I started to write a long diatribe here about the sensors,
electronics, firmware, etc. But it all pointed towards one thing.
You get what you pay for, when you pay for it.
If you pay the big bucks, you get the better gear.
If you wait, better cameras will come online over time.
It's interesting reading the heritage of the various cameras and their
parts. It's rare that any of that knowledge will counteract the above
sentences at any given time.
On Jun 29, 2010, at 13:52 , Adam Maas wrote:
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 3:39 PM, <27...@comcast.net> wrote:
Well I am glad that my NOISE post is still alive. It is bad that
Pentax did not make a better sensor for the K7. If they could do it
in the KX, why not the K7. I guess the money issue (make more money
with the K7 first and then bring out the KX and by this time most
people have already bought the K7 and so now they will buy the KX.
Pentax doesn't make sensors, yet. They buy off the shelf. Perhaps, but
unlikely, they will put up the money to get exclusive rights to a
super sensor a few months before anyone else. They most likely have
several physical camera bodies ready to go, at least in prototype, and
choose the sensor prior to the start of limited pre-production on the
one they are price pointing. They probably pay to have the latest
generic processing software customized and placed in firmware, unless
it comes from the sensor manufacturer, as they are tied together so
closely. Most of the parts to any of their cameras are made, even
designed, elsewhere.
Pentax is an optical company. They know how to make good cameras, and
many other optically based instruments. They have great engineers and
designers that are the source of their exclusive features. It's
possible, but I don't think, that they have crews of software
engineers and sensor engineers on their staff.
Pentax used a brand new sensor for the K-x, which Sony introduced
later (the A500 is the only other camera using the new 12MP part, it
was announced 3 weeks before the K-x but shipped 2 months afterwards).
The K-7 was announced 5 months earlier than the K-x when the two new
Sony sensors were not yet available and there's good reason to believe
the K-7's launch had been pushed back from PMA, some 8 months before
the K-x showed up. Nikon's D5000, released midway between the K-7 and
K-x even uses the older version of the K-x sensor and Nikon most
likely had first dibs on the part. Pentax could have used the older
Sony 12MP sensor that the K-x sensor was derived from, but then the
K-7's noise performance would have been about a stop worse than the
K-x anyways and it would have been a spec downgrade from the K20D.
Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com
http://gallery.me.com/jomac
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