Digital Photo Quality

[integra evan]

Canon also performs well at high ISO's, keeping the noise down to a minimum and still providing a sharp image using handheld in low lighting.

 

[fieldmouse3]

After talking to some camera store people, I'm actually leaning towards the Pentax K10D rather than the Digital Rebel. The Canon is lighter and feels a little bit better in my hands, but the Pentax has a weather resistant body. That would work for me since a lot of what I'm interested in shooting is outside. Not that I plan on taking my camera into a downpour or anything, but having that extra little bit of protection would be nice. I was pretty hesitant to just take the advice of someone who had a vested interest in how much money I would be spending, so I went back to dpreview.com and read a couple of reviews in their entirety. Turns out the camera store people gave me good advice; the Pentax probably WOULD work best. Also, the photo quality issues that I posted about regarding this specific camera in another thread are only true when shooting JPEG. Shooting RAW gets GREAT results! I still haven't made up my mind, but now I have more information to consider.

 

[TexasCatholic]

The Pentax is a good camera. The weather resistant package is really an added feature they put in to help them compete with Canon, who has superior high ISO performance (RAW or JPG, FYI). If you plan on shooting in lower light regularly, the Canon will rock. If you don't really want to go over ISO400, you'll be fine with the Pentax.

My concern with the Pentax was not really image quality though, but rather, availability and quality of lenses. There's a couple of "L" quality Canon lenses that I want that Pentax can't match and will Pentax be keeping up with this technology? After all, we're 5 years into consumer-viable digital SLRs and Pentax is just now releasing a viable competitor....

Best of luck any way you go!

-Michael

 

[MarkEvan]

After talking to some camera store people, I'm actually leaning towards the Pentax K10D rather than the Digital Rebel. The Canon is lighter and feels a little bit better in my hands, but the Pentax has a weather resistant body. That would work for me since a lot of what I'm interested in shooting is outside. Not that I plan on taking my camera into a downpour or anything, but having that extra little bit of protection would be nice. I was pretty hesitant to just take the advice of someone who had a vested interest in how much money I would be spending, so I went back to dpreview.com and read a couple of reviews in their entirety. Turns out the camera store people gave me good advice; the Pentax probably WOULD work best. Also, the photo quality issues that I posted about regarding this specific camera in another thread are only true when shooting JPEG. Shooting RAW gets GREAT results! I still haven't made up my mind, but now I have more information to consider.

Ok I am not trying to put you off the Pentax, I think that it would be a great camera, that said I am curious about the weather sealing, on Canons and Nikons bodies weather sealing only really comes in on bodies over 2000 pounds, maybe the D200 gets it but that is still 1000 pounds, just something to consider, maybe it would do to ask the guy in the shop about it.

Mark

 

[Gingersnap]

Fieldmouse,

Be careful talking to salespeople at camera stores...in my experience they are either WAY inexperienced or have ulteriror motives in selling you a camera.

The Rebel is an awesome camera and coupled with Canon's lenses you'll be in good shape. I am a pro photog and started with Canon's 20D - which was the precursor to the 30D and one step up from the Rebel. If you decide against Canon (but why on earth would you?) I would opt for the Nikon D70s.

I've never considered a "weatherproof" exterior a selling point in my cameras. I want excellent image quality (at least 6 mp), good glass options, high ISO capabilites and the fastest frames per second I can get.

If you really worry about inclement weather they make plastic bodies that go with the Canons/Nikons that would allow you to take them underwater if needed.

 

[TexasCatholic]

The Pentax does indeed have weather resistant sealing, and this is intentional as they are trying to add features to help them sell over the dominant Canon and Nikon competitors.

-Michael

 

[MarkEvan]

The Pentax does indeed have weather resistant sealing, and this is intentional as they are trying to add features to help them sell over the dominant Canon and Nikon competitors.

-Michael

My apologies, I am not denying that the Pentax has weather sealing, just what that weather sealing is like when compared to nikons D2X/s or canons 1D series?

Mark

 

[chaz345]

Also, whoever said you lose quality transferring images.... Huh?! The opposite is true. Digital is digital. Bits & bytes don't change. If you copy a digitial image, in fact, you NEVER lose any of the original quality. If you shoot in JPEG mode, your JPEG will never "lose quality" from how it comes out of the camera. Now, if you process it a bunch in software, etc, and re-save it, there is a THEORETICAL loss of quality with the re-compression, but in reality it is indistinguishable.

Early on in the thread someone said that there was a loss of quality. As for the loss of quality in sucessive JPEG compressions, I can say from direct experience that it is anything but indintinguisahble. It does depend on the compression level,but I've seen a noticeable difference in as little as two generations. I could post an example and the details of what I did if you would like to see.