Pentax Full Frame Comment

Not aiming to be negative, but I'd like to see those features available at all times. There are too many 'has this feature, but it's only available in these modes' etc.

I remember one of the K-30 reviews making reference to this with the AF modes, which were auto in some configurations, but not available if you switched to others etc. I'll dig around it and find what I was thinking of soon. here it is, about half way down

The likes of mechanical stabilisation, continuous focusing, and focus peaking etc during video mode would be other examples.

Does sound promising though

I've skimmed the review and the one option they missed out with AF was the option to just use centre point focus. This is actually the most efficient option with any camera.

The technique is focus where you want to, hold focus with a half press on the shutter release, recompose and fire. It can be very fast indeed.

As the reviewer says, ' Why couldn’t I focus and recompose? Because then I’d throw off the plane of focus.' I think I've noticed similar issues when I employ the focus/recompose technique (which is my normal technique as I usually find manually moving the focus point too much of a faff).

I wonder whether the reliance on centre spot is more to do with the other modes just not working well enough? With more AF points and a better AF system, the better the auto select modes work better - I did notice this on a Canon I tried once, admittedly a professional full frame model!

The point about the plane of focus is technically correct, but in practice it's only relevant at macro distances. The actual diameter of the sphere which is the plane of focus is huge compared to the distances, so the actual error is very small. There's probably more error in either the AF system or our ability to manually focus.

It's not reliance on centre spot, which implies we depend on it to get out of a fix, it's just the quickest and most efficient way to work. I know where I want to focus, the camera doesn't.

At very close differences, using centre spot and then QuickShift is still the fastest way.

I don't know what I was doing wrong. I would focus on the face (in AFS), recompose (to a half length portrait format) and take the shot. So so many shots were out of focus on the face. (I do like to shoot wide open perhaps I'm dealing with a narrower DOF than you are used to?)

But yeah, with any auto select mode the camera might have focused anywhere on the model in that circumstance, probably on the nearest part of the body.

What would be handy would be to select what you want to focus on with the centre point, and have the camera cling to focus on that point, even if you move the camera a bit or recompose, or if the subject moves.

I am hoping that is what has been implemented with the new tracking feature.

It's most likely that model and/or camera simply moved.

Unless we use a Victorian neck-brace the model will waver about and the photographer likewise. As the movement is likely to be to-and-fro rather than side-to-side the point of focus will easily be lost, especially at wide apertures.

Yes and the point I am making is that a smarter AF system with more points and AF tracking will possibly help overcome this problem. Certainly more convenient than Victorian neck braces

This isn't new technology cos the Canon I tried was pretty old. I was shooting kids with it, and the AF points lit up all over the kid's face, and moved around when the kid moved, holding position perfectly.

On Pentax auto select AF, the camera's few AF points would just focus at random on the kid, the coffee table, Auntie Noreen's knee, etc, making it pretty useless!

McGrec Ni wrote:

Then John wrote:

It seems all the people who aren't part of this forums are complete idiots who don't know what they want and why the are buying a DSLR.

I bought my first DSLR a bit more than a year ago. I knew exactly what I wanted and what I wanted to use it for. I really don't consider myself an idiot. Not just since I joined this forum, but well before.

Regards, Horst

That wasn't the implication of what I wrote Horst! Those who sell will know how easily a buyer can be put off and what odd little things can suddenly make the difference between no sale and a sale.

I was talking about the vagaries of buyers in general and I should think a large number of sales people will have met them all. Me included.

That's not being an idiot - that's being a normal person who has seen a DSLR and wants one for better family pics, but doesn't necessarily want to get all asbgergersy about the technical side of it!

I'm not trying to start a row but I think the use of a specific mental health condition in that context may be a little unwise. It I appreciate it probably isn't the way you meant it.

As I say, not trying to start a row.

No you are quite right! Happy for it to be deleted. I feel too comfortable bandying it around becuase I feel I may be a bit 'aspergersy' myself, although I haven't been diagnosed. One of my college friends had aspergers, and I think David Byrne?

Now we are starting to stray, so enough said on that diversion I think.

I have assbugers too...
and I missed the whole conversation.

I do find having a hundred little boxes all lighting up like christmas lights in the viewfinder rather distrcting, and the bright 100% viewfinder is one of pentax's strong points... ( i think canon uses the light show to distract the owner from the fact that the viewfinder is useless as a viewfinder).

hope that doesn't become an issue...

the new k-3 rumors have me very excited and simply not caring about ff.

I hope a new k-01 (k-03????) with same sensor and specs comes of this.

me too

but I wouldn't go THAT far