camera set-up

It was suggested on the DPR forum (by someone who seems to have a lot of in-depth knowledge) that the K-7's native ISO was actually somewhere between ISO 100 and 200.

I agree ISO 200 is OK anyway. I'm more concerned that Highlight Protection doesn't provide enough protection for me, so I'm still going to be doing some pushing in pp.

This topic raises a question that I had considered asking myself, like most above I have had my Af set to centre point since the week I got my '20, my thought recently was am I missing something here?

There has to be a reason for the manufacturers adding extra af points, and loudly lauding them in promotional material - but to what benefit if I (and it appears most of us) only ever find the need to use the centre point?

Oh and as for setup, Af on rear af button, centre point , Mostly Av mode unless macro shooting, auto iso with the auto boundaries set for shoot type/conditions (great feature that), metering depends.....(probably the only setting other that Wb i consider changing when composing)

Yeah I also wonder about the extra AF points. I suppose for tripod photography it could be useful to not have to recompose all the time.

Back in my film days I had an EOS 5, which had this eyeball tracking gizmo which used some kind of light beams to determine which AF point you were looking at and focussed appropriately. Do any cameras have that these days?

Recomposing introduces an error in some cases, or sometimes it's less convenient to do that even when not using a tripod. It's easy to select an alternative point with your thumb via the 4-way controller. Why NEVER use it?

It's easier still to readjust slightly using a manual tweak to the focus point. Assuming DA lenses are being used of course.

The large number of AF points can be useful when trying to track a moving object. I don't do sports photography, but I can see why some of the photographers that do rave about the Canon 7D's 19 pt AF module and the Nikon 51pt AF module that's used in their high end cameras.

For most of us, it's just a gimmick.

Agree PG - multiple AF points great for continuous shooting of moving objects. I have found the K-7 much better in this regard than previous cameras: easily able to keep up with my in-laws' mad springer spaniel!

Ah ok. Most of the sports photography I do is motorsport based, be it bikes or cars, so 99% of the time I know where the vehicle is going, and am already panning with it. Hence the subject stays in (or near to) the centre of the frame anyway.
I suspect if trying to catch action whereby the movement is more random (never mind as random as a springers movement!) I would see the need to use more of the Af grid.
Cheers.

My cameras are usually set to ISO 400 (I don't shoot stock, but otherwise I can see no reason to go below this, having made A2 prints at ISO 400). For daytime shots my aperture is usually f/5.6 as a starting point, and I'm nearly always in Aperture Priority (except if using flash - then it's manual). WB is usually left on daylight.

I use centre weighted metering, and centre-point AF from the rear button (though at close focusing distances sometimes change to a different AF point, so as not to introduce focusing errors by recomposing).

My second default is the same as the above, except with the ISO at 1600 & WB on Tungsten, for low light indoor pictures.

Jonathan

hehe - you're not wrong though

K20D: I usually go for ISO400 for general walkabout. And in P mode. It's easy to flick the front or back wheels to force aperture or shutter precedence when required. Lens, I have my Vivitar Series 1 19-35 on. Shoot wide and crop at home. Although I have a Sigma 70-210 K mount in my pocket if lugging the gadget bag is too much. If you ever see one on Ebay get it. I only paid £15 for mine and it's a great quality lens. It blows the vivitar series 1 70-210 away.

I shoot in AV, +0.5 EV applied as standard (unless using an M lens, which I often do).

I used to stick rigidly to 100ISO, but now I use auto-ISO with a range from 100-400ISO. I don't know why I didn't use this feature before. It only ups the ISO when shutter speeds start getting a bit slow for hand held..