I tried to post this to one of the other Pentax threads, but they've gone to archive already and search returned nothing... This is over a week old but I haven't seen it here. anyway:
According to the chief editor of the swedish magazine Kamera & Bild, Pentax Sweden has said that Pentax decided the 11th of September that the new K10D would output 16 bit RAW files, not 12 bit. The current pre-production models has a firmware with 12 bit RAW, but the production model will have a new firmware supporting 16 bit RAW.
not exactly. Originally their spec sheet in the press release said 22-bit A/D conversion with 8-bit JPEG and 12-bit RAW output, which I and many others took to be meaningless or at least worthy of a skeptical wait-and-see. If the source above is correct, Pentax has realized that making noise about internal 22-bit math with 12-bit output doesn't excite people much, what they want is the full bit depth original.
In thoery by oversampling they (Pentax) can optimize the 12 bits going into the RAW file. I doubt we'll see true 16 bit files like a digital back or the Leica DMR, but it's possible that Pentax does better than the typical 12 bit RAW. Nikon uses 14 bits on their A/D converter in the D200.
We'll have to wait for some credible reviews from DPreview and alike to see if the 22 bit A/D converter adds up to be better fidelity or not...
Some of these specifications may still be subject to change before the camera hits the streets. The sample I played with yesterday had an ISO range of 50 to 3200, but I was told the production camera would only have ISO 100 to 1600. They expanded ISO range might reappear as a firmware update somewhere down the road.
I have a sneaky suspicion that all things being equal, the 22 bit number crunching is subtley better than conventional conversions. I equate all of it to performing all your photoshoping in 16 bit tiff mode, and then saving your work in 8bit jpeg. The end result is a saved 16 bit file that was processed in 22 bit mode. Time will tell real soon.
