My initial experience with the new Pentax K1 was exhilarating, but managed to run aground when I really bore down on what I needed from it for my particular work. For in-studio work, it is great, but what about outside? I thought I would take the Pentax K1 (along with the Voigtlander 90mm APO f/3.5 lens) into the woods to see what can be done with the much anticipated pixel shift and its 36 Mpx. Keep in mind that I am doing close-up photography, and the majority of my work is often focus stacked, either a short stack (few key focus areas) or a larger stacked series of images.
Overall, the bottom line is that I am disappointed. I am not blaming the Pentax K1, but only evaluating it from my particular, albeit limited, perspective. First, with very few exceptions, Mother Nature is not “windless,” at least not here in in Michigan, where the glaciers scraped the land flat long ago. There is, however slight, almost always some wind. And, while I may be able to sneak off the odd single-shot in-between puffs of wind, pumping out the four shots that are required in pixel-shift is not that easy, and the difficulty appears to be exponential, rather than linear.
It is not that this kind of photography (pixel-shift outdoors) can’t be done, but more like that it probably won’t be done by me... that much. I am sure that someone will do it eventually, because it is worth doing. As for me, I am getting older and have to choose my battles. Do I want to struggle with a camera not designed to do what I need done or, instead, concentrate more on composition and less on overcoming technical hurdles.
As mentioned, any movement of the wind, however slight, seems to have an exaggerated effect with the K1 pixel shift. This is true with close up work and, from what little I have done, just as (or more) difficult with landscape photography. When they say that still-life photography is what pixel-shift was designed for, they mean still life, as in motionless. I did not attempt to use the pixel-shift “with” motion option, although I have not heard anything good about the results of that mode.
Part of the problem for me is finding exceptional lenses that fit the Pentax. By “exceptional,” I mean lenses that are sharp wide open, fast, and highly corrected, as in “apochromatic.” I have such lenses on the Nikon, but, for example, the Zeiss Otus series of lenses do not come in Pentax mount.
Also, the very size of the pixel-shift image files (up to 200 KB) alone is a chore for my computer, and I have a fast computer. Storage is cheap, but throughput still costs me time at this size, especially running a large stack.
Focusing in the field is difficult and has to be very exact in pixel-shift or the results are not good enough. I also find that the image blows out easily and that pure whites are hard to control. The dynamic range and noise in the K1 is nothing special that I can see. It does not equal what I can get from the Nikon D810.
I believe that the Pentax K1 camera, in pixel-shift mode, under the more controlled setting of a studio can be outstanding, where there would not even be that light or occasional puff of wind. For product photography and with the proper lenses, the K1 will stand out and approach MF territory. However, there is still the problem, even in a studio, of really great lenses, if that is what you like to use, which I do.
On the whole, the concept of pixel-shift seems to beckon the future, in that the pixel photo-sites (or whatever we call them) monitor true color, rather than the muddy approximation required in Bayer interpolation. I saw glimpses of this in the Sony A7s, but the sensor size was too small for what I needed, so I returned it.
I would love to see this pixel-shift technique in the hands of a company like Nikon, where more thought is given to the support of lenses that are not linked to the camera, which Pentax pretty-much requires. Yes, there are work arounds, but they are just that, something you have to work around, and a pain at that.
Trying to mount the Pentax K1 on a bellows system like the Novoflex BALPRO was an exercise in futility. As many ardent Pentax users quickly pointed out to me, again and again: this is NOT the camera for disconnected lenses and bellows. I like to think I will put up with anything as long as the result is outstanding. But I find that I too have limits, and there are cameras (like the Nikon D810) that come close enough and are a dream for me to use. And the lenses I have for the Nikon mount are incredible, including not only the Zeus Otus series, but all manner of industrial gems like the El Nikkor 105mm APO, the Nikkor CRT, the Printing Nikkors, and any number of bellows-based lenses.
So, if everything is equal, which it seldom is, I can get some really nice images out of the Pentax K1. And aside from close-up shots, the landscape attempts I have done with the K1 (and pixel-shift) were VERY disappointing, in that an inability to tolerate any kind of motion resulted in blurred patches of leaves, grass, and what-not. The pixel-shift mode of the Pentax K1 is pretty-much studio bound, although I am sure there will be many exceptions.
So, here I am with a brand new Pentax K1, a pile of batteries, and a handful of good lenses like the Voigtlander 90mm APO, the Voigtlander 40mm Ultron, Sigma 35mm ART lens, not to mention other adapters, for Nikon lenses, for the Novoflex BALPRO bellows and the Cambo Actus system, etc.
I have not totally given up on the K1, but I have scoped it out enough to see how it fits into the demands of my work flow. The Pentax K1 is usable, but it is not the first camera I would reach for to go out on a shoot. That still is the Nikon D810, although I am also evaluating the Sony A7rII, which I may blog about at another time.
Pentax K1, Voigtlander 90mm APO-Lanthar, Zerene Stacker
