Web Analytics RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: An Experienced Pentax User's Trial on the K-7, Firmware Version 0.30

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

An Experienced Pentax User's Trial on the K-7, Firmware Version 0.30

See:-

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/62819-experiences-new-k-7-camera-lots-imgs.html

(by experienced Pentax DSLR user Frank (Fengwei))

His report is self-explanatory. The non-testing photos posted look good and nice. In addition to what he has described and mentioned, I would like to add a few remarks:-

1. All his photos were produced by shooting RAW and then converted by Adobe Photoshop CS4. So, they are not direct images produced by the camera. And some sharpening was applied as told.

2. I don't agree that the Tungsten/Yellow Light Front Focusing Issue has been completely resolved. As seen from the posted test shots, Front Focusing disappeared ONLY IF the White Balance is Correct(ed). So, it seems that the hardware is still unable to detect the focus correctly under Yellow Light BUT it is just that the errors are corrected/compensated with reference to the colour temperature detected/measured. Of course, such kind of *software adjustment* for the correct focus point will not be totally reliable as it is just a *software algorithm* afterall.

3. Well, other than the above issue, I need to say those posted photos look very nice, in terms of image quality, sharpness and colour rendition. Skin tones are nice, too. Frank used some excellent Pentax lenses, though. Of course this contributes much to the high image quality. As for the kit lens, I think the colour saturation is just too high for the produced results. But then a proper/appropriate software setting or custom image setting could be used in conjunction to adapt for the characteristics of the kit lens, I think.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous10/6/09 15:50

    "As seen from the posted test shots, Front Focusing disappeared ONLY IF the White Balance is Correct(ed)."
    Look again. You're talking about 'K-7 + FA77 under Tungsten light w/ subtle AWB correction:' and 'K-7 + FA77 under Tungsten light w/ strong AWB correction:', right? - as the other test shots are made with the K10D and K20D.
    Well, the focus is about the same in both shots.

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  2. No, I think I have been mistaken for the K10 and K20 FF shots and thought those were also taken with the K-7. Btw, there is no K-7 with "incorrect" WB to see if it is just a software adjustment or the hardware can see the right focus no matter what colour the light source is.

    Its good to learn that the K-7 seems to be able to see the right focus under Yellow Light preliminarily, though.

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  3. Anonymous11/6/09 20:58

    Maybe you should correct misleading statements in your blog entry? Those samples where taken with AUTO WB and show a proper focus AND AUTO WB correction for tungsten light. There is no "incorrect" WB settings for K-7, because as you can see it can automatically correct WB in tungsten light pretty good (I think the best among all DSLRs so far). BTW, did you miss specs saying that K-7 has a light color detector in the AF system?

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  4. Anonymous13/6/09 20:07

    It still not fixed, and I'm afraid it would never be. RiceHigh, you admitted you were wrong, but why hiding this as a comment? Not everyone is reading those comments... or, is this an intended purpose, of never correcting such errors, just let them be despite all the evidence?

    ReplyDelete