Pentax K-5?

S

Snapper123

Well-known member
Hey guys, one camera that catches my eye is the Pentax K-5, which does 1080P (but only at 25FPS?). The one thing I've noticed about the test videos on Youtube is that they are all incredibly crisp and even make cat fur look reasonably realistic - I've yet to see any examples of aliasing and from all around, the footage always seems to never give a hint of the somewhat camcorder-ish texture that Canon's technology has always instilled upon me. Simply put, the Pentax K-5 seems to have a better video quality behind it than even a high-end Panny 1080P camcorder, all of the videos, even on auto, simply look so crisp, beautiful, realistic, and downright better than even what the GH2 seems to churn out. I did see one instance of moire in one Youtube video, but it was not at all in a rainbow effect, which made me wonder if it was just the Youtube down-rez that created it. It's also magnesium-alloy in the body, and Pentax makes a set of pancake lenses that are literally almost as thin as a small finger.

Pretty much though, I'd have to see real video files to judge, but since it's another 1080P contender, does anyone have any thoughts or experiences, especially with the whole 25P thing? My opinion is that having an extra frame may be a good thing somehow, but I don't know anything about it.

Isn't this just neat or what - http://www.amazon.com/Pentax-Compac...KMXG/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1297653448&sr=8-9http://www.amazon.com/Pentax-Compac...KMXG/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1297653448&sr=8-9 - has instance auto-to-manual focus too, from what it seems!
 
it's only useful for soccer moms, I'm afraid: apart from the "25p only" thing, it lacks manual controls over aperture and shutter:
"In Auto Aperture mode the K-5 will adjust the aperture if the brightness of the recorded scene changes (the click sound is often clearly audible in the recording). In Fixed Aperture mode the camera achieves the same goal by only adapting the sensor sensitivity"
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk5/page17.asp
 
it does look great.. and in still mode is hitting close to 13 stops of DR!

Vitaly has mentioned a possible hack... so we should wait and see. If I read correctly, it shoots in 4:2:2, but I might be wrong there?
 
I think it outputs an MJPEG stream, at, if I remember from another thread, up to 75mbps.
The 25 fps is great for us PAL-landers, all we need now is for a hack to give manual exposure, or for Pentax to listen up and "do a Canon".
Dave
 
Pentax has been my DSLR of choice for years - great cameras! Made a few videos with the K-x. But when the K-r, K-5 and K-7 were all released without proper manual controls in video mode I got fed up, concluded Pentax are unlikely to 'get' video within my lifetime, and invested in a GH2. No regrets.
 
Same here, it's a shame Pentax gets punished for being more eager to develop great cameras than marketing them. Sadly they don't focus on video feature.
 
I like Pentax but have never bought one for video. I was a great fan during the 35mm film days and still have a nice set of old manual Pentax K prime lenses waiting for the time when they get it right for me. My own pros and cons of the K-5 are as follows:

Good stuff
The m-jpeg codec (each frame individually compressed) at a high datarate -- it's variable depending on image content but can be up to 74 mbps. Nice.

The in-body shake reduction (which can be used while shooting video) means all your old manual lenses get the benefit of SR -- between 2-4 stops advantage (but internal mic might pick up the SR adjustment noise?).

Rugged but light/smallist body (weather proof, mag alloy).


Bad stuff
No manual exposure for video shooting; shutter and ISO react automatically (but I believe there is exposure lock?).

Only 25 fps (but that's ok for PAL people).

Fixed 3-inch LCD (we're getting spoiled with articulated screens now -- we want them!).
 
that "good stuff" list looks nice, let's see how much they listen for the next generation... which is far by any standards, as the K-5 was released sep-2010
 
If the K-5 was better for video than the GH2 I would have purchased it but after viewing native 1080p25 @81.04 mbits/sec M-JPEG files it does not look as good as my native 1080p24 17mbits/sec or 24mbits/sec GH2 videos. And no manual video controls except for aperture is a showstopper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top