Summer is here – and with it short nights in the European hemisphere. That’s when Pentax and Sigma are launching new products that are well suited for astrophotography. Why buy them now when there’s less opportunity to use them anyway?
The answer can be found purely in terms of market technology: Because holiday pay will soon be booked for many, summer vacation is imminent, and because all the other interesting performances have already taken place in the last few weeks. Pentax and Sigma want to benefit from the traditional boom in the photo business in the middle of the year. It’s not for nothing that the industry giants Canon and Nikon always have discount campaigns because summer vacation is coming soon.
A Pentax comes into the observatory
Some things don’t happen suddenly, but creep up slowly. The Pentax K-3 Mark III Monochrome was supposed to arrive in April 2023, has since been sold out and is only now starting to be available. So we tested it extensively in star shooting, tracking with the built-in astro-tracer and on a 50 cm reflecting telescope. The camera delivers on Pentax’s promise: Due to the lack of a color filter in front of the sensor, the images are brighter and there is naturally no color noise.
Our author Peter Mein proves that it always depends on the creative use of a special tool. He used the Pentax’s video function for a series of images of the moon and later combined the individual images from the recording. Of course, this “stacking” also works with individual photos. Peter Mein then used Photoshop to put the actually small 4K resolution of the videos together into a literally “moon mosaic” of 7000 x 4000 pixels in Photoshop. Once again, the manual work is clearly superior to the automatic of the astro tracer, which the camera comes with. Unfortunately, this also applies to the price, the body of the achromatic K-3 III costs 2500 euros, the color version only around 1800 euros.
Bright ultra wide angle for full format
With the new Sigma lens 14mm f/1.4 DG DN Art could certainly be done more with the Pentax, alone: So far, this is only available for the L bayonet from Leica and Panasonic as well as Sony’s E mount, not for the K bayonet from Pentax. In addition, it is a full-frame lens, the Pentax only has an APS-C sensor. And this is exactly where the uniqueness of the Sigma lies: the 14 millimeters with f/1.4 was previously only available as a fisheye. Surely there will be a long argument about whether the unavoidable distortions and shadowing at the edges are not a bit fisheye after all, but the physics cannot be outwitted with ultra wide-angle lenses – even if you use 19 lenses as with the Sigma 19, which then also in a weight of 1160 grams and a length of 15 centimeters. But when photographers talk about a “short lens”, they mean the focal length. And it can not only be used for half the sky, but also for chic landscape and macro shots. The colleagues from Petapixel use this in their worthwhile test video also good looking. However, they cannot clearly answer the question of whether you should buy the lens, at least when it comes to Sony cameras. Because for this there is still the Sony 14mm f/1.8 G Master, which currently costs around 300 euros less and weighs just under half. You have to know whether 0.4 exposure levels are really necessary. Especially since around 1600 euros are required for the Sigma.
Will Zeiss survive the photo market?
In any case, the countless speculations about Zeiss seem pretty unnecessary, so we’ll just deal with them quickly here: Sometimes the company should get out of the photo business completely, then just produce smartphone optics again. There are numerous references to sources, some of which are quoted by name, only: “You don’t know anything specific,” as a Germanized Bavarian saying goes. Anyone who is still interested will find it at Petapixelwhose constantly updated article is suitable as a long read for the weekend.
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