Motion Correction for Pentax K1 SuperRes Images via Pentax Digital Camera Utility
See my Pentax K1 wish list at B&H Photo.
Pentax K1 SuperRes pixel shift mode records 4 pixel-shifted exposures into one raw file. The raw converter must then take those 4 exposures and (somehow) create an RGB pixel for each pixel in the image.
Camera movement is not tolerated, but if there is subject motion, the Motion Correction feature found in Pentax Digital Camera Utility can correct areas affected by motion.
Unfortunately, Adobe Camera Raw does not and is not likely to support Motion Correction, and its behavior with subject motion has no sophistication at all. What a shame to see the value of a camera system degraded by lack of Adobe support. But I pin the blame for that on Pentax: Pentax should have reached out months ago to ensure ACR support, if necessary funding an engineer to get it done. Put simply, it makes the K1 a lousy product, the product being the sum total of hardware and software.
This report explores Motion Correction with Pentax Digital Camera Utility. An ACR conversion is included for reference, plus three results from Pentax DCU: Motion Correction On, Motion Correction Off, single frame extracted from the raw file.
SuperRes Motion Correction: With and Without (Watch Seconds Hand)
Includes large actual pixels images along with crops. This 4-way comparison is really interesting to see just what is possible!
Below, a small reduced size crop shows the motion we are dealing with: the seconds hand moving during 4 X 2 second exposures in SuperRes mode.