Pentax My first walk with Pentax Q10 (Queenie)

L0n3Gr3yW0lf

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Location
Somerset, UK
Name
Ovi
I took out my (new to me) used Pentax Q10 with the 5-15mm f 2.8-4.5 and 15-45mm f 2.8 lenses, no goal specifically outside of trying to see what kind of images it can make and the user experience.

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Little wet duckies, light rain made things a bit more annoying so I stuck with the 15-45mm lens until it stopped to not risk getting water in.

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My first observation (and cumulative experience by the experience) is that the autofocus is not reliable for a subject at any speed but 0. This doesn't disappoint me all that much, it's fine for street photography and candid shots but it's not my "Walk-The-Dog" setup. The AF was set for AF-S with medium size AF point.

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Besides speed for AF there's also the accuracy problem, a few of the shots came out front or back focus. Noticing this I locked the zoom function to 100% because pixel-peeping is not going to help this little camera even in the best-case scenario. Since doing that I've been more impressed with the little Queenie than I thought.

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This was one of the cases where the camera confirmed the AF lock on the swan but in post, it's out of focus, I might consider making the AF point smaller to avoid confusion on a subject too small. I was a bit surprised by the DoF of such a small sensor, even at f 2.8 there is some DoF to blur the background, at medium range to minimum focus (about 5 meters and less).

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What I found absolutely wonderful are the colours and the white balance. The WB is just perfect between too cold and too warm (though I do prefer warmer nature to pictures), I have not changed the WB at all which is a first for me in years. The colours are wonderfully balanced, not too saturated or too offbeat BUT it was a very cloudy day with and mild amount of light. I will have to see how it behaves in direct sunlight and its more varied light types.

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Mind you all (well most, I will mention those who are not) the images have been processed from RAW and had a final pass through Topaz DeNoise AI. There's quite a bit of sharpness in the files to unlock and denoising them adds a bit more sharpness on top as well.

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I was also surprised that, despite the English weather, the bright lenses kept the ISO almost always at 100 to 200, delightful. The IBIS seems to be quite conservative though, keeping the shutter speed at a 1/1 ratio for the focal length, I should test it in low light to see if the shutter speed is brave enough to go below. I let the camera choose the exposure in Program mode and Auto ISO, I wanted to see how well it handles the exposure. I expected the camera and the lens to handle wide open most of the time (Diffraction, Optical Quality, keeping ISO as minimum as possible) but I am starting to reconsider that.

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Now speaking of ergonomics this little camera is surprisingly comfortable and fun to use, even though it's very short because it's so light I can hold it comfortably with 2 fingers on the grip and pinky underneath (and I am holding its weight well on it). The buttons are small but very clicky and responsive. There is a bit more room for bigger buttons if they tried (especially if you put the text on the buttons instead of next to them). One dial is fine but if it was clickable it could work well in Manual mode and switch between Aperture and Shutter Speed.

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The biggest difficulty/disappointment is the screen, it's VERY reflective and not particularly bright. At 460K dots, it's impossible to judge the focus or sharpness on it but at least the bezels are quite reasonably small for their size. I wish Pentax would have made an EVF with a link in the hotshoe, even a (for its era) basic 1.44 million dots EVF would have been helpful. The fixed nature of the screen is understandable for its size but I do wonder if, after some years of investment, a later mater could have a front-facing tilt screen (the mechanism is more compact and easier to implement in very compact cameras).

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The lenses, one disappointing aspect of both lenses is their minimum focus distance, magnification and close-up quality. Of the two I think 15-45mm f 2.8 lens is the better one, for macro but also IQ-wise in every aspect. Both lenses are so small and light that they are almost the same BUT the 15-45mm had a locking mechanism to stay small when not in use. But given how small the 15-45mm f 2.8 lens is I wonder why didn't Pentax make the 5-15mm a constant f 2.8 lens instead of f 2.8-4.5. But it's nice that both of them have the same filter size: 40.5mm

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The Pentax 15-45mm f 2.8 lens is quite sharp and has good contrast at the minimum focus distance. The chromatic aberrations are reasonable and easy to control on this lens. I will have to test the other aperture to see if there's more sharpness in it. I am not finding the locking mechanism annoying, it's reasonably easy to unlock and I keep it unlocked when I have the lens on and I haven't accidentally locked it while on the camera (yet).

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I don't know how much it would affect the size and the price but I do wonder and wish that the system was weather sealed, it doesn't have to be to the level of Pentax K series or Olympus but a little bit too give the feeling of "take it everywhere, use it all the time" aspect. I don't mind the plastic lightweight feel to it, I have different expectations compared to my Sony a7 Mark IV or a Micro Four Thirds camera. Cheap and cheerful.

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The camera and the lens survived a light drizzly rain just fine, not much worry there. The battery life is not great but the batteries are old so I am not faulting it for that, the batteries are very small and thin, I haven't seen a battery like this since my first phone back in the late 90s. The battery is so compact that I left one in my wallet as a backup if I ever run out of battery and forget my spare (I have one OEM and 2 3rd party ones).

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Another picture where the AF confirmed to lock on my Nuggie but she's out of focus.

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This camera LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES the green colours. You might think I used flash for this image but I have not, it just renders the green absolutely beautifully. To be honest, the more I look at this picture the more I want more of it, I might consider getting a Pentax DSLR but my financial situation will not allow me to buy anything for at least next year (I am literally broke).

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Zooming in on the roots, this is one of my favourites. A very sharp little lens, I might use the 15-45mm f 2.8 more than the kit lens.

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I attempted to shoot the ducks but it was not particularly fast to focus enough to get the moment before the duck is gone from the AF point. Cute separation in the background, not a lot but enough to let you not focus your eyes on it.

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The dynamic range of the camera is quite good for this little one, the highlights can be burned but there's at least a stop recovery. I didn't use any exposure bias to evaluate recoverability, the RAW files don't mind the pull on highlights and push the shadows.

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Queenie handles yellows very well, just like greens, I didn't expect it to handle all the gradients of yellow so well. The more I edit the RAW files the more excited I am about it.

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The greens on the head, the yellow beak and the orange feet colours are looking very natural and pleasing, besides the contrast and dehaze I have not changed any aspect of the colours and left the AWB as it was.
 
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No denoising. The pontoon is being rebuilt, not sure why because it looked fine the last time I was there. Anywho, I am pretty happy with this setup for this kind of candid shot.

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Another miss focused, I made myself the habit of shooting at least 2 or 3 frames when shooting anything to have a backup if one of them fails, out of 3 attempts all of them were out of focus but I REALLY wanted to keep one of them because I loved the water droplets on the leaves.

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With the Pentax 5-15mm f 2.8-4.5 lens my biggest disappointment is the low IQ at the minimum focus distance. The contrast is very low, giving it a dreamy look and blooming of highlights, the sharpness is not great but some of it can be recovered with sharpening.

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It is quite disappointing because I love photographing flowers, maybe the Pentax 8.5mm f 1.9 may be better at it. Too bad Pentax didn't keep the system alive to make at least a macro lens. I just can't get enough of the Pentax colours.

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There's some blue fringing on high contrast even at the centre of the image at minimum focus distance, it's mild in intensity so it's easy to correct with a brush and Difringing but the Colour Picker on Aberration Correction will not work on it.

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Again, beautiful colours but a very hazy and dreamy look. I hope stopping down to f 5.6 or f 8 can fix this problem. But there's going to be a looot of DoF at that aperture and difficult to isolate the subject, and with very limited minimum focus distance you can't get any closer to get more isolation.

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It's not a miss-focus, just the softness from the IQ at the minimum focus distance.

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I didn't have many opportunities for landscape images, it seems to work reasonably well, with quite good DR and details.

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I am not sure about the reds rendition, but it is a difficult scene to meter for with the bright sky behind the fence.

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Nobody seems to make notice me with something so small, I have a feeling it looks like a toy. And very easy to shoot one-handed.

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I don't know why but just a 1mm difference and I got great sharpness and IQ close-up. I am very surprised how well all the details in the whites have been retained in the petals.

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Even with the sky right behind the flower it still did great, even my Sony a7 Mark IV can get confused in this situation. Maybe there's still hope for 5-15mm f 2.8-4.5

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The old Willow tree at the rugby field, I should visit it one day, there are not many Willow trees in Wellington and they used to be one of my favourites when I was a kid (we had a big one next to the apartment block (it was cut down about 30 years ago).

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And it's all fuzzy again, the 5-15mm lens has a quite diverse personality.

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At 12 MP there's not a lot of cropping without losing too much quality, especially with heavily pushed RAW files.

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Straight of out camera RAW files have quite a bit of barrel distortion at 5mm but it's very well corrected with automatic profile correction in Lightroom (which this little system has and yet literally no Olympus or Panasonic lens has WTF Adobe?) These garages have been locked for over 20 years (from what I have heard), and I don't know why.

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I got quite interested in the reflection in this big "bucket" filled with rainwater, I love the textures from the peaking paint on the wood.

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Getting a bit closer and a bit of cropping got me the image I wanted.

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I don't know how I missed this door, I did pass it quite a few times over the years, but I didn't notice how beautiful the old peeling paint and the really old lamp above the door.

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I have never seen a "setup" like this before, except in old movies. This looks abandoned for decades.
 
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One of the oldest trees in Wellington Park is over 150 years old. I am not sure about the colour rendition of the wood, it feels a bit too magenta in it, I would prefer something a bit warmer.


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I love these 2 little ducks in the pond because of the green vegetation. The denoise is quite more obvious in this picture because of the DoF and the water.

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The little duckies were sitting under a beautiful Willow tree (only two trees like that in Wellington that I know of).

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I tried 3 times to get a focus lock on the Squirrel but only one image was actually successful (though all 3 confirmed in green that they found focus). The sharpness was improved and acceptable only after a Topaz DeNoise AI run.

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I struggled to get the focus to work at a minimum distance, I was surprised the DoF did not cover all the petals at f 2.8, something I need to get used to and keep in mind. I love the really good rendition of blue and purple and the shades between the two.

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The Squirrel was in a very deep shadow, and I did not have high hopes of getting the focus, I tried 8 times before it ran off, and I got 2 out of 8 in focus. I was surprised that the RAW file managed to hold up this well with a huge difference between the shadow and the highlights. I am very pleased with the image.

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The gardeners have arrived.

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This is my favourite tree in Wellington, it's a great spot for portrait photography, be it one subject or couples. With deep DoF (like f 1.4/1.8 or telephoto range) you can get really good foreground and background, and have the subjects either together or on the opposite sides of the tree .. but I never had the chance to use it that way (no one wants to do portraits by me).

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Good day to read the newspaper.

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Chilling.

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The path never taken, quite literally I never knew this path was there before.

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Toy Story 4 (hint, left out in the rain outside school).

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The colourful spring is here.

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Darn it, missed the focus again. This is as close as 15mm lets you, maybe a bit less since it's not in focus well.

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But I am happy that this one worked well, this is as close as 5mm lets you.
 
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Wow you're really using the little Q! They're surprisingly good imaging tools, although mine don't enough use these days. I suspect that they'll inhabit the same mental space that the old Auto 110 did in a few years time; quirky cool little cameras.
 
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One of the oldest trees in Wellington Park is over 150 years old. I am not sure about the colour rendition of the wood, it feels a bit too magenta in it, I would prefer something a bit warmer.


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I love these 2 little ducks in the pond because of the green vegetation. The denoise is quite more obvious in this picture because of the DoF and the water.

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The little duckies were sitting under a beautiful Willow tree (only two trees like that in Wellington that I know of).

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I tried 3 times to get a focus lock on the Squirrel but only one image was actually successful (though all 3 confirmed in green that they found focus). The sharpness was improved and acceptable only after a Topaz DeNoise AI run.

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I struggled to get the focus to work at a minimum distance, I was surprised the DoF did not cover all the petals at f 2.8, something I need to get used to and keep in mind. I love the really good rendition of blue and purple and the shades between the two.

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The Squirrel was in a very deep shadow, and I did not have high hopes of getting the focus, I tried 8 times before it ran off, and I got 2 out of 8 in focus. I was surprised that the RAW file managed to hold up this well with a huge difference between the shadow and the highlights. I am very pleased with the image.

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The gardeners have arrived.

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This is my favourite tree in Wellington, it's a great spot for portrait photography, be it one subject or couples. With deep DoF (like f 1.4/1.8 or telephoto range) you can get really good foreground and background, and have the subjects either together or on the opposite sides of the tree .. but I never had the chance to use it that way (no one wants to do portraits by me).

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Good day to read the newspaper.

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Chilling.

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The path never taken, quite literally I never knew this path was there before.

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Toy Story 4 (hint, left out in the rain outside school).

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The colourful spring is here.

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Darn it, missed the focus again. This is as close as 15mm lets you, maybe a bit less since it's not in focus well.

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But I am happy that this one worked well, this is as close as 5mm lets you.
Splendid tread, this.

I like the idea of the Qs and somewhere down the line, I fancy giving it a spin, but untill I do, I`ll just enjoy this and oogling the occasional Pentax 110 system in the classifieds, there seems to be rather more of those than of the Qs over at my place. There is also the MX1 to consider, it could be considered both as a compact and as a fixed lens Q, I think.

I remember when they came around, and created quite a bit of fuzz over at the Pentax forum. I was one of the naysayers based on the lack of LVF. I am still somewhat leery towards that, but not as dogmatic as I once was. Though when I got into the Nikon 1 system earlier this year, it was with a V1 one of the models with a viewfinder.

Dang, the camera manufactures has killed off a lot of good stuff over the last few years.
 
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