Camera Labs

Great job with the review!

Darrin

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Nikon D40 | Nikkor 18-55 VR | Nikkor 55-200 VR | Voigtländer Ultron 40mm SL-II | Nikon Speedlight SB-400

Bonjour Darrin,

Thanks for the accolade!

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The camera built-in shake reduction makes wonders, but not always. I was suprised to have a 50% rate success so I took a closer look.

When selected, the shake reduction (SR) system is not immediate. When the shutter is half-pressed, the SR system takes typically 1 second (but sometimes a litlle more, but always less than 2 seconds) to stabilize. A symbol appears of the viewfinder, but there is no sound as for the AF. If the shutter is fully pressed before that second, the picture will be soft or blurred.

First shots, a flower at 1.2 meters (4 feet): both at 1/250 f:5.6, ISO 100

Failure first...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596709677/ -

...then success

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596710215/

Full picture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596938364/

Second shots, part of a landscape at 100 meters (330 feet): both at 1/350 f:5.6, ISO 100

Failure first...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596953140

...then success

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596954268

Full picture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596695817

Holding firmly the camera, with all the weight of the camera on the left hand while the right hand is only devoted to press the shutter, helps.

I noticed the shutter speed of my pictures was lower than those taken with the *ist DL. The reason is, the minimum sensitivity is now ISO 100 with the K10D, not ISO 200 as I was used to with the *ist DL. Since the image quality is very similar between ISO 100 and ISO 200, I set the minimum sensitivity to ISO 200 (button Fn, right arrow).

Remember: point, relax, half press, count 2 and shoot! You can breath now.

So, SR could be trusted, but with some easy tips.

_________________
--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Is a 10 M pixels worth the extra cost? Here an answer I haven't expected.

Where's the bird?

1/500 f:8.0 ISO 400, 50-200mm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596700681/

That's better.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/596944174

A 4 x 6 print (10 x 15 cm) doesn't need 10 M pixels. 6 M pixels are enough, or even 3 M pixels. As shown before, a 10 M pixels camera brings the opportunity to crop the pictures and take the best part out of them.

At first, I wasn't sure of the use of 10 M pixels. Now, it proves to be an easy solution for out-of-focus shots and a nice alternative to a costlier tele-zoom.

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--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Hi Rei, these are all great examples! Keep them coming!

One quick Q though - do you know what kind of bird that is? There's a few of them outside my window!

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

The bird is called "chardonneret" in French and Goldfinch in English.

The official Latin name is: Carduelis carduelis

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--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

The K10D rear LCD panel provides a great enhancement over the *ist DL. Thanks to the front and rear dials, reviewing the pictures is faster and easier.

The LCD delivers a colourful and crisp image, and readability under the sun is above average, but don’t expect miracles. Angle of vision is large and comfortable.

Now, picture orientation (landscape or portrait) is recorded during shooting. The picture is shown accordingly: a portrait will be displayed in landscape mode with black stripes at left and right, so no more need to turn the camera 90° clockwise to review a portrait.

Front dial calls next or previous picture, while read dial zooms in or out. Both can be combined. The area zoomed in (with the rear dial) is kept while displaying next picture (with the front dial). In case of multiple shots, this feature is very handy to focus on one detail, then review the multiple pictures and peek the right picture out of the series.

The zoom goes up to 20x, perfect to dig into details and check if the picture is soft or blurred. The OK goes back to normal zoom. While reviewing, the INFO provides all the information one could expect. Nothing new here.

However, there is one major drawback with the LCD in review mode: the panel is not orientation sensitive and all pictures are displayed the same way, regardless of the orientation of the camera during review. When turning the K10D by 90° clockwise, the picture shown remains unchanged.

The same occurs in shooting mode with the INFO button: parameters are always shown on landscape mode even if the camera is ready for a portrait. Same for the HELP panel (if that feature hasn't been switched off in parameters).

Since orientation is recorded during shooting, I don’t understand why the very same captors are not used for reviewing and for the INFO panel.

Shall we wait for an update of the firmware for that feature?

_________________
--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Thanks for the bird tip!

I agree, it's a really useful feature being able to turn the screen and have at least the photo rotate, if not the information too. But sadly it's quite rare.

The Olympus E-410 and E-510 tunr the photo (see the E-510 video), but the only one I know which also turns the shooting info is the Sony A100.

I reckon they could implement the photo turning with a firmware update, but doubt they would bother. It's a feature they probably rejected or didn't consider.

Gordon

Just a combination of the 10 M pixels turned into an extra-zoom and a classic night shot. I didn't use the shake reduction system since I prefered a tripod.

The original picture was slightly improved from the RAW file (contrast and so on) to obtain the final result.

Original picture - Full manual mode 1/45 f:11 ISO 200, center point AF, on a tripod

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/623775398/

Final result

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/622897307

Major difficulty was to avoid the burning effect: at first, the moon was white and the sky black, so I played with speed, diaphragm and sensitivity to obtain more details on the gray area.

I really appreciate the extra-zoom capability brought by the more-than-needed mega pixels and I'm rather surprised by the quality of the picture delivered by the camera.

_________________
--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Nice moon shot Rei!

Yep, it's a really hard object to expose for - you just have to ignore the camera's metering and use a range of shutter speeds until you get a good balance of detail. It's also surprising what focal length you need for it to get anywhere close to filling the frame - believe it or not, you'd need around 2000mm if you wanted it to fill the frame without cropping.

How about trying some long exposure star shots?

Here's some tips: http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=206

Gordon

Bonsoir Gordon,

What a pity: I discovered the thread with tips for star photography today, one day after my shot!

I tried 20 combinations of speeds, diaphragm and sensitivity. One third of the pictures are burned (no detail on the moon, all white), another third are blurred (high wind despite shake reduction [EDIT] and shake reduction switched on with tripod [end of EDIT]).

Next time I have the opportunity to be far away from the city (no light pollution) with a clean sky (no clouds), I'll try to shoot again at the moon with the usefull tips you provide.

Main purpose of my post was to give an idea of the versatility of the K10D: actually, I've never imagined I could obtain such a picture!

_________________
--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Remember to switch off anti-shake if your camera's on a tripod!

After a couple of weeks of use, the idea is to re-shoot the small figure as per 5-Indoor macro http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2837#2837, using a tripod, the remote AF-540FGZ external flash and obviously the K10D, remotely controlled though Remote Assistant. Please note that the external flash is no longer on wireless mode but controlled by the K10D.

I read the specific thread Flowers and macro (close-up) photography > Remote Flash invaluable for Macro Photos first, to avoid discovering basics by myself. Thanks for the tips, tombomba2! Link: http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=190

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Pentax Remote Assistant

The main window provides a view as through the view finder and displays the latest shot. Here, no automatic orientation!


I recommend selecting "Auto save mode" to get auto-numbering of the pictures.
Other modes are not very handy. "Single shot mode" requires manual saving and the proposed filename is always IMPG0001.JPG. "Buffer select mode" shows all the picture, but saving is manual and a name is asked for every picture.


Beware when connecting the camera! Under Mac OS 10.4, launching Remote Assistant first and then connecting the camera could freeze the computer since iPhoto tries to load. So connect the camera first, wait for iPhoto to open, close iPhoto and finally launch Remote Assistant.

The release I use is 3.00. Since some menues remain in Japanese, I expect an update.

[EDIT 1] The window seems very small to me and not big enough to check the details. No zoom is provided. One solution is to keep the directory where pictures are saved ready and to use Preview to have a closer look. [end of EDIT 1]

[EDIT 2] Playing again with the software, I've found how to obtain a bigger viewfinder screen: use the menu View > Separate screen display.
Please see http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7318#7318
Solution provided in EDIT 1 remains unchanged. [end of EDIT 2]

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Taking the pictures

What an installation! The small figurine is placed on an A3 sheet of paper, the K10D is on a tripod (anti-shake switched off, this time I've checked, thanks Gordon ) and connected to my iMac through the supplied USB cable plus an extra one, the AF-540FGZ is on its base and connected to the K10D through the FG hot shoe adapter and the F5P cord.

Both flashes are used: the internal flash and the remote AF-540FGZ flash.

1/8 f11 ISO200, slow speed sync, contrast +1, wide angle panel on the flash

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/651258818/

1/6 f6 ISO200, slow speed sync, contrast +1, wide angle panel on the flash

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/650395449/

1/8 f10 ISO200, slow speed sync, contrast +1, wide angle panel on the flash

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rei_vilo/651259502/

The pictures are more pleasant than those obtained on the first test, 5-Indoor macro.

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--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

I’m very happy with this new camera, which delivers what I was waiting for: ease of use, image quality and an wide open door to creativity. Since I'm only an amateur, I'm sure there are many more features to be discovered and used (among them, the dust removal system and the weather-proof seals I rather prefer not to test on my camera!).

Next step for me: to buy and read a good book about photography to refresh my basics! Any suggestion?

Well, if you're considering the purchase of a K10D, I hope this user review has been helpful.

Should you need some feed-back on specific items, let me know: I'll try to give you an answer.

Best regards from France,

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--- rei_vilo
Pentax K-5 + BG4 + DA* 16-50 + DA* 50-135 + DA* 60-250 + AF-540FGZ
reivilophotography.weebly.com

Rei, what can I say?

Your steadily updated review has been a wonderful read - very informative, useful and it's also been interesting to see how you've learnt the pros and cons of your system.

Thanks again for the time you've spent putting it together!

Gordon

i cant wait for my K10

hopefully it comes soon
maybe in the next week it will be here

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