Pentax Focusing

I hired the Pentax 300mm last week. I was generally pleased with some of the football pics I took, compared to the 50-200 I have. I was really disappointed in the AF. It seemet to go in the opposite direction most of the time, then stop and focus the lens till it eventuall stopped. A few times, I was able to wach the lens focus while I waited. Is the K-20 or the K-7 have a faster and smarter AF.

It would be much easier for people to comment intelligently on this if you told them what camera body you are using. From what you have said, we don't even know if you are using an SDM-enabled body.

G

I was using the K10

From what I can gather the K20D has better AF than the K10D, the K-m has better than the K20D and the K-7 has better than the K-m.

As for the K-x ... who knows ...

I can say, as I have the cameras I am about to mention, the DS is slow, the K10D is a lot faster, and the K20D a little faster than the K10D. As for the K-7 etc I don't have first hand experience.

It does also depend what firmware in the K10D
The early versions didn't support SDM focussing.
(Hold down the MENU button while turning on the power to check)
Matt

Sorry to take so long coming back to you, but there are a number of possibilities.

You're fairly new here, and I don't know how experienced you are. Please don't be offended if I state the obvious.

Points to consider.

1 Are you using SDM for the 300mm lens? It requires updated firmware version 1.3 in the camera.

2 Are you confident that the focus point was set correctly? My brother just returned from Yellowstone Park with a new K20D and a load of fuzzy pictures because he didn't get that right.

3 Were you using continuous focus? This can often go wrong in fast moving situations, and I would avoid using it at a football match. Tracking a plane is another matter.

4 Were you allowing a player to jump out of the focus point, which would mean the camera would focus on the background, or another player?

5 Have you tried the lens in a static scenario? Does it focus OK if you point it at a tree? If not, there may be a problem with the lens.

That'll do for starters. If you are relatively new to this, I would suggest that the problem may be down to user error, and unfamiliarity with how the camera will respond to events. But if you have been using long lenses and AF camera for years, then a lens fault sounds probable.

G

I do not have updated firewire for the K10. I have tried to uypload it, but nothing happens. I load the software to an SD card and insert it into the camera. when I turn on the camera again, I am not sure what to do then. I hope that I can resolve this issue. I have some great pics of the kids playing football. The 300 was great for that

Make sure your battery is fully charged, and then hold down the menu button when you turn the camera on. Some text will appear on the rear screen to tell you it's going to update the firmware.

You did unzip the file first?

G

yes, file was unzipped, thanks for the tutorial.

I tried a couple of times to update my gx10 without success and finally twigged that I was putting the download into a file folder on the card rather than into the root directory. Copied it in again in the right place and it worked a treat.

Al

I tried that, I am not sure why it's not working

Its an off-the-wall idea, but what are you using to unzip the file?
WinZip for Windows, by default, will often corrupt binary files. Be sure to turn off Smart LF/CR Conversion and try unzipping the original file again.
Or re-download. It could be a simple matter of a corrupted file.

The file comes unzipped.

Actually, the file comes as a self-extracting executable, which you have to run*.

When you run it, it asks you for a folder to put the extracted files into, and then you end up with a file called FWDC162B.BIN.

It is this .BIN file you put in the card's root folder prior to switching on for the update.

It also gives you a readme.txt file with detailed instructions.

____

* Edit: that is, assuming you got it from here