Compared to...

Studio scene comparison (RAW)

For a (more) level playing field for comparison we also shot our studio scene in RAW mode with each camera and converted it using Adobe Camera RAW. Because Adobe Camera RAW applies different levels of sharpening to different cameras (this confirmed) we had to use the following workflow for these conversions:

• Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled)
• Set Sharpness to 0 (all other settings left as default)
• Open file into Photoshop
• Apply a Unsharp mask: 80%, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0
• Save as a TIFF (for cropping) and as a JPEG quality 11 for download

Pentax K100D vs. Pentax *ist DS

Pentax K100D (RAW)	Pentax *ist DS (RAW)
1,945 KB JPEG (3008 x 2000)	1,883 KB JPEG (3008 x 2000)

Equalizing the image processing by shooting RAW and using the same converter delivers a much closer result, with almost no difference between the K100D and *ist DS. This is what we would expect as they share the same six megapixel sensor.