Author Topic: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1  (Read 7138 times)

Michael Erlewine

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A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« on: June 12, 2016, 22:42:55 »
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

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Ron Scubadiver

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2016, 23:03:04 »
The image is beautiful.  I wonder why they invested in developing this camera when DSLR sales are slumping.    As you say, it is an oddball mount lacking a wide variety of glass. 

Michael Erlewine

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2016, 23:06:47 »
The image is beautiful.  I wonder why they invested in developing this camera when DSLR sales are slumping.    As you say, it is an oddball mount lacking a wide variety of glass.

I hear you. What I wonder is that given there is not much great glass for this mount, why they did not make it easy to used great glass on that mount. They could have made it easy to work with bellows, and, in general, lenses that did not couple with the camera, but they chose not to.

The idea of pixel-shifting, which is not new to Pentax, needs to be implemented on other cameras as well. The big problem is how to deal with motion when four images have to be taken to create a single result.
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Dr Klaus Schmitt

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2016, 07:48:24 »
It already has been, I just bought a mirrorless Olympus camera with same technology built in for studio work!!
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Erik Lund

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2016, 09:54:44 »
Thanks for the heads up on the K1 Michael!

The Olympus E-M5 II does 8 captures,,, it shoots similar to the K1 but at half pixels as well,,, Very sturdy tripod is needed!
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Frank Fremerey

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2016, 10:12:23 »
Yes. The technology trickles down from medium format digital backs...
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Michael Erlewine

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2016, 10:58:55 »
Thanks for the heads up on the K1 Michael!

The Olympus E-M5 II does 8 captures,,, it shoots similar to the K1 but at half pixels as well,,, Very sturdy tripod is needed!

Lloyd Chambers has done a very detailed study of both the K1 and the Olympus pixel-shift approaches, and finds that the Olympus approach produces "impaired micro contrast per pixel, albeit at higher resolution," while the Pentax has excellent micro contrast.

In my work, the Pentax cannot do anything like landscape without producing really ugly motion artifacts because of any movement...any, even the smallest movement. Also, at this time ACR cannot process the mode of the K1 that attempts to compensate for motion, although the Pentax software included with the camera apparently can, but that software is (IMO) almost impossible to use and harkens back decades in approachability.

So we really are reaching a point in history where many roads are starting to diverge from one another, and it is hard (and expensive) to follow all of them.

The attached photos are probably an exercise in futility because we have different cameras, different lenses (not of the same caliber), both stacked, both processed according to their type of camera, and on and on.

I don’t know why I bother, but perhaps a few of you can see in them what there is to be seen or enough to get an idea as to how they differ.

IMO, they both are comparable. The Nikon is MUCH easier to use, while the Pentax has more opportunity for errors, probably on my part. So, like the great poem by Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both,” gets modified to something like “Sorry I have to travel both.” And, if you add in the A7RII, things are even more complicated, and who knows what new cameras are just out of sight, hidden in the near future.

Anyway, that is where I am. Photos taken with the D810 and the K1, the D810 with the El Nikkor 105 APO, and the K1 with the CV 90mm APO lens.
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Frank Fremerey

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2016, 11:07:27 »
The Nikon shot seems to be better focussed. The fron leafs of the flower in the Pentax shot seem to be oof
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Akira

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2016, 11:33:43 »
As for the second comparison, the K1 image looks sharper but a bit harsh and flat.  The D810 image is detailed enough and more atmospheric.  I would prefer the latter.
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Michael Erlewine

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2016, 12:02:43 »
As for the second comparison, the K1 image looks sharper but a bit harsh and flat.  The D810 image is detailed enough and more atmospheric.  I would prefer the latter.

I am sure all is as you see it. I believe that from now on I will try just to post photos that I like and give up on comparisons such as these. They don't seem to help anyone. Suffice it to say that the Pentax K1 has to be seriously considered, although I find it difficult to use because the best lenses don't really work well with it. So, as for these forays into comparison, I take a line from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkinds, "Suck any sense from that who can." LOL
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Fons Baerken

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2016, 12:42:22 »
the nikon shows more noise on the detail

Tristin

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Re: A First Evaluation of the Pentax K1
« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2016, 19:15:27 »
This is why I avoid keeping up with the bleeding edge of tech typically.  There are nearly always problems that eat up so much time ad effort just to get a drop of gain, I rarely find it worth it.  Cheers to the frontiersman that sort it all out.
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