catch in focus. How do you do it?

It does work really well, but it is at its most useful when shooting macro, moving slowly back and forth to achieve critical focus. I can't see it being very effective for bird shots.

Regards
David

Yup, works with Ducks as well as Pigeons




Not so good with Stormy Petrels though.



Unless they're on a stick

With my K7 I've achieved 100% failure rate on that.

You may do better ...

Its crap!

Not impressed at all.

What about remote triggers that you see attached to the top of some cameras? Are they compatible with Pentax bodies?

This is the sort of thing that I would need to get for far off work. The catch in focus setting just doesnt cut the mustard.

Remote triggers are compatible - I have an 'Aputure' one bought from Amazon for £20. It is a superb bit of kit, works reliably up to 120 meters away. Highly recommended.

Regards
David

I've experimented...in the past.. given issues like battery life and reliability I really only found two effective uses for snap in focus...
one macro shooting if you got a rail or sliding plate on your tripod.....
macro shooting if you're using flash.....

the only other real use was when me an my son rigged the flash hotshoe to an arduino board, and ran that to a servo attached to the trigger of a paintball gun and mounted the camera as a scope for the paintball gun....

that had some hilarious uses for practical jokes, but was too shaky and unreliable to make it work on our robot we built.
(proved more reliable to just use a web cam and a laser for aiming and firing by remote control BTW)

Works a treat for macro, I sometimes use a 50mm f1.7 on tubes and almost always use CIF.
I don't think it would be so good for birds unless they were flying across rather than towards.
However these were all taken with a Sigma 600 mirror using CIF so great for larger targets.

Wow! good work definitely going to look into this some more

I had some good results using a Tamron 500mm mirror lens and CIF, on motorsport subjects with the vehicles coming almost directly towards me. Better results than I get with trying to use autofocus in that scenario. Kx, though, not K5.

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Me too, same lens where focus is paper thin. Used it for static bird shots and was the only way I could get sharp pics. Beat my eyesight every time. Also as David says, have used for macro.

You have to set Catch in focus to on in the camera menu first,Also if using non autofocus lenses you need to change the aperture ring setting to Permitted.
As stated in other replies you need to have a manual lens or an auto lens with manual switch. The camera set to AFS,(The camera will continue to take multiple shots as long as the subject is in focus provided that you have set multiple shots on the camera) I have used it for aircraft, Sailboarders, Motor rally,Time trial cyclists. Most recently a visit to Gigrin Farm in Wales to photograph the Red Kites. There were hundreds of the beggars! and it was difficult to follow the action as they were dodging and weaving all over the place! I used a Pentax 300mm that i bought new in 1977 set the distance between 50 and 70ft and used a high shutter speed. I had some fantastic images all pin sharp!
Definitely worth another visit!
I have used Catch in focus with K10, K7 and K5 II

I think catch in focus can work quite well, even for birds. I tried it for the first time last week on the K-5 and caught this.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

I know the composition isn't great and I need to stop down more to increase depth of field, but it's a first attempt.

I left the camera on burst mode for an hour or so with the shutter held down with a cable release switch. I came back to find about 300 shots, mostly of boring blue tits. A lot were pretty duff but I suspect I'd have got much the same hit rate if I'd been pressing the shutter manually.

What I don't understand is why it why catch in focus can only work with a manual lens and why the camera has to be set to AF.S. My only manual lens is an old M50 f/1.7 which I picked up on eBay (I know a lot of people like this lens but I can't say it does a lot for me). Why couldn't Pentax have made catch in focus also work for an auto lens when the camera is set to MF? Could I fake the camera into thinking it's a manual lens by taping over the contacts?

One problem I find with the bird feeder is the focus is apt to trigger a bit early, before the bird has settled. So rather than use burst mode I'm going to experiment with using catch in focus with an interval timer release cable and narrow bracketing to give me a burst of shots when the focus is triggered. I'll need to turn off the display and LCD backlight when doing this, in order to conserve battery power.

That's a very nice result. Well done.

Remember that catch in focus is really just an 'accidental' effect of AF-S mode not allowing the shot until focus is achieved. You wouldn't really want MF to not allow exposure unless the focus light was illuminated would you? Obviously Pentax could in theory engineer a special extra MF/Catch mode that would do exactly that, or you can already use an AF lens provided it is an AF lens with a manual switch and you have switche3d it to manual.

Yes you can, although as I possess more MF lenses than AF I haven't tried this myself.

An interval timer is really useful for this, but probably won't fix the problem you describe here. Personally I found the opposite problem to yourself i.e. the trigger often wasn't fast enough.