So, does PRIME live up to expectations?

[wjwoj]

I don't know. I use raw only and my processing engine is my athlon 64 X2 3800 with linux and Bibble pro. I use ufraw right now as there is no Bibble support for the K10D (it is coming soon as I understand with update for the version 4.9).

I have experimented with the raw conversion on the camera and it seems to be fine.
Wojtek

 

[James O'Neill]

I'm not so sure about that. The GX-10 doesn't have .pef files
(only .dng) and it could well have a different image processing
engine n it. After all, Samsung have made plenty of cameras prior
to the GX and PRIME might have been something that Pentax wished to
keep for thesmselves.

The differences between the models might be more than a few
cosmetic details.

It would be Bizzare indeed for Samsung to use the same weather sealed bodyshell, same AF and Exposure engine, but to then take the same sensor and build a different system board around it. Doubly so when Pentax have said that one of Samsung's contribution was the the firmware for PRIME.

 

[James O'Neill]

Normally I always shoot RAW, but with this ballyhooed PRIME thingy,
I decided to give jpeg shooting a try, also my poor old laptop will
choke on 16meg DNG files. But my initial observations are very
positive, below is a re-post (sorry, I've been too busy at work to
get out and shoot much) but I was happy with the output of the
jpeg, 'very RAW like?'.

Well, yes. Very good photo and it's neither blown the sky nor mushed the shadows together. It does show what the camera is capable of. Would a K100 or *ist-D [S ~ L] have got the same shot ? Without trying it and publishing both shots side by side you can't tell.

 

[Frank Lerchenmueller]

Kristian

I very much like your photo and the frame. What is the SW behind this album? Thanks for advice. I just got my k10d and look a home for my future photos. I have flickr at the moment but they dont have nice frames.
Thanks
--
Frank from Austria

 

[neil holmes]

I just do not see where you are coming from.

Almost everyone who has this camera in parts of the world that are not under the fierce grip of Pentax Uk loves it. Why then do you find it so hard to believe that someone who has been able to get one in the UK would not also LOVE it. especially when they are happy to include the negative as well as the positive about the CAMERA (not the camera user).

neil

 

[Quietly Confident]

I just do not see where you are coming from.
Almost everyone who has this camera in parts of the world that are
not under the fierce grip of Pentax Uk loves it. Why then do you
find it so hard to believe that someone who has been able to get
one in the UK would not also LOVE it. especially when they are
happy to include the negative as well as the positive about the
CAMERA (not the camera user).

It might be a superb camera, I don't know, I haven't had the opportunity to try it or buy it.

I might have very serious flaws, like banding and undue noise at moderate sensitivity settings, again I don't know.

What I do know is that opinions can become tainted by patronage.

There are a lot of people on this forum who, in the past, have come very close to openly accusing DPR of being influenced by advertising revenue - yet these very people say nothing when the K10d is praised to the rooftops by someone who is sufficiently in-bed with Pentax UK to receive a camera several weeks prior to anyone else in Britain.

Perhaps their praise is justified, perhaps it is not - but cosy relationships with manufacturers don't encourage impartiality or objectivity.

To me, the disturbing aspect is the apparent infiltration of DPR by Pentax. When any camera maker begins to participate in a forum - either through the direct involvement of its senior management, or less obviously by the use of selected Placemen, then debates become unhealthily skewed.

Look at the recent 'LBA sticker' charade!! - talk about 'beads for the natives'!! Pentax treat you like children, encouraging a bogus and highly exploitative camaraderie which usefully stifles any objective asswssment of their products.

I for one think that Camera makers, all of them!, should keep out of forums like this. Pentax could easily set up an alternative site for those who wish to lie on their backs and have their stomachs tickled by their marketing department!

Honest opinions from legitimate purchasers are all I care about - no matter what their opinion might be.

The rest is just junk, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[kristian2000]

I host my photos using the freeware 'Gallery' freeware http://gallery.menalto.com/

The frame for that particular photo was done with mskad's 'Absolute Sharpening Web'

Kristian
I very much like your photo and the frame. What is the SW behind
this album? Thanks for advice. I just got my k10d and look a home
for my future photos. I have flickr at the moment but they dont
have nice frames.
Thanks
--
Frank from Austria

--



Kristian Farren
http://kf3.net

 

[neil holmes]

I just do not see where you are coming from.
Almost everyone who has this camera in parts of the world that are
not under the fierce grip of Pentax Uk loves it. Why then do you
find it so hard to believe that someone who has been able to get
one in the UK would not also LOVE it. especially when they are
happy to include the negative as well as the positive about the
CAMERA (not the camera user).

It might be a superb camera, I don't know, I haven't had the
opportunity to try it or buy it.

I might have very serious flaws, like banding and undue noise at
moderate sensitivity settings, again I don't know.

What I do know is that opinions can become tainted by patronage.

There are a lot of people on this forum who, in the past, have come
very close to openly accusing DPR of being influenced by
advertising revenue - yet these very people say nothing when the
K10d is praised to the rooftops by someone who is sufficiently
in-bed with Pentax UK to receive a camera several weeks prior to
anyone else in Britain.

Perhaps their praise is justified, perhaps it is not - but cosy
relationships with manufacturers don't encourage impartiality or
objectivity.

To me, the disturbing aspect is the apparent infiltration of DPR by
Pentax. When any camera maker begins to participate in a forum -
either through the direct involvement of its senior management, or
less obviously by the use of selected Placemen, then debates become
unhealthily skewed.

Look at the recent 'LBA sticker' charade!! - talk about 'beads for
the natives'!! Pentax treat you like children, encouraging a bogus
and highly exploitative camaraderie which usefully stifles any
objective asswssment of their products.

I for one think that Camera makers, all of them!, should keep out
of forums like this. Pentax could easily set up an alternative
site for those who wish to lie on their backs and have their
stomachs tickled by their marketing department!

Honest opinions from legitimate purchasers are all I care about -
no matter what their opinion might be.

The rest is just junk, as far as I'm concerned.

--

Not that he has an opinion but that he is connected to Pentax UK AND has an opinion, regardless of how well accepted his opinion may be and regardless that many other people share that opnion.

I do not have the camera. I want one but will try it out for myself first. Opinions will lead me to it but will not make me buy...I get the feeling I will be buying though.

neil

 

[Frank Lerchenmueller]

Thank you Kristian
--
Frank from Austria

 

[kaishaku]

Well put "Quietly Confident".

 

[Quietly Confident]

Not that he has an opinion but that he is connected to Pentax UK
AND has an opinion, regardless of how well accepted his opinion may
be and regardless that many other people share that opnion.
I do not have the camera. I want one but will try it out for
myself first. Opinions will lead me to it but will not make me
buy...I get the feeling I will be buying though.

neil

I don't have a 'gripe', I have an opinion – like everyone else.

The experiences of other users are important to, I suspect, a great many people when buying a new camera – particularly so in the UK where shops will (generally) not accept cameras back after purchase merely because they don't meet the expectations of their owners.

Add to that the extreme difficulty, in the UK, of finding any Pentax equipment to try-before-you-buy, and you might appreciate that most purchases have to be made 'blind' – hence the importance of reviews, be they official or unofficial.

Thus it's very important (to me) to be as sure as I can be that such reviews/owner comments are impartial, and not flawed by tribalism or patronage.

Take the DL – one of the nastiest little dslr cameras that Pentax ever foisted on the public. The 'old hands' here knew it, and would never have dreamed of buying one of the things for themselves – yet that didn't stop them clapping and cheering dutifully whenever someone else was misled enough to buy one.

It would have been a lot more honest to have told potential purchasers not to buy the horrid little thing in the first place – or, if they had a chance to take it back, to avail themselves of it as soon as possible.

Now, of course, new models are out, and the DL is consigned to the dustbin of camera history – but that doesn't help those unfortunate owners who might well have been lured into their purchase by the high decibel fan-noizes that are generated here.

 

[Robert Barnett]

Unfortunatly it didn't blow them out enough and if this was the effect that I wanted as you claimed I would have done some post processing to blow out the rest of the parking lot and cars. Having some of it remain makes the image look like a poor exposure on the photographers part.

You make clear you were going for a more artistic image instead of a real world. Also, I think a better way of handling the background that one doesn't want without the image looking like it was poorly exposed would have been to get the background correct but blurred because of depth of field.

I see far too many of these kinds of images. I don't think they are attractive at all. I do understand wanting to be creative and artistic, but this example looks like neither. It looks like a point and shoot with everything set on auto and not a $1000 dSLR. Now to be fair I don't know if we had this kind of problem when it came to film. I do know that was so many people using digital cameras we see a lot of this.

For this shot I would have metered on the background, locked focus on the person. This probably would have meant very underexposed so I would have used RAW, adjusted all I could in RAW and the masked out the guy and other foreground items and then use Photoshop's lens blur filter to blur the background (if it didn't end up blurred when I took the shot). While a lot more work, if this was an image I wanted (it isn't I am not a person photographer) this is what I would have done.

Frankly, I am tired of all of the blown out white skies I see in photo's. If it is blown out at least fake a sky using the gradient tool in your image editing program.

Robert

 

[justin23]

See i read your posts like Pentax has shafted you so you won't say anything nice about them at all. So you are completely biased in the other direction. so you can hardly be called unbiased.

I had a DL2, for the price, no manufacturer could match it and it certainly kicked every point and shoot camera I owned including several large zoom fujis and panasonics. It had it faults, but it was a decent camera.

I would also point out that twice i got photos developed from my DL2 at A4 size and boths times the lab asked me if i used the 5D. The second time they opened up the EXIF info on the CD so i could prove it was a pentax *istDL2. I'm no great photographer, but either Lab people have no idea or alot of bad photographers buy a 5D because they whinge about every other camera having minor issues (from reading some of the complaints by people i suspect the latter).

It seems to me that the better photographers on here who post fantastic photos are the ones that i'll listen to for advice. Whether they are biased or not if they post great photos at least they know what the camera can do.

Take the DL – one of the nastiest little dslr cameras that Pentax
ever foisted on the public. The 'old hands' here knew it, and
would never have dreamed of buying one of the things for themselves
– yet that didn't stop them clapping and cheering dutifully
whenever someone else was misled enough to buy one.

It would have been a lot more honest to have told potential
purchasers not to buy the horrid little thing in the first place –
or, if they had a chance to take it back, to avail themselves of it
as soon as possible.

Now, of course, new models are out, and the DL is consigned to the
dustbin of camera history – but that doesn't help those unfortunate
owners who might well have been lured into their purchase by the
high decibel fan-noizes that are generated here.

 

[Quietly Confident]

It seems to me that the better photographers on here who post
fantastic photos are the ones that i'll listen to for advice.
Whether they are biased or not if they post great photos at least
they know what the camera can do.

Go for it lad, that's my advice - there is always room for one more disciple. You'll find life much more comfortable if you trot after the chief Fanboi's and cry out 'Awesome', and 'Wow!', whenever you're required to do so.

I certainly can't compete with the luxuries they can offer you – and, besides, I get the distinct feeling that a lonely Prophet's cave in the middle of a desolate wilderness is not what you're really after

 

[Gil Knutson]

I merely made some reasonable observations on the K10 - which you
were perfectly at liberty to challenge.

Uh... I don't know either of you from Adam's Off Ox, but of the two
of you bickering back and forth, yours seem to be the more nasty
minded, insulting while pretending to be reasonable of the two of
you. I took what you said as something a so called troll might say.

But you simply couldn't resist an attempt at ridicule, could you?

Eh?

So, if any apologies are in the offing, I'm all ears.....

If anyone were standing in line to make apologies, his would not be
the first who should be placing one. IMESHO

So, your review of the K10D is going to be completely mpartial,
critical where neccessary, and highly objective?

I would wait for it to come out before I make any judgement.

Good-O

Something I would expect you to say basing my impression on your
postings on this thread alone.

I look forward to reading it while I'm waiting for Santa to
struggle down the chimney.

Doesn't deserve a response.....

A most disappointing series of exchanges.

--
Gil
Sardis, BC
Canada

 

[distudio]

Pentax could easily set up an alternative
site for those who wish to lie on their backs and have their
stomachs tickled by their marketing department!

They did and it became such a hot potato its control was relinquished and it subsequently became the PDML.

--
Rob

 

[Gil Knutson]

Take the DL – one of the nastiest little dslr cameras that Pentax
ever foisted on the public. The 'old hands' here knew it, and
would never have dreamed of buying one of the things for themselves
– yet that didn't stop them clapping and cheering dutifully
whenever someone else was misled enough to buy one.

.... Hmmmm... I guess I will have to tell one of my friends, who has taken
soime excellent pics with hers in the last year or so, that she should not be
happy with her purchase that she is deluded and the resulting pictures
should be viewed a little more critically for their inherent flaws... which I
fail to see, and others appear unaware of as well. She took a ton of
pics in Sierra Leone this last summer while working there building a
school with her church group. Poor deluded gal. Forget that the pics
really are impressive, for that must most certainly be an error.

She has said on many, many occasions that she loves the thing and the
pictures it takes. Perhaps you would like to send her an email to inform
her of her misguided viewpoint......

Personally, I don't care what camera one is talking about, as long at it
manages to take consistently good pictures, it is a viable camera. You can
pixel-peep on screen all day to your hearts content, what really matters
is the final printed product. And, she NEVER applies PP! I would bet she
does not know you could even do that, or if she does, she could not be
bothered... so what we are seeing is right off the camera, printed "full
negative", so-to-speak.

So, you appear to be griping about the DL as a camera... at least it seems
that way to me... and the K10D.

--
Gil
Sardis, BC
Canada

 

[Gil Knutson]

I see far too many of these kinds of images. I don't think they are
attractive at all. I do understand wanting to be creative and
artistic, but this example looks like neither. It looks like a
point and shoot with everything set on auto and not a $1000 dSLR.
Now to be fair I don't know if we had this kind of problem when it
came to film. I do know that was so many people using digital
cameras we see a lot of this.

Robert,

I take it that you feel the majority of people should NOT have an
SLR... digital or not... and that folks should ONLY take aesthetically
perfect compositions. Many of the pics people have taken that I
have seen are similar to this pic. A registration of a daily event
with someone doing something mundane... often blurred and
incorrectly composed.

I have given up throwing out pictures/digital files. I invariably throw
out something that my wife thinks is just beautiful... well, maybe that
is stretching it, but she loves the fuzzy pictures of the grandkids and
people. I often wonder why she likes some of them, and I shake my
head, but the fact IS, she likes the picture. The person or people
are doing similar things to this guy in the picture...whoever he is...
in the process of drinking coffee/tea/hot chocolate/etc. If the person
were to die and this was one of three images of him, that makes the
picture "valuable" to someone. People are just recording a split instant
in time and trying to keep it fresh in their memory. As that kind of shot,
and I contend that the vast majority of pictures taken and kept are of
that variety, this image is well exposed, clear as to the environment and
may in the end be a cherished possession of someone. Who am I to
judge? Or, you!?

Remember, the picture was not taken to please you! Or, me. Our
opinion, unless asked, is not asked for.

--
Gil
Sardis, BC
Canada

 

[Quietly Confident]

Gil Knutson wrote:
She took a ton of

pics in Sierra Leone this last summer while working there building a
school with her church group.

Whoa!! - what is the point of that statement? - I'm assuming that it's intended to establish your freind's moral superiority to me?, right? After all, you probably wouldn't have mentioned it if the young lady in question had gone off to Africa to set up a chain of adult bookstores

I thought it was the merit of the camera we were talking about, not the worthiness of the user.

 

[wlachan]

everyone else has to make up something for marketing.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan