Most underestimated camera currently available

miles green wrote:

Ergo607 wrote:

I did the upgrade (kudos Ricoh for offering this!) and I have nothing but praise. The K-1 was already a remarkable camera, but with the upgrade (which it makes an MkII) Ricoh/Pentax puts the bar a great deal higher.

First and foremost, and just to get it out of the way, IQ is excellent and I have yet to find the detail-eating and cooked files of which this site (and others) speak. Images are very detailed and noise free, more or less what the K-1 did. If anything, I find the images to have less colour noise but all in all, between K-1 and MkII there is not a lot to it.

AF has been improved, not so much in speed, but in precision. In low light, the K-1 hunted now and again (and sometimes failed to focus), but that is gone with the upgrade. I've yet to fault the AF, it just locks focus without hesitation, no matter the circumstances.

Under the hood, there are also some things changed. Exposure is now much more precise (on the K-1 I has to dial in -0,5/-1 stop and that is gone.)

All in all, I am very happy to have done the upgrade.

I also did the upgrade and fully agree with everything you said.

Thank you!

As far as the grading goes:

While i have no (more) complaints shooting my kids in action, i realize that cameras like the D5 will lock focus like superglue, and others like the Olympus em1x will do 20 fps... So i wouldn't give full marks.

While I agree that there are probably better camera's in that department and while I have yet to do any action photography with the MKII, I feel that I would have close to 100% keepers rate if I were to do any. It used to be different with Pentax. That is why I rated it at the maximum. I have zero interest in high frame rates. In fact, I don't recall ever having machine-gunned a photo scene... But even if for someone else the 4 fps wouldn't be enough, those persons can read a spec sheet, I guess.

For landscapes the K1ii is so refined, it should get at least one extra bar above maximum!

Fully agree, IQ is top notch!