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Correct Mike - it lights up in AFS but not in continuous AF. In theatre rehearsal shots last week I reverted to letting the camera automatically choose the focus points in AFC as it was too dark for me to see them in the viewfinder - and to be fair it did a good job so I think I just need to learn to trust it!
Comment by JonSchick posted on K3III focus point illumination. at 22/05/2021 - 22:44
womble wrote:
Although I have a great deal of sympathy (obviously!) with many of the comments, here are a few observations.
Firstly, the idea that phone cameras are only for snaps by people not into taking good photos is no longer true. For example Tim Clinch, a good professional photographer with a long career especially in food photography and still life, now mainly uses a phone camera. He used to use a 5x4 view camera. The current generation of phone cameras are serious pieces of equipment and in the right hands can take fantastic images.
Secondly, although the new mirrorless models are pleasing the gear heads, the fact that changing to mirrorless will also mean changing many/most/all of their lenses is not something creating joy amongst current dSLR owners. Whether the big boys care and will maintain both their mirrorless and SLR lines is hard to say, but the suspicion must be that the SLR line will be phased out.
Thirdly, in the 1950s/1960s everyone predicted that rangefinders were a thing of the past and no one would want one. Leica has proved them wrong. In the first decade of this millennium, many argued film was dead. There has been a major resurgence. The clever marketing strategy for Pentax would be to claim the niche SLR market as Leica did for rangefinders. The K-3iii is a superb camera. Backwards compatibility is one of its strengths. I love the fact I can attach a 60 year old M42 lens to my K-3iii and use it very easily.
Which brings me to fourthly. Pentax have to promote themselves in this way. WE make SLRs with the best viewfinder ever. WE are going to support that corner of the market. WE are going to make legacy lenses a core part of what we support. Rather than making idiotic comments about mirrorless being a fad, shout from the rooftops what we do well. Unfortunately, being the Leica of the SLR world does mean that the prices are going to be Leica-esque as well.
Pentax are a small niche brand. They need to define and consolidate that niche, and be the very best they can at what they do.
Absolutely spot on. Pentax is not going to be a major competitor for Canikony but they can do very well if they produce products as good as the K3iii in the niche that they are carving out for themselves. That does mean, however, that their prices are unfortunately likely to be higher than many Pentaxians are used to.Although I have a great deal of sympathy (obviously!) with many of the comments, here are a few observations.
Firstly, the idea that phone cameras are only for snaps by people not into taking good photos is no longer true. For example Tim Clinch, a good professional photographer with a long career especially in food photography and still life, now mainly uses a phone camera. He used to use a 5x4 view camera. The current generation of phone cameras are serious pieces of equipment and in the right hands can take fantastic images.
Secondly, although the new mirrorless models are pleasing the gear heads, the fact that changing to mirrorless will also mean changing many/most/all of their lenses is not something creating joy amongst current dSLR owners. Whether the big boys care and will maintain both their mirrorless and SLR lines is hard to say, but the suspicion must be that the SLR line will be phased out.
Thirdly, in the 1950s/1960s everyone predicted that rangefinders were a thing of the past and no one would want one. Leica has proved them wrong. In the first decade of this millennium, many argued film was dead. There has been a major resurgence. The clever marketing strategy for Pentax would be to claim the niche SLR market as Leica did for rangefinders. The K-3iii is a superb camera. Backwards compatibility is one of its strengths. I love the fact I can attach a 60 year old M42 lens to my K-3iii and use it very easily.
Which brings me to fourthly. Pentax have to promote themselves in this way. WE make SLRs with the best viewfinder ever. WE are going to support that corner of the market. WE are going to make legacy lenses a core part of what we support. Rather than making idiotic comments about mirrorless being a fad, shout from the rooftops what we do well. Unfortunately, being the Leica of the SLR world does mean that the prices are going to be Leica-esque as well.
Pentax are a small niche brand. They need to define and consolidate that niche, and be the very best they can at what they do.
Comment by JonSchick posted on Another K3 mk.III thread at 20/05/2021 - 21:25
I think you’ll still find some of us who are in our (ok well into our) fifties but you might struggle much below that apart from the occasional landscaper who realises just how good the K-1 is.... that said, I think Japan is a very different and much more important market for Ricoh Pentax; the rest of the world is just hanging in there but the home market is where they have a much larger user base.
Comment by JonSchick posted on Another K3 mk.III thread at 18/05/2021 - 22:45
The focus point issue is really my only complaint so far, and I've noticed it mostly indoors in poor light; in those circumstances I've taken to assuming the autofocus will get it right without my intervention, which is not my usual way of working but has so far worked OK; however I would prefer to see where I've put the focus point when I move the joystick!
Comment by JonSchick posted on Another K3 mk.III thread at 18/05/2021 - 17:40
Yes Rob it does have multi-auto WB which is something I need to remember next time!
Comment by JonSchick posted on Couple of K3iii low light (theatre rehearsal) images at 17/05/2021 - 10:18
Used the K3iii for its first 'assignment' yesterday, coupled with the Sigma 17-70 2.8/4 C lens. These images were taken from a play rehearsal at the Abbey Theatre (St Albans), quite a testing environment. Lighting was muted and these images were both taken at ISO6400, in TAv mode (SS 1/60, Aperture f4).
I got a reasonably high 'keeper rate' with images going on to Social Media today and being printed for display in the foyer when the show - End Game - goes live later this week. AF seemed to work pretty well (I mostly left it in Auto to sort itself out) although I do wish it was easier to see the focus points in poor light - this was pretty much an impossibility. White balance came out rather warm too, although such lighting conditions can be notoriously tricky.
There's quite a lot of noise there at ISO6400, but the images are usable up to a reasonable print size (they'd certainly make a great 10x8" and you could go a little higher). Compared to the previous camera I used for theatre photography - a Leica Typ 240 - the high ISO noise performance of the K3iii is excellent, and there is much less intrusive banding; so I suppose we can say it outperforms a previous generation full frame sensor on that point.
Cheers,
Jon
I got a reasonably high 'keeper rate' with images going on to Social Media today and being printed for display in the foyer when the show - End Game - goes live later this week. AF seemed to work pretty well (I mostly left it in Auto to sort itself out) although I do wish it was easier to see the focus points in poor light - this was pretty much an impossibility. White balance came out rather warm too, although such lighting conditions can be notoriously tricky.
There's quite a lot of noise there at ISO6400, but the images are usable up to a reasonable print size (they'd certainly make a great 10x8" and you could go a little higher). Compared to the previous camera I used for theatre photography - a Leica Typ 240 - the high ISO noise performance of the K3iii is excellent, and there is much less intrusive banding; so I suppose we can say it outperforms a previous generation full frame sensor on that point.
Cheers,
Jon
Comment by JonSchick posted on Couple of K3iii low light (theatre rehearsal) images at 17/05/2021 - 09:15
JonSchick wrote:
Eek my comparison is ISO100 with 6400 not 1600 as per text above - can’t find option to edit on my phone but will correct on the computer when I’m back home....
Original post now corrected.Eek my comparison is ISO100 with 6400 not 1600 as per text above - can’t find option to edit on my phone but will correct on the computer when I’m back home....
Comment by JonSchick posted on Pentax K-3iii test images at 26/04/2021 - 15:46
Eek my comparison is ISO100 with 6400 not 1600 as per text above - can’t find option to edit on my phone but will correct on the computer when I’m back home....
Comment by JonSchick posted on Pentax K-3iii test images at 26/04/2021 - 12:52
I'll second Kris' initial comments. Some lovely images too.
Just been having a quick play in LR with some indoor natural light images to see how things go as you head up the ISO scale, and also to compare raw vs JPEG just for interest. The images themselves are not of great interest but my takeaways are:
ISO 1600 is astonishingly good and you have to look hard to see much difference in terms of noise and colour from images taken at ISO 100
ISO 6400 is still very usable and there is very little impact on colour at this setting
I think you could go to ISO 25,600 and still get decent prints at smaller sizes (perhaps up to A4) but ISO 51200 is beyond usable for reasonable quality and the remaining options beyond that seem pretty pointless in my view. That said, I will be using the camera in part for theatre rehearsal shots and the images at 51200 outperform the previous FF body I was using for this purpose when that was set to ISO6400 - a Leica Typ240 (don't hate me!) which by that ISO had awful banding issues.
In short, I'm impressed.
Interesting looking at the JPEGs too - I had them in Natural mode with a touch of additional fine sharpness and clarity, and they were coming out very well (perhaps need just a bit more of a tweak as they lack a tiny bit of punch). Obviously raw is better for post processing, dynamic range etc, but I think the JPEGs will be very usable at least up to ISO1600, possibly 3200 - after that, the raws start to include more fine detail that the JPEG processing has taken away.
In the meantime, here's my quick 'test scene' - ISO100 DNG on the left, ISO6400 DNG on the right. No PP:
And same again but viewed at 100%:
Cheers,
Jon
Just been having a quick play in LR with some indoor natural light images to see how things go as you head up the ISO scale, and also to compare raw vs JPEG just for interest. The images themselves are not of great interest but my takeaways are:
ISO 1600 is astonishingly good and you have to look hard to see much difference in terms of noise and colour from images taken at ISO 100
ISO 6400 is still very usable and there is very little impact on colour at this setting
I think you could go to ISO 25,600 and still get decent prints at smaller sizes (perhaps up to A4) but ISO 51200 is beyond usable for reasonable quality and the remaining options beyond that seem pretty pointless in my view. That said, I will be using the camera in part for theatre rehearsal shots and the images at 51200 outperform the previous FF body I was using for this purpose when that was set to ISO6400 - a Leica Typ240 (don't hate me!) which by that ISO had awful banding issues.
In short, I'm impressed.
Interesting looking at the JPEGs too - I had them in Natural mode with a touch of additional fine sharpness and clarity, and they were coming out very well (perhaps need just a bit more of a tweak as they lack a tiny bit of punch). Obviously raw is better for post processing, dynamic range etc, but I think the JPEGs will be very usable at least up to ISO1600, possibly 3200 - after that, the raws start to include more fine detail that the JPEG processing has taken away.
In the meantime, here's my quick 'test scene' - ISO100 DNG on the left, ISO6400 DNG on the right. No PP:
And same again but viewed at 100%:
Cheers,
Jon
Comment by JonSchick posted on Pentax K-3iii test images at 26/04/2021 - 10:48
Trouble is that I’ve got used to manual zone focus from using MF lenses and found that so liberating that it’s what I tend to do if I want super fast shots... it’s faster than any AF I’ve ever used!
Comment by JonSchick posted on K3iii a few initial thoughts at 24/04/2021 - 19:52
