Compared to...

Studio scene comparison (RAW)

For a (more) level playing field for comparison we also shot our studio scene in RAW mode with each camera and converted it using Adobe Camera RAW. Because Adobe Camera RAW applies different levels of sharpening to different cameras (this confirmed) we had to use the following workflow for these conversions:

  • Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled)
  • Set Sharpness to 0 (all other settings left as default)
  • Open file into Photoshop
  • Apply a Unsharp mask: 80%, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0
  • Save as a TIFF (for cropping) and as a JPEG quality 11 for download

This is our standard studio scene comparison shot taken from exactly the same tripod position. Lighting: daylight simulation, >98% CRI. Crops are 100%. Ambient temperature was approximately 22°C (~72°F). Camera settings as per previous pages.

Pentax K10D vs. Nikon D80

Pentax K10D (RAW)
Nikon D80 (RAW)
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Removing the camera's built-in image processor and instead processing using a standard converter (in this case Adobe Camera RAW) we see the K10D's true colors, clear crisp images with lots of detail and sharp edges. Indeed there are several parts of the image which look more detailed than the D80. It makes you wonder why Pentax couldn't achieve this quality with their processor.