on 08.06.04 23:18, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There are various other places that Pentax might be losing sharpness. > There's the anti-aliasing filter. The Nikon D2H apparently has better > apparent sharpness because the anti-aliasing filter is weaker. > There's the oft-mentioned bayer interpolation. There's the possibility > that the Pentax lens designs somehow don't interact well with the camera > even though they work fine with film. Well, all these our problems could be concluded with what was told by "Reichmann in his otherwise quite unfavourable *istD review in Luminous-landscape:In late October as this is being written, and during the few weeks that the *ist D has been on the market, there has been discussion on some Net discussion forums about the camera's images being "soft". Nonsense. Pentax has wisely avoided oversharpening images in the camera. When properly sharpened they leave nothing to be desired. Once again beginners and the uninformed are confusing resolution with sharpening." So maybe we are all exaggerating? I have made yesterday an 60x40cm (so almost 2x more than 30x45cm stated as max. for *istD) enlargment from *istD picture. Than I cropped a part of this to print on my home A4 Stylus 880. And you know what? It looked very good at rational distance - about 60cm or more. And you watch usually this big prints from such a distance! What's more it didn't seem to be worse in any respect (details, sharpness) than similar prints from fast 35mm film... So why complain?
> I'm also curious, Dario and other detractors, if you've managed to test > multiple *istDs? It could be that the AF is a little off, or the "film > plane" (or focusing screen) is not quite where it should be, so that > everything coming out of your particular camera is in fact slightly out of > focus. > I had a Nikon 8008 that never seemed to produce sharp pictures, MF or AF, > and I actually had it checked for back-focus accuracy. It was apparently > OK but I'm convinced somthing was misaligned somewhere because at large > apertures I was consistently having trouble with meticulously focused > stationary subjects not being sharp and the plane of focus clearly not > where it was supposed to be. It LOOKED sharp in the finder, but not on > film. > It's also possible that the sensor or filter or something is simply a > little defective so that your particular camera isn't performing up to > spec. No I didn't test my *istD against other. But my images were made mainly in infinity. *istD AF setss it perfectly - it actually set infinity on lens as I would by hand - contrary to MZ-S, which had always problem with it... So I doubt it is a matter of my *istD exemplar and its AF. And I checked my sample picture against Rob's one (he is not complaining :-) And it seems to be no worse in any respect. > Maybe Pentax simply doesn't like sharpness? Most of the really sharp lens > designs have been replaced by less sharp ones. I guess, based on what I've heard or read here, that Pentax wanted to give *istD picture film quality - that is - smoothness and very good colour rendition. -- Best Regards Sylwek
