to the K-5 IMO.

Agreed.
I'm seriously considering buying another k-5 instead

He does waffle and he does repeat himself a lot, but if he's making any valid points that will help me with the K-3 then I want to know what they are.

I've just done some very quick tests with my K-3 at ISO 1600, first with JPEG auto NR and second with JPEG NR turned off, hand held with a Sigma 105 DG EX Macro that I know is sharp, SR turned on.

- Results are sharp either way, very little difference
- Noise levels are insignificant either way, nothing to be worried about
- On my K-3 the auto NR on jpegs does not seem to be making my images blurred or unsharp in any way

This contradicts photouniverse, but I can only report what I'm seeing.

Regards
David

I think it's a shame that such comments on the web so easily discourage people. We have no idea what he was really doing with his camera and he might have made some ludicrous error for all we know.

Very often though some seem to selectively believe/not believe what they read, as is their wont.

As for myself, I still use the K20D and K-5 but when one wants replacing it will be the K-3 as things stand at the moment.

You would really make this assumption Alistair on the strength of watching one video on You Tube? I'm quite surprised. I do watch videos, I do read reviews, I take into account what people say, but at the end of the day it is personal experience that counts the most for me.

My K-3 is sharp whether it's set at auto NR or not and it is sharper than my K-5iis, no doubt. It's also not significantly noisier, the noise certainly has a different character but is it worse or not? Not sure, there's very little in it.

The K-5 is probably a better buy at present than the K-3, but only because it's cheaper. I'm off up to the Lakes tomorrow to take a lot of shots, mainly landscapes, with both the K-5iis and the K-3. I'll know more about their relative merits after that, but I have no doubt now that there is no sharpness issue with my K-3, whether shooting RAW or JPEG.

Regards
David

I'm not sure what this adds to the debate, but here are a couple of shots taken just now at ISO 6400 with my K-3, first one with Auto NR and the second one with NR switched off.







Both magnified to 100%, I don't see much of a Auto NR issue? I also don't see much of a noise issue with NR turned off. No processing done on either of these apart from what the camera does. I know the subject is not very good (laptop screen) but it's very dark in my house at present and this was the best source of light!

Regards
David

Edit: the auto NR doesn't look particularly aggressive to me.

The default custom noise reduction settings do differ between the K-5 and the K-3. One the K-5, NR isn't applied up to ISO 640. From 640 to 1250 it is set to low, from 1600 to 51200 it is set to medium.
On the K-3 it is set by default to medium across the whole range which might explain what he was finding (or perhaps not!)
I cannot comment on the K-5II variants as I do not have one.

Thanks John, useful info. I still don't think the auto NR is 'aggressive' on the K-3, if you are pixel peeping you will see it, but you will on the K-5iis too. I've done a few more shots at ISO 6400 of more realistic subjects (my wife's face!) with NR at Auto and also with it switched off. There is a minor sharpness increase with it off, but it really is so marginal it's not worth worrying about. Also, the apparent noise between the two images is quite similar, it's lower on the one with Auto NR on, but not by much and this suggests to me that it shouldn't be a concern. I will set my K-3 to the 'Low' NR setting and leave it there; this will probably give the best of both worlds.

Regards
David

I don't recall complaints that film stock showed grain which got more obvious at higher film speeds! But then there weren't settings to control that in the camera and it affected all cameras to the same amount.
I'm sure if noise is a problem on the K-3 Pentax will tweak some of the settings but the issue seems to be overplayed by some who haven't actually made their own comparison test shots where settings can be changed from the default to see the effect. Relying on published default setting test shots from possibly beta software may give a misleading picture, literally.
The K-3 sensor has 50% more pixels, so if one zooms in to 100% one might expect to see 50% more noise, but at the equivalent magnification that should not be obvious i.e. the K-3 can be run at a 14MP jpeg setting where a closer comparison can be made. If those shots show more noise than a K-5 then the K-3 does have a problem.

This seems common sense to me John. As mentioned above, I'm not concerned about it, I've had my K-3 for almost a month now and can't see much high ISO difference between it and the K-5iis. It's definitely not better than the K-5, but doesn't seem to be worse either.

Regards
David

I've just added to my previous post!