DPReview TV: How a crappy camera made Jordan a better videographer

Tried it a few times. I loved its design and ergonomics as a photo camera.
I thought that famous designer Mark Newson created a great and fresh concept on what can be a camera. But it seems that many hated the blocky design.

I have this camera last 8 years, shot more then 290000 frames, he working perfect, except slow autofocus and slow speed he always doing great job...

Crappy video camera, not a crappy camera
.....
It performs exceedingly well apart from the dim screen.
Just when I was defending Chris and Jordan's treatment of Pentax....
I'm sure we all knew what he was getting at, but its a pretty broad statement.

Crappy camera?.........? How rude!

The K-01 was a neat idea : a mirrorless natively compatible with DSLR lenses ; but it missed the market: outside one lens (its kit pancake), the body+lens was too bulky to compensate for the compromises of mirrorless when it came out.

I think a neat trick would’ve been to build lenses that extend into its (empty) « mirror cage », so the part protruding from the body were the size of pancakes. That way, the K-01 would have kept its compatibility with Pentax DSLR lenses while at the same time offer the more compact overall form factor (body + lens) at short and normal focals people were expecting of mirrorless and willing to make compromises for.

Still, I like its special beauty.

You know what, stop hating on the K-01! Look, as someone who has shot, and continues to shoot photos and video with the K-01 (it sits in my laptop bag as my backup/travel unit) the camera has its limitations, but is not that bad to shoot with. FIRST the whole issue with the audio is a bad setup, and not the camera (I can emulate the issue by turning my mic setup completely up in-camera, and boost my Rode mic). Leaving the audio setting on auto would have mae everything fine. Its built-in stereo mice are better than most of its DSLR contemporaries, and great indoors. Outside, they suffer from wind buffeting less than others but really are limited like most built-in mics

There aren't crappy cameras but there are crappy photographers.

Camera years should be counted in Dog years when it comes to progress in video. The K01 is almost a decade old, so I'm not sure what Jordan was expecting. The old K01 looked about the same as other cameras in its class from its day. It was supposed to be a fun quirky stills camera that had a "video option", not a video monster. It's DR was top of it's class for its day for stills, even if its video wasn't there. Pull out your iPhone if you want stellar video, and leave your K01 in Stills mode where it belongs and you can still get great stills from the old girl.

Pentax video is terrible. Even K-1 video is terrible, but it was the budget king of non-fast action photography a couple years ago. At least it had something to offer in return.

Personally, video quality is too low until going to the healthy oversampled 4K 12-bit raw video territory. Pentax video and pretty much every other brand video was irrelevant then. Year 2019 started to offer well priced options for high quality video. Still waiting price drops from them.

Fun flashback...but you missed the boat...if you were serious about a 1080 video that`s beyound this Pentax toy camera you would have chosen the unique and classic
Canon 70D...non plus ultra, but that seems to be far away from your Camera Store...

Perhaps a little harsh on the article title. Afterall, the K-01 wasn't designed as a video camera, and many stills cameras that included video at the same time had "crappy" video.

I didn't remember taht K-01 was so small! Cute little camera.

While this focuses mostly on video aspects, I think it does bring up a good point... the technology we have today is wonderful, such as IBIS, eye AF, etc, but photographers need to also know when to use this technology, and when to turn it off...

I've seen here and elsewhere on forums where people will blame the camera because it missed focus while using eye AF in certain conditions. This is a prime example of knowing when to use the technology, and when to take back manual control, and fall back on basic techniques everyone learned (or we hope) as beginner photographers, like focus and re-compose, etc.

I've seen a lot of people blow otherwise great shots because they relied too much on technology and it failed them, and they blamed the camera, when in fact, the blame was really on them for not realizing it wasn't working and switching technique.

It's funny, I remember lots of people hating the look of the K-01 when it came out. Especially in that garish yellow. I always thought the black and white version looked a lot better....just as it does there! I pretty good camera I think for its time.

I liked the K01 so much I bought two of them. But I did learn a new word reading a German review of the K01 describing the AF, mangelhaft which meant miserably defective. But that was firmware 1.0. There was an update that made the AF usable. What I found bizarre was how Nikon DSLRs, even higher priced ones ones like my D7100, had horrible LiveView AF until recently and comments about that were rare. But anyway, because Pentax had developed a decent LiveView AF for the K01, it propagated through a string of cameras like my K30 and K3 and I found it quite useful taking family and vacation photos. Having a decent LiveView AF built into a DSLR was an area Pentax was ahead of the pack.

Why is this video now?Does it related to the release of K3III Why do we remember it now after these years?
By the way, K01 was out-of-the-box thinking. And if there was honesty in writing it should have been said that it was a camera that moved stagnant water and was ahead of its time not saying a crappy.

I'd love to see a video with Chris doing the same reflection by using an old Canon 5D Mk I.

We're soooooo spoiled nowadays.

I bought a Fuji XT3 a year ago and rediscovered the pleasure of the manual "process". Having to adjust 3 dials the old fashion way plus composition made photography fun again to me.

I also purchased an old Konica FS1 camera (my first slr camera) to take pictures of my kids with film. And because the Konica has the LED panel in the viewfinder burned out I have to use the Sunny 16 rule to dial my settings.The process of manual photography has been a blast for me and arguable has improved my photography as well.

The K-01 is still one heck of a still camera, the video part is terrible (no HDMI out, 15' limit, bad DR, no video-specific QoL functions etc.).

For stills, it has really good IQ, construction is sturdy, it's better than a DSLR for manual focus (even better when using an LCD loupe)

The correct and intellectually honest version of the title should have been: "How shooting video on a nice camera which was never intended for serious video work made Jordan a better clickbaiter"

I'm not watching videos whose title has been chosen with the precise intention of inciting controversy, I was already debating whether to comment, but at least they don't make a dime from my comment.

The external control of light in the environment (with reflectors etc), and the external audio recording in K-01 videos, more emphasis on framing and action, made them more cinematic (and involving) than the videos you usually produce using the latest modern video cameras.
To me, it was like watching the 'Lawrence of Arabia' vs the latest Marvel Avengers movie.

such concept, such potential, could be much more

i dont mind the dslr brick like size as long as the durability is robust, please ricoh, consider mark II, better spec, better sensor, and EVF.

I have to admit I love the design of the white / black body. if it were metal and leather some known manufacture could have priced this insanely high and people would collect it.

Just recently, I rediscovered some old private video- recordings I had taken with an analogue but crappy Panasonic VHS- Camcorder back in the 1990s.
A pretty slow zoom lens, atrocious low-light noise levels, bleached colors, and mono-sound.

But guess what: these videos were quite good and interesting nonetheless.

So yes, the tools are secondary to the originality, creativity and artistic values of video and still recordings.

I think that the use of the word crappy referring to the K01 and the videos it delivered is a very crappy thing to do by Jordan.

Love the added perspective (and camera angles) on shooting video with a stills camera from back in the day. Totally surprised you don't use lights or modifiers that often, but then I guess "run and gun" is how you roll.

Now I'm off to look up your videos on audio... uh... you know what I mean.

I believe budding photo/videographers should have a crappy camera to start with to improve their skills.

K01 had the same sensor as NEX-5n and 6 had back in 2012. I took very nice pictures with these cameras and found them great. Nowadays we are a spoilt bunch.

500k subscribers - Jordan shoots 4 episodes on 8mm Ektachrome.

I love the restrictions of old tech and the creativity it can breed. Whenever you decide which format you want to shoot on, the cons of the camera end up being the driving force in your image making.

Some of what is said in the video reminds me of Pentax photography as well, at least how I see it. Yes, you can get good or excellent results, but you may have to get more creative. And maybe for some situations that won’t work as well. But if you do photography at least in part for that process, then maybe it is a good option. If you do it more for the result, then maybe not.

Again, Pentaxians, this is how I see it. You don’t have to see it like this, but I do ask that you respect that this is my opinion.

The little K-01 tried its best!

I feel like if this were a period similar Sony, there'd be a lot of talk about how good it was for its day.

At least the K-01 had real command dials and WR.

Pentax taking over DPR. I love it!

OK, a better camera will not make you a better photographer but a worse camera will.

I don't think I've ever shot a video with my K-01... but necessity is the mother of invention. Pentax color, baby. I hope Jordan can test K3 III video and do a little compare/contrast with 2012.

Not a good choice of words in the headline.

Jordan suffered so that we could have our enjoyment.

I'm OK with that.

Funnily the K-01 has the same sensor as the K-5. A sensor known for excellent dr for it's generation. It's probably the crappy video implementation, which was always an afterthought for Pentax. The best camera for video Pentax made is the K-5 (II) because those use the sensor based image stabilisation, instead of the software based. You do have to use an external sound recorder though. Don't know about the K3 III yet so maybe that will finally improve on the K-5.

Should have got yellow one, it's way better.

But the K-01 share the same sensor as the K5, which was a leading class camera regarding dynamic range, 9 years ago (14.1EV accorded to DXO Mark).

It would be good if Pentax just made a successor to the K-01. A milc with EVF (and good AF on sensor) with the old trusted Pentax mount so it can use all the lenses in the Pentax system.

So the K-01 was an MILC with a body depth that permitted use of DSLR lenses?

If it had an EVF I'd crave one!