Have you ever wonder how Pentax DA Limited lenses working on the film SLR cameras? Boris Liberman has collected a bunch of photos made with three DA Limited lenses mounted on the 35mm film SLR.
Pentax DA 21mm Limited shows a strong vignetting at every apperture up to F/22 while DA 40mm Limited and DA 70mm Limited are quite good even wide open.
Pentax K10D + Pentax DA 35mm F2.8 macro Limited. 100% crop of this image (1.6Mb)
Weblog Insomnia have published a load of full rez samples of soon to be available Pentax DA 35mm F2.8 Limited macro lens mounted on the Pentax K10D. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Another two of the new lenses – DA 55-300 F4-5.8 ED and DA* 300mm F4 ED – were shipped to the Japanese stores yesterday. In the U.S. Amazon promises to start shipping the first one on May 31 for $349.
Steve at Steve’s Digicams has reviewed Pentax K100D Super – latest update for Pentax entry level DSLR line-up. Unfortunately Steve hasn’t got the new DA* lenses (most of the sample photos are made with DA 12-24mm F4) so the most important new feature that differs K100D Super from its predecessor – Supersonic Drive Motor lenses support – haven’t been tested and even mentioned in his review.
Another Pentax K100D Super review is posted by JerryJ at DigitalCameraReview:
Since my day-to-day cameras are a Pentax K10D and Pentax *ist DL, I was curious how the K100D Super would compare. I expected the camera to perform better than the *ist DL but fall short of the K10D. What I discovered was that the K100D Super is much more like its big brother the K10D than I expected. In short, this is one amazing little camera… …the K100D Super is the best value on the market.
Japanese Impress Watch website have tested Pentax DA* 50-135mm F2.8 SDM lens. Automatic translation is close to unreadable but full resolution samples are talking by themselves. By the way, Amazon offers DA* 50-135mm F2.8 for $851.04.
DigitalCameraInfo have criticized Pentax A30 point&shoot digicam in the thorough review they have published recently: “With inaccurate colors, high noise levels, limited dynamic range, and terrible video quality, this camera isn’t worth the $350 price tag.“
Japanese glamour photographer Kazuhisa Nishikawa featuring recently announced Pentax K100D Super in the August issues of Photogenic Weekend pages of Impress Watch e-zine. A dozen of excellent photographs every week made with K100D Super and two legendary high-end lenses: Pentax FA 31mm F1.8 AL Limited and FA 43mm F1.9 Limited.
All of those photos you can download as full resolution JPEG samples and pixelpeep them by yourself. Most of them are made with aperture open as wide as possible in challenging lighting conditions: under harsh sunlight, in shadows, indoors.
There are three issues so far:
Just two weeks left for Pentax DA* 16-50mm F2.8 and DA* 50-135mm F2.8 SDM lenses to be shipped to those American and European customers who have managed to pre-ordered them. But some lucky guys already have theirs.
One of the first set of samples appeared on Ned Bunnell’s blog. Shot with K10D in RAW at ISO200. No sharpening or any other manipulations except for minor cropping and white balance adjustments on some shots.
Another two sets of samples were found at German DigitalFotoNetz Forum: set one and two.
Image by Kasache
Also if you considering DA* 50-135mm F2.8 zoom, check out this page with hi-res samples.
Impress Watch have a short preview of Pentax newest DSLR K100D Super. Nothing new in the shots of camera itself except for “Super” sign, but two dozens of full size samples made with DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 “kit” lens are bit more interesting – there are no visible changes in image quality and especially in high ISO performance. K100D Super is undoubtedly as good in available light conditions as its predecessor.
Meanwhile Pentax K100D Super prices are already known – no significant difference with K100D:
Update: more Pentax K100D Super samples.
Japanese blogger Digital1gan.com has made two shots – one with Pentax K10D + DA 16-45mm F4, and one with Canon 1D mark3 + EF 24-70mm F2.8L. As clearly seen on the 100% cropped images above, 1.5x CCD sensor of Pentax K10D gives a way better details and overall resolution than Canon’s 1.3x CMOS. While Canon’s picture is more contrasty, grass and thin branches of the tree at the forefront are significantly blurred.
If you wish to compare this pictures by yourself, try to download 1Dmark3′s .CR2 RAW and K10D’s .PEF files.
Sigma France announced K-mount version of its lightweight large aperture zoom lens 50-150mm F2.8 APO DC EX. This lens is specially designed for APS-C digital SLR cameras and consist of 18 elements in 14 groups with 9 diaphragm blades. Minimum focusing distance is 100cm and filter size is 67mm. Dimensions: Diameter 76.3mm X Length 135.1mm (3.0 inches x 5.3 inches), weight: 770g/27.2 oz.
Pentax version of Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 will be available on July 1, 2007 for about $650.
Peter Bernik has tested the Canon version of this lens (100% crops included):
The lens is not as good as one would think when looking at specifications. Sharpness is very good from f4 above, especially towards the long end (100mm and more). CA can be pretty bad at f2.8.
Megapixel.net have reviewed Pentax’ flagship point & shoot Optio A30 that was very popular among reviewers this year (see “Related Posts” section for more tests and reviews). A30 was found a good overall with a bit of barrel distortion, vignetting and conner softness at wide angle zoom position. Indoors test shots in the mixed light conditions looks nice. Chromatic aberrations is easily detectable at outdoor test – which is pretty common for point & shoots.
Megapixel.net marked it 9 out of 10 for functionality and 8 out of 10 for photographic qualities. In addition to issues mentioned above just two “negatives” were mentioned: only two aperture settings and underpowered built-in flash. Strong sides of the A30 includes good resolution, metering and color rendition, excellent built quality and effective Shake Reduction system.
Jeff Keller in his Samsung GX10 review merely described the differences between GX10 and K10D: the same conclusions you can find here. He wasn’t able to find any differences in image quality so his advice “is to buy the one you can get the best deal on. Right now, that’s the K10D, but since the GX-10 is just now hitting the market, that may change.“
TrustedReviews contributor Cliff Smith, however, did not have the opportunity to play with K10D before his GX10 test but it’s not affected the overall positive impression: “The Samsung GX-10, and presumably by extension the Pentax K10D as well, proves yet again that the digital SLR market isn’t a two-horse race… …Add the rugged durability of the weatherproof body and you have a photographic tool that any keen photographer will quickly learn to love.“
PhotographyBlog reviewer complains on K10D’s lack of dedicated ISO and WB buttons, noisy shutter and poor AF, but concludes that Pentax K10D “not only does it have an attractive price-tag, but it is also a solidly-built, intuitive and responsive digital SLR that will meet the needs of the serious photographer.“
In their very thorough review at German website Photozone Klaus Schroiff and Sebastian Milczanowski points their view at so called phantom pixels phenomenon. They have provided an explanation: “The Pentax K10D has an extremely weak vertical AA (Anti Aliasing) filter. An AA filter is a low-pass filter that smooths the discrete “steps” caused by the sensor pixels. A weak or non-existent AA filter results in Moire-effects – this is where the “false” colors come from. The reason for the phantom pixels is a bit more mysterious. It could originate in the pixel layout on the sensor or in the pre-processing by the camera in conjunction with the demosaic algorithm.” Despite this issue, their verdict is “Highly recommended” except for lack of telephoto lenses in the K system.
Chinese blogger and photo enthusiast Yellowapple has tested his Pentax K10D under “heavy rain” conditions (extremely heavy, I’d say).
Pentax K10D waterproof test. Photo courtesy by Yellowapple
You can find more photos and experiment description at the original page in Chinese or at DPReview forum in English.
