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.

Pentax Online Event on November 27 (at Japan)

The event will be held tomorrow at Tokyo (in Japanese):

https://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/japan/event/2021/pentax_meeting_online2021/

(in Japanese)

Here is the tentative programme and rundown for the event:

- Development stories of the D-FA 21mm F2.4 Limited including interview with the developers who will talk more about the design and application of the lens.

- The evolution of K-3 Mark III will continue. New features are to come, via new firmware and other - But what does "other" means? What's the mean to do it?

- About future PENTAX products. The person in charge of product planning will reveal something.

- Q&As - Questions are to be submitted to Pentax in advance via form.

Let's see what will be told by then.

The K-3 III Image Corner Blur Issue Strikes Again

Camera-gear YouTuber Kobie M-C tested the K-3 and K-3 III side by side and here is his report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH2eQD6fpA0

And, his quick textual comment follows, quoted:

"Some interesting things occurred during the shooting for this test. It seems the K-3 Mark III sensor out resolves some lenses including the DA 50 1.8 which surprised me. It's a good lens, nice and sharp, but just not on the K-3 Mark III. I tried live view, electronic shutter, Focus fine adjustments from -10 to +10 and it was still soft. F/1.8, 2.8, 4 (when the lens is sharpest) and still the same result. This might be what some professional reviewers are experiencing when they mention soft images."

The below quick snapshot refers for easy reference:

(Click to Enlarge)

In fact, Kobie's finding is exactly the same as what I found last time with my new K-3 III when it was tested against my KP side by side.

As the increase in the total number of pixels of the K-3 III against the K-3 and KP is really marginal, I think there exists another factor to cause the decrease in resolution in image corners for images produced by the K-3 III, even for the same old lenses, which used to be optically good. 

I suspect the (different) design of the micro-lenses and (different) assumed incident angle of light should come into play. Indeed, the new 26MP Sony sensor was first used in the Fujifilm X-T4 which has a much short back focal distance. Later on, Ricoh got this sensor and put it into the K-3 III. However, the new sensor is not that highly compatible with many of the old glass in optical sense, especially at the image corners and edges, and that wide angle lenses suffer more than standard and tele ones.

I have verified this with the latest glass marketed by Pentax, in particular, like the D-FA* 16-50 PLM, which shows a much lesser problem for the aforesaid issue and phenomenon. 

Related Article:

When the Sensor Outresolves the Lens

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.

Comparison Test of Four Different Production Units of the FA 43 Limited

Found this interesting article (in Traditional Chinese, Google English translated page here) that's worth a read.

Side-by-side comparison tests were done with the MZ-S for film and the Fujifilm GFX50S digital cropped medium format body. To view the test pictures in their original size (which can be enlarged), just right click and select to view the pictures in a separate/new tab in browser.

Besides the comments made by the author of the article, you may find other differences by yourself. As for years, I blog, you decide. :-)

The First Pentax Camera in History (Prototype)

An interesting read: https://kosmofoto.com/2019/10/the-first-pentax-camera-was-east-german/

Credit (via): DPR forum post here

K-3 III Firmware V1.20

Latest new version of the firmware is available for download at the following official web page:

http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/support/digital/k-3-3.html

New version of the Image Transmitter 2 is supported, which could be downloaded here.

And, the bug for being unable to focus adjust when using the HD-DA tele-converter 1.4X is rectified.