Who else is waiting for K 3 Mark 3 MONOCHROME?

MarBa wrote:

Except ... if you always require -1.5EV, your range on top is now not +/- 5EV.

So .. yes .. I generally agree .. but a global EV correction is a good thing.

I think that in practice, in most (if not all) circumstances, this would not pose a problem, given the K1's dynamic range.

In circumstances where you'd apply some bracketing to use the full range of +5 to -5 EV, you could revert to the M-mode, or use a filter (ND or colour-filter)

Krummj wrote:

One thing is that you could have the proper processing in-camera to create a monochrome DNG. Right now converted cameras have to use third party software to convert (except Leica). And then perhaps better control of dust. I noticed my converted camera is a little more dust prone, and I suspect the new glass layer might not resist it as much as the factory ones. Also, proper lens profiles for mirrorless cameras that have them built in. The Monochrom2DNG software gives me a file that looks great, but Lightroom thinks it has no built in lens profile (Z lenses). This isn't so much a problem with DSLR's, as they use external profiles.

Shooting with a monochrome only camera is addictive, and the more I do it, the more I like it.

Yes, I still can apply lens profiles to Monochrome2DNG converted files, just should do it manually, but profiles work.
In many cases I use original glass elements to protect converted sensor plus some more advanced models retain ultrasonic dust removal (K-5IIs, K-3/3II, K-1). In case original filter can't be retained I use replacement filter with anti-reflective layer and oleophobic layer.

Monochrome whatever is waste of production. I'd rather like to see K3IV with XT-5 40Mpix sensor, comparable AF and articulating LCD.

xmeda wrote:

Monochrome whatever is waste of production. I'd rather like to see K3IV with XT-5 40Mpix sensor, comparable AF and articulating LCD.

I think we will see a k3iii monochrome if we look at what Pentax think. Ricoh is trying to walk in the same way of Leica.

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zakaria wrote:

xmeda wrote:

Monochrome whatever is waste of production. I'd rather like to see K3IV with XT-5 40Mpix sensor, comparable AF and articulating LCD.

I think we will see a k3iii monochrome if we look at what Pentax think. Ricoh is trying to walk in the same way of Leica.

Pentax cameras are already a niche. Monochrome would be a niche within a niche. It would be very hard to justify.

Mark Ransom wrote:

zakaria wrote:

xmeda wrote:

Monochrome whatever is waste of production. I'd rather like to see K3IV with XT-5 40Mpix sensor, comparable AF and articulating LCD.

I think we will see a k3iii monochrome if we look at what Pentax think. Ricoh is trying to walk in the same way of Leica.

Pentax cameras are already a niche. Monochrome would be a niche within a niche. It would be very hard to justify.

All of Pentax is hard to justify at this point as I see it.

A move to film bodies and Mono bodies may represent a reasonable cost / risk analysis.

The problem I see is that even this stuff, like making K-3 III mono, is taking them forever! There is a service, where you can get this done in a few days .. it's not a big deal .. basically take an existing chip, remove a layer .. change the software to spit out proper DNG files .. some tweaks to metering and that is that.

I see a big problem in the fact that we get a lot of talk/teasing ... but no action! K-3 III is already 2 years old! Announcement that K-3 III is coming would not stop any sales of existing Pentax bodies .. there is NO harm in making such announcement, in fact, the opposite. So unfortunately, my feeling is that they will rather drop this project at some point.

Best,

M

Such camera would require some amount of R&D work to be done. Mechanical design will have no significant changes, but whole firmware will need rework and testing. Thousands human-hours. And then NPI setup and also product release including BoMs, ordering etc. That does cost a lot of money.

It makes zero sense to spend all these workhours for such camera that only few guys will buy.

So I hope they are not even thinking about such idea and are focused on development of new APS-C cameras and lenses instead.

You can play with cosmetics if you have good stable market share and plenty of money. But that is far from current situation.

xmeda wrote:

Such camera would require some amount of R&D work to be done. Mechanical design will have no significant changes, but whole firmware will need rework and testing. Thousands human-hours. And then NPI setup and also product release including BoMs, ordering etc. That does cost a lot of money.

It makes zero sense to spend all these workhours for such camera that only few guys will buy.

So I hope they are not even thinking about such idea and are focused on development of new APS-C cameras and lenses instead.

You can play with cosmetics if you have good stable market share and plenty of money. But that is far from current situation.

Nobody knows what root Ricoh will go with K-3III mono camera. Maybe they will choose Pixii root instead of real monochrome sensor camera.
I don't care about APS-C models, my choice is K-1 full frame, and monochrome version I have is really cool. The another camera I would choose for conversion would be Nikon D850 with is BSI 45 mpix sensor. Theoretically it would have about +2 stop advantage in sensitivity over K-1, but lack of IBIS is very important also.

xmeda wrote:

...

So I hope they are not even thinking about such idea and are focused on development of new APS-C cameras and lenses instead.

As a mostly APS-C shooter I'd like that as well.

But that bets the entire company on the survival of the "crop" format (in itself a somewhat pejorative term). Plus, it appears to me (without any firm data to back this up) that new people coming into photography from cell phones actually prefer EVF finders.

All business is a risk I suppose, but I think it makes sense for Pentax to attempt to broaden their lines with a few specialty cameras if they can do that at reasonable cost.

MarBa wrote:

The problem I see is that even this stuff, like making K-3 III mono, is taking them forever! There is a service, where you can get this done in a few days .. it's not a big deal .. basically take an existing chip, remove a layer .. change the software to spit out proper DNG files .. some tweaks to metering and that is that.

I see a big problem in the fact that we get a lot of talk/teasing ... but no action! K-3 III is already 2 years old! Announcement that K-3 III is coming would not stop any sales of existing Pentax bodies .. there is NO harm in making such announcement, in fact, the opposite. So unfortunately, my feeling is that they will rather drop this project at some point.

Best,

M

I think the reason it's taking so long is that they were never serious about it in the first place - it's already been dropped. I thought this whole thread was about somebody's unfounded wish as happens so often in these forums, but I went back and reread the OP and it appears to be based on something said by a Pentax representative.  It may have been something they were considering if the K3-III was the runaway success they hoped it would be, but that didn't happen.

APS-C is future. It is the sweet spot between resolution and portability. Fuji follows what old Pentax used to be.. APS-C + medium format.

But Ricoh should focus towards creation of some nice mirrorless ILC with fully compatible K mount adaptor. Body like flattened K3 with 6-9Mpix EVF, 40Mpix APS-C sensor..  similar to FUJI XH-2 which finally is the first Fuji camera I like.. but it has bad mount

MikeArts wrote:

xmeda wrote:

APS-C is future. It is the sweet spot between resolution and portability. Fuji follows what old Pentax used to be.. APS-C + medium format.

But Ricoh should focus towards creation of some nice mirrorless ILC with fully compatible K mount adaptor. Body like flattened K3 with 6-9Mpix EVF, 40Mpix APS-C sensor.. similar to FUJI XH-2 which finally is the first Fuji camera I like.. but it has bad mount

Pretty much my conclusion after moving from apsc to full frame. The only place FF is best is sport photography with fast long lenses with super fast auto-focus, and for everything else FF is either a complete overkill (for magazines, books, web sites) or not good enough (for large fine art prints), plus apart Canon/Nikon DSLR there are no T.S lenses for most FF systems. FF digital came as a continuity to film, but after 20 years of digital imaging tech improvement, FF just doesn't make sense, yet most buy FF digital without quite knowing why , they just buy what they are told (advertised) to buy. One of the best kept secrets of the camera industry is not to educate customers, so that a substantial number of sales are made out of wrong choices, most people have spend twice as much as they actually needed to spend on camera equipment, just due to lacking proper knowledge.

FF for sports? I would say that it is better to have a crop and smaller files are enough, no? But AF for sport on mirrorless for sure! It's more that there is not superfast APS-C camera, no?

On the other hand .. indoor sport benefits from FF.

Best,

M

MikeArts wrote:

xmeda wrote:

APS-C is future. It is the sweet spot between resolution and portability. Fuji follows what old Pentax used to be.. APS-C + medium format.

But Ricoh should focus towards creation of some nice mirrorless ILC with fully compatible K mount adaptor. Body like flattened K3 with 6-9Mpix EVF, 40Mpix APS-C sensor.. similar to FUJI XH-2 which finally is the first Fuji camera I like.. but it has bad mount

Well they could close down "Pentax" and make "Ricoh" MILCs. The only sensible way to do that would be adopt an existing mount with decent lens support.

Pretty much my conclusion after moving from apsc to full frame. The only place FF is best is sport photography with fast long lenses with super fast auto-focus, and for everything else FF is either a complete overkill (for magazines, books, web sites) or not good enough (for large fine art prints), plus apart Canon/Nikon DSLR there are no T.S lenses for most FF systems. FF digital came as a continuity to film, but after 20 years of digital imaging tech improvement, FF just doesn't make sense, yet most buy FF digital without quite knowing why , they just buy what they are told (advertised) to buy. One of the best kept secrets of the camera industry is not to educate customers, so that a substantial number of sales are made out of wrong choices, most people have spend twice as much as they actually needed to spend on camera equipment, just due to lacking proper knowledge.

As someone who's adopted FF I find that both ignorant and rude.  And since I still own a crop sensor camera and use that for shooting sport it's just factually wrong. For the same angle of view a FF needs to shift more mass of glass so AF on the crop sensor will typically be faster. For sport we don't need the ultimate resolution as we might for architecture or landscape (or even some fashion) so being able to shift more low-res frame per unit time is a plus.

The "new 35mm film" is a digital file of somewhere between 10 and 20MP.  
The bigger image area the more light (information) is being captured, so bigger is always better, but it is also heavier, slower to work with and more expensive. There is "good enough for the job" after which the willingness to add cost, bulk etc. drops off.

An APS-C sensor captures enough light to get good dynamic range, and low noise with workable ISO ranges and sufficient pixels. A phone size sensor can get that number of pixels but with lower ISO, more noise and less dynamic range, but we know how often a phone is good enough

When the choice is between a crop sensor - i.e. one where the lens forms an image which is not completed captured by the sensor, because the mount and mirror box were designed for 35mm film - and a full-frame sensor - i.e. one which goes to the edge of the mirror box, the crop is throwing some of the image away. The middle part of my 77 digitized with 16MP on the K5 isn't as good as the whole of the 43 digitized with 36MP on the K1. It wouldn't even be as good as the whole of the 43 digitized with 16MP on a FF camera that was never built. Is it worth having a K1 for that quality difference? Or for it's slightly different look? Depends who you are and what you want from your pictures.

APS-C looks like the sweet spot, what bigger sizes will be made in 10 years is anyone's guess, but mine is that we still see 36x24 and 44x33

MarBa wrote:

FF for sports? I would say that it is better to have a crop and smaller files are enough, no? But AF for sport on mirrorless for sure! It's more that there is not superfast APS-C camera, no?

On the other hand .. indoor sport benefits from FF.

I think a lot of sports pictures benefit from the blurred background that is the hallmark of FF.

Blurred background can be achieved on APS-C too. You just need lenses fast enough. Or long enough. I had very good results capturing sport events with K5 and 70-200/2.8 and now I even have 18-35/1.8 and K3, but Pentax DSLR AF is not the best one for keeping some runner's face in shallow DOF anyway. Even K3III does not have reliable face detection for such application. You need at least machines like Z7II, A7III, OM-1 etc.
But if you really demand significant subject isolation, large amount of details, dynamic range... just switch to GFX100 Even AF is significantly more advanced than on K1 and lenses available are modern ones designed for very high resolution.

xmeda wrote:

Blurred background can be achieved on APS-C too. You just need lenses fast enough. Or long enough. I had very good results capturing sport events with K5 and 70-200/2.8 and now I even have 18-35/1.8 and K3, but Pentax DSLR AF is not the best one for keeping some runner's face in shallow DOF anyway. Even K3III does not have reliable face detection for such application. You need at least machines like Z7II, A7III, OM-1 etc.
But if you really demand significant subject isolation, large amount of details, dynamic range... just switch to GFX100 Even AF is significantly more advanced than on K1 and lenses available are modern ones designed for very high resolution.

With the ancient k5iis

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Zakaria your photo is not acceptable: you know how to use your camera wisely, it's scandalous!