Anyone prefers K-1 over the K-1 II?

Dear Manzur,

I have K1 and I do not have K1ii.

The difference regarding the noise reduction will become visible at higher ISO.

I do a lot of macro work where I want as much detail as possible on the one hand - and as I am working without tripod in the field I have to work with higher ISO pretty often to get the short exposure times at a small aperture and not too much impact from the flash (I like to keep the natural light dominat).

In these situations I sometimes would like to have K1ii as you have a much easier post-processing if your RAWs are free from noise.

If I think about your photography (which I like very much!) I would guess that most of the times you are within an ISO range where you will see no difference between K1 and K1ii.

The K1ii offers Pixel Shift without using a tripod. This may be an aspect that could be important for your kind of work. 36 MP is lots of resolution and you hardly need more (I address here to other bramds using multiple exposure to blow up resolution). But more accurate and rich colours is something that could be a significant improvement for your work.

Best regards

Holger

Both are excellent cameras,however a used K-1 for 1000usd ish,is great value compared to a new mk2.It leaves spare $ to put towards the 85.

A used mk2 for 1500 ?Theres still cash to subsidise the lens.

Then the baked in RAW comes free with mk2.

I didn't upgrade for a number of reasons but those that did seem to be happy to see their 1800 body go to 2300.

Both bodies are quite outdated at the moment. K-1 II is not a major upgrade compared to K-1. Some advance in AF-C but if that is what you are after .. then you'll be probably disappointed anyway as Pentax is generally lagging behind competition in this aspect.

I decided not upgrade my K-1 when this was possible but rather wait for a proper upgrade. Newer chip, AF module and more features like better video etc.

K-1 is a nice camera. I like it a lot ... but probably not really comparable with modern mirrorless cameras especially in AF and video.

Best,

Marek

MarBa wrote:

Both bodies are quite outdated at the moment.

Best,

Marek

Not outdated for landscape photography - in fact I would still place the K1 (ii) tops. It has built in astrotracer, great built in interval shooting or 4k video timelapse in camera no post required. And even Thomas Heaton should try one since he loves the square crop so much: the K1 has that built in and in Live view it really changes how you compose a shot - not to mention its way superior pixel shift than any other brand.

Astrotracer... Yes. That is true. The rest is not so important and for landscape you want resolution and K1 is not at the top anymore.

Don't take me wrong, it's a nice camera. I for example also like GPS on it. But for all of these things, like GPS, time lapse, crop etc., there are other solutions. So I would not recommend K1 to anyone who is not already a Pentax user.

Many cameras are better. And ... Because of support of third party manufacturers of glass .. you can also get systems that are overall cheaper even if the body itself is more expensive for other brands.

I also started to feel that OVF is overrated and a good electronic VF is better.

Alex Sarbu wrote:

Fotoni wrote:

Five hundred from vague AF performance improvement and the rest is just software tweaking for convenience which you cannot even turn off.

Nonsense. The upgrade option - your choice if you do it or not - was unprecedented, nowhere else can you send your camera and receive it transformed into the next model. Ricoh Imaging deserves kudos for that.

500 was reasonable; as it implies changing the mainboard, update the software and perform various calibrations in service. Services are expensive.

And the demand was so great they had to extend the time limit.

Alex

And here in the UK, not everyone who applied to have their K1 updated before the deadline got the update (me for one). Not only was £500 cheap for the labour involved, it also meant a warranty extension.

I would have spent the money to get it, bit it's not the end of the world that I didn't

James O'Neill wrote:

Alex Sarbu wrote:

Fotoni wrote:

Five hundred from vague AF performance improvement and the rest is just software tweaking for convenience which you cannot even turn off.

Nonsense. The upgrade option - your choice if you do it or not - was unprecedented, nowhere else can you send your camera and receive it transformed into the next model. Ricoh Imaging deserves kudos for that.

500 was reasonable; as it implies changing the mainboard, update the software and perform various calibrations in service. Services are expensive.

And the demand was so great they had to extend the time limit.

Alex

And here in the UK, not everyone who applied to have their K1 updated before the deadline got the update (me for one). Not only was £500 cheap for the labour involved, it also meant a warranty extension.

Right; you only had to register before the time limit.

I would have spent the money to get it, bit it's not the end of the world that I didn't

I did, it wasn't necessarily the best idea - I could have sold the K-1 and bought a new K-1 II for example (I got burned with the shipment cost to Germany, which added to the cost). Or, I could've simply saved the money, over 500 extra euros for the new lenses (and future camera).

Alex

I was going to send my K1 in for the conversion but after the poor experience I had with Precision Camera on the repair of my K3 there was no way I was going to let them touch a perfectly working K1.

That was my instinct as well, even if I had wanted changes. But it was a novel option Pentax afforded their customers, albeit a good bit may have been possible with a simple firmware update.

Astrotracer... Yes. That is true. The rest is not so important and for landscape you want resolution and K1 is not at the top anymore.

True, but the one Sony is about the only option with a significant resolution advantage and equivalent DR, but it has other usability issues that would make it substantially less enjoyable than a K1....not to mention it's special "baked-in" wallet flattening algorithm.

Many cameras are better. And ... Because of support of third party manufacturers of glass .. you can also get systems that are overall cheaper even if the body itself is more expensive for other brands.

Umm, YMMV, can't agree on that, but other manufacturers do have more extensive lens options.......Pentax' selection is still quite adequate for landscapes however.

I also started to feel that OVF is overrated and a good electronic VF is better.

Feel just the opposite here.....this interminable EVF prattle just doesn't play out in real world usage.

Pentax645 wrote:

Astrotracer... Yes. That is true. The rest is not so important and for landscape you want resolution and K1 is not at the top anymore.

True, but the one Sony is about the only option with a significant resolution advantage and equivalent DR, but it has other usability issues that would make it substantially less enjoyable than a K1....not to mention it's special "baked-in" wallet flattening algorithm.

What about the colours of Sony (not everybody loves them) and the menu. While the first aspect is related to IQ and very important to me, the second aspect may be important to for practical reasons.

Many cameras are better. And ... Because of support of third party manufacturers of glass .. you can also get systems that are overall cheaper even if the body itself is more expensive for other brands.

Umm, YMMV, can't agree on that, but other manufacturers do have more extensive lens options.......Pentax' selection is still quite adequate for landscapes however.

I also started to feel that OVF is overrated and a good electronic VF is better.

Feel just the opposite here.....this interminable EVF prattle just doesn't play out in real world usage.

Dear Manzur Fahim,

I would like to remind you of a strange attitude of Pentax not delivering thier cameras with settings of their cameras for best results but just with mdeium settings.

Thus, you should tweak the Pentax camera first for your personal needs and not use it just "out of the box".

I found the little program that comes with the camera pretty useful for this job. Just shoot a few RAWs from every day objects and situations of your work. Then go into the program and find most settings of the camera there. Now, you can play around with the settings of the JPG machine and make it your personal favourite. Without this process you will hardly like the Pentax JPG output.

There is also an opition for imporved portraits in the settings (two types) that can help to get good portraits without post-processing. But these options include some more sophisticated calculations and it will slow down the speed of the camera even more. This is the reason why I still do this work in post-processing. Maybe K1ii will be faster with this option.

Best regards

Holger

If you can find a new K-1 get it over the K-1 II. It doesn't worth the extra cost and you don't get baked RAWs.