The PICT modes are fake IMHO

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

[Started a new thread - the old was at 143 - soon dead]

I was inspired by the earlier discussion about the worth of the PICT modes. I never use them myself - and I just had the general opinion that a camera is really rather simple - no need for modes.

But I did think that the modes did something reasonable and that they worked fine for those that used them. So I thought I should test and see what they did!

But - I found that they virtually did - nothing. They surely look to be a scam IMHO. Lets go through the modes - one by one.

Smiley: Same as P.
Portrait: Same as P.
Mountain: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture.
Tulip: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture, i.e. same as Mountain.
Sports: Same as P.
Night: Same as P.
No Flash: Same as P - but the flash is blocked.

AUTO PICT: Goes seemingly randomly between smiley, sports and one (or two) of the distance modes. I cannot get it to do anything useful, except maybe choosing a smaller aperture for close up and far away pictures sometimes at random. Hmmm ... wonder why it sometimes choose sports? There was no movement in the finder when it did.

The distance modes (Portrait, Mountain, Tulip) do not affect focussing at all. The DS always focus on the nearest focus point if it can choose. Only the tulip and mountain modes have any effect - they prioritise small apertures to increase DOF.

The sports mode do not choose faster exposure time. This is VERY surprising. But - I cannot get it to use shorter exposure time by choosing this alternative.

The night mode should under expose - but it do not. It should do something - but I cannot find what.

So - in conclusion - what is it? What kind of people have designed this?

The only functionality seems to be to choose smaller apertures if you set Tulip or Mountain. But this change of aperture is made even though the camera do not focus nearby or far away, which is totally bogus. Seems better then that Smiley just compensates for that when focussing.

Sorry if someone got disappointed and feels like yelling at me. But this was my honest findings. This was not fun at all.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

Ishpuini · Sep 7, 2006

Just out of curiosity Roland... Did you shoot RAW or JPG?

I'm guessing some difference may be in the JPG settings too? Like less sharpening for portrait... If you shoot RAW these get ignored and indeed the picture modes will result in the same images...

I haven't checked to be honest. I shoot RAW and never use the picture modes myself...

Wim

--
Belgium, GMT+1

LucasRijnders · Sep 7, 2006

Roland Karlsson said:
But - I found that they virtually did - nothing. They surely look
to be a scam IMHO. Lets go through the modes - one by one.

How did you test? What camera, what lens, which lighting conditions? Which settings did the camera propose?

--
Curious, Lucas

Roland Mabo · Sep 7, 2006

Roland Karlsson said:
Smiley: Same as P.

Yes and should be too.

What smiley does is that it sets the camera to the default dummy factory settings (like bright image tone etc). With P-mode, you can have more control over the camera than with the smiley-mode. Smiley-mode blocks settings (greyes them out in the menu) to avoid that tyou change them.

Roland Karlsson said:
Portrait: Same as P.

No. With a wide-angle it sets a small aperture (aiming for a group shot), with a tele it sets a wide aperture (aming for a single-person shot with blurred background). So, it behaves different with different focal lengths. I tried it just now with my DA 18-55. At 18mm (wide) it choosed f/8, at 55 (tele) it choosed f/5.6.

Roland Karlsson said:
Mountain: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture.

Yes, selects smaller aperture to get a deeper depth-of-field, this is true for both wide angle and tele.

Roland Karlsson said:
Tulip: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture, i.e. same as Mountain.

Yes, it sets a small aperture to compensate for the narrow depth of field. but when you get closer to the subject it sets a smaller aperture to compensate for the narrow depth-of-field. But it only really happens at the closest focusing distance.

Roland Karlsson said:
Sports: Same as P.

No, sets the continous autofocus to on.
Tries to set the widest aperture to increase the shutter speed.

Roland Karlsson said:
AUTO PICT: Goes seemingly randomly between smiley, sports and one
(or two) of the distance modes.

Haven't found it to be random.
What it does depends on focal length, focused distance and the light levels.

Seems like the picture modes in my DS does the same thing as they did in my MZ-10.

One thing to consider heer, is that the picture modes always tries to stay above the limit for handshake caused by blur. If you have a grey day with low light levels, like today where I live, the difference between the modes will be small because the camera gets a limited range of available shutter speeds and apertures. I couldn't get it to set smaller than f/8 because of the low light levels today.

Roland Karlsson said:
The distance modes (Portrait, Mountain, Tulip) do not affect
focussing at all. The DS always focus on the nearest focus point if
it can choose.

The picture modes has no impact on the selection of focus points and they shouldn't have.

What we haven't discussed here is the change of colour saturation and contrast levels that the picture modes gives.

Take care
R

Nick61 · Sep 7, 2006

In the K100D, white balance and image tone adjustments are not available in scene/picture modes. The camera defaults to the 'bright' i.e. vivid image tone setting and I find that the captured image can be too saturated in certain conditions.

It would be nice to just flip the camera to one of the scene modes when speed is of the essence but it looks as though the manual modes are required for a more natural looking image.

Nick.
I

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

Hi, I tested with my DS with the kit lens and firmware 2.0.

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Karlsson said:

Smiley: Same as P.

Click to expand...

Yes and should be too.
What smiley does is that it sets the camera to the default dummy
factory settings (like bright image tone etc). With P-mode, you can
have more control over the camera than with the smiley-mode.
Smiley-mode blocks settings (greyes them out in the menu) to avoid
that tyou change them.

OK - of course.

There was some reference to it making better than P, but that I found unlikely. Why make a P that is worse?

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Mabo said:

Portrait: Same as P.

Click to expand...

No. With a wide-angle it sets a small aperture (aiming for a group
shot), with a tele it sets a wide aperture (aming for a
single-person shot with blurred background). So, it behaves
different with different focal lengths. I tried it just now with my
DA 18-55. At 18mm (wide) it choosed f/8, at 55 (tele) it choosed
f/5.6.

OK - portrait equals P only for tele settings. For wide angle you get Mountain mode, i.e. smaller aperture.

So - for what most of us equals to portrat lens setting it is P. Feels rather backward.

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Mabo said:

Mountain: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture.

Click to expand...

Yes, selects smaller aperture to get a deeper depth-of-field, this
is true for both wide angle and tele.

OK

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Mabo said:

Tulip: Same as P - but with a smaller aperture, i.e. same as Mountain.

Click to expand...

Yes, it sets a small aperture to compensate for the narrow depth of
field. but when you get closer to the subject it sets a smaller
aperture to compensate for the narrow depth-of-field. But it only
really happens at the closest focusing distance.

Negative - happens at all focal distances.

Looked closer. It is the same as Mountain in bright light. But gives other result in dim light. But stilll - it is (as far as I can see) independent of distance.

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Mabo said:

Sports: Same as P.

Click to expand...

No, sets the continous autofocus to on.
Tries to sets the widest aperture to increase the shutter speed.

OK - affects continous focus.

Negative - nothing happens with aperture - it is the same as for P. E.g., I had F8.0 1/60 and it was still F8.0 1/60 in sports mode. Tried several - both at tele and wide.

Roland Mabo said:
Roland Mabo said:

AUTO PICT: Goes seemingly randomly between smiley, sports and one
(or two) of the distance modes.

Click to expand...

Haven't found it to be random.

I have tried that lots and lots - I can see no pattern - except setting the distance modes differently depending on distance. With regard to distance modes so - I usually get mountain or portrait at random for a distance of say 3 meters. Rather small mountains

Roland Mabo said:
What it does depends on focal length, focused distance and the
light levels.

Maybe should - but what it does beats me. I can both be inside in a rather uniform environment and low light or outside in a rather uniform environment and see the sympbols flash in the finder. Smiley - Sports - Distance ...

Roland Mabo said:
The picture modes has no impact on the selection of focus points
and they shouldn't have.

Of course they shall - mountains are far away and macro is nearby. It is very important to choose appropriate focus points in those cases. I just feels silly when I try to take a picture of mountains through some bushes and the bushes are sharp in mountain mode. The same for tulip mode if I take photo of a bee and the mountains are sharp. This is the main reason for the tulip button on P&S - to force the camera NOT to focus at distant objects. The Tulip PICT mode shall be the same. It is the only reasonable choice - and it will confuse newbies very much if Tulip mode not is the same as Tulip mode.

Roland Mabo said:
What we haven't discussed here is the change of colour saturation
and contrast levels that the picture modes gives.

I have pushed the info button - nothing happens there. They are all constantly in the middle independent of what I do.

Maybe the camera sets those secretly - but that I cannot really check without doing serious research work.

Thanx for your reply. I missed some things. But it still looks more or less fake. What it does do not motivate using something else than P - or Av if you want control.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

Nick61 said:
It would be nice to just flip the camera to one of the scene modes
when speed is of the essence but it looks as though the manual
modes are required for a more natural looking image.

That's true for the DS also.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

JensR · Sep 7, 2006

Roland Karlsson said:
Roland Karlsson said:

What we haven't discussed here is the change of colour saturation
and contrast levels that the picture modes gives.

Click to expand...

Which is a major point, IMO.

Roland Karlsson said:
I have pushed the info button - nothing happens there. They are all
constantly in the middle independent of what I do.

That is not surprising, the picture modes set the differences internally.

Roland Karlsson said:
Maybe the camera sets those secretly - but that I cannot really
check without doing serious research work.

That's right. But you would have to do so, before proclaiming that the picture modes are "scam", as you did.

Get yourself a colourful target that has enough edges to determine sharpness settings. Set your camera on a tripod and switch through the picture modes, back and forth, several times. Keep notes on what you are doing.

Then, after loading them to your PC, use the eyedropper tool to read out a 5x5 average in each picture for various colours and see how large the standard deviation is among shots with the same picture style and then compare the expectancy value between the images of different picture modes.

I'd do something else with my time, eventhough it might indeed prove how good/bad picture modes really are.

Cheers
Jens

--

'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
http://www.jensroesner.de/

JohnCPentax · Sep 7, 2006

The K100D (and K110D) were designed as entry level cameras. Granted, they have ton of features that advanced photographers use, but the average customer purchasing an SLR in this price range will likely use the auto picture modes a lot. These modes have been in Pentax cameras going all the way back to film days (in the ZX cameras, but I don't remember if they were in the PZ20). The auto picture modes look at:

Focus distance
Focal length information
Subject motion
Metering patterns of the subject

It takes all this information and then selects the appropriate exposure. Every generation of camera that has had this mode has improved on the technology.
--
John C.

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

JensR said:
JensR said:

I have pushed the info button - nothing happens there. They are all
constantly in the middle independent of what I do.

Click to expand...

That is not surprising, the picture modes set the differences
internally.

??? Whats so clever with that ???

If the camera has visible settings for those - why keep it secret ? How shall anyone ever then understand what the camera does? It would be the same as the camera saying that it use F3.5 - but it did not - because it was a PICT mode you used - it did set the F5.6 instead internally. What would be the bright idea doing so?

Either you are wrong - or the PICT modes are more strange than I could imagine.

JensR said:
Get yourself a colourful target that has enough edges to determine
sharpness settings. Set your camera on a tripod and switch through
the picture modes, back and forth, several times. Keep notes on
what you are doing.

Then, after loading them to your PC, use the eyedropper tool to
read out a 5x5 average in each picture for various colours and see
how large the standard deviation is among shots with the same
picture style and then compare the expectancy value between the
images of different picture modes.

I'd do something else with my time, eventhough it might indeed
prove how good/bad picture modes really are.

No - I am not interested in proving anything at all. Everyone can do whatever they like with those modes. This was only a personal reflection; I was surprised.

I just wanted to show my result after wasting one or two hours of my time to try to get the modes to do anything I could use at all. I could not do that. And I am an experienced photographer.

I might be wrong or I might be right. I can admit that I exaggerated. So - I exchange fake for strange.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

JohnCPentax said:
The K100D (and K110D) were designed as entry level cameras.
Granted, they have ton of features that advanced photographers use,
but the average customer purchasing an SLR in this price range will
likely use the auto picture modes a lot. These modes have been in
Pentax cameras going all the way back to film days (in the ZX
cameras, but I don't remember if they were in the PZ20). The auto
picture modes look at:

Focus distance
Focal length information
Subject motion
Metering patterns of the subject

It takes all this information and then selects the appropriate
exposure. Every generation of camera that has had this mode has
improved on the technology.

That might be all fine in theory.

I only know that I could not get my camera to make anything useful with the modes except choose continous focus in sports mode and a larger DOF in tulip and mountain mode. The rest was nothing, marginal or faulty (IMHO).

Roland Mabo's reply showed that I was initially partly wrong. But not wrong enough (IMHO) to not call the modes strange. So I exchanged the word fake for strange

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

JensR · Sep 7, 2006

Roland Karlsson said:
Roland Karlsson said:

Roland Karlsson said:

constantly in the middle independent of what I do.

Click to expand...

That is not surprising, the picture modes set the differences
internally.

Click to expand...

??? Whats so clever with that ???
If the camera has visible settings for those - why keep it secret ?

Umm, the picture modes are not intended for people who want to know. If you wonder what they do, you are not in the intended audience.

Roland Karlsson said:
How shall anyone ever then understand what the camera does? It
would be the same as the camera saying that it use F3.5 - but it
did not - because it was a PICT mode you used - it did set the F5.6
instead internally. What would be the bright idea doing so?

One thing are exposure parameters which are recorded in the Exif, the others are not recorded. As Roland tried to explain, the picture modes do not only set visible parameters. For example, landscape is supposed to enhance red and blue, whereas portrait gives warmer colours. And you seem not to have taken these changes into account at all, so you basically ignored roughly 50% of the variable parameters.

Roland Karlsson said:
I just wanted to show my result after wasting one or two hours of
my time to try to get the modes to do anything I could use at all.
I could not do that. And I am an experienced photographer.

I'll take your word for it. However, I wonder why you noticed no difference between Portrait and P, for example.

Cheers
Jens

--

'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
http://www.jensroesner.de/

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

JensR said:
Umm, the picture modes are not intended for people who want to
know. If you wonder what they do, you are not in the intended
audience.

Then it is like religion. You don't have to understand or prove anything It is enough to believe

JensR said:
As Roland tried to explain, the
picture modes do not only set visible parameters. For example,
landscape is supposed to enhance red and blue, whereas portrait
gives warmer colours. And you seem not to have taken these changes
into account at all, so you basically ignored roughly 50% of the
variable parameters.

What would you be prepared to bet ragarding this

I mean if someone made the measurements.

Personally I have no idea so I will not bet at all.

But you seem rather sure

JensR said:
I'll take your word for it. However, I wonder why you noticed no
difference between Portrait and P, for example.

Because I made the (faulty) assumption that you don't take portraits at wide angle.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

parallaxproblem · Sep 7, 2006

JohnCPentax said:
The K100D (and K110D) were designed as entry level cameras.
Granted, they have ton of features that advanced photographers use,
but the average customer purchasing an SLR in this price range will
likely use the auto picture modes a lot. These modes have been in
Pentax cameras going all the way back to film days (in the ZX
cameras, but I don't remember if they were in the PZ20). The auto
picture modes look at:

If this is the case, then why do the DS and DL use the exposure strategy they do?

This is a genuine question on my part... I think it is pretty well proven that both models tend to underexpose (preserve highlights?) and their resulting images benefit from post-processing, in which the initial exposure may (or may not) allow recovery of more detail from the image

Surely the 'average customer' you mention in your text would rather have a 'Canon-Type' exposure response and wouldn't be too bothered about blown highlights etc... I therefore see an incongruity here regarding the importance of Picture modes on the bodies to the way those bodies then interpret exposure readings

Exposure performance of Pentax cameras is a continual bone of contention on this site and many people on this forum are very keen to have an explanation of its underlying strategy and, putting it simply, why our pictures often come out 'a little dark'

If you could put some light on this then I'm sure we would be very grateful....

Regards!

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

... correct me if I am wrong.

Several here have pointed out that the modes are old. They can be traced back to the MZ series of film cameras.

In those days there was not any multiple sensor distance measurements. It was just one senor.

With only one senor you cannot choose distance measurement point. So, the mountain, tulip and portrait modes could not choose the best distance. It could maybe have refused to take mountains at 10 cm distance - but that would be irritating.

So - when the digital camears got several distance measuremet points - then Pentax kept the old meaning with the tulip, mountain and portrait mode.

Can it be so?

A P&S compact on the other hand has millions of points to meassure distance at. So - it can do whatever it like. So - they defined a better functionality for Tulip - to force nearby things to be sharp.

Then - unfortunately - those modes have the same symbol but different functionality.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

tknterry · Sep 7, 2006

Rupert,

Thats also the impression I got hahahahaha Will I ever be redeemed from my mementary use of a scene mode when I first got my dSLR or am I condemned to a life of scorn and eternal usage of a disposable camera?
---Terry http://www.photostuff.org/
Quoted by Rupert in the other Pict Mode thread that maxed out at 150 posts!:

"I thought this was over and settled? Here is the bottom line/recap of this thread: If you use picture modes then you are a sniveling, weasel of a whimp with no future hope of ever getting a good shot in your lifetime, and best suited for shooting with $2.99 disposable cameras. Your entire personality and manliness is determined the second you turn that dial to Picture mode and you will be scorned and despised by real he-man shooters for eternity. Did I leave anything out? LOL"
--
'This is more serious than I thought.....but it is still fun!
http://www.pbase.com/rupertdog Take a look- It's Free!

Roland Karlsson · Sep 7, 2006

tknterry said:
Rupert,
Thats also the impression I got hahahahaha
...

So - you like to make fun of other posters posts and opinions?

So much that you even copies such a reply from another thread - so we can admire how witty it is.

No - no one cares whether you use PICT modes or not. The diiscussion is about what those modes does - if they do anything useful at all. If this is some kind of critique - then it is Pentax that should be the target. Not you. If you feel hit - thats your problem.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/

wlachan · Sep 7, 2006

Basically what PIC modes do is each has its own program line which defines what aperture or shutter speed to use whenever possible. They aren't that useless really when you are in a hurry and don't have time to mess with aperture or shutter manually. AUTO PIC will choose which mode to use depends on, surprise! the shooting distance of the lens. If you turn the focus ring slowly, you should be able to get a pattern on how it chooses. But I am surprised you failed to notice these since you are a programmer.

--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan

JensR · Sep 7, 2006

Roland Karlsson said:
What would you be prepared to bet ragarding this

How much money do you have? =)

Roland Karlsson said:
But you seem rather sure

I did a quick test and the result is clear that colour changes with the different modes. Just as different Shutter/aperture/ISO combinations get chosen with the picture modes.

Whether all this makes sense is another question. I think the idea of picture modes changing colour makes sense for JPEG shooters and that it can be beneficial to have some logic matching shutter speed and aperture. After all, P-mode is even worse because one doesn't even tell the camera what it should assume. And yet, great images can be captured with P-mode. Sadly, the current implementation of picture modes makes them not very useful for advanced use.

Jens

--

'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
http://www.jensroesner.de/

Rupert60 · Sep 7, 2006

I hope everyone knew I was joking, but there is an attitude that "real shooters" don't use Pict modes, and that is absolutely correct IMO. I will tell you why I think they are there, even though, as you pointed out they are not very effective. The Pentax advertising said my DS was so simple to use that I could get a good pic in 60 seconds or get my money back. Well, I didn't know aperature from avacoda or tv from television, so I put the dial on the smiley, and guess what? I got a nice shot! I'm not the only one that was totally green, so they covered the bases. We went on a trip right away and most all of my shots were in the Pict modes, because I knew nothing else, and those shots are still my most viewed on Pbase (Texas Hill Country). Which I guess goes to say I'm still not as good as the Pic modes! LOL Anyhow, I got a lot of shots to remember that trip by that I would otherwise not have made. It has nothing to do with he-men shooters, I was just giving newbies a hard time, and apologize for any misunderstanding. Rupert
--
'This is more serious than I thought.....but it is still fun!
http://www.pbase.com/rupertdog Take a look- It's Free!

The PICT modes are fake IMHO

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