Photography News issue 23

Camera test 34

Photography News Issue 23 absolutephoto.com

Full test

Pentax K-3 II Pentax’s flagship APS-C DSLR has an impressive specification at a competitive price, but how does it compare to its competitors?

Specs

Price £750 body only, £829 with 18- 55mmWR kit, £999 with 16-85mm WR kit Sensor 6016x4000 pixels, CMOS 24.35 megapixels, 1.5x crop factor, APS-C 23.5x15.6mm ISO range 100-51,200, Auto Shutter range 30-1/8000sec, flash sync 1/180sec Drivemodes Single, continuous (up to 8.3fps), self-timer (12s, 2s), remote (0s, 3s, continuous), mirror up, HDR capture, multi-exposure, interval shooting, interval composite Metering system TTL multi-segment, spot, centre- weighted Exposuremodes PASM, Sv, Tv, Bulb and 3 user modes Exposure comp +/- 5 EV in 1/3 and 1/2 steps, AE bracketing at 2, 3, or 5 frames, up to +/- 2 EV in 1/3 or 1/2 steps Focusing Single, continuous, manual, 27 point (25 cross type), spot, select, expanded area (S, M, L), zone select, auto Video Full HD (1920x1080, 60i/50i/30p/25p/24p), HD (1280x720, 60p/50p/30p/25p/24p) Storagemedia SD, SDHC, SDXC, EyeFi, Flucard Dimensions (wxhxd) 131.5x102.5x77.5mm Weight 785g (with battery and card), 700g (body only) Contact ricoh-imaging.co.uk

Words by Kingsley Singleton

Like many DSLR manufacturers outside the ‘big two’, Pentax has to bring something different to the table for attention and with a host of innovative features, its latest DSLR, the K-3 II, certainly delivers. As its name suggests, it’s anupdate of the K-3 and outwardly there’s little change, although it’s a little larger and lighter, and the pop-up flash has been removed. The latter hints at Pentax’s positioning of the camera – its features are aimed at the serious enthusiast to semi-pro level, and the camera offers many items you’d pay more for on other makers’ bodies. For instance, the build quality is very high with a magnesium alloy shell over a stainless steel chassis, it’s also fully weather sealed, and will operate down to -10°C. In short, it’s really solid all round and you can feel the snugness of sealing in places like the hinged battery compartment door. The shutter is rated at 200,000 cycles, which also puts it in the pro- level durability bracket. Other high- level features include a top shutter speed of 1/8000sec, a very brisk 8.3fps burst mode (for 60 JPEGs or 23 Raws), a top-plate LCD, a sensor design with no optical low-pass filter boasting increased sharpness (an OLPF effect can be added if moiré is noticed), and dual SD card slots. It’s also only available in black. But the K-3 II’s most interesting features come from innovative uses of its sensor. The 24.35-megapixel resolution is a minor upgrade on its

predecessor (which continues in the range), but, allied to the in-camera Shake Reduction (SR) and GPS features, it’s capable of some very exciting things. The first of these is Pixel Shift Resolution which uses the SR function to nudge the sensor by a pixel in each direction during an exposure, thereby allowing each photosite to record ‘true’ red, green andblue data (see page 37), producing more natural colours and finer details than traditional sensors. The K-3 II alsohasaDiffractionControlfunction (turned on by default), which adds sharpness at small apertures. Inthesamevein,theSRmechanism can use data from the built-in GPS unit to shift the sensor during long- exposure astrophotography; this works like an astro tracker attached to a telescope, allowing you to compensate for the movement of the Earth by shifting the sensor, and lets you shoot longer exposures without star trails. Another feature along the same lines is Composition Adjustment; after switching it on, you can nudge the frame around and rotate it, which proved very useful, especially in macro shooting where fine adjustments are required. The only drawback here is that minor vignetting can creep in and that it makes an odd clunking noise; strange as no other SR functions do. AF performance is the best I’ve experienced on a Pentax DSLR and right up there with other models in the enthusiast bracket. The SAFOX

11 system uses 27 phase-detect AF points, 25 of which are cross-type, which is the same number as on the K-3. It’s rapid, even in low light and using the continuous (AF.C) mode with nine- or 27-point auto area made following subjects very easy (see page 36). This is lower than some competitors though and the K-3 II would benefit from a wider spread and more points. Switching between AF areas andmodes is easy thanks to a dedicated button on the front, just above the AF/MF lever. One problem found was changing the AF point in SEL 1 (selectable single-point) mode. On entering that mode, the four-way controller lets you navigate through the points and remains in this state until you press the Change AF Point button on the rear to lock it. That’s all fine, bar a rather uncomfortable bend of the thumb. However, once the AF point is locked, the four-way controller defaults to its regular shortcuts for the White Balance, Drive Modes, Custom Image or Flash, and you have to hit the Change AF button again to move the point. It’s largely user error, but the locking/unlocking process does make it easy to slip into changing a mode you don’t want to. If that sounds picky, compare it to competitors where the process is more streamlined; it’d be better achieved by linking the four-way controller to the AFmode button. This chimes with some other (minor) handling issues. For instance

only the drive modes can be changed on the top plate LCD – to alter white- balance, you have to do it on the main screen. You can hold the button and cycle through the options using the dials, which speeds things up but you should be able to domore without the screen. Dedicated buttons or dials for more commonly used functions would be a good thing and the K-3 II gets this spot on with its ISO button. Other buttons can be remapped, but the choice is limited and the GPS and RAW/FX buttons could be better employed tomymind. The User modes make up for this – there are three, accessed from the Mode dial, and they make it simple to save oft-used settings. I immediately set one up to use the excellent Pixel Shift mode and another to bracket scenes for potential HDR use. In the hand, the K-3 II feels great, with a well-contoured grip. Long fingered types might find the shutter release a little close, and the rubber coating on the body could have been extended to the memory card door, but those are minor flaws. The lockingmode dial iswelcome, and the viewfinder is impressively bright for an APS-C body, the only downside there being there’s no sensor to turn off the screen when you bring the camerauptoyoureye.Itcanbeturned off by default though. Using the K-3 II’s multi-segment metering mode throughout this test gave excellent results and very few exposure problems were encountered.

It’s really solid all round and you can feel the snugness of sealing in

places like the hinged battery compartment door