K-1 III Existence Announcement ;-p

Countdown Timer 

New fully revamped Pentax FF to come, will be on sales within 2026. 

Credit: Asahiman

News from Ricoh - K-1 III is Still Under Development and etc.

From a latest post in the Xitek Pentax forum, an interview with the Ricoh senior officials (from the product development and planning divisions) in a recent marketing event in Taipei was cited.

The key messages delivered are summarised as follows: 

 

1. The K-1 III is still under development. More time is required with a higher precision aimed on the design as well as owing to the difficulty in sourcing certain components and parts for the new camera.

2. The film camera project is in good progress but further details will not be disclosed. Nonetheless, collaboration with other film product manufacturers will be made for determining a right selling price and marketing strategy.

3. Feasibility for the revival of the Q system is being carried out, subject to the requests made by the Pentax fans in Japan. But considering the limitation of the Q system, it would be unlikely.

4. The 645 system is in its end of development, production of the remaining products will last for a certain period of time.

5. Mirrorless is not a viable option for Pentax.

6. New DFA* wide angle lens(es) and replacement of the DA*50-135 are being considered according to market needs.

Leak on the "New" FA 50mm F1.4 Lenses

 

The K-3 III Variants

 

Accordingly to this "confidential" diagram, there are six variants of the K-3 III to come. The first one is a deep-black coloured body, the second one is with a modified shutter release button for a different touch, the third one is a monochrome model, the fourth one is a MF model (maybe with a MF focusing screen?), the fifth one is a gun-metal coloured body, and the last one is an astro-model with a modified sensor filter for astro-photography.

Btw, it was also told by Ricoh officially in their recent local marketing event that there will be no new Pentax full frame body in the near future and the K-1 II will still be the current model for the time being.

More Sample Photos of the DFA 21 Limited (by Yaotomi)

https://www.yaotomi.co.jp/blog/walk/2021/10/hdpentaxd,fa21mmf24,limited.html

(in Japanese)

Both K-1 Mark II and K-3 Mark III were used to take the samples, but the posted pictures are just too small to tell about the resolution. The colour and 3d rendition as well as bokeh of the lens look nice this time. This lens seems very suitable to be used on both Full Frame and APS-C bodies.

Mapcamera Field Tested the DFA 21 Limited (with Downsized Samples)

https://news.mapcamera.com/KASYAPA/pentax_21_limited/

(in Japanese)

The test pictures were taken with a full-frame K-1 II, all posted sample photos are downsized to 10.7 mega-pixels. IMO, the image centre resolution looks good even when the lens is wide or near opened and that corner-to-corner sharpness is achievable when it is stopped down. However, I am not impressed with the dynamic range of the samples (which looks really bad) and neither the colour rendition of those. Let's see more samples to verify and judge in due course.

Size Comparison and Body Matching with the D-FA 21 Limited

 

Credit: Map Camera (in Japanese)

The LA-KE1 Monster Adapter is now Put On Sale

The Chinese Taobao website has already had the Chinese made LA-KE1 adapter put on sale (click here for one of the product links).

B&H also accepts pre-orders for this product and I think it will be available in the US very soon.

However, it can be seen in the comment section of the above Taobao product link from the users who have already purchased the adapter about the various issues such as its power hungriness and overheating, not supporting quite some Pentax AF lenses including the film FA50/1.4 and the digital DA17-70 and DA*200, as well as some noticeable delay in AF with the FA Limited lenses (and the AF is not quite smooth, too) and etc.

I hope this adapter will be improved later for better performance and compatibility, by means of firmware update and/or hardware revision. Not until that I shall consider to buy one for playing and use of my existing Pentax glass with my Sony FF mirrorless body.

The K-3 III is Delayed and Here Comes the Re-packaged 3 FA Limiteds in HD

We all knew that the K-3 III was delayed without a new release or market launch date announced. :-(

Hence, Ricoh is "kind" enough to let us have something else "new", right before the CP+. ;-P

Here we go:

(Source: Japanese Nokishita Twitter via Cameota. In short, the new features of the re-packaged FA Limited lenses are HD plus SP coatings, round aperture and blades and guaranteed -10 deg.C temperature operation, there is no Weather Resistance, nonetheless. Anyway, my old FA Limiteds have never had any problem working in cold and snowing conditions under -10 to -20 deg.C in the past, so did my other film FA lenses, but getting the lenses wet might cause real problems. As for the aperture ring and aluminium casted lens bodies, these are indeed good old features but nothing new.

Update (Feb 25): The HD FA Limited Special Site is now online (in Japanese only). Online pre-ordering from the Ricoh web store is also made available. The offered prices are not cheap, though.

Ned Bunnell Demonstrates How Good the Old Pentax Glass Could Be (Re: A* 85 F1.4)

Ned Bunnell, ex-CEO of the Pentax Imaging USA (which was named), published some of his recent pictures taken with his A* 85 F1.4 on a K-1 II,. See this Flickr set of his:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/85492092@N03/sets/72157714981262381

I like both the colour rendition and the micro-contrast of the lens reproduced, which could look better than what is produced by the latest D FA*85 F1.4, from the various samples that I have seen so far. I think Ned is also a good photographer, too, as I could feel the mood of his photos in a good way.

Speaking of Ned, he is actually a nice and good guy. I dropped him a few emails for my suggestions and comments when he was the CEO and I was the (in)famous "Pentax basher" decade ago. Whilst many Pentax fanboys did hate me much and had to beat me to death whenever I spoke, Ned did always respond to my every email in a polite and respectful way. I think it is not easy for him, as the top management of Pentax, to not ignore an "enemy" like me and I believe that he is an humble and open-minded guy after all.

DPR's Sample Gallery of the D FA* 85 Published

https://www.dpreview.com/samples/1659227315/pentax-d-fa-85mm-f1-4-sample-gallery

Resolution wise, undoubtedly it is very good, near wide opened and from corner to corner for the whole image frame. Vignetting is also minimal at wide opened at F1.4.

But, it seems that the lens does lack some micro-contrast. The images in gallery do not look that three dimensional or "airy" after all. The colour rendition is also not that exceptional, IMHO. The old FA* or A* might look better in those two specific image quality aspects. My two cents, though. YMMV.

One More Practical Test of the D FA*85, with Full Samples

http://pentaxfans.net/thread-164498-1-1.html

(in Traditional Chinese, Google translated English page here)

Indeed, this set of photos taken just by an ordinary Pentax user does look better than the set created by the Pentax official Japanese professional photographer IMHO. Despite that some pictures taken at high ISO still look soft when viewed at pixel level, which is just the primitive problem of the K-1II and is actually unavoidable.

Note that original full sized samples are available for viewing and download via the user's Flickr album here.

DC Watch Reviewed the D FA* 85 F1.4, with Bundle of Full Samples

https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/review/newproduct/1270372.html

(in Japanese, Google translated English page here)

Enjoy! But it looks to me that the photos are a bit odd in tone. And, it seems that they are not as airy, transparent and bright as those images produced by its predecessors A* and FA* 85 ishes. But afterall, I blog, you decide, as usual. :-D

PetaPixel Supports the DSLR Niche Strategy of Pentax/Ricoh

https://petapixel.com/2020/07/18/why-pentax-is-making-the-right-call-in-sticking-with-dslrs/

The author may have a point. But the market trend is towards interchangeable lens Mirrorless, especially Full Frame ones. Who will jump boat to the Pentax brand because of Reflex? Is it just the wishful thinking of Pentax/Ricoh themselves? :-o After all, the reverse may be true.

Shootout of D FA* 85 Vs FA* 85 Vs A* 85 on K-1 II

http://pentaxfans.net/thread-164447-1-1.html

(in Traditional Chinese)

The posted test pictures with simple captions are self-explanatory. For the comments made by the tester, the Google-translated English page could be viewed. After all, I do agree with him for most of his comments and observations.

Unofficial: French D FA* 85/1.4 Special Gallery

https://pentaxklub.com/galerie-en-special-d-fa-%E2%98%85-85-f-1-4/
(in French)

With both scenery and portrait samples. Unofficial.

Official: D FA* 85mm F1.4 Special Gallery

http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/japan/products/star_lens/special/sp_dfa85-14/specialgallery/

(in Japanese)

No full or larger size of the photos are available nor those small-sized samples can be downloaded. For that small size of the samples, the image quality of the lens cannot be judged, sad. :-(

A D FA 70-210 F4 Practical Test

http://pentaxfans.net/thread-164343-1-1.html

Article/Post in Traditional Chinese, but the captions in test photos and crops are self-explanatory.

Mapcamera Tested the D FA* 85 F1.4 (with Medium Sized Samples)

https://news.mapcamera.com/KASYAPA/588%e3%80%8ehd-d-fa%e2%98%85-85mm-f1-4-ed-sdm-aw%e3%80%8f/

(in Japanese, Google translated English page here)

Test camera body used was an upgraded K-1 to Mk II. Medium-sized samples in 11MP are available.

New Lens Patent 70-300 F4.5-5.6 with In-lens SR

https://ipforce.jp/patent-jp-A-2020-86357
(in Japanese)

A few key highlights are as follows (Google Translated):

[Name or name] Ricoh Co., Ltd.

[0008]
However, in the zoom lens system of Patent Document 1, since the second lens group 2b, which is the image blur correction lens group, is close to the stop on the long focal length end side (tele end side), the long focal length end side (tele end is set at the time of image blur correction). The eccentric coma aberration generated on the side) tends to be large. Therefore, the second b group, which is the image blur correction lens group, is composed of three or more lenses, and there remains a problem in weight reduction of the image blur correction lens group.

(Table 5)
Short focal length end Medium focal length Long focal length end
Focal length 72.2 135.0 293.2

F number 4.43 4.88 5.34

(Table 8)
Short focal length end Medium focal length Long focal length end
Focal length 72.0 135.1 293.6

F number 4.59 4.96 5.52

A list of variants of the same design gene are patented. While the focal ranges are almost the same, the maximum apertures could vary a bit but the variations are insignificant.