19 ms·

Pentax K-3 III Monochrome: A DSLR Just for B&W Photo Lovers

72 points by Kaibeezy 3y ago

PaulHoule 3y ago
Nice to see, when you delete the Bayer filter you not only get more resolution (factor of 2 in both directions) but you also get an extra stop of exposure. It’s always been tricky to bring to market. Deleting the Bayer filter saves money, it doesn’t cost money but the person who wants this is going to care about quality and since it is a niche product that points to it being expensive. Practically most of us will want to shoot color snaps and vendor lock-in is a thing. I have some lust for the top of the link Nikon bodies but I have an investment in Sony lenses so if I get a new mirrorless body it is very likely to be a Sony.
- xattt 3y ago
  > … when you delete the Bayer filter you not only get more resolution (factor of 2 in both directions) … Does the larger resolution mean out to a larger dimensions of an image file, or is it the term resolution being used in the context of “resolving” detail in an image?
  - grishka 3y ago
    The latter. Color pictures still have the pixel dimensions equal to those of the sensor, but each pixel has 2 of its channels interpolated from neighboring pixels. That's why "100% crops" of color digital photos always look kinda blurry.
  - myself248 3y ago
    You can learn more about this by looking up "debayering" or "demosaicing", the process by which 4 pixels with color filters are combined into 1 pixel of color information. But it still has 4 pixels worth of spatial information. Sorta. If you're willing to make some assumptions. It's a messy process That's why shooting with raw files is so popular; these grab the data from the sensor before the debayering, since some post-processing operations work better if they're earlier in the processing pipeline.
  - _ph_ 3y ago
    Assuming both sensors have the same pixel count, the resulting images also have the same pixel count but the image taken with the monochrome sensor would resolve finer details which get lost when doing the color interpolation with the color sensor. This can be nicely seen with the Leicas, as they usually sell a Monochrom with the same pixel count as the color version.
- myself248 3y ago
  Prior to this Pentax announcement, the only monochrome camera I've seen aimed even slightly consumer-oriented was the Krontech Chronos high-speed camera, which is only consumer-oriented if you really squint a bit and assume your consumer has some very niche needs. But one thing they do which I love, is they offer exactly the same camera with either a color or a monochrome sensor. I don't think it's quite user-swappable, but every other piece of the device is completely identical.
  - Arainach 3y ago
    What's your definition of "consumer"? The Leica Q2 Mono is firmly aimed at consumers. It's not cheap and not a disposable consumer, but it's not aimed at anyone making a living from photography.
    - ffhhttt 3y ago
      I would also classify M10 Monochrom as consumer even if its certainly a luxury product.
    - myself248 3y ago
      Oh thank you, I wasn't aware of those!
- _ph_ 3y ago
  The resolution difference isn't a factor of 2 in both dimensions, comparisons of the M Monochrom and the corresponding color model rather hint to the factor of 2 in the total pixel count which is expected from the mechanics of the color interpolation process. But still it is a noticeable resolution gain. And indeed, you also get at least a stop of exposure.
- munificent 3y ago
  As someone who takes a decent amount of monochrome photos, I don't think the extra resolution and brightness is worth it. The advantage of taking color photos and converting them to black and white in post is that you have full control over the resulting brightness of different colors during the monochrome conversion. For example, in the photo of the deer here, you could make the deer pop more by turning down greens and turning red up. Starting from a color photo just gives you so much more control over the relative values of different parts of the image. And with monochrome, obviously, value is everything.
corinroyal 3y ago
I'm so excited that camera manufacturers would go out on a limb with a niche product like this. I typically shoot in black and white and am lusting after this. Like Fuji's X-100 series fixed lens cameras, it's an exciting time to escape the treadmill of incremental feature upgrades to produce a camera with a dramatically different photographer experience. Love live Pentax!
- Kaibeezy 3y ago
  I’ve been shooting actual film lately (Ilford XP2 b/w and CineStill color) with my old Pentax ME recently back from a slow-mo refurb by the last semi-retired Pentax guy. Very happy to get one or two nice shots per roll. They are from an entirely different reality.
  - corinroyal 3y ago
    Wow, that sounds really fun. A friend of mine got into medium format film photography and had a blast. Personally, while I love film, I don't know if I could go back to point and hope. I'm so used to instant feedback. How did you manage?
    - Kaibeezy 3y ago
      My kid is getting a uni degree in photography, which is obviously heavily digital. I wanted a way to connect without overlapping, so I went for creative anachrony. I am also hoping, without pushing, to spark an interest in great grandpa’s Praktica, my dad’s Nikkormat, or the little Konica rangefinder I had as a kid. We picked up a pinhole box kit where you expose straight to paper and develop that, no negative. Next week we’re going to check out the new dark sky area near us. Etc. Just finding motivations and being nerds, really.
      - corinroyal 3y ago
        What a wonderful project to do together. The most amazing thing about my switch from DSLRs to mirrorless (Fuji) is the tools like focus peaking that make it easy to focus with manual lenses. I'm poor, so dropping 4-900 on a new Fuji lens isn't possible. But used camera sites like KEH have old lenses one can use with a cheap adapter. I got the Nikkor 10.5cm f4 sonar, a legendary old lens that shot the most famous photograph in the world. This was produced before Nikon was Nikon. It is fantastic still today. So while I used to shoot kit zooms, now I have a range of primes and am discovering what strengths the different lengths have. It's really extended my capability and fun. https://www.35mmc.com/24/03/2022/nikkor-t-10-5cm-f-4-review/ https://www.35mmc.com/24/03/2022/nikkor-t-10-5cm-f-4-review/
dale_glass 3y ago
I don't think Pentax is sticking to SLR because they've got some very special ideas. I think it's just pragmatic. Pentax K has a flange distance of 45 mm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance). This puts Pentax in a tricky position. Making a mirrorless camera is nearly pointless if they want to keep their current lenses. And they're already a niche player with barely any adoption. Their options would be releasing a fat mirrorless camera, providing an adapter and creating a new lens mount, or adopting an existing lens mount. All of these kind of suck, and would risk losing market share. The easiest option seems to just keep going.
- 10729287 3y ago
  They also don't have the money to R&D for a mirrorless camera in such an already competitive landscape dominated by AF and video high level performance. They could only shine in a niche market, like SIGMA is trying with their fp and sd camera (Foveon triple layer sensor)... and DSLR seems to be a safer market for Pentax with huge heritage and strong fan base. The demand for Optical viewfinder in EVF times is there, and will still probably be way higher in the next years when they'll be the only one to care as Nikon and Canon already told they won't release any lens or body anymore with the DSLR technology.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Yeah. Personally, I would never buy a mirrorless camera for still photography (I hate EVFs). I have thought about getting back into photography and most likely I would pick up an old Leica M3. I'm quite happy that film and chemicals have recently become more available again, as film photography has begun to see a resurgence.
    - 10729287 3y ago
      Film and chemicals more available again ? They've never been hard to get, at least here in France. They are just WAY more expensive now as they are popular amongst younger photographers who don't mind over paying common vintage cameras and 30euros for 36 pictures to be shot/developped/scanned.
fileeditview 3y ago
I once owned a Pentax K-5. I sold it at some point just because I didn't want to carry around so much weight and switched to a smaller mirrorless camera. However with a heavy heart. The usability and build quality were stellar. Especially considering the price. Pentax creates some really beautiful cameras.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I still have my K-5...that I don't use because photos get some small marks from I believe fungus in my lens...and everytime I look at the price of new lenses I just sigh at the price and close the browser tab.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    Get yourself to Ebay! A Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 is a great portrait lens on a K-5, probably $100. If you need AF you're looking at twice the price or more, but you could get something slower. For a zoom something modern is a better idea, but old primes are still pretty great.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  I think I still would have my K-3 if the autofocus would have been better. My Sony A7iv is just miles ahead. And the K-1 doesn’t have better focus either. It’s pretty sad that a company that was building such great cameras in timers of features, ergonomics and robustness is slowly dying.
nottorp 3y ago
Hmm I see some complaints about the screen in spite of the camera having a viewfinder. I'm no photography fiend, but I do have an entry level DSLR and I find the screen completely useless. Maybe useful at night but as soon as there is a bit of light it's good for nothing. How can you actually use that screen? Buy a hood for it so it's in the shade when you're outdoors at noon?
- Semaphor 3y ago
  The reviewer has issues using a full-color viewfinder for B/W photography.
  - RobotToaster 3y ago
    Then he should have known a Wratten 90 viewing filter is used for previewing how a scene looks in black and white.
- aeturnum 3y ago
  It depends on what you're using the screen for - but in general they're used for changing settings, reviewing framing and exposure, etc. I think they can also be useful for previewing long exposure settings. Even on very expensive cameras you're going to struggle to use them to do detailed assessment of photos. That said you can absolutely buy hoods for them - though they are generally aimed at people using them for video.
sanitycheck 3y ago
I'm a Pentax user, I really appreciate their dedication to backward-compatibility - they've stuck with the K-mount since 1975 and nearly all* lenses ever made work pretty well** on every subsequent camera. The strong impression I get is that that photographers and engineers are the ones making important decisions, leading to outcomes like sensor-shift stabilisation (why put that in every single lens?!) and a proliferation of physical controls (try using a touch screen with gloves, or freezing fingers). [* The Ricoh pin, ** KA lens aperture contacts on digital bodies]
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  > why put that in every single lens There are valid engineering reasons for this. Sensor shift is hard, especially for full-frame cameras. The sensor has to be moved very fast, which means it has to be light, which means it can't have a heat sink attached, which means it can easily overheat. For telephoto lenses, the shift required in the sensor would be huge, up to a cm or so, whereas a tiny shift in a small lens can slew the image by more than that.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    Well... For a very long lens that's true - but then just buy a long lens with OS and turn off the sensor shift. Best of both worlds, all your other lenses can be smaller/lighter and still benefit from an extra stop or two of hand-held stability. I've never acquired a very long lens because I know in my heart that I'll never want to carry it around. I have, OTOH, appreciated the extra stabilisation on M lenses from the 80s! Really good point about heat, and one I didn't even consider because I don't care about video even slightly! I guess Pentax users are a small self-selecting market.
cjbprime 3y ago
I can't help but imagine the version of this review that compares the shots the reviewer took to other shots they took at the same scene on an similar size of sensor on a color Pentax camera, and then clicked "convert to monochrome" in their favorite image editor. (Before anyone thinks that maybe the experience of carrying the monochrome camera is different -- the reviewer points out that the Live View back screen does not articulate, and the optical viewfinder shows color in the way to would expect an optical viewfinder to.)
davotoula 3y ago
I thought b&w only was a gimmick until I saw the results. Removing various colour components from the camera allows for sharper and more light sensitive b&w photos... Also more b&w tones imo.
- askafriend 3y ago
  One thing you lose is the ability to filter out specific colors in post-processing.
  - wduquette 3y ago
    I do mostly B&W these days, using an Olympus OM-1. The ability to mix the colors in post enables some real subtlety that it would be hard to reproduce using optical filters on a pure B&W camera. I was lusting after this camera (and the Leica monochromes, though they are way too rich for my blood) before I got my OM-1; but I think I'm happier with what I've got.
neogodless 3y ago
Headline caught my eye as a happy K-3 II photographer. The physical shape, optical viewfinder, and physical knobs are all a joy to me. Of course, touch screen, the advantage of digital viewfinders, and especially the autofocus of mirrorless would all bring their own joy. I worry about the change in grip size and all those other adjustments, not to mention having to invest in a whole new lens ecosystem, so for now, I'm stuck with what I've got. I find it crazy that a B&W camera at that price can be profitable, but it's neat to see.
marstall 3y ago
wake me when digital can do this https://news.artnet.com/market/diane-arbus-birthday-890000 https://news.artnet.com/market/diane-arbus-birthday-890000
- Finnucane 3y ago
  To be fair, no camera is going to turn you into Diane Arbus.
  - grouchomarx 3y ago
    There is a starting point though and it's a 4x5 view camera and nice optic
    - Finnucane 3y ago
      Arbus usually shot with a Rolleiflex, but whatever.
- _ph_ 3y ago
  What exactly are you missing in digital cameras which prevents you taking pictures like that?
  - marstall 3y ago
    I struggle to define it. Emotion? The feeling of another world, different from the one I inhabit? Maybe Diane Arbus could make digital look like that idk.
    - illwrks 3y ago
      So I was going to write a quick paragraph reply but I bothered to do a bit of research... :/ From Google: "Diane Arbus is known for her unrelenting direct photographs of people who are considered social deviates. She also portrayed “normal” people in a manner that exposed the cracks in their public masks. Diane Arbus is best known for her stark, documentary style of photography." And from the article: “Arbus captures a boy on the cusp of adolescence yet still playing with toys—but the object is a plastic grenade, an object of war,” said Hughes. “There’s something troubling about him playing solider—the ongoing war efforts were not lost on a little kid in Central Park.” From PetaPixel: “I want to photograph what is evil,” Arbus told Model, who noted that “[Arbus] was determined to reveal what others had been taught to turn their backs on.” The scheme typical for her photography is a frontal portrait in square format. She was one of the pioneers of daylight flash use, which she used to isolate her subjects. What she first liked about it was how it alters light and reveals things you don’t normally see. She wanted to have stillness in her photograph, and that is why she always posed her subjects either on the street or in their homes. Arbus made the subjects look directly to the camera to “freeze” the picture. However, as we can see in many of her picture the effect was quite the opposite. Many of her pictures look spontaneous. So, I guess to sum it all up in this photo... the context, the expression, the rigid pose, the fallen shoulder strap, the grenade... the questions you might have about who the child is, what's with the expression, where are his parents, is the grenade real? 90% of that is from the photographer and their interaction with the subject, and only a little of it is from the camera, the tool to capture that moment. It reminds me of the saying "a bad workman blames his/her tools", which is also kind of the inverse of "do your best with what you've got". If you more like the above, have a search for "Roger Ballen", he takes it to another extreme...
gonzo41 3y ago
If you're going to go this far, doesn't it just make sense to get a K-1000 and do film. It's a lot more fun IMO.
- macintux 3y ago
  I love shooting film, but I also have 30-40 undeveloped rolls, and scanning is another big headache. Film adds a huge overhead to your workflow, and I can’t blame people who don’t want to deal with it.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    The overhead is the point of shooting on film these days. Each shot is costly and time-consuming, so you think about what you are doing and the shots that make it to a print are your well-considered best ones. Scanning doesn't even makes sense in this mindset. When I used to be into photography I shot B&W film and did all my own processing and prints. Never scanned anything (of course, scanners didn't exist in those days, at least not in the consumer market). I started with a K-1000 also, there's something wonderful about its simplicity. Even though the viewfinder is dim and the action is slow by today's standards, you are in total control of aperture, focus, and shutter speed. I moved up to a slightly more automated Ricoh body that accepted all my Pentax lenses, but started lacking the time to spend on this hobby and eventually just stopped. The camera and lenses still work some 30+ years later, but are sitting on a shelf. I never got into digital photography. I found it entirely unrewarding. I have maybe a dozen photos on my phone and they are just used as sort of visual notes of things I need for a short while.
ivanb 3y ago
Now that they got K-3 III Monochrome off their hands I hope they can dedicate effort to the camera that really matters - Ricoh GR IV.
- remlov 3y ago
  The GR line is amazing. (I own a GRii and a GRiiix). I wait with bated breath on what a GR IV would entail.
bux93 3y ago
A Foveon sensor would've been nice, though.
- shrubble 3y ago
  I have a few Foveon sensor cameras and the DP1 and DP3 (equivalent of 28mm and 75mm focal lengths) fixed-lens cameras are beautiful to use, in the right lighting. They don't have the ISO range needed however, it is best to keep them at ISO 100; though for B&W you can go to I think 800 or 1600 and not have many quality issues. The Sigma provided software that allows for a great deal of color manipulation also has a convert to monochrome mode which is incredibly flexible.
RistrettoMike 3y ago
Title needs a "May, 2023"
epgui 3y ago
Even if you knew you only wanted to produce black and white images, a product like this introduces non-obvious tradeoffs. A colour sensor captures more information, and you can use a near infinite number of different functions to map to greyscale. Typically you don’t want to merely pick the BW filter, you want to be able to do manipulations to different wavelengths independently.
- Hooray_Darakian 3y ago
  Not really. A color sensor has a filter in front of it (usually a bayer filter) which lets each pixel capture one of the R, G, or B colors. The final image is [demosaiced](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing) and has a drop in sharpness as a result. Pentax seems to be omitting the color filter on the sensor rather than just squashing the read out to greyscale so this sensor should be sharper than a similar color sensor.
  - NegativeK 3y ago
    I don't think that's a disagreement with their point. Most people aren't limited by sharpness in sensor with a color filter, so the loss of the choice of mapping to greyscale is more limiting. That's the tradeoff GP comment is referencing.
    - Hooray_Darakian 3y ago
      > A colour sensor captures more information Was the part I was keying in on. A filter will reject more light and in a sense captures less information. I 100% agree that most people are not limited in sharpness, but I wanted to share why someone might care about a sensor like this
- jeffbee 3y ago
  You can also use a scheme like the Olympus super-resolution mode where the body drives the sensor using the stabilization voice coil. This totally eliminates chroma boundary artifacts caused by the Bayer filter, and reducing one of these 64MP raw files to B&W looks perfect. The technique is borrowed from Olympus' microscope business (the one that actually kept them in business all these years). I believe other bodies are offering this feature now. Of course there are tradeoffs. The technique is only good for still subjects and the camera must be mounted, because the stabilization does not operate in this mode.
surfingdino 3y ago
I like opinionated camera manufacturers. We need more of them. We need more experimentation and more competition in the sensor space. During the film era we got about a dozen formats on 135 and 120 films, because camera and film manufacturers weren't closely tied together. Today camera manufacturers cannot afford to experiment, because they need to pay Sony to make them a sensor. Going digital has increased the cost of camera manufacturing, because you cannot buy a sensor separately from the camera body like you used to be able with film cameras and film.
edrxty 3y ago
I wonder if this has an infrared filter on the sensor. It would be incredibly cool to get a sensor that doesn't have any filtering out of the box and lets the user install whatever they need on the lens. That would greatly improve the low light performance and increase its usefulness for things like astro and night time photography.

72 points by Kaibeezy 3y ago

Nice to see, when you delete the Bayer filter you not only get more resolution (factor of 2 in both directions) but you also get an extra stop of exposure. It’s always been tricky to bring to market. Deleting the Bayer filter saves money, it doesn’t cost money but the person who wants this is going to care about quality and since it is a niche product that points to it being expensive. Practically most of us will want to shoot color snaps and vendor lock-in is a thing. I have some lust for the top of the link Nikon bodies but I have an investment in Sony lenses so if I get a new mirrorless body it is very likely to be a Sony.

xattt 3y ago
> … when you delete the Bayer filter you not only get more resolution (factor of 2 in both directions) … Does the larger resolution mean out to a larger dimensions of an image file, or is it the term resolution being used in the context of “resolving” detail in an image?
- grishka 3y ago
  The latter. Color pictures still have the pixel dimensions equal to those of the sensor, but each pixel has 2 of its channels interpolated from neighboring pixels. That's why "100% crops" of color digital photos always look kinda blurry.
- myself248 3y ago
  You can learn more about this by looking up "debayering" or "demosaicing", the process by which 4 pixels with color filters are combined into 1 pixel of color information. But it still has 4 pixels worth of spatial information. Sorta. If you're willing to make some assumptions. It's a messy process That's why shooting with raw files is so popular; these grab the data from the sensor before the debayering, since some post-processing operations work better if they're earlier in the processing pipeline.
- _ph_ 3y ago
  Assuming both sensors have the same pixel count, the resulting images also have the same pixel count but the image taken with the monochrome sensor would resolve finer details which get lost when doing the color interpolation with the color sensor. This can be nicely seen with the Leicas, as they usually sell a Monochrom with the same pixel count as the color version.
myself248 3y ago
Prior to this Pentax announcement, the only monochrome camera I've seen aimed even slightly consumer-oriented was the Krontech Chronos high-speed camera, which is only consumer-oriented if you really squint a bit and assume your consumer has some very niche needs. But one thing they do which I love, is they offer exactly the same camera with either a color or a monochrome sensor. I don't think it's quite user-swappable, but every other piece of the device is completely identical.
- Arainach 3y ago
  What's your definition of "consumer"? The Leica Q2 Mono is firmly aimed at consumers. It's not cheap and not a disposable consumer, but it's not aimed at anyone making a living from photography.
  - ffhhttt 3y ago
    I would also classify M10 Monochrom as consumer even if its certainly a luxury product.
  - myself248 3y ago
    Oh thank you, I wasn't aware of those!
_ph_ 3y ago
The resolution difference isn't a factor of 2 in both dimensions, comparisons of the M Monochrom and the corresponding color model rather hint to the factor of 2 in the total pixel count which is expected from the mechanics of the color interpolation process. But still it is a noticeable resolution gain. And indeed, you also get at least a stop of exposure.
munificent 3y ago
As someone who takes a decent amount of monochrome photos, I don't think the extra resolution and brightness is worth it. The advantage of taking color photos and converting them to black and white in post is that you have full control over the resulting brightness of different colors during the monochrome conversion. For example, in the photo of the deer here, you could make the deer pop more by turning down greens and turning red up. Starting from a color photo just gives you so much more control over the relative values of different parts of the image. And with monochrome, obviously, value is everything.

corinroyal 3y ago

I'm so excited that camera manufacturers would go out on a limb with a niche product like this. I typically shoot in black and white and am lusting after this. Like Fuji's X-100 series fixed lens cameras, it's an exciting time to escape the treadmill of incremental feature upgrades to produce a camera with a dramatically different photographer experience. Love live Pentax!

Kaibeezy 3y ago
I’ve been shooting actual film lately (Ilford XP2 b/w and CineStill color) with my old Pentax ME recently back from a slow-mo refurb by the last semi-retired Pentax guy. Very happy to get one or two nice shots per roll. They are from an entirely different reality.
- corinroyal 3y ago
  Wow, that sounds really fun. A friend of mine got into medium format film photography and had a blast. Personally, while I love film, I don't know if I could go back to point and hope. I'm so used to instant feedback. How did you manage?
  - Kaibeezy 3y ago
    My kid is getting a uni degree in photography, which is obviously heavily digital. I wanted a way to connect without overlapping, so I went for creative anachrony. I am also hoping, without pushing, to spark an interest in great grandpa’s Praktica, my dad’s Nikkormat, or the little Konica rangefinder I had as a kid. We picked up a pinhole box kit where you expose straight to paper and develop that, no negative. Next week we’re going to check out the new dark sky area near us. Etc. Just finding motivations and being nerds, really.
    - corinroyal 3y ago
      What a wonderful project to do together. The most amazing thing about my switch from DSLRs to mirrorless (Fuji) is the tools like focus peaking that make it easy to focus with manual lenses. I'm poor, so dropping 4-900 on a new Fuji lens isn't possible. But used camera sites like KEH have old lenses one can use with a cheap adapter. I got the Nikkor 10.5cm f4 sonar, a legendary old lens that shot the most famous photograph in the world. This was produced before Nikon was Nikon. It is fantastic still today. So while I used to shoot kit zooms, now I have a range of primes and am discovering what strengths the different lengths have. It's really extended my capability and fun. https://www.35mmc.com/24/03/2022/nikkor-t-10-5cm-f-4-review/ https://www.35mmc.com/24/03/2022/nikkor-t-10-5cm-f-4-review/

dale_glass 3y ago

I don't think Pentax is sticking to SLR because they've got some very special ideas. I think it's just pragmatic. Pentax K has a flange distance of 45 mm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance). This puts Pentax in a tricky position. Making a mirrorless camera is nearly pointless if they want to keep their current lenses. And they're already a niche player with barely any adoption. Their options would be releasing a fat mirrorless camera, providing an adapter and creating a new lens mount, or adopting an existing lens mount. All of these kind of suck, and would risk losing market share. The easiest option seems to just keep going.

10729287 3y ago
They also don't have the money to R&D for a mirrorless camera in such an already competitive landscape dominated by AF and video high level performance. They could only shine in a niche market, like SIGMA is trying with their fp and sd camera (Foveon triple layer sensor)... and DSLR seems to be a safer market for Pentax with huge heritage and strong fan base. The demand for Optical viewfinder in EVF times is there, and will still probably be way higher in the next years when they'll be the only one to care as Nikon and Canon already told they won't release any lens or body anymore with the DSLR technology.
- chongli 3y ago
  Yeah. Personally, I would never buy a mirrorless camera for still photography (I hate EVFs). I have thought about getting back into photography and most likely I would pick up an old Leica M3. I'm quite happy that film and chemicals have recently become more available again, as film photography has begun to see a resurgence.
  - 10729287 3y ago
    Film and chemicals more available again ? They've never been hard to get, at least here in France. They are just WAY more expensive now as they are popular amongst younger photographers who don't mind over paying common vintage cameras and 30euros for 36 pictures to be shot/developped/scanned.

fileeditview 3y ago

I once owned a Pentax K-5. I sold it at some point just because I didn't want to carry around so much weight and switched to a smaller mirrorless camera. However with a heavy heart. The usability and build quality were stellar. Especially considering the price. Pentax creates some really beautiful cameras.

prmoustache 3y ago
I still have my K-5...that I don't use because photos get some small marks from I believe fungus in my lens...and everytime I look at the price of new lenses I just sigh at the price and close the browser tab.
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  Get yourself to Ebay! A Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 is a great portrait lens on a K-5, probably $100. If you need AF you're looking at twice the price or more, but you could get something slower. For a zoom something modern is a better idea, but old primes are still pretty great.
rqtwteye 3y ago
I think I still would have my K-3 if the autofocus would have been better. My Sony A7iv is just miles ahead. And the K-1 doesn’t have better focus either. It’s pretty sad that a company that was building such great cameras in timers of features, ergonomics and robustness is slowly dying.

nottorp 3y ago

Hmm I see some complaints about the screen in spite of the camera having a viewfinder. I'm no photography fiend, but I do have an entry level DSLR and I find the screen completely useless. Maybe useful at night but as soon as there is a bit of light it's good for nothing. How can you actually use that screen? Buy a hood for it so it's in the shade when you're outdoors at noon?

Semaphor 3y ago
The reviewer has issues using a full-color viewfinder for B/W photography.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Then he should have known a Wratten 90 viewing filter is used for previewing how a scene looks in black and white.
aeturnum 3y ago
It depends on what you're using the screen for - but in general they're used for changing settings, reviewing framing and exposure, etc. I think they can also be useful for previewing long exposure settings. Even on very expensive cameras you're going to struggle to use them to do detailed assessment of photos. That said you can absolutely buy hoods for them - though they are generally aimed at people using them for video.

sanitycheck 3y ago

I'm a Pentax user, I really appreciate their dedication to backward-compatibility - they've stuck with the K-mount since 1975 and nearly all* lenses ever made work pretty well** on every subsequent camera. The strong impression I get is that that photographers and engineers are the ones making important decisions, leading to outcomes like sensor-shift stabilisation (why put that in every single lens?!) and a proliferation of physical controls (try using a touch screen with gloves, or freezing fingers). [* The Ricoh pin, ** KA lens aperture contacts on digital bodies]

jiggawatts 3y ago
> why put that in every single lens There are valid engineering reasons for this. Sensor shift is hard, especially for full-frame cameras. The sensor has to be moved very fast, which means it has to be light, which means it can't have a heat sink attached, which means it can easily overheat. For telephoto lenses, the shift required in the sensor would be huge, up to a cm or so, whereas a tiny shift in a small lens can slew the image by more than that.
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  Well... For a very long lens that's true - but then just buy a long lens with OS and turn off the sensor shift. Best of both worlds, all your other lenses can be smaller/lighter and still benefit from an extra stop or two of hand-held stability. I've never acquired a very long lens because I know in my heart that I'll never want to carry it around. I have, OTOH, appreciated the extra stabilisation on M lenses from the 80s! Really good point about heat, and one I didn't even consider because I don't care about video even slightly! I guess Pentax users are a small self-selecting market.

cjbprime 3y ago

I can't help but imagine the version of this review that compares the shots the reviewer took to other shots they took at the same scene on an similar size of sensor on a color Pentax camera, and then clicked "convert to monochrome" in their favorite image editor. (Before anyone thinks that maybe the experience of carrying the monochrome camera is different -- the reviewer points out that the Live View back screen does not articulate, and the optical viewfinder shows color in the way to would expect an optical viewfinder to.)

davotoula 3y ago

I thought b&w only was a gimmick until I saw the results. Removing various colour components from the camera allows for sharper and more light sensitive b&w photos... Also more b&w tones imo.

askafriend 3y ago
One thing you lose is the ability to filter out specific colors in post-processing.
- wduquette 3y ago
  I do mostly B&W these days, using an Olympus OM-1. The ability to mix the colors in post enables some real subtlety that it would be hard to reproduce using optical filters on a pure B&W camera. I was lusting after this camera (and the Leica monochromes, though they are way too rich for my blood) before I got my OM-1; but I think I'm happier with what I've got.

neogodless 3y ago

Headline caught my eye as a happy K-3 II photographer. The physical shape, optical viewfinder, and physical knobs are all a joy to me. Of course, touch screen, the advantage of digital viewfinders, and especially the autofocus of mirrorless would all bring their own joy. I worry about the change in grip size and all those other adjustments, not to mention having to invest in a whole new lens ecosystem, so for now, I'm stuck with what I've got. I find it crazy that a B&W camera at that price can be profitable, but it's neat to see.

marstall 3y ago

wake me when digital can do this https://news.artnet.com/market/diane-arbus-birthday-890000 https://news.artnet.com/market/diane-arbus-birthday-890000

Finnucane 3y ago
To be fair, no camera is going to turn you into Diane Arbus.
- grouchomarx 3y ago
  There is a starting point though and it's a 4x5 view camera and nice optic
  - Finnucane 3y ago
    Arbus usually shot with a Rolleiflex, but whatever.
_ph_ 3y ago
What exactly are you missing in digital cameras which prevents you taking pictures like that?
- marstall 3y ago
  I struggle to define it. Emotion? The feeling of another world, different from the one I inhabit? Maybe Diane Arbus could make digital look like that idk.
  - illwrks 3y ago
    So I was going to write a quick paragraph reply but I bothered to do a bit of research... :/ From Google: "Diane Arbus is known for her unrelenting direct photographs of people who are considered social deviates. She also portrayed “normal” people in a manner that exposed the cracks in their public masks. Diane Arbus is best known for her stark, documentary style of photography." And from the article: “Arbus captures a boy on the cusp of adolescence yet still playing with toys—but the object is a plastic grenade, an object of war,” said Hughes. “There’s something troubling about him playing solider—the ongoing war efforts were not lost on a little kid in Central Park.” From PetaPixel: “I want to photograph what is evil,” Arbus told Model, who noted that “[Arbus] was determined to reveal what others had been taught to turn their backs on.” The scheme typical for her photography is a frontal portrait in square format. She was one of the pioneers of daylight flash use, which she used to isolate her subjects. What she first liked about it was how it alters light and reveals things you don’t normally see. She wanted to have stillness in her photograph, and that is why she always posed her subjects either on the street or in their homes. Arbus made the subjects look directly to the camera to “freeze” the picture. However, as we can see in many of her picture the effect was quite the opposite. Many of her pictures look spontaneous. So, I guess to sum it all up in this photo... the context, the expression, the rigid pose, the fallen shoulder strap, the grenade... the questions you might have about who the child is, what's with the expression, where are his parents, is the grenade real? 90% of that is from the photographer and their interaction with the subject, and only a little of it is from the camera, the tool to capture that moment. It reminds me of the saying "a bad workman blames his/her tools", which is also kind of the inverse of "do your best with what you've got". If you more like the above, have a search for "Roger Ballen", he takes it to another extreme...

gonzo41 3y ago

If you're going to go this far, doesn't it just make sense to get a K-1000 and do film. It's a lot more fun IMO.

macintux 3y ago
I love shooting film, but I also have 30-40 undeveloped rolls, and scanning is another big headache. Film adds a huge overhead to your workflow, and I can’t blame people who don’t want to deal with it.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The overhead is the point of shooting on film these days. Each shot is costly and time-consuming, so you think about what you are doing and the shots that make it to a print are your well-considered best ones. Scanning doesn't even makes sense in this mindset. When I used to be into photography I shot B&W film and did all my own processing and prints. Never scanned anything (of course, scanners didn't exist in those days, at least not in the consumer market). I started with a K-1000 also, there's something wonderful about its simplicity. Even though the viewfinder is dim and the action is slow by today's standards, you are in total control of aperture, focus, and shutter speed. I moved up to a slightly more automated Ricoh body that accepted all my Pentax lenses, but started lacking the time to spend on this hobby and eventually just stopped. The camera and lenses still work some 30+ years later, but are sitting on a shelf. I never got into digital photography. I found it entirely unrewarding. I have maybe a dozen photos on my phone and they are just used as sort of visual notes of things I need for a short while.

ivanb 3y ago

Now that they got K-3 III Monochrome off their hands I hope they can dedicate effort to the camera that really matters - Ricoh GR IV.

remlov 3y ago
The GR line is amazing. (I own a GRii and a GRiiix). I wait with bated breath on what a GR IV would entail.

bux93 3y ago

A Foveon sensor would've been nice, though.

shrubble 3y ago
I have a few Foveon sensor cameras and the DP1 and DP3 (equivalent of 28mm and 75mm focal lengths) fixed-lens cameras are beautiful to use, in the right lighting. They don't have the ISO range needed however, it is best to keep them at ISO 100; though for B&W you can go to I think 800 or 1600 and not have many quality issues. The Sigma provided software that allows for a great deal of color manipulation also has a convert to monochrome mode which is incredibly flexible.

RistrettoMike 3y ago

Title needs a "May, 2023"

epgui 3y ago

Even if you knew you only wanted to produce black and white images, a product like this introduces non-obvious tradeoffs. A colour sensor captures more information, and you can use a near infinite number of different functions to map to greyscale. Typically you don’t want to merely pick the BW filter, you want to be able to do manipulations to different wavelengths independently.

Hooray_Darakian 3y ago
Not really. A color sensor has a filter in front of it (usually a bayer filter) which lets each pixel capture one of the R, G, or B colors. The final image is [demosaiced](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing) and has a drop in sharpness as a result. Pentax seems to be omitting the color filter on the sensor rather than just squashing the read out to greyscale so this sensor should be sharper than a similar color sensor.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  I don't think that's a disagreement with their point. Most people aren't limited by sharpness in sensor with a color filter, so the loss of the choice of mapping to greyscale is more limiting. That's the tradeoff GP comment is referencing.
  - Hooray_Darakian 3y ago
    > A colour sensor captures more information Was the part I was keying in on. A filter will reject more light and in a sense captures less information. I 100% agree that most people are not limited in sharpness, but I wanted to share why someone might care about a sensor like this
jeffbee 3y ago
You can also use a scheme like the Olympus super-resolution mode where the body drives the sensor using the stabilization voice coil. This totally eliminates chroma boundary artifacts caused by the Bayer filter, and reducing one of these 64MP raw files to B&W looks perfect. The technique is borrowed from Olympus' microscope business (the one that actually kept them in business all these years). I believe other bodies are offering this feature now. Of course there are tradeoffs. The technique is only good for still subjects and the camera must be mounted, because the stabilization does not operate in this mode.

surfingdino 3y ago

I like opinionated camera manufacturers. We need more of them. We need more experimentation and more competition in the sensor space. During the film era we got about a dozen formats on 135 and 120 films, because camera and film manufacturers weren't closely tied together. Today camera manufacturers cannot afford to experiment, because they need to pay Sony to make them a sensor. Going digital has increased the cost of camera manufacturing, because you cannot buy a sensor separately from the camera body like you used to be able with film cameras and film.

edrxty 3y ago

I wonder if this has an infrared filter on the sensor. It would be incredibly cool to get a sensor that doesn't have any filtering out of the box and lets the user install whatever they need on the lens. That would greatly improve the low light performance and increase its usefulness for things like astro and night time photography.