Pentax K-3 III Monochrome Sensor!

Thanks for posting. I do enjoy a lot of contrast in my b&w, so any of those 3 looked good to me. If I was shooting without a filter however, I feel like you almost need to be in the high contrast setting, but again, personal taste. Looks too soft without a filter on standard. It’s very grey, and probably very true to a pure monochromatic look however. Looks like Pentax has a nice sensor on their hands! Maybe one day I’ll grab one!
 
MountainMan79 said:
Thanks for posting. I do enjoy a lot of contrast in my b&w, so any of those 3 looked good to me. If I was shooting without a filter however, I feel like you almost need to be in the high contrast setting, but again, personal taste. Looks too soft without a filter on standard. It’s very grey, and probably very true to a pure monochromatic look however. Looks like Pentax has a nice sensor on their hands! Maybe one day I’ll grab one!
Click to expand...

I think the standard file is the way it is to give the most flexibility in processing to taste.

I'm hoping I'll be able to get a standard profile with or without a filter that's close enough I won't be spending all the time I currently do messing with processing.
 
Some more shots using the Standard custom image setting with no modifications or filters, some different tones and darker shadows in these. With the 21mm. Still trying to figure out why some of my images resized through Irfanview loose exif data and others don't, even though the setting for retaining exif is checked for all. :hmmm:

original.jpg


original.jpg
 
gordo said:
I think the standard file is the way it is to give the most flexibility in processing to taste.

I'm hoping I'll be able to get a standard profile with or without a filter that's close enough I won't be spending all the time I currently do messing with processing.
Click to expand...
To be clear, these profiles only affect JPEG files... right? Feel like that's a dumb question, but still, there I go.
 
agentlossing said:
To be clear, these profiles only affect JPEG files... right? Feel like that's a dumb question, but still, there I go.
Click to expand...

Not dumb at all, I need to find the info to be sure but I believe it affects the RAW but can be negated in the processor. Let me go open PDCU and play for a bit.

edit - in the Digital Camera Utility program, it looks like the Standard profile is the default profile for the PEF. I opened the Hard and Soft PEFs, when you hit the Standard profile the active sliders reset to zero. Opening the Standard PEF shows zeroed sliders, unless I have made adjustments. Still need to find out the correct answer to this, I know people like to start from an actual RAW base.

Someone with more knowledge on this would be helpful.
 
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All depends on the firmware in the camera. The hard and soft settings probably use some type of curve to translate linear values from the sensor to an intensity value. How this gets stored is the trick, a lot of ways to do it. It can be stored as a "Look up table" in the raw file, to translate the values stored in the image to those displayed. It can be applied directly to the value before storing it. You might try storing a couple of files as DNG, look at them with Rawdigger or something like it.

18261144226_0f9b0f5ffc_o.jpg
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GAMMA by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

I typically use curve 3 for the M Monochrom, change the "Black Level" in the DNG and then convert from 14-bits to 16-bits. The Pentax firmware could do something similar, could store the LUT in the file, or convert the pixels.
 
I suspect the ultimate answer is that tone curves don't limit RAW files, even if they act as a "starting point" inside a developer. More often than not they are only retained in the thumbnail file with the RAW. Programs are very hit or miss on whether they reflect the tone curve the file was shot with. In my experience with Ricoh, Pentax and Panasonic files the settings at time of shot are ignored and a default profile is assigned by the RAW processor, which has caused me no end of frustration in the past.
 
Do you know how tempted I'd be if a K-1 monochrome was released?

I like the K-1 control interface a little better than the K-3 III. Plus using all the old lenses without the APS-C crop would be quite exciting... although, to be fair, the APS-C Limited lenses are something all their own level of special, in no small part due to size.
 
agentlossing said:
Do you know how tempted I'd be if a K-1 monochrome was released?

I like the K-1 control interface a little better than the K-3 III. Plus using all the old lenses without the APS-C crop would be quite exciting... although, to be fair, the APS-C Limited lenses are something all their own level of special, in no small part due to size.
Click to expand...

Maybe they'll do a K-1mkIII, and follow it up a year or two later with a K-1mkIII Monochrome... :unsure:
 
Those samples are very calming, @gordo!

agentlossing said:
Do you know how tempted I'd be if a K-1 monochrome was released?

I like the K-1 control interface a little better than the K-3 III. Plus using all the old lenses without the APS-C crop would be quite exciting... although, to be fair, the APS-C Limited lenses are something all their own level of special, in no small part due to size.
Click to expand...
Do you have a K-1 lying around? You can have it converted to Monochrome.
 
Probably the last set of images in here. We had some clouds today, so went to the water reclamation park (sewage plant) viewing platform and shot some images. 60-250 bare, and with yellow-green and orange. In addition to the clouds it was a bit hazy, so contrast was low. Out of the series of images, the ones with the orange filter look more to my taste out-of-camera.

SOOC jpg resized for web, shot in standard custom image mode, highlight-weighted metering, orange filter.
original.jpg
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After processing in Digital Camera Utility, only change was to change the "as shot" from standard to hard, exported as a full-size 16-bit tif, resized for web.
original.jpg
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Thoughts.

Most likely I'll be shooting cloudscapes with the orange filter, and the camera set to hard custom image profile with some adjustments to taste. Should be able to have SOOC jpgs I'm happy with, and the raw data to process if I want. Might be a lengthy process.

Not sure other shooting will be done with a filter. Need to spend more time looking at images I shoot. Might be a lengthy process.

I need to go back and look at all my in-camera settings and my processing flow, my shots above have more noise/ grain than I'd think they would have.
 
Well, a couple more SOOC photos. Was rummaging through a box of orphan photo flotsam and realized I already had a 67mm circular polarizer. Pulled it out, cleaned it, and stacked it on the yellow-green to test on today's walk. Adjusting to max darkening, even the yellow-green can get better sky/ cloud separation. Still OK in the speckled woods lighting. Will be testing the orange + polarizer this week as well.
original.jpg
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original.jpg
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