Poll - who would £1000 for a full frame K10D?

Who would have paid more - perhaps £1000 body only price? - for a lower noise & 35mm, backward W/A lens compatible, K10D rather than the APS sensor sized version?

I have to say that I would - if it wasn't for the replacement cost of all the lenses I have to admit that I have been having a look at the Canon 5D... At the mo I doubt if we'll ever see a full frame Pentax ***D so I'm waiting to see what comes of the 645D as I've already the lenses to fit that. For the time being for 'proper' wide angle landscapes I'm still using film...

Will

Not me. I have no problem with the APS size. I could never justify that sort of money for a camera. It is only a hobby for me and that is just too much. Besides for my favourite wildlife photos the APS means I can get away with a shorter lens for a close up!

Tricky. Well, I originally paid nearly £1200 for the *ist-D, and was half expecting the K10D to be around that price. Pleased that it was half that

And yes, I'd considered moving to the 5D as well... but I like the diminutive size and lens quality from the Pentax gear I have already, and the cost, weight and size of L series glass I can't justify (yet).

This topic has been discussed more times than I remember... and I think it's very unlikely to see a full frame 35mm DSLR from Pentax, at least in the near future (and perhaps never). Now half my current lenses are DA series that won't work on full frame anyway, and they give me more than enough wide angle to work with (with the DA12-24), plus resolution a plenty - I'm just waiting to see how these lenses perform on the K10D, and I don't think I'll be disappointed

If you really want full frame then there's only the 1Ds and 5D to choose from. But it's not such a simple question - if you check out the DPReview of the 5D you'll notice some downsides as well.

There are, as Gwyn mentions, advantages too - for wildlife and telephoto APS-C is just perfect.

As Will rightly says, the 645D should plug a hole in the resolution/sensor size gap.

And from what I've seen the K10D is lower noise than the *ist-D series. Can't wait to put it through its paces!

Matt

A 'full-frame' camera at £1000 would be very tempting since the cheapest current model, the Canon 5D, is a lot more than this.....

I have also been considering the 5D compared to a k10D with all the pro's and con's....

However, see this for an interesting take on the 5D;

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/150-vs-5000-dollar-camera.htm

Nah. Seen it. Basically rubbish, except if you're taking snapshots - which is not what we're talking about

I worked out a rough guess at a 5D kit, vs a K10D with the new star lenses (and ebaying everything) and it'd still work out at least an extra £1k. Not worth it for me.

My advice - work at perfecting your digital workflow, learn Silkypix, get more comfortable with Photoshop and you won't worry so much If you want to see how important that is, check out this: http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=703015 - it was a RAW challenge, taking a 1Ds image, and trying to turn it into something great. The original RAW file (very, very BIG!) is from here: http://www.ephotozine.com/images/rawchallenge1.CR2 - and looking at it may very well surprise you
Results were here: http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=700884&start=0&am...

To be honest, some of my best landscapes have been taken with the *ist-D and SMC-DA 16-45 with ND grads. I've also had great shots with the SMC-DA 12-24, and I can't imagine that my images would be that much better out of 5D... plus my Pentax gear is cheaper to insure, and easier to carry about

Matt

"........except if you're taking snapshots - which is not what we're talking about..."

Er,..No, that's NOT why I thought people here might find it interesting....obviously, few people are going to buy a 'serious' camera just to shoot snaps with.....

What i was trying to draw peoples attention to is the very mediocre performance of 5D for the money, at least 'out of the box'......maybe it's just my age showing but in my book a camera costing several £k should certainly work 'well' straight from the box and blo**y brillantly with decent set up.

For landscape work, NO 35mm or DSLR is going to beat a half decent medium format camera with a good, even flat-bed, scanner......and 4x5 sheet film is on another planet,..and with sensible choosing, not that much heavier to carry up the hills.....

Waiting now to cast an eye on the K10D and it's production model images but what with the mindless complexity of these, essentially, 'consumer items', may stick with 'real' cameras......

Didn't mean to offend Just that you probably need to take Ken Rockwell's comments with a pinch of salt

Probably a lot of the issue is down to JPG. You really can't go shooting landscapes in JPG format - it isn't up to it. RAW is the only way to go, and then the 5D really shines... but how much more than a Pentax DSLR I haven't had the opportunity to find out.

Yes, the digital workflow can be mind numbingly complex, but I reckon it's worth it in the end.

Still, if film gets what you need, then stick with it, especially as Fuji are re-releasing Velvia 50
Matt

There are some very good points raised here.

I agree that it's unlikely that Pentax will release a full frame sensor SLR soon, but I don't think that it has anything to do with APS'ish size sensors being available/cheap/better... the reason that ALL SLR manufacturers make their bodies good value (generally) is, IMO, that they want us all to 'buy in to' their system... & the system will naturally evolve.

It would be counter productive to Pentax/Nikon/Canon etc if you have a full size sensor at an ENTRY LEVEL PRICE of sub £1000.. most existing 35mm lenses used on a 12MP or below, DSLR will have enough resolving power & contrast etc to cope. The cost to Pentax of launching the K10D has been HUGE & to keep the street price below £600 at launch means they want to sell new lenses & system kit to recoup costs... IMHO

£50 battery anyone?

Hiya,

I would take ALL so-called review sites with a huge pich if salt, especially Mr Rockwell, who is well known for just making things up. His so-called review of the new Zeiss ZF 50/1.4 Nikon F mount lens was full of totally incorrect 'facts' half truths and nonsense.

The chances of Pentax making a Full frame DSLR are about the same chances as Mr Bliar (correct spelling) scoring the winning runs for England in the final ashes test. Apparently some sources are suggesting that Canon makes no profit at all on the 5D and it is simply a loss-leader. If this is true, then I would suggest that Pentax certainly do not have the finances to pursue a FF DSLR and there must also be huge doubt over Nikon being able to. I do wonder if the outside bet might be Sony? If only to throw the cat amongst the pigeons.

cheers Steve.

"........ but how much more than a Pentax DSLR I haven't had the opportunity to find out..."

When 5D appeared it was featured in several side by side shoot outs with Nikon D200 and the image quality DID seem to be on another level,...and, as we know, the D200 is probably the nearest to K10D in image quality.

To be fair, there are some very good photographers producing some escellent work with the 5D,...here are a couple;

http://www.durhamtownship.com/index.html
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/

Interestingly, both these photographers moved up to 5D from APS sized DSLR's....kathleen from Nikon and Sean from Canon.

And yes, the reintroduction of Velvia changes the whole ball game for us landscape protagonists.

I've settled quite happily for the APS-C sized sensor. The quality is there, obviously it will get better, but it's good enough for the A3 exhibition prints that I make.

Large sensors are not always the answer - how about the ill-fated and expensive Kodak DSLRs? Huge price, huge file size and lousy quality...

The only point I still disagree on is the RAW vs JPEG debate. After extensive testing I could only conclude that RAW was potentially better than JPEG sometimes and sometimes was not. It depends on subject as well as the photographer's skill level.

I do use JPEGs for large landscape prints, and they are as good or better than many other photographers' RAW originated images. I think too many take up RAW without really appreciating why they are doing it, they just feel they should.

Feel free to disagree!

John,

I think the key to your post is the word potential... if you know what you're up to and are happy to spend the time processing a RAW file correctly and methodically then, [i]potentially it can be better than the same shot taken as a JPEG.

I have a number of fabulous images that I've taken on a 6MP Canon point and squirt as JPEG and they've needed no messing around with. However, shooting in RAW on my istD generally requires quite a bit of post processing to get anything like what I'm after...

Horses for course and all that - all depends what the end result that you're looking for.

Back on the subject of sensor size - one thing that I have noticed is that I do feel there is a limit to how many MP you can squeeze into a certain sensor size. Take my Canon compact as an example which has 6MP. Finding the results to be excellent I bought my parents the updated model last Xmas which has 8MP - JPEGs straight out of it seem to be worse in terms of noise and detail than the 6MP version and the 8MP shots need a lot more work with sharpening...

Will

Surely the essential point with using RAW files is that you are archiving the best and most detailed file of your image (?)

As with filing ones transparencies and negatives, you cannot be sure what uses you will want for them in the future,....if you are absolutely certain that you will only want fairly small images as JPEG files then why bother with the hassle of RAW? However, if there is a chance that you may want large prints later,..or, you are storing your files against the day when one complete wall of our living room is an emormous monitor, then RAW is the best file at the moment.

I have already made the mistake of not resetting the small digital P&S which i use to the full 7meg when i have been making 'small' JPEGs and then finding that later images were not sufficient for any serious use or decent prints.

Quite agree. I've found this especially true when switching RAW convertors. I found that going from Adobe Camera Raw to C1LE meant I could "rediscover" many shots that I'd given up on. I'm finding the same is true having switched to Silkypix DS3.

But yes, it's down to skill level. JPG is definitely easier. But I found I hit a quality and detail "ceiling" and pushed on with RAW. I reckon I've hit the ceiling again, and hence the K10D. I've never regretted shooting RAW when I can go back and readjust (especially when people come back asking for high quality, large format prints )

Incidentally - just found out that the K10D now uses compressed PEF files Beautiful - about 10Mb per shot in PEF, and 16Mb in DNG (uncompressed) from what I've read. That's good news http://www.digital.pentax.co.jp/en/35mm/k10d/spec.html

Matt