Pentax K-3 III Monochrome · Black & White the Japanese way…
Pentax, and its parent company, Ricoh, have always been different from the other Japanese camera manufacturers, and they still are. Ricoh defends the throne of point-and-shoot cameras with the tiny but mighty GR series (current ones GRIII + GRIIIx), and Pentax has, as the only manufacturer, decided NOT to go mirrorless and continues to produce old school DSLR cameras. So when they announced that they would have a go at the black and white obsessed (digital) camera audience we of course had to test their new offspring – the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome. A crop DSLR camera with 25 megapixels and Pentax K mount.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome – scroll down to see it with its German monochrome relatives: Leica M9 Monochrom + Leica Q2 Monochrom
It’s big. It’s bulky. It’s indeed very old school — and the only new thing about it is that it has a unique monochrome sensor. Tons of buttons and functions, unlike its German counterparts (Leica currently has two full frame Monochrom(e)s on the market) and a huge number of current auto-focus and vintage manual focus lenses to choose from. Distributor Focus Nordic kindly lent us a camera and the Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED PLM AW lens. We'll do a comparison to the Leica cameras in a separate blog post, but here we go with a few Pentax samples. We test shot the high end zoom lens, and added a 1990’s Tamron macro lens and a 1970’s 50mm f1.4 manual prime, just for the hell of it (and since vintage lenses perform wonderfully on Leica Monochrom cameras!)
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Tamron AF 90mm f2.8 SP Di Macro
Yeah, greyscale alright - and tons of tonality. Especially older lenses benefit from this. Here’s a balcony plant shot wide open. The crop sensor makes the lens rather long (135mm in in full frame 35mm terms) but we actually preferred the files from this lens to the newer, more multi-coated and contrasty zoom.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Tamron AF 90mm f2.8 SP Di Macro
Another boring plant shot with the Tamron lens, but look at the greyscale tonality. It’s beautiful, and no, it’s not something you will get out of just black and white converting your color photos.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED PLM AW at 18mm
All of the shots here are neutrally processed. So no HDR editing etc. - these are straight out of camera files, kept as “plain” as possible. This one has heavy contrast though, as we used a RED color filter to enhance and darken the skies. Anybody who has ever used color filters for black and white film photography will looove a true monochrome sensor as you can work with filters artistically.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED PLM AW at 50mm
No filter here. Straight out of camera at f2.8. And yes, the car is red :-)
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED PLM AW at 36mm
We love shooting people. As in portraits of people. Here’s Leah and Pablo shot at ISO 200 and f5.6. Again, with the burning sun hitting face and the shadow of tall trees across the field you really get a broad spectred monochrome image of high quality - straight outta camera.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Pentax 50mm f1.4 SMC
We mostly shoot manually, so it felt natural to dive into the back catalogue of great vintage Takumar lenses (there are many truly great ones). We picked an old fast 50mm from the 1970s. The 50mm acts like an 80mm lens on the Pentax camera since its sensor is APS-C and not full frame. While the prism viewfinder is big and bright, it is made for modern auto focus lenses, so we did not nail the sharpness all the time when shooting wide open… OOMC Repair guy, Stan Jensen, in his home. Nothing fancy, just point and (focus manually) and shoot. This was the very first picture we took with this camera, and even though the glass frame is sharper than his eyes, we like it a lot, but Stan is also a very sweet guy.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Pentax 50mm f1.4 SMC
Noise. But nice noise. Film grain nice noise. This is what a cloudless dark summer sky looks like at 21.42 at ISO 6400 and 1/8th of second. Even though the camera has a mirror that goes back and forth it’s actually pretty easy to shoot at slower shutter speeds. But enough of that; just enjoy that nice noise with looks like film grain!
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Tamron AF 90mm f2.8 SP Di Macro
Unlike film ISO800 is very very noise/grain free on the K-3 III. This was shot at ISO 800. And yes, it’s Judge Dredd battling Judge Death.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Tamron AF 90mm f2.8 SP Di Macro
Another ISO800 shot, this time hand held at 1/30th of a second with the 90mm vintage lens. The built in “Shake Reduction” works very well. Notice the gentle fade to black.¨
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome with Tamron AF 90mm f2.8 SP Di Macro
So what can you use a black-and-white-only digital camera for you are asking?… well, if you like purist black and white photography, and want to be creative with filters etc. this is a nice camera. Being used to Leica Monochrom(e) cameras it was a bit difficult to get used to a very old school crop-DSLR-camera with tons and tons of buttons and complicated menus, but the image quality speaks for itself. And if you have tons of Pentax K-mount lenses already; auto focus or vintage manual focus Takumars, it could be worth looking at. And even though not exactly cheap, it’s a lot cheaper than a LEICA MONOCHROM camera… stay tuned for a comparison between an old Leica M9 Monochrom, a Leica Q2 Monochrom and the Pentax K3-III Monochrome in a coming blog post.
