A new camera! (or Tim sells out)
I recently purchased a new camera - a Pentax K1: 36mp of full frame wonder. I saw it at the Profusion show and really liked it. In the world of full frame cameras, which I have often railed against because of their high cost, the Pentax manages to be both brilliant and affordable. I always buy from Henry’s because they have a 15 day return policy, which I still have ten days left on, so I'm doing some shooting!
In putting this puppy through its paces, I’m discovering what a great camera I have. Strangely, it’s not just the Pentax - it’s also the Olympus OMD EM1 I already own (I sold the Sony to help with the cost of the Pentax). The Pentax is a great camera, but the Olympus is equally so. I have examined the test pics from both on my very good 27” monitor, I have blown them up to 200% and pixel peeped, I have printed them, I have looked at noise. And I can report the following;
They are different. They are different enough that I will very likely keep both. They feel different, they handle different, they shoot different. Not bad different, just different. The world of mirrorless and the world of full frame DSLRs are in different galaxies. It’s surprising really just how unalike they are; the shutter click, the mirror movement (or lack of), the heft, the view through the viewfinder, the white balance, the way they frame a picture - all very different.
Focus - the Olympus focuses better. It’s faster and often it’s more accurate. While both have the ability to manually adjust the automatic focus, there is no comparison - Olympus magnifies the image so that it is absolutely certain what is in focus. Through its optical viewfinder the Pentax can’t enlarge and so the idea that you can manually fine tune the focus is kind of a pipe dream as you just can’t see detail well enough to know unless you’re really close to your subject.
Shooting - no winner here but they are different. I tend to shoot the Olympus manually because the electronic viewfinder shows me what I’m actually recording. The Pentax doesn’t (unless you switch to live view and use the LCD screen, which I usually don’t do); so the way me and many others shoot with an optical viewfinder is to ‘float’ the ISO. The TAv setting means I set my shutter to a speed where blurring isn’t an issue, set my aperture where I want, and let the auto ISO adjust itself to the scene. This works particularly well on a full frame camera because it can shoot up to 3200 ISO virtually noise free. I like both methods, but must admit I still feel half blind shooting with an optical viewfinder.
Detail - both are good, but given the relative size of the sensors, the Olympus isn’t good, it is exceptionally good. On some pictures, it out-details the Pentax.* It could partly be lenses but the ones I’m using on both cameras are very highly rated.
Composing - maybe the area they differ the most. The full frame shots feel a bit more ‘composed’ to me. To put it a different way, if I were shooting a portrait, I’d grab the Pentax. For landscapes, either. For weddings, the Pentax. For travel, the Olympus.
*I’m learning there are different kinds of detail. If you punch down through 200% magnification, the Pentax is holding a bit more near pixel level detail and somewhat less noise. But in the pictures you are actually looking at, the Olympus often has a more acute and consistent rendering of fine detail in an image. It may sound odd, but it is true.
Here are three pictures of the same figurine - one with the Pentax and a 31mm f1.8 Limited lens, another with the Pentax and the surprisingly good 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens, and the third with the Olympus and its terrific 12-100 f4 lens. Good luck guessing which is which.
Top pic - Pentax with 28-105 lens - 1/25, f4, 320 ISO
Middle pic - Olympus with 12-100 - 1/60, f4, 800 ISO
Bottom pic - Pentax with 31mm lens - 1/25, f5, 800 ISO