So how good is the K-5 sensor

TBH, if you're not using a fast card, it doesn't surprise me that much...

Fast in this context: something capable of 20-30MB/s like an extreme III or so.

Bret

I have a Sand Disk 2GB Extreme 111 card. Tomorrow I'll do some speed tests with it.
David.

I haven't changed any factory settings such as you mention so I assume none of these are turned on.
I severely cropped some of the speeding train pictures to blow them right up to give the imprression of using a really long lens as opposed to the 50-135mm. Shooting at 400 ISO and without any noise reduction in Photoshop the pictures are clear, sharp and of a remarkable quality compared to similar attempts in the past with the K10.(I won't bore you with them here)
David

Nor me. But then I've got analogue CRTs so it probably smooths them out

My monitor is an LCD screen and there are no jagged bits showing on it.
I've enlarged the picture and then reduced it in size but the lines in the picture are still clean.
David

Really? It's not one of the old fashioned ones with a scanning electron beam drawing lines then.

When you look at this thread,the image quality and the ability to cope with noise, this is the camera which should have followed on from the K20!.....must leave the people who bought the K7 pretty deflated!

that was a quote from davidtrout

Sure is - Dual NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 21" - They're great

I'm not. I bought the K7 for FPS. I've had high ISO, low noise since May 2009, (D700) that's 18 months of use.

I've posted high ISO images on this forum from the K7 which were more than acceptable. link

Did you see this thread link.

There are other differences appart from high ISO and noise. On these images, the K7 wins(low ISO shots).

In a years time or less, the K5 will be surpassed. That's the way it works.

Best regards

And aren't you just loving it.

How short memories are. When the k-7 came out people were spunking up all over the spec sheet. It was a resounding upgrade from the slow and rather outdated k20d, and most people thought the fact that it shared the same high resolution sensor was a good thing. The improved sensor in the K-5 was not available then.

You could say the K-7 is the camera the K20 should have been

I certainly found the K-7 to be no worse for high ISO noise than the K20D and in general use it was a much more reactive 'snappy' body for want of a better description.
Still a worth while improvement on the K20D in my book.

I think Oggy meant something like one of these. The electron gun used to draw vector graphic 'lines' directly rather than raster scanning. A real blast from the past
Neal

I've just done some continuous shooting tests on the K5, this time with a San Disk Extreme 111 card. No difference whatever from the basic San Disk card. In RAW and on the Hi setting still just 3 rapid frames then lock up while the buffer clears.
The hand books says it should deliver approx 8 frames continuously in the Hi setting and up to 10 in the Lo setting with RAW. All I get in Lo is the same number of frames, 3, but at a lower speed per second.
I switched to high resolution JPEG (***) and got just 4 continuous frames before lock up compared to the staggeringg 30 frames promised in the handbook. It made no difference whether I set the camera to 100 or 800 ISO.
Roll on the new firmware someone has written about in this Forum because at these speeds the K5 will not be much use for fast action such as sports coverage.
David

Stick in there David, the firmware revision will sort out this issue.

Meanwhile, explore the other qualities of the K5.

Best regards