RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: A Production K-5 Quick Review with Full Size Samples (w/ DA17-70)

Saturday, October 23, 2010

A Production K-5 Quick Review with Full Size Samples (w/ DA17-70)

See: http://www.dcfever.com/news/readnews.php?id=4537
(in Traditional Chinese, machine-translated English Page Here)

All test shots, no matter full sized or not, were made with the DA 17-70/4 SDM (Only) Lens on K-5. If you just want to download and see the full sized samples, go to near the end of the review, there are six samples to download, click the "Ori" links for the original samples.

Well, after inspecting all these six full samples and checked the EXIF data also, I would quickly comment that I am not impressed with the IQ of the lens and all those images produced by that K-5 combo especially at the base/low ISO of 200. I cannot really see very high per-pixel sharpness but only softness and I do not very like the colour response of all the images neither. The lens in fact does not produce very crisp, sharp and well-defined images, even when it has been stopped down to f/8 or something. When used near wide-opened, things could get even worse and it seems that the focusing accuracy is not adequate, which contributes also for even more softness at pixel level. After all, I am not sure it is just a problem of the lens or the K-5 body or both for those far less than ideal IQ!? But, it's what the final results that count, but nothing else!! Yet once again, if we are not convinced, we need to see more samples to conclude, in the near future..

Previous Related Posts:-

Photoble K-5 and K-r Full Samples

Some Initial Test Samples/Crops from New K-5 Users

K-5 Official Samples Secretly Uploaded at Pentax Japan

Comments (15)

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+1 Vote up Vote down

Richy · 751 weeks ago

"The lens in fact does not produce very crisp, sharp and well-defined images, even when it has been stopped down to f/8 or something."

Way to contradict every review of this lens I've ever read!

1 reply · active 751 weeks ago

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Alex · 751 weeks ago

Like this one?
"The Pentax lens was capable of delivering very impressive resolution figures in the MTF lab. At 17mm and 24mm the center performance is superb and the border quality is easily on a very good level. At f/4 the extreme borders are a little softer at 17mm but stopping down resolves the problem. At 40mm we've an evenly high center to border resolution distribution. There's a little performance drop at the extreme tele end of the zoom range. The center performance is still very good here whereas the border quality suffers a bit although it's still perfectly Ok even at max. aperture. The global sweet spot of the lens is reached around f/8." http://www.photozone.de/pentax/408-pentax_1770_4
And Klaus don't do Pentax any favours.

We also know the K-5 is capable of impressive results, so the camera isn't at fault either.
What's left, then? Anyone would guess? Yes, the review. Contrary to popular beliefs, negative reviews can be wrong.

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BRunner · 751 weeks ago

The image quality is definitely affected by the zoom lens used, the images looks very flat. I'll wait for full-size samples made with some top primes. The ~15Mpx APS-C sensor are resolution hungry and only few lenses of my huge collection can in reality keep up even with my old K20D 14Mpx sensor. Namely Leica and Voightlander APO lenses, Summicron 2/50, Planar 1.8/50, Pentax-M 4/50 Macro....
But I'm really more and more impressed by the hig-iso performance. I definitely won't hesitate to use K5 at ISO6400. And YES, I'll very probably buy it, after the price goes closer to 1000€.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Anu · 751 weeks ago

Basicly all my lenses match, sorry, exceeds my K20D ability to resolve detail, wide open (!) - they are a bit less expensive than your arsenal, namely East German Carl Zeiss Jena primes. Some of the best tele-zoom lenses of today (like Canon's most recent 70-200s) easily are sharp enough for any today's sensor. Lack of lens sharpenss is usually not an issue, especially stopped down and in the center area. A cheap 100 buck normal stopped down gets pretty much all the details out of any sensor of today.

Flatness (when deep DOF) is just in the processing - it has nothing to do about resolving ability, but about contrast and saturation, and those can be fixed in PP (albeit with some additional noise).

If I were not chronicly lacking money, I'd buy the camera easily as the large increase in DR at the base ISO alone (compared to my K20D) would warrant it. Maybe when K3 comes out I'll buy K5 ;)

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johan · 751 weeks ago

the lens may be not the sharper out there, but the main problem is thoses samples are camera jpegs. For what I saw, raws are much better, the same is true for the d7k

0 Vote up Vote down

Ronny · 751 weeks ago

the iso800 looks rather good exposed the iso3200 (not talking about the subject) is not what I would dare to use (or place on any site).
After messing around with the raw data here posted a while back I'm sure this camera can do better in high iso.
But the even messed up they look better than what the samsung sensor produced.

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Anu · 751 weeks ago

Pentax colours have traditionally been rather accurate out of the sensor (compared to for example Canon). What happens after that is post processing, either in camera or in a raw-converter. If these processing settings are not satisfactory, they can be changes, can they not?

Sharpenesswise at f/8 I see absolutely nothing to complain, the details are there. One could of course add some USM/in camera sharpening if one likes to have more acuity.

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Nubi · 751 weeks ago

I typically don't agree with Rice's opinion, but to be fair and honest, I actually agree with his assessment. Not that impressive. There are people out there saying that IQ of K-5 approaches that of FF sensors - that is simply laughable.

2 replies · active 750 weeks ago

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Ronny · 751 weeks ago

even a lowly point and shoot can match a FF sensor in image quality if it gets enough light, and I think the K5 will be able to keep up a bit longer with a FF sensor. It won't have the same DR as a FF but at least there won't be any other cropped sensor that will outpreform it (much) :) .
And that makes me feel that somehow pentax is going in the correct direction.

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Chris · 750 weeks ago

Question to the FF addicts here: why do you bother with FF? Why not go for medium-format? I know an affordable product made by Pentax which would make you happy...

C

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D King · 751 weeks ago

I downloaded most of the photos and added some sharpening. They sharpen up well and look fine to me. Yes, the light is flat and the point of focus wasn't ideal in some. I do think the shutter speed could have been faster. It's only one review so don't judge too harshly yet.

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CantWaitToGetTheK5 · 751 weeks ago

Even though the K-5 was the only DSLR chosen at Photokina to receive the Star Award, I don't think I've ever seen a positive comment from you about Pentax.

Wow, what did Pentax ever do to you? Did Pentax spank you as a child? Is Canon or Nikon paying you to write all this bad press about Pentax? Did Pentax break your heart? Did Pentax cheat on you and then dumped you? What happened to make you hate Pentax?

1 reply · active 750 weeks ago

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Chris · 750 weeks ago

I picture the young Ricey dropping a DSLR on his foot, and his father got mad at him for that, something like that - and it was a Pentax model.

That would explain it.

C

PS. In my opinion and for my taste, Pentax builds the DSLR camera with the smallest size, the best color response, a set of small and wonderful prime lenses, at a totally acceptable price. I also can't wait to get my K-5.