Thoughts:
- The sensor that Sony made is no less of an engineering miracle considering its size and what I see it's doing
- DR seems to be close if not a match for the older 4/3rds/micro four thirds sensor used around. If the Dxo of that 4/3rds sensor ranks at about 10.5, I would expect the Q sensor to fall between 10.2 and 10.7
- JPEG engine of Pentax is nice in keeping tones/colors but nukes detail
Still remarkable the JPEG engine deals with high ISO
- Tonal range/DR are surprisingly decent but
- The camera seems to lack detail. Could be the lens, could be the sensor with those little micro mirrors/photosensels or the interaction of both
- Disappointed that the prime seems to have so much barrel distortion. At this price I was expecting something better than that
- CA's seem to be well managed relatively speaking
- Surprised that the sensor output has no visible banding even at high ISO
- Surprised the sensor can still do high ISO with some detail/colors
- Photoblog high ISO test where they go from lowest iso all the way to ISO 6400 to me is invalid - look at the shutter speeds. ISO 6400 at shutter speeds of 1/2000sec is hardly low light. They should have picked a situation of ISO 6400 and a shutter of 1/30 at F2.8.
So the high ISO performance is probably worse, as good light situations/fast shutter speeds always benefit the sensor, so I expect the performance to be worse than those 3200/6400.
- If I had to estimate the high ISO improvement over an LX5 I would say maybe from none to 2/3rds of a stop. That it can do that being so small is quite remarkable but…
At the end of the day- does it make sense, price and all?
Being so small I think that means something as far as someone considering a camera to carry around in their pocket, but I can't help but think this camera will be hammered for the price it sits at. This camera to me should be more in the $550 - $600 USD MSRP mark.
- Raist