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Here is my detailed description of my “new” camera complete with photos!
If you’re interested in the specs, here they are!
It came with quite an array of accessories, the previous owner was clearing out, and included a “boat-load” of stuff! This deal was found on craigslist.org, and came with the following:
- Pentax K-5 DSLR
- SMC DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6ED AL [IF] DC WR (lens)
- 100mm f/4 manual macro lens
- 50mm f/2 manual lens
- 35-70mm f/2.8-3.5
- Vivitar Automatic Extension Tubes
- Two 4 GB cheap SD cards
- Yongnuo YN-560 Speedlite
- Pelican Hard Case
- Tiffen 67mm CPL
- Bower 62mm CPL
- Hoya ND x8 filter
- Cowboy Studios wireless shutter release
- A Pentax IR shutter release
- Shoot wired intervalometer/shutter release
- A cheap Targus Tripod
- Adorama Slinger Camera Bag
- And several UV filters
- A Double AA Battery Charger with 4 AA rechargeables
It was advertised as $750 for just the camera with kit lens for quite a while, then the price dropped to $700, then $650, then $599. Final selling price? $580.00
I am REALLY impressed with everything about it. The ergonomics took a while to get used to, and just the general “feel” of it. Seeing as I’m upgrading from an entry-level Canon EOS REBEL T3 to an “Advanced Amateur” camera, that’s understandable. There is just no comparison between my “old” and my “new” camera. Just for fun, I compared them on snapsort.com Naturally, the higher end camera won, hands down. So, I decided to compare it to something a little more formidable. Something like the Canon 5D MkII! I would have compared it to the newer 5D MKIII, but since the Pentax is quite old, I compared with something a bit older for a more fair comparison. I won’t spoil the surprise, so you’ll have to see the results for yourself!
- This topic was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .
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That’s a good question! I really need to get rid of it, as I have to pay for my “new” camera now! I’m thinking my cousin might take it, but if not, I’ll have to find a good home for it. Do you know anyone who needs a Canon DSLR setup with a couple of lenses?
Hope something works out there fore you @buddingphotographer and @tjons.
@buddingphotographer, now that you have some experience with your Pentax, what do you think of the shutter-lag, position of buttons, features in the menus and overall image quality? Does it have in-camera image stabilizer? Would like to see what you think of the in-camera HDR too.Surprised at the 5Dii comparison. 🙂 You’ve got a great camera there, but I wouldn’t trade full frame for anything. 🙂
Shutter lag is definitely less than on my Rebel T3! According to snapsort.com it is about 1/3 the lag, and I would agree with that.
Position of buttons, that’s still a bit of a struggle for me. Of course, as with any new camera, it takes a while to get used to the different layout, and I’m definitely getting better at it. I struggle the most with the control dials. The K-5 has two, and I’m constantly using the wrong one. One is for zooming in playback mode, the other one will scroll through the pictures, and in my opinion, they are backwards. I nearly always use the wrong one.
Features in the menus is where Pentax has Canon beat by a long shot! (At least Canon’s entry level DSLRs. I don’t have any experience with the menus in Canon’s high-end DSLRs) You can customize nearly everything!
In my opinion, Pentax overdoes it with the Mode dial though. It has the regular P/Tv/Av/M modes, but then it also has Sv, and TAv modes. I’m not even exactly sure how they work! I’m pretty sure that Sv stands for ‘Sensitivity value’, but why you would need that, I do not know. Isn’t that essentially what the ‘P’ mode is? It adjusts the shutter speed/aperture value automatically based on the ISO speed which you select. In ‘TAv’ mode, you can set the shutter speed/aperture value, and the camera automatically selects the ISO speed. One good thing about the mode dial is that ‘Bulb’ mode is a separate setting, instead of being buried underneath the shutter speed settings in Tv mode.
Overall image quality: Well, I’m not really sure how to answer. There are so many different factors in the word ‘Quality’ The dynamic range is unquestionably better, and the color rendering also seems to be much better. I found that with my Canon, I was often having to bump the ‘Vibrance’ slider in Lightroom up 20-30. Of course, I think the lens has a lot to do with the color in the image, and that could be the differentiating factor here. At first I was quite disappointed with the “Image Quality” when viewing RAW files at 100%. They almost looked like JPG files with high compression! But I found out that FastStone Image Viewer apparently does not have the correct codec for reading DNG files from a Pentax camera. Lightroom definitely does a better job at rendering RAW previews in this case.
Yes, the K-5 does have in-camera, or sensor-shift stabilization. That is a big bonus in my case, because the none of the lenses that came with it have stabilization! I can use any old lens with stabilization! For Canon, you have to purchase an ‘IS’ (Image Stabilization) lens, otherwise, you have to buy a tripod. 🙂
In-camera HDR is one thing that I haven’t tried yet, but I will, and report back on that.
Attached is a comparison of Lightroom and FastStone Image Viewer seeing the same RAW file. I turned off all of Lightroom’s panels, so that absolutely no corrections were being made. Lightroom on the right, FastStone on the left. As you can see, FastStone exhibits strange artifacts rather like JPG artifacts.
[EDIT] I just did a little research, and it turns out that FastStone is reading the embedded JPG preview from the original DNG file. That would explain the compression artifacts, and the sharpening visible in FastStone’s preview.
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Thank you, @buddingphotographer, for your detailed response. Perhaps with all the customization options, you could switch the function of the two control dials. I know that’s something that is possible on most higher-end digital cameras these days.
Perhaps the modes are overdone, but they sound like they may be helpful for various situations as you continue to explore and experiment. It certainly sounds like you have plenty of things to play around with!
Perhaps with all the customization options, you could switch the function of the two control dials. I know that’s something that is possible on most higher-end digital cameras these days.
Good Idea! I did some research, but unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any such option. 🙁
You can customize nearly everything!
Unfortunately, I seem to have spoken too soon on that!
I just came across some high ISO pictures that I had taken a while back, so I decided to try out Lightroom’s Noise Reduction on them and see what I could get. I was quite pleased with the results! Of course, when you shoot at ISO 40,000 you can’t expect high-quality results, but they’re still acceptable, at least in certain conditions!
For the grainy results, I turned off every Lightroom module, so that not even the default value of 25 for sharpening was applied.
Then I applied the settings shown below:
- This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .
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You know, that’s interesting that you brought that up, because I didn’t know anything about it till @virginiajenkins asked about grainy images in Exporting from Lightroom Question Then I found a video from adobe.com on using the Lightroom Noise Reduction panel, which showed what the ‘Color’ slider in the noise reduction panel does. I have never fooled with it, I guess most people leave it at the default setting of 25.
Just for fun, I found a night-time picture that I took while I was in Africa, and popped it into Lightroom. It was taken at ISO 6400, so I certainly had a lot of noise to work with!
Here’s a before and after Lightroom edit. (click to bring up images in the lightbox.)
Next, here are 3 crops showing different NR settings. The first one is all noise reduction off.
Next, only the color slider was changed, from 0 to 25.
Third, the NR settings are: Luminance 45 – Detail 75 – Color 25.
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