I just received my copy of the optional polarizing filter for the Q (100 PL Filter). I didn't have much time to shoot with it today, but I did find this "before" and "after" example from the 5th floor of my parking garage in downtown Denver. I've owned my fair share of polarizing filters and can vouch that the 100 PL Filter is beautifully made, all metal and rotation of filter is very smooth and precise.

For those that have never owned a polarizing filter, The Luminous Landscape has a nice overview. Here's the lnik if you're interested.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/polarizers.shtml

 

In case you haven't seen it yet, Howard Creech of Digital Camera Review posted a "first look" review of the Q. While I won't comment on his review, I must say we share one thing in common - we both owned a Contax T which was a great little film camera that shares a somewhat similar gestalt to the Q. (Die Gestalt is a German word for form or shape. In English it generally refers to a concept of wholeness.)

http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=4849

The Paramount Theater in Denver opened in 1930. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The following photos were all shot today using the Q with both the 01 Standard Prime and 02 Standard Zoom lenses. Images were shot at either ISO 400 or 800. I shot in RAW and then processed into jpegs for posting here using PhotoShop CS5 with the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw that now supports the Q.

As I mentioned awhile ago on my Instagram feed, the move of our office to downtown Denver got me thinking about going back to shooting black and white street and urban scenes, which was what I focused on when I was a stringer in Boston during the early '70's.

Being so small, the Q will work out perfectly for my new photo endeavors. As I'll have to start processing my Q images into black and white files, I just downloaded Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro 2 plug-in for PhotoShop. Here are two files from one of the standard Q photos, shown above, which I processed with the Silver Efex Tri-x 400 film filter and then I applied two diferent tones to get a feel for the various effects that I will be able to use.

 

I typically shoot all my photos in RAW and process them on my Macbook Pro 15 Matte. However, I've been testing some of the in-camera processing capabilities of Q. I'm finding that the Q's RAW Development tool to convert to JPEG is quite good. I see no difference between processing images in-camera versus using SilkyPix which we ship with the camera. In fact, I personally like the in-camera color compared to the software development bias which is a bit warm to my old eyes.

In addition, I frequently convert RAW files to black and white for processing, in-phone editing and uploading to my Instagram account. Since the IG files don't need to be large, I really don't like spending too much time with PhotoShop on my MBP to convert these RAW files..

With this in mind, I've started to convert my Q RAW files in-camera to monochrome and am pleased with the results. While I'll still process my black and white files traditionally if I'm making prints, for most other needs the in-camera conversion gives me great results automatically. Here's an example of the original RAW file and the JPEG monochrome image from the camera.

 

Ikelite has released a polycarbonate underwater housing for the K-5 and K-7. It's good to a depth of 200 feet, so you might want to trade in that snorkel for some serious scuba gear.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/pen_k5.html

After using the Q last weekend at a workshop in Chicago, Steve posted one of his typically thoughtful and candid "real world reviews" of the Q. It's the first extensive take on the Q by an experienced photographer and well worth the read. http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2011/09/27/the-pentax-q-digital-camera-review-a...

We moved into our new offices in downtown Denver today. I took this quick snapshot of the building with the Q and 01 Standard Prime lens, then I used PhotoShop Express on my iPhone to bump saturation just a bit and add the rough border. Finally used the new Posterous iPhone app to create this blog entry.

Friday was the last day in my office at Golden. Had to take a snapshot for the memories, plus I don't recall it ever being this clean. While I enjoyed my six years here, I'm looking forward to the next chapter in downtown Denver.

There will be different case options for Q in each market. Here in the US, we're finalizing a leather case (quick snapshots taken on my desk after design review meeting). We expect to release the case at the upcoming PhotoPlus Expo in NYC on October 24th.

We'll be running Q ads on wired.com's mobile site, on it's iPad app and in the print edition. Here's a screenshot from my iPad.