Pentax KP

bjolester · 2025-03-17T20:11:51+0000

I have for many years been using both digital and film cameras (35mm and medium format). My digital cameras have for many years been the K-5, K-5iis and Ricoh GRii. These cameras all have a 16mp Sony sensor, and in many ways give similar (very good) results. The last few years I have been shooting less film, mostly due to the absurdly high costs of film and developing in my country. I have also been interested in checking out the more recent Pentax DSLR innovations like pixel shift, 5-axis stabilisation, and sensors with more resolution. As a consequence of this I have been looking into the more recent DSLR offerings from Pentax. My eyes have been on the K-1ii, mainly because I have a largish collection of K, M. A and FA * and limited primes, where there are lenses that probably could function well on the K-1ii. Last week I stumbled upon a great deal (£ 550) for a Pentax KP, 18-135 and 55-300 PLM. The KP had shutter count of roughly 1000 and the camera and lenses appeared unused. My fullframe ambitions have made a u-turn, and I am very happy with the images I get from the KP. The KP + 55-300 PLM combination, for instanse, is surprisingly good. I am now unsure whether the K-1ii still is worth pursuing? For those of you that have experience with both the KP and the K-1/K-1ii, what do you think about these cameras? Is the K-1ii miles ahead in terms of image quality?

Pentax Digital SLRsPentax Digital SLRs

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6 years

Posted 19/03/2025 - 16:22 - Helpful Comment Link

bjolester wrote:

Flan wrote:
Rawtherappe can handle pixel shift files in DNG form, Its open source so it is free to download.
A steep learning curve but excellent for raw file processing.
I haven't personally shot a pixel shift photo yet

Thank you Flan, I will check out RawTherapee

Within RT In the profile tab click 'Bundled Profiles' and you will find PixelShift profile already set up.
Be prepared for rather large files, on the KP I have seen 125MB raw.

I have only only done a few trials with it however there are lots of help online, I have seen mention of saving the PP file as a 16 bit tiff but IIRC I've only done Jpeg. There is a way of tuning the Motion Correction somewhere too.