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Upgrades and More Upgrades

Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 5:34 pm
by John
It's relentless, but to be fair we have kept our K-5 bodies for quite a few years now.

It seems that the progress in terms of MP has evened out, with the K-1 and its 36MP pretty much ideal for me. Sue's K-3 and my awaited K-3 II, both at 24MP, is as far as we need to go with APS-C. We still need the APS-C bodies to use our crop sensor lenses with. There is a crop mode on the K-1 but it only offers 15 MP.

The K-1, being full frame, demands the highest quality of approach, so we have a few full frame prime lenses to go with it, plus the standard 28-105mm zoom and the long 150-450mm zoom for birding. Full frame lenses for the K-1 are 14mm, 43mm, 50mm, 100mm. They are all Pentax lenses, apart from the 14mm which is a Samyang. I reviewed it for ePHOTOzine and was so impressed I bought one!

It does all up the stakes though, as high definition demands a higher quality approach all round if we are to reap the benefits from it. Hopefully, it's good for our photography, as we up our game.

Re: Upgrades and More Upgrades

Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:44 pm
by John
Yet another upgrade, this time in the form of a firmware update. I've been sent one of the new PLM 55-300mm lenses, for the first time with Pentax an electromagnetic diaphragm has been used. This makes for utterly smooth and silent stop down, but this new KAF4 mount needs a firmware update and this is only possible on a few cameras.

The K70 needs no update, but the K-1, K-3 II, K-S2 and K-S1 all do.

For stills photography it doesn't really make any difference, but for video it provides for silent aperture operation, so nothing is heard on the soundtrack.

Perhaps this is a sign that Pentax are turning their attention to videographers and their requirements.