K1: the good and the bad.

I took the K1 in to the studio today for the first time, in one respect it's absolutely awsome but in another it's absolutely frustrating.

This shot the was taken while setting the lights, as you can see it's severely underexposed:


Gave it a wee tweak in LR2015:


and this is what ithe K1 is capable of:


That's the good bit...........now the bad bit:

In a dark studio (night shooting too) It's parctically impossible to see which focus point is active, a brief illumination of the whole view finder is all you get - and that only happens if the focus distance changes, I know you can press the side AF button to illuminate, try doing that in portraite orientation I can't remember complaing about this with anf othe pentax DSLR I've had.

By contrast my other marquee body is awsome to focus, half press the shutter button or the AF-ON button illuminates the active focus point, such a simple thing that makes a world of difference in usability.

just out of curiosity would that be still the same problem with the grip on

Surprised that this has come up, simply because in a studio environment I ,and not the camera, would always choose the focus point

The grip makes it worse IMO.

That's what I do too but I alway refocus between every shot, if the subject moves either sideways or back to front that can make the difference between in/out of focus.

I've just done a quick review of todays work and I'm dissapointed with the number of out of focus images I have from the K1, this was never an issue with my other paentax bodies, hopefully Rioch will address the oversight in a FM release, will be massively disapointed if they don't.

I have no experience with large sensor cameras but I understand that the depth of field becomes narrower as sensor size increases. This is highly valued by portrait photographers as a way of throwing backgrounds out of focus but makes critical focusing on the subject itself much more difficult. I mainly use M4/3 cameras these days and find virtually everything is in focus even using quite wide apertures which suits the kind of things I like to photograph.

I expect you'll soon get used to your K1 perhaps closing the aperture down a bit more than you would with your cropped sensor cameras.

I am a bit confused - why are you photographing in the dark?

Cameras work in different ways, so it might be possible that different techniques are necessary.

For example, the Pentaxes have no difficulty focusing on say a single large grass against a background of water, whereas another marque body steadfastedly refused to do so. Therefore for the other camera a different technique was needed in those circumstances.

With the K-1 I would tend to use central focus only, taking advantage of QuickShift to manually tweak where needed. Or even manual focus if on a tripod in the studio.

Just thoughts, hope they are helpful.

What's confusing about a dark studio?

Just to clarify, I have no problems with the auto focus on my K1, the problem is in the illumination of the active focus point in a dark enviroment i.e. a model in front of a black background.

Yes this is odd. On K5 and K3 the focus point glows red, on the K1 it is merely a black square. Very difficult in poor light. I was photographing some dark skinned children in a fairly poorly lit room the other day and it was hard to see the focus point.

Thank you Philip, I was begining to think it was just me

I choose a focus point which will allow me to focus on the eye, and still keep the model framed how I like. So I always know which focus point I am using. Thought everyone would do similar, which is why I didn't understand why it would be a problem. Like everything else, people have their own technique.

Yes I do the same but I still need to be able to see the focus point clearly in the viewfinder.

Just for fun here is one of the reject shots of the day which I like because it sums up the perils of working with kids. Ryan bored to tears and longing to get back to his football game while Nicole dribbles down her jaw.