You won't notice any difference in noise between the K5 and K20D at ISO 200 in flat light. But when I have to use fill in conversion or brighten shadows with dodging, I find that those actions will generate significant noise in the K20 or K7 image but not in the K5 pic. And the few extra megapixels do appear to add some detail resolution in K5 images. I think I can see it in car pics that I shoot off tripods, but I haven't done any side by side, same day tests. I'm not into pixel peeping. But I do know I'd never go back to the K7 or K20. Paul
On May 20, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Bruce Walker wrote: > In the "Something to think about." thread I opined that the D800E was > likely to be in my upward growth path for more useable resolution in > the type of studio shooting I'm doing lately. A few kind PDMLers > suggested that the K-5 might give me what I'm looking for and sent me > some RAW and high-rez JPEGs to compare against. Thank you very much, > Paul, Larry and Boris! > > I pulled all these images into Lightroom, made a gallery of them and > some of my best in-studio (untouched) raws, closely examined eyes and > eyebrows in full-body and head and shoulder portraits, and here's what > I concluded. > > - at ISO 80 (K-5) and 100 (K-5 & K20D), the noise (or complete lack > of) is indistinguishable between them. > > - in all cases, in full-body shots eyebrows are indistinct (read: > fairly blurry smudges). No diff between K-5 and K20D. > > - in head & shoulders portraits, eyes and brows are sharp and > well-resolved and it's very hard to say which is better, but I think > the K-5 may have a very slight edge over the K20D. > > - the lenses being used make more difference than the two bodies. (No > great surprise here.) And Boris's Sigma (whatever it is) is *sweet!* > > - I'll get more resolution improvement by simply using a tripod or > monopod to shoot with rather then upgrading to a K-5. > > > I also grabbed a few D800 head & shoulders portrait images from > DPreview and compared. It's pretty clear that there's a large > improvement in resolution, but it's also hard to see by how much. I'm > convinced that the D800 shots were all done with a tripod, whereas all > of mine and the loaners were hand-held. There is not an order of > magnitude difference in resolution. There were no full-body, f8 or > above, studio lighting D800 shots, so there was nothing for me to > compare there. > > Final conclusion: for my work, K-5 isn't going to help much, if at > all. Jury is still out on if D800E would really shake my world either. > I need to investigate further -- probably rent one. I do have an > acquaintance with one; maybe I can borrow that. > > The good news for me I don't feel so much disadvantaged by my > 2008-vintage kit as I was beginning to. I'm still in the ballgame. :-) > > -- > -bmw > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
