I want to upgrade from a K30 some time soon - and had almost decided on a K1, but now I am not so sure.

This might help ....... https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentax-k-1/8 It is the image quality page of DPReview's lab test for the Pentax K1.



You can use the drop downs to change one of the cameras compared to the K50 and another to the K70, like this ........



Comparing those images on screen is not really fair, because they are all different sizes - so, you could download the RAWs. I did that for ISO 12800, because one of my main reasons for considering the K1 was high ISO performance. I then corrected white balance in Lightroom, set the correct lens profile for each image and then exported JPEGs that were 5400 pixels wide, which allows an 18" wide print at 300ppi, which is the biggest I ever print. I then took a 600 pixel square crop from each of the JPEGs.

You might find the results interesting ....


This is for a Pentax K50


This is for the full frame Pentax K1


This is for the Pentax K70

Please draw your own conclusions but mine, for what they are worth, are that:

* Both the K1 and K70 completely blow away the K50 at ISO12800

* The K70 is MUCH closer to the K1 than I had expected

* The K1 has a significant amount of moire in the crop - but the K70 doesn't. It is possible that the K70 was set to use moire reduction, but if that was the case, a version without that set could be sharper than this crop.

* Only default noise reduction was used in Lightroom, so optimising noise processing could produce better results

My bottom line here is that the K70 is startlingly better, at high ISO, than I had expected it to be. I think it just might have become my favourite to replace my now ageing K30.

Hope this helps
Andrew

If you are anything like me it would have occured to you, only seconds after the box arrived, to check out your new toy against the F 35-70mm which we both have. Did you do that? Did you form any conclusions about how they compare over their common focal lengths?

Andrew

I had an Isuzu Trooper 3.0TD for 7 years and did over 120,000 trouble free miles in it. They were famed for injector failures which completely killed the engine. Mine was recalled after 100,000 miles for an injector change after Isuzu finally accepted responsibility for the problem.

I also have a 5 yr old Pentax K30 with about 17,000 trouble free shutter actuations on it.

Andrew

In Sainsburys, Oldham the free book is African Safari Photography by Chris Weston.

Andrew

Logically, my favourite lens must be the one that is on my camera now; the one that is on the camera unless I have a really good reason to take it off. By far, my most used lens is the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8.

After that, the 55-300mm and F 35-70mm, both of which I like, but neither of which get anything like as much camera time as the Tamron

Andrew

Just a thought, but do you use catch-in focus? I have rediscovered it recently and it seems to work outstandingly well for longer focal length lenses - a Vivitar 200mm f3.5 (Komine version) and a XR RIkenon 300mm f4.5 APO that have been lying around for a quite a while just gathering dust. It also works well with a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5 (Version 2) that I picked up recently for very little money. (Testing out a few possibles for future use with a K1 - maybe)

I have tried catch-in focus with shorter lenses, such as the Sigma 24mm f2.8 Superwide II, but it doesn't seem to work any better than focussing by eye. Best of all with that lens on a tripod is focussing using live view, but obviously that would not work so well at a party.

Andrew

I use Firefox and have never seen that

I definitely do not need a K1 and cannot possibly justify buying one. I guess it will be 6 or 7 months before I get one - probably with the 28-105. 😉

Andrew

Unless you do not use the camera's spot metering, I would suggest that you do not get one. I installed one from focusingscreen.com around 2011 in a Pentax K200D. Whilst it worked fine (but not so well as in a film SLR), it totally screws up the cameras spot metering - often a couple of stops out after installation. If I hadn't bought a K30 a year or so later, I would probably have reinstalled the original screen.

One thing to bear in mind if you order from Taiwan is that on top of the NT$2500 (about £53) cost of the screen, you will also pay a Customs & Excise fee to the carrier and VAT. If I remember correctly, mine cost about £90 in total.

Andrew

Indeed yes, but "rights" such as the right to walk along a public footpath are often enshrined in legislation.

The point I intended to make is that many folks talk as though there is some right in law to take photographs in a public place. So far as I know, there is not.

Andrew