Shutterbug's negative K3 review

<p>On its latest issue Shutterbug decided to review the K3. I'm used to Shutterbug rubber-stamping most of the products they review giving them the "it's all good" stamp, but they were pretty negative about the K3. </p>

<p>Schaub has long been the lone person doing major-equipment reviews for his magazine. He apparently doesn't trust anyone else to do it or he's too egotistical to think anyone else *can* do it. Even so, since he's the one who does all the major reviews, he might have insight that others don't; he's done all the reviews so he knows all the cameras.</p>

<p>It'd be interesting to know if Pentax has any ads in Shutterbug. :)</p>

<p>Sorry its hard to get hold of that magazine over here. - What did they criticize? - Is there anything really bad about the K3? - I.e. any reason not to switch to a used K3 once they become obsolete & affordable?<br>

Or is the K3 just not as stunning as the rest of the contemporary crop? - I read dpreview's test and imagine mainly a lack of AF performance but well, I am used to that from my older Pentaxes...<br>

What else did Shutterbug bash?</p>

<p>The main criticism was with the over-saturated color rendition. Without getting sued for plagiarism here is the low-down:</p>

<p><strong>Image Quality </strong>- The colors were very saturated over 115%. More important aberration of some colors especially blue which tended to dip into violet and dark purple.<br>

<strong>Sharpness</strong> - Very high result on the resolution test chart with 3848 lines per picture height.<br>

<strong>Noise</strong> - Good up to ISO 12,800.<br>

<strong>Dynamic Range</strong> - lower than on the K5 at f11.4 stops.<br>

*He did mention a work-around on the high saturation which is to choose 'natural' color mode. The camera is set to 'bright' color mode by default. <br>

</p>

<p>Criticism of the default JPG "Bright" setting has been common for a long time with the last several generations of Pentax dSLR's, and many suggest if you want more realistic colour, to use "Natural" and then bump things PP. There is another blog which describes fine tuning the "Natural" setting as well. As this is something easily alterable, it is really a none issue, other than that most reviewers don't tweak, but just go with the out-of-the-box settings.</p>

<p>Although one could argue the merits of the K3's adjustable AA filter system, a mention of it was omitted from the review. As a unique technical innovation, it was either purposeful omission or incompetence on the part of the reviewer. Shutterbug is primarily aimed at studio and wedding shooters and is of less interest to me as a landscape/nature shooter.</p>

<p>I find the Natural setting to be very accurate, though with a touch too much red (easily fixed). Raw is of course better. Having tried the Fuji X-Pro 1 side by side, I found the color accuracy similar. I ditched the Fuji, however, having realized that the K3 was simply better for taking pictures. And at practically the same size....</p>

<p>Who reads Shutterbug? They can't do much harm to a camera's reputation since very few people bother with Shutterbug anymore. The review sites that people actually read show a fair balance of pros and cons about the various Pentax models, including consistently praising Pentax for at least trying to offer something a little different and more bang for the buck.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Schaub has long been the lone person doing major-equipment reviews for his magazine. He apparently doesn't trust anyone else to do it or he's too egotistical to think anyone else *can* do it."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>More likely a budget matter. It takes money to pay for equipment, software and testers like DPreview and a few other sites. Can't pay for that stuff without ad revenue from web traffic or other streams (subscribers, etc.). Shutterbug's business model remained stuck in the old print paradigm too long and they became irrelevant. I was a subscriber and occasionally bought old copies in used book stores, but that was a long time ago.</p>

<p>I always check DPreview and a couple other reasonably objective sites first, especially those that use reasonably consistent and repeatable methodology. Only after reading those will I check a few highly subjective and opinionated reviews like Thom's, mostly for the refreshing candor and counterpoints to conventional wisdom and fanboyism. I can't recall ever checking Shutterbug reviews for opinions in more than 10 years.</p>

<p>Shutterbug lost me as a subscriber when they started to run "advertorial" material--ads laid out to look like reviews that were actually paid advertisements written by their regular writers, which was disclosed in micro type. I had gotten some useful information from the magazine over the years that I subscribed, but that crossed a line for me. I haven't tried a K-3 yet, but I have been happy with the Pentax DSLRs that I have used (istD, K10, K20, K7, K5), and have found them to be capable of pro quality work for my clients. In the past, Pentax took a lot of flack for having slow autofocus and slow fps rates. I never cared about either of those things since most of my work is in a studio with flash that has to recycle for at least a second or so, and I am an old timer who manually focusses everything any way.</p>

<p>"Shutterbug lost me as a subscriber when they started to run "advertorial" material--ads laid out to look like reviews"</p>

<p>Believe it or not back in day Shutterbug was the "bad-boy" of photography reviews. They use to specialize in Large Format gear, but they also reviewed other photo equipment. Back then, they did not sugar-coat anything and were brutally honest in all of their reviews until some manufacturers threatened to pull their support. They now have been relegated to rubber-stamping almost everything which is why I was surprised at this review. </p>

<p>Ah, the good old days: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Shell">Bob Shell</a></p>