Boris, That's an unrealistic expectation. Both the *ist D and *ist DS are very competent cameras. You will not see major improvements at web resolution rendering between them and the K10D if you are exploiting their capabilities to the fullest.
I've been completely unconcerned with the expected advantages of the K10D regarding image quality: I knew in advance that it would have improved resolution for large prints, that the upper bound of noise and sensitivity would not be a problem for me, etc. That's why all the picayune whinging about it has been nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Pentax has built a very fine camera in the D, DS and other siblings ... the K10D continues in that tradition with new capabilities regards color balance adjustability, better capture handling, speed and responsiveness, etc. In these preliminary snapshots, I'm testing more the camera's dynamics in use and new features. I'm still in the "getting to know you" stage of K10D ownership ... I find the *ist DS to be a very very competent camera and I'm looking for what the K10D offers that improves upon it, for my use. So far: - The overall speed and responsiveness of the K10D, both AF and IO systems, is an huge plus and worth the additional bulk and weight. - The metering system seems to be more consistent and closer to the corrent calibration for RAW capture. - The color balance control system is extremely good ... I'm still learning it, but it's the first camera I've used where i might want to use in-camera JPEG capture intentionally. - I like the fact that nearly all the features of the DS I never used ... the program presets ... are gone and replaced with features that I likely *will* use. - The Shake Reduction system will extend some of my hand-held capabilities. - The exposure bracketing options and feedback are the *best* I've seen in any camera ... this is the first camera since I've had the feature available that I consider it actually useful. - The K10D offers nuance beyond what the *ist DS offers. Image quality seems right up to par, meets my expectations for improvement over the DS. Noise is well controlled, and the bias to resolution and detailing vs smoothness is what I prefer: I can always smooth things myself, but I can't add detail. Because a complete first impression should include what I don't like ... Well, the only thing I can think of is that if I were designing the two-wheel control system, I would have placed the front wheel more to the inside of the grip and maybe at a slight angle to make it easier to use. And I might have used a different lever design on the focus mode switch to allow it to be operated without looking at it more easily. Both of these things seem to be mostly a matter of ergonomic accommodation at this point in time: I'll adapt as I get my musculature trained for the new control positions and movements. One of the things I was testing in this first set of photos was not the camera itself at all ... It was how well using Adobe Camera Raw with the in-camera DNG format RAW files would work, since Adobe has not yet released a version of Camera Raw or Lightroom that supports K10D PEF files. There's been some debate on this topic between myself and a couple of friends who's opinions I usually find credible. We disagree about Camera Raw ... They prefer Silkypix, which I find near to unusable due to its UI although it produces very good quality RAW conversions. So one of my goals in this first exploration was to see whether I could get the kind of results I would be satisfied with using Camera Raw or whether I needed to move to a different RAW processing application and workflow to get my work done. I'm happy so far that I can get what I want out of my current tool set, I'm not yet finished convincing myself that I can get the same or better quality than the others produce. Godfrey On Dec 12, 2006, at 2:43 AM, Boris Liberman wrote: > Godfrey, I would have expected some very immediate, some popping > improvement over *istD(S). I am not seeing it. These are all fine > pictures, and you're very strong photographer indeed, however, I don't > see anything that will tell me - look, Boris, this is where K10D > outdoes all its older brothers and sisters... > > Just my pixels. > > On 12/12/06, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Aside from speed testing, that is. >> >> I went for a walk today and filled a 2G card with K10D RAW/DNG >> exposures. I put the FA20-35 on it, used autofocus almost >> exclusively, and just went snapping around the neighborhood. About >> 120 some exposures in all fit on a 2G card. >> >> I processed the DNGs with my usual RAW conversion workflow in ACR. No >> noise reduction or sharpening applied, only standard RAW processing >> parameters on the adjustment panel. (BTW, I set ACR options to do >> sharpening as preview only, so absolutely NO sharpening was applied >> in RAW conversion.) No other processing done in Photoshop afterwards, >> other than to size and render for my standard web formats with >> Actions ... same ones I use for everything I post. The only thing I >> had to do different was turn off ACR's Auto processing defaults. >> >> http://homepage.mac.com/godders/neighborhood-K10D/ >> >> Please note that there are thumbnails on the index page, normal web- >> size pix on the individual pages, and "half-rez" renderings that open >> into a separate window if you click on the normal web-size pix on the >> individual pages... -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
