Dumb Question - zoom in during LiveView

First, I have read the manual, and can't seem to find the answer, but I may have read the wrong part of the manual

I have a K-7, and my only gripe is that sometimes in low light when shooting a model it will fail to focus on the models skin, and focus on the background instead. I am generally shooting with a wide open aperture, and always use the single centre focussing spot. It seems that poorly lit bare skin does not have enough contrast/texture for the K-7 to focus on, so it sees a bit of background and focusses on that instead.

I have heard that LiveView is the answer (or get a K-5!!!), but I cannot work out how in LiveView to zoom in so that I can check whether the subject is in focus.

Any suggestions on how to better focus, or how to zoom in during LiveView most appreciated.

If you are using centre point focus then the camera can't focus on something else instead, but of course it can fail to focus. I'm wondering though why you are trying to focus on skin when it's the eye that needs focusing on?

Also, it would have to be very dark indeed for the camera to fail to focus, so why is it so dark?

In really dark conditions if I want an AF lock I use an LED torch to illuminate the focus target. That works very well.

Tim

If you press the INFO button whilst in Live View it will zoom in. Keep pressing it and it will zoom in up to 6x. Keep pressing it and it will return to un-zoomed.

Mark - thanks for that, I'll try it out.

John - it's so dark as I often shoot models in abandoned buildings etc, where I am often at 800 ISO, 1/20s at f2.8 on a monopod or tripod, the model is some distance away from me so the actual area of the focus target (which is larger than the little red square) is much larger than her face, so if you aim at the head then you get more of the background in the focus acrea, and as the background generally has more contrast ts locks onto that instead - trust me it does, I do this quite regularly (not just with Pentax cameras, but Canikons as well as used by my friends).
So I generally pick another part of the body as it fills more of the focus target area, then it struggles with the lack of texture.
The LED torch idea sounds as if that would work, thanks for the idea.

I pop on my ftz 500 and set it to SB (spot beam) and it projects a red pattern on the subject allowing the camera to lock on fast and easy.

I have to say that I have, not with models though, used all the methods above, all have their limitations as the SB will fall off well before the target, the LED light will not increase the contrast on the skin and live view at full zoom is shaky. It is worth noting that live view can be set to use a different focus method, this in combination with live view zoom, might be more in target. This in combination with LED torch could do the trick.

Thanks all, I think a combination of all, plus maybe thinking about the SB red pattern printing a card with a pattern on it which the model could hold might be the way ahead.