Fishy Q Question

Has any Q enthusiast calibrated the focus scale on the Q 03 fisheye lens? The marks on the lens are no use without focus distances. A first play with it today convinced me that focussing does matter, and checking focus on the screen isn't always possible.

Steve

The focusing points are completely useless. One quarter of the whole scale goes from near to infinity focus, then the rest goes beyond infinity.

I don't think there's a way to calibrate.

Thanks. That explains why focus seemed quite random this afternoon. I'm not usually so bad at manual focus.

So is focussing a matter of either using the screen or trusting to luck? I was hoping to be able to use a one-handed 'point, quick touch on the lens then shoot' approach while walking the dog.

Steve

I'd experiment on getting infinity focus using the image zoom (I think it works) and then just use a bit of tape to hold the focus ring in that spot. The depth of field is extremely large so you rarely need to adjust focus.

Thanks, good suggestion.
How did the world survive before sticky tape was invented??

That's what I was expecting from experience with other Q lenses, but moving the focus ring even a tiny bit had a big effect so I assumed the ring was there to be useful.

No time to try it out today, will have to wait until tomorrow or Monday. I'll be back...

Steve

An update on the Q 03 focus scale, it might be useful for anyone struggling to focus this l;ens.

Someone has calibrated the focus scale and posted the results in a user review of the lens in Pentaxforums (am I allowed to say that name here??). In essence, when you look at the scale from behind the camera and start from the left, the first 2 marks are beyond infinity, 3rd has 3ft - infinity in focus, 4th is 1ft from front of lens, the others steadily reduce the focus distance from about 6 inches to 1 inch from front of lens. This works for my copy of the lens, but of course sample variation might make other copies slightly different.

Mark 3 is clearly the most useful, but the shorter focus distances have their uses so I've resisted the urge to tape the lens at mark 3.

Steve