K110 vs K10

[Mr Guy]

While, in theory, I'm hard at work paying off my LAST camera purchases, of course the back of my mind is already thinking ahead to my next one. When I bought my first digital SLR, I had to go with the absolute cheapest I could convince my wife on, which meant the K110 instead of the K100. As I understand it, the only difference is the lack of in camera stabilization.

I'm using my camera to take lots of low light pictures, and I've been strongly considering some faster lenses to support that. However, there's a chance I may come some money soon, and I was considering using it to upgrade the camera body instead. Part of the reason is that while the K110 HAS high ISO ratings, they seem extremely noisy to me, 1600 seems barely usable.

I was wondering if anyone has played with both a K100 or K110 and a K10 or K20 and compared the ISO performance at higher settings, or if anyone is particularly proficient at flickr searching to come up with comparison pictures. (I can find K10D pictures, but don't see how to say, show me 3200 ISO or 1600 ISO).

What I'd be looking for in the upgrade would be the stabilization, better burst performance, and a noticeable improvement in noise performance in low light.

[MikeM]

Tough call! The in-body IS was one of the main reasons I went with Pentax and got the K10D. I must say I love it, especially with my 70-300!

The K200D would pretty much fit the bill. Some of the differences between the K10D and the K200D are listed here (http://photo.net/pentax-camera-forum/00OG4n).

The K10D is a little harder to come by these days, I think.

Then there's always the question of whether to buy better glass or a new camera. Most people will say get better glass, though you may have a case for a new body. With a body upgrade the big things you would get would be a 4 megapixel boost and in body IS for all your lenses.

Here's the side by side comparison (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=pentax_k110d%2Cpentax_k200d%2Cpentax_k10d% 2Cpentax_k20d&show=all) for the K200D, K110D, K10d, and K20D.

Here are a few examples of lenses that I might buy if I happen to have $6-700 laying around and wanted something with better low light performance:

Pentax f/2.8 50-135 $750
Tamron f/2.8 70-200 $700
Pentax 16-45 f/4 $300
Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 $350
Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 $429
Sigma 28-70 f/2.8 $329
Pentax 35mm f/2 $300

If you're doing a lot of indoor work, then maybe grabbing the 17-50 f/2.8 or the 28-70 f/2.8 and the 35mm f/2 would do you better than the in body IS. Or if you want a longer lens, the 70-200 f/2.8 would buy you 1 or 2 stops over your 50-200. Plus you'd be getting some top quality glass.

[Mr Guy]

It's official, I can't decide what would be more useful. I wish it wasn't so expensive to rent a K20; I think playing with one for a week would be helpful.

Do you happen to have any indoor no flash shots at a high ISO handy so I can see how the grain behaves?

[MikeM]

http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM

You can select any two cameras and compare test shots. It will list the K100D if you select "all" instead of just "current."

You can also poke around www.pentaxforums.com.

I can shoot some high ISO stuff with my K10D if you don't find what you like on that first site, but I'd guess the more controlled settings there would be a more fair comparison.

[Mr Guy]

Oooh fancy. I didn't want to get anything done today at work anyway! Thank you!

[MikeM]

I've been thinking about this for the past few days and had a few questions/suggestions.

Why exactly are you dissatisfied with the high ISO performance? Is it just pixel peeping that's getting to you or are you actually make prints that have an unacceptable amount of noise? If the noise is that bad, are you doing something to fix them up in post or are you amplifying that noise by upping exposure in post? I've found I can do pretty well with higher ISO on my K10D if I make sure to NOT underexpose and use some good noise reduction in raw processing. I don't use the Pentax software. I use RAWTherapee (http://www.rawtherapee.com/). It's free and fairly similar to Lightroom (minus the file management part).

Another thought: IS will buy you faster hand held speeds, but that does not translate into subject stopping speed. So even if you can shoot at 50mm at 1/20s, your subject will be blurry unless it's holding still. Though you do have the 50mm 1.7 for those occasions. If your lens it racked out to 200mm you could probably hand hold at ~1/60. Then again, you might prefer some subject stopping 1/250 shutter speed instead.

So faster glass versus IS is a bit of a wash. IS applies to all your cheap lenses and will obviously be there in the future if you get faster glass. Faster (higher quality) lenses offer smoother bokeh and improved image quality/sharpness/less chromatic aberration.

Good luck with the decision!

[Mr Guy]

It's pixel peeping. I don't print hardly anything, for me it needs to look good on my 24 inch monitor! It's totally a problem with the shooting conditions that I'm figuring out how to address. I can shoot at acceptable ISOs with my manual focus 50mm f/1.7 but I have to bump it up to use the auto focus lenses I have. Increasing the light via flash is an option, but it's not my preferred option because it loses the mood of the pictures I'm taking.


I'll try and come up with some example shots tonight that show what I'm working with.