Q Image Quality? (Image heavy)

I would not hesitate at that price.

Presumably the £250 you paid, or have I missed something in this thread?

Very impressive DrO. Thanks for showing. I have been looking for an excuse to buy one, and you may have supplied such! cheers
bb2

That's what I paid at Park, I don't think the deal will last. I might be able to sell the free toy lens to get that price down by a few quid.

The price has now rocketed on Amazon. SRS have them at £299 and I think it's well worth it at that price. I've taken some RAW's now and they are looking very good. I'll post a mini review of the Q later on once I've used it a bit more. There is lots to consider. It suits me and it fits my requirements very well. But it might be completely unsuitable for others.

Don't expect to get one, but this is the best sales pitch I've seen. Excellent set.

Exactly my thoughts. A very good advert for this little camera Adrian.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Played a bit more, raw this time (yet to update the firmware though). Noise just isn't the issue I feared it would be. I shot some horse shots in difficult lighting. One of the advantages of the f1.9 lens is that ISO400 will be enough for most low light situations. The lens is sharp wide open and the large depth of field means it's very easy to get the subject in sharp focus. I thought the large dof would be a negative but actually it will be a positive. There is a lot of barrel distortion with the prime lens, I need to play around to get the correction just right.

The metering is very impressive, seems better than the K5. It gets almost everything bang on. The combination of the large depth of field and the accurate metering means you get the shot, very handy for street photography. It handles highlights very well.

The handling is just great. The layout is of course very familiar, which makes it easy swapping between cameras. How I shoot virtually everything is Av mode, adjust aperture quickly and to dial in some exposure compensation. The edial gets this done without having to go through menu options. The build and feel of the Q is top notch.

There is some shutter lag, noticeable on fast moving subjects, but I don't intend much action photography with this and on the odd occasion that is necessary then the large depth of field means that you can overcome this limitation by prefocusing somewhere close and anticipating motion.

Battery life is a bit rubbish but spare batteries are cheap and lozenge sized.

I think the problems with the reviews of the Q are that they are based on a release price of £600 so the image quality is compared to similarly priced cameras. If the pricing had been more realistic then the reviews would have been much more favourable. I am perfectly satisfied with the image quality:

























This last one is a 100% crop, about 1/16th of the original image. So less than 2 square mm of sensor To be honest I've seen worse macros from a Ksomething and proper lens:




For the prime lens I don't find much sharpening is required. In fact I think the default in camera processing applies too much sharpening and noise reduction, both can be reduced for a more natural look.

I don't think it would make much difference which camera Dr O was using. He obviously has an eye for spotting a good shot, as have many other members of this forum, but posts such as this show what the camera is capable of more so than a magazine review.

Dr O is clearly one of those people who really does have "the eye"!

99% of us would take similar photos of "ordinary" subjects and we would end up with "ordinary" (technically good) pictures. Dr O has that ability to add interest to these shots. His use of depth of field is excellent, as is his composition along with his choice of viewing angle. I don't know how many of you have seen Peter Jonkmann's work (on Pentaxforums I think) - but I would say he is in that league. Peter was responsible for my FA* LBA and I suspect I might be blaming Dr O when I end up with a Q - although I don't think i'll every match his consistency of quality

impressive indeed

Thanks for the comments. I don't think it's really deserved, you should see all the stuff I delete.

I've been thinking about a compact for a while as I was getting a little bit too hung up on image quality and had lost sight of some other important factors. The above images are not the kind of thing I bought the Q for but it's a real bonus that the Q is more capable than I thought it would be and especially what the reviews would have you believe. It is above all else a feelgood camera, you just can't help playing with it. It gives me a much greater immediacy to my photography and it will allow me to get a lot of shots that I simply would not get with more bulky kit. It will definitely add an extra dimension to what I do, it is so different to the K5 that it complements it rather than competes. Most importantly to me the kids seem to react very well to the camera. This is the kind of thing I intended to use the camera for, no wide appeal obviously but a welcome addition to the family album. A bit of guinea pig fun:

Wel these examples certainly show it in a good light. It's a shame they didn't open with a £250 price tag a year ago. They'd have sold millions.
All the black and white stuff I've seen from the Q looks great. The colour pics have been much more variable. I do like it and if I was given one with the fixed prime I'd use it - a LOT! But if I was spending my hard earned money I'd still go for the Canon S100.
It is a cute little camera and every time I see one on display in a shop I just want to pick it up. I'd love it to do well but I think they've missed the boat now. .....Unless there's a Q2 on the way.
But if there is, Pentax, PLEASE, no silly prices again.

From what I understand they are now selling very well. I agree, I think they should have opened at £400-£450. I think £250, which is presumably a desperate measure to boost demand, is too cheap (not complaining though). I did consider the Canon S100 but it was quite a bit pricier. I hope Pentax produce a reasonably priced wide angle prime, preferably a pancake. I still can't see the point of the toy lenses, this platform deserves more serious options.

It does produce very good, contrasty b&w's, just what I was after.

It's the old adage that it's the photographer that matters, not the camera. These are a great demonstration of the Q's capabilities, at launch it was a ludicrous offering but as it settles at more realistic pricing it begins to look like a fairly decent buy.

If I didn't have a £199 (after cashback) clearance GF3 I'd be eyeing these up!

I would just like to thank Dr O for making my wallet a bit lighter

First impression is it's a great little package, and there is reasonable control over depth of field (as Dr O demonstrates) - After I hit the "Buy" button yesterday I was begining to regret such an impulsive purchase - but after photgraphing every inanimate object in the house (it's too wet to venture out) I think I'm going to enjoy it very much.

The prices do seem to be going back up again, so if you're dithering - stop and buy one!