Pentax K100D Image stabalised DSLR (1 Viewer)

Hi All.

I see there is no seperate forum for the Pentax Cameras
Has anyone heard or seen any decent reviews yet on the Pentax K100D Image Stabalised DSLR? It is set to be very reasonably priced and I believe there is a 10MP version comming out later this year. They claim the image stabalization is sufficiently good that it removes the need for any of these expensive IS lenses. You could get an ordinary ED glass non IS lense for a fraction of the price of a Canon IS lense and still take awesome shots of swifts in flight :clap:

I hope it lives up to what they say. Under $700 for the body and get a sub $1000 ED lense and you should be able to match a 350D 100-400 IS combination for less than what the 100-400 IS costs alone?

Here is a vote for technological advancement.

I called Pentax yesterday, the shake reduction either must recognize the focal length of the lens or it can be manualy set. It can be set for a maximum of 800mm, he said that would include the 1.5 multiplier, so a 500mm lens will give you 750mm. My local store technician brought up another consideration, if you do any cropping, half of 6 mp will not be enough for 8x10 or 11x17 prints. There is the new K10D 10 mp for $999.

PCC said:

I called Pentax yesterday, the shake reduction either must recognize the focal length of the lens or it can be manualy set. It can be set for a maximum of 800mm, he said that would include the 1.5 multiplier, so a 500mm lens will give you 750mm. I am going to double check to see if the 800 really includes the 1.5X.

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If the sensor based shake reduction technology in the Pentax body can actually deal with a 500mm zoom lens like the Bigma, this would be a very interesting combination.

The new K10D would be a much better choice for birding IMHO.

doug_newman said:

You could get an ordinary ED glass non IS lense for a fraction of the price of a Canon IS lense and still take awesome shots of swifts in flight.

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Er, nope. Image stabilisation isn't at all useful when you're tracking a moving object. The IS mechanism treats the deliberate movement of the camera as shake and tries to compensate for it.

Some of the Canon IS lenses have a special mode for panning shots, where the IS ignores movement in the horizontal plane. But even that's no good when shooting things that are moving all over the sky.

Well this is an old poast but i have one and I LOVE it. ony complaint i can come up with is noise at 1600ISO and up, but then what camera does not have that problem!
No problem at with flight shots.

hollis_f said:

Er, nope. Image stabilisation isn't at all useful when you're tracking a moving object. The IS mechanism treats the deliberate movement of the camera as shake and tries to compensate for it.

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Er, I beg to differ. Whilst it doesn't tolerate "lazy" panning, the image stabilisation works very well with a smooth panning action and a slow shutter speed. If you keep the subject within the frame, within the boundaries of the maximum movement of the sensor (if that makes sense) the stabilisation works great. I know that there's many fans of other systems who will try and persuade you that this isn't the case, but I'm speaking from personal experience with my K10D here.

Regards,

Duncan

I think I am correct in saying the Shake Reduction on the K10 is an "upgraded" version of that on the K100, However I still dont think it is designed for panning, maybe your just good at it and the resulting images are from your own ability to pan well.
Maybe the SR is sensing the movement as you pan and just shifting the sensor as far as it can either left or right then just compensating on the vertical shift.

I really cant see how the SR can differentiate between different kinds of movement, I am definately going to bring this up on the PentaxUser forum, someone there is bound to know the answer.

Watch this space.....