Yeah, but what do identical digital files (same ISO, exposure, subject) from
each camera look like when printed on the same printer?
Kenneth Waller
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/kennethwaller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Boris Liberman" <[email protected]>
Subject: Sony A850 vs Pentax K-7 or Boris examines lots of photos
Hi!
As I wrote earlier, my friends from DC (well, actually it is MD, but I
like to think of this as DC) came for a visit and left. Among other things
I did back up photos for my friend and I was given an opportunity to keep
them for my examination. He has Sony A850 and an assortment of lenses,
notably the famous Minolta Beer Can, Tamron 17-35/2.8-4.0 and Tamron
90/2.8 macro.
I have looked and processed and examined and pixel peeped few dozen images
and compared some of them side by side given that we were shooting at the
same time on the same location.
Few ideas crossed my mind:
1. Under bright day light Sony wins hands down. The exposure latitude and
color fidelity are ahead of those of K-7. The dynamic range difference is
evident once you start to play with curves and look into shadow-to-light
transitions.
2. Under low light both cameras struggle, though my friend does not shoot
above ISO 1600, while I shoot at ISO 3200. Given pixel count advantage, I
think it might be possible to downsize Sony images to take care of some of
the noise.
So, on the surface it looks like naturally one might want to upgrade to
either full frame or another Pentax camera with better sensor.
On the other hand, I had to look at 1:1 or even 3:1 (300% magnification)
and really side by side to see those differences. Of course playing with
exposure slider makes different impression immediately, but beside that I
really don't think that Pentax is so much behind. Let's say that the
difference is 10-15% although I do admit and do realize that these
percentage points are meaningless. What I am trying to say is that the
difference is relatively small.
I have some reservations about the aforementioned lenses' performance in
some of the situations, but that's a different matter.
Thankfully, I don't feel like I should or even must update from K-7 to K-5
or to Canon 5DMk2 or whatever. I kind of used to feel that way having seen
Paul's comparison shots from his basement.
I also think that to say that camera A offers revolutionary improvements
in IQ dept over camera B (*) would be a serious overstatement or simply a
market speak.
Well, at least I had my chance to vent.
Boris
(*) As long as both A and B are of similar general class. It stands to
reason that 16x24 and 24x36 cameras are closer than it might have seemed
initially.
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