On 5/20/2012 19:08, Bruce Walker wrote:
In the "Something to think about." thread I opined that the D800E was likely to be in my upward growth path for more useable resolution in the type of studio shooting I'm doing lately. A few kind PDMLers suggested that the K-5 might give me what I'm looking for and sent me some RAW and high-rez JPEGs to compare against. Thank you very much, Paul, Larry and Boris!
You're very welcome, sir!
- the lenses being used make more difference than the two bodies. (No great surprise here.) And Boris's Sigma (whatever it is) is *sweet!*
It is rather cheap USD 250 Sigma EX DG 24-60/2.8 which is by the way a full frame lens that is certainly dandier than its monetary worth. Except seemingly (I did not shoot targets to ascertain that) every so minor difference in color rendering it is probably as good as DA* 16-50/2.8 IQ-wise. And sans SDM and WR it is built just as good as DA* - very tight tolerances, etc.
I also grabbed a few D800 head& shoulders portrait images from DPreview and compared. It's pretty clear that there's a large improvement in resolution, but it's also hard to see by how much. I'm convinced that the D800 shots were all done with a tripod, whereas all of mine and the loaners were hand-held. There is not an order of magnitude difference in resolution. There were no full-body, f8 or above, studio lighting D800 shots, so there was nothing for me to compare there.
I remember a long time ago, before digital kicked in, an article on the web that maintained that by shooting hand-held most of alleged advantages of low-sensitivity high-res film and big MTF rating lenses are negated.
You appear to support the idea that this thesis is still valid.
Final conclusion: for my work, K-5 isn't going to help much, if at all. Jury is still out on if D800E would really shake my world either. I need to investigate further -- probably rent one. I do have an acquaintance with one; maybe I can borrow that.
I am thinking that the only true IQ advantage of K-5 above its peers (K20D or K-7) is that of sensor dynamic range (and 14-bit RAW too). It simply allows you for more flexibility when you set up your light or when you process your images afterwards. If this is of little importance to you then indeed from pure IQ point of view K-5 does not offer anything on top of, say K20D.
Glad my modest offerings could be of help, Bruce. Boris -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
