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Hands-on with the Pentax K-3 II
One of the key features that sets the K-3 II apart from its predecessor is its 'Pixel Shift Resolution' mode. This is a sensor-shifting multi-shot mode, not entirely unlike the one offered by the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II only, but with the key difference that the K-3 II's system does not increase linear resolution.
The K-3 II's system takes four images with a whole pixel shift between each shot. This allows the camera to overcome any color limitations of its Bayer sensor: the sensor is moved so that a red, blue and two green sensors element have captured an image at each location, meaning every output pixel is made up from full color information.
This has two direct benefits: firstly it provides images with full color resolution, meaning better definition at borders between areas of different color, and elimination of false color aliasing (like moiré) from high-frequency patterns. Secondly, as a result of sampling the same point four times, the images will have greatly improved noise characteristics. The other benefits over the Olympus system is that it could be faster, as it only requires four exposures, rather than eight, so there's a lower likelihood of subject movement while the shots are being taken, and that there's no ambiguity about the optimal size to render the end result.
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