K-1 review revisited 14 March 2017

Nutshell review:

While the K-1 has some nice additions and features over the K-3 II, if it wasn't for the full frame sensor angle of view and performance, I'd be a bit disappointed by it. Then again, that is like saying that if a Ferrari didn't have a V-12 engine and performance, I'd be a bit disappointed by it.

The raw performance of the K-1 is very impressive but it takes a fair amount of knowledge and skill to make full use of that performance. My feeling, however, is that while the K-1 seems to require taking a lot of control to get the best performance out of it, the UI feels like it is optimized for people who shoot directly in JPEG in full automatic mode.

Some points will crop up in more than one place in the more detailed comments below, that is because some issues will affect more than one aspect of camera use.

Camera bag:

My fastpak 350 is nearly the perfect bag for my APS kit, but doesn't seem to work so well for full frame. I have not yet figured out what my standard kit is, or how I want to carry it.

Notes:

They have expanded EV compensation and bracketing range, can bracket up to ± 5 ev in some situations

Features that I'd like to see:
I'd like arca swiss mount ridges as part of body, with removable caps. This way, rather than having to buy tripod mounting plates, they would already be there, and would be much more secure than if they were screwed on.

I’d like them to replace the monochrome LCD on top of the body with a color display even if only vga resolution.

I’d like to be able to choose between different auto exposure algorithms. I’d like an expose to the right mode that optimizes exposure for not blowing out highlights.

Finding the celestial object you want to photograph in astrotracer can be a challenge. If I could reliably mount my cell phone to my camera pointing parallel to the lens axis, google sky map would be a big aiming aid. Even better yet, would be if they incorporated it into the camera’s software, and showed the google sky map image on the rear screen, even better yet would be if they could combine it with live view.

I’d like to be able to transmit the preview image via wi-fi to a computer or tablet to facilitate real time reviewing of the image. Currently, in theory, I think this can be done by shooting raw on one card, jpeg on another, and transmitting the jpeg data over wifi. I don’t want to play games, I want RAW images to go to the card and would like to simply transmit previews (or jpegs) over wifi.

I’d like to see an off camera flash that uses the same battery dli-90 battery format.

I’d like to be able to use wifi to control external flashes, as long as it’s in the camera anyways. I’d like that control format to be a published standard.

Questions:

Does high iso noise reduction work on raw or just jpeg?

What does ISO auto options actually mean? With numbers?

In additive multi-exposure, is there a noise advantage of doing multiple short exposures versus one long one?  Doing two 30 second exposures wouldn't trigger darkfield image like a 30 second exposure.


Tethering in lightroom, via USB does actually store the files on the SD card.

Lousy options for the fx1 button

Why do they waste a four way button on jpeg processing nonsense?

I need to figure out what user modes to set and use

What is this multiple white balance? Does it work with RAW? Difficulty  with selecting focus point in live view, it may be set to face recognition, couldn't find the menu to change it.

Difficulty with selecting focus point in live view, it may be set to face recognition, couldn't find the menu to change it.