What's going on in the Pentax Digital Camera world?

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

The entire Digital Camera world seems to be quiet at the present time.

• Not surprisingly, RiceHigh's blog keeps making a fool of himself by yet publishing another rumor about a Pentax Full Frame by next Halloween. Whether or not this actually materialize, it is about the tenth time he makes predictions about what Pentax will do next. Eventually, he'll have it right just by persistence alone. He will then claim that he is the only one that knew what Pentax was up to. Google his site and you will see what kind of egotistic person he is. He is "special" ! 

• Pentax Forums has a write-up about Pentax lens prices going up again.  

Are Pentax lens prices going up again?

• PENTAX FULL-FRAME DSLR MYSTERY DEEPENS Pentax Ricoh Imaging will neither confirm nor deny that is working on a full-frame DSLR, following remarks reportedly made by a top official in China.

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• Adobe Photoshop is discontinuing the release of future revisions of its software package. They have decided to sell subscriptions instead. That means working in the clouds, and sometimes that is not possible. You may be in the field where no internet connections are available or where it's very expensive. How are you going to work on your images then? TOP has a complete article about. Must read.

• The latest new Pentax DSLR is the K-30 which was released at the end of  the third quarter of 2012.   The upgraded K-5 (K-5 II / K-5 IIs) were released a little later the same Month. There is no doubt that the K-5 series of DSLRs has been the most successful DSLRs they have produced yet. If you have a K-30 or any of the K-5 series, look at our e-books covering these cameras and many more. 

Click on the e-books below to download a partial sample of the K-5 or K-30 e-books.

See all our e-books for Pentax Cameras.

Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

Merry Christmas from The Blogspot.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Photographer friends,It is hard to think of Christmas as a joyful holiday when we think of all the innocent children that had their life taken away too soon.  The tragedy of Sandy Hill primary school will haunt this Country for a long long time. I have grandchildren and that could have happened to them. We all have innocent children in our life. It is so poignantly sad.

Have you ever had back or front focusing problems? Your problems can be reduced drastically with the Pentax K-01

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

Have you ever had any back or front focusing problems with your DSLR? It's not an uncommon problem with all brands of DSLR cameras. The tolerance of factory settings are often the cause, but most often, it's caused because the light coming into the camera lens is first reflected onto the mirror and through the prism . If the distance from the mirror center to the Matte glass (A) is slightly different than the distance from the mirror center to the sensor surface  (B), or from the mirror center to the AF detectors (C), you will have a back or front focusing problem. That's a lot of elements that have to be just right to work homogeneously.

Well, the Pentax K-01 can solve that problem. The K-01 is not necessarily the fastest auto focus camera in the world, but AF speed and front/back focusing are completely different problems.

The mirror less cameras don't have front or back focusing problems because they don't have any mirror in the pathway. 

That's another reason why I do like the K-01. Admittedly, I would have like an Optical Viewfinder, (OVF) and actually you can use any OVF from other manufacturers, as long as they fit on the flash bracket and the angle of view  matches that of the the lens you are using.  See examples here and  here

Image from Nikon.

Image from Samsung

Image from Pentax

I just thought this would be interesting for the photographers complaining about front or back focusing.

Best Regards,

Yvon Bourque

The Retro looking Pentax K-01 is a really good camera.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

I just don't really understand all the complains about the Pentax K-01. RiceHigh, the fake Pentax friend, is going to great length to discredit the image quality of the K-01. Personally, I have the K-01 and I've been using it for about two Months. I think it's got excellent image quality, right off the camera and in JPEG. 

I took pictures with my K-5, using the new 40mm lens that came with the K-01, used the JPEG format  @ 16MP and took the same images with the K-01. In JPEG, right off the camera, the K-01 images were by far better.  With the K-01, Pentax has produced an entry-level camera that gives excellent results, without the photographer having a degree in photography. Okay, Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but it seems to me that Pentax is finally doing what Nikon and Canon have done for years. The images straight from the camera are processed with more saturation and vibrance that prior models. That's my opinion of course, but the K-5 images in JPEG looked bland compared to the K-01. I haven't compared images from both cameras in RAW format, but that's inconsequential to me as RAW files can really look any way you want to, by using software like Lightroom or Aperture. 

Now for the complains about the lack of EVF or OVF, you really have to try the camera before making a negative judgment.  Side by side, the K-5 has a lot more reflection problems that the K-01, when shooting in Live View. I held the K-01 at noon, with the sunlight on the screen and I had no problem seeing my subject and compose my image.

Because there are no mirror or prism, you know that the Movie Mode is much  better with the K-01. The image quality in Movie Mode is the best that Pentax has produced yet. You can shoot Full HD video at 1080p and at  frame rates ranging from 24 to 60fps. I bet it's as good or maybe even better that the Canon EOS 5D.  For around $700.00 for the K-01 without a lens, I think it's a great deal. 

If you are a people person, this camera will surely start many conversations. I first got the Black model but  soon exchanged it for a "Mark Newson" Yellow camera. I don't care about who Newson is, but I do like the boxy style of the camera and the yellow just adds an even more retro look.

Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

The Pentax K-01, the second-best hybrid sensor.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

Check below for the full review / report from DxOMark

Friday March 30 2012

The Pentax K01, Pentax’s first serious hybrid, turns in a great performance, arriving in second place in its category. All of the results are available here:Pentax K-01.

Overall score:

2nd place among hybrids (79), 17th place across all categories.
Development of the K-01’s sensor was based the same kind of sensor technology used in the Pentax K5 and Nikon D7000 (which share the same Sony 16Mpix sensor), making this comparison relevant: K-01 Vs K5 Vs D7000. The K-01 achieves very good scores in Portrait and in Landscape.

Portrait:

2nd place among hybrids (23.7 bits), 17th place across all categories.

To derive the Portrait score, we analyze the sensor’s capacity to furnish vivid, varied, and accurate colors under good lighting conditions (i.e., studio).

The K-01’s performance is the same as the K5’s - unsurprisingly, since they basically use the same sensor.

Landscape:

2nd place among hybrids (12.9 EV), 15th across all categories.

The K-01’s performance is below that of the K5 - but then, the K-01’s sensor has 12 bits whereas the K5 has 14 bits.

Sport (Low-Light ISO score):

1st place among hybrids (1135), 20th place across all categories.

The Sport score (alias Low-Light ISO score) lets you know how far you can go with regard to ISO without compromising image quality.

The K-01 takes first place on the hybrid camera ranking thanks to its APS-C sensor, which is larger than the majority of hybrid sensors so it captures more light. We will see below just how close its results are to those of its competitors equipped with APS-C sensors.