Hi All

Just to let you all know my autofocus problem was due to fluff in my mirror box, (see reply from Johnsons Photopia). Even though my Camera is out of warranty they have cleaned it free of charge. Can't really ask for more than that

Thanks Johnsons and all the best

Andrzej


"Dear Andrzej,

The technician has inspected you K20D and the fault was due to a quite large piece of fluff in the mirror box. This has been cleaned and checked and the unit is working fine. We will test the unit this afternoon and if it is all working fine we will return as no charge.

I hope this helps,

Best Regards

Joanne Roper
Johnsons Photopia
Service Administration"

Hi All

Just to add to the above, I am in the process of bundling up my K20 to go back to Pentax and thought I would have one more look at her. She still won't auto focus in Auto and Spot focus, but there are about five regions she will focus in Select, bizarre.

The other good news is I am a month out of warranty as well

All the best

Andrzej

Hi Lad

Thanks for the replies. In reality I have probable taken around a 1000 shots on each of the lenses so I don't think it's a compatibility issues as I think it would have shown up earlier. The motors are running fine on both lens, plus they work (my Pentax lens)fine on my D-ist.

I tried the reboot option as mt friend with a similar problem with the Canon D5 had to do this to rectify the problem.

When the lenses are hunting they will even hesitate at the correct focus and then carry on hunting. Yes the problem reared itself in low light (the work I was doing Friday night) but I took it out on Sunday in Cardiff with not a cloud in the sky and she was still hunting.

Thanks for the help lads but it look like she on fer travels to Pentax again!

All the best

Andrzej

Hi Oggy

I thought of that, a friend of mine has a similar problem with a Canon. Thanks anyway looks like she will be heading back to Pentax for the second time.

All the best

Andrzej

Hi Oggy

Yes I am getting that when I switch on. Have you had experience of this?

All the best

Andrzej

Hi All

I don't know if you can help but my auto focus has appeared to stop working on my K20. I was doing some work for someone Friday evening when low a behold the camera wouldn't focus. I managed to do the work in manual so it didn't cause that big a problem but was just a bit frustrating.

I check the lenses (Pentax 16-45 mm and Sigma 70-200mm) out on my trusty old D-ist and they are both working fine. I have tried the camera with various combinations of single and continuous focus as well as set the auto focus at Auto, SEL and spot focus and the lens just hunts.

So before I bundle up my K20 to go back to Pentax, has anyone else had this problem and more importantly did you manage to fix it without sending it back?

I would be grateful for your help and all the best

Andrzej

Hi Chris

Is the 16-45 f/4 lens still available or have you now sold it, I am looking for something like this as a general everyday lens.

Andrzej

Hi Simon

I bought this lens earlier this year from SRS and have been very impressed with it. I bought it for taking photos of wildlife plus model gliders, that I am involved in racing. Don’t let the glider reference fool you into thinking they are slow moving, when we race them they will be flying well in excess of 100mph. I went for the 120-400 mm lens as I wanted something that usable hand held in reasonable light and have not been disappointed.

I have also used the lens once for some work I do with a local youth theatre group and was impressed how well it handled low light conditions for what would be considered quite a slow lens. The added bonus here was that I usually use a Pentax 100-300 mm zoom lens, the Sigma focused a lot quicker and is very quietly compared to this lens and doesn’t hunt like mad in low light which my Pentax lens is prone to.

If you go this route I don’t think you will be disappointed

Andrzej

Hi Andy

I think I have seen one on a forum somewhere but can't find a link right now.

All I try to do is ensure that all the histogram is in the frame. From experience the shape is pretty dependent on the the subject. Pictures with evenly balanced colours give a broad low histogram where subjects silhouetted behind a black or white background will give a higher peak and push it one way of the other.

However, all the good photos I get have the whole histogram in the field. The bad ones under or over exposed usually run out of the field one side or the other.

One bit of advice I was given was to shoot RAW and always try to push the histogram to the right a little as overexposed images can be dealt with when converting to a jpeg easier than under exposed ones.

I have to say this goes against the grain form me a an old film photographer as I usually bracket down quite often to try to pull a bit more colour out of photographs.

But the most important advice I got was go out and try it for yourself and find what is right for you, at the end of the day the photograph will tell you what is right or wrong. I found this helped me understand what the effects of my actions were on any image and hence got to know the camera a lot better.

This is were digital is a god send. In my early film days I would walk around with a note book recording speed, aperture, ISO (DIN if you can remember that far back) and conditions for every shot, then spend hours in a darkroom before I could relay the results to the camera settings and learn from my mistakes.

With digital it is all there straight away for you to see, so you can spend less time on the mechanics and more concentrating on the important part, the composition of the image.

I have just seen that Martin has posted a link regarding histograms, thanks.

I hope this is of some help and all the best

Andrzej

Hi Foxycce

I have had some good tips form the group regarding shooting in low light for a Theatre group I do some work for time to time. I am now starting to get some nice results and listed a few point and comments that have been given below which I keep for reference:

Learning points form Theatre shoot.

1. Check histogram
2. Adjust sensitivity to +1 or +2 to move histogram to right
3. Shoot in RAW
4. select high ISO setting 3200 or 6400 (via “user” setting)
5. Select noise reduction for high ISO
6. Set white balance, try test shots and try to get a white object in to set temperature in processing.
7. Try black and white if there is a lot of noise is present
8. Switch beep off
9. Remember to put setting back after shoot
10. Spot or Centre Weighted for a single person; Centre Weighted or Multi-segment for multiple persons. Ultimately, the choice of metering mode doesn't matter because you can compensate for any errors, or push/pull the exposure, via EV Compensation.

If the data is all bunched up to the left on the histogram, try about +0.7 or 1.0 EV compensation, or whatever is required.

RAW will keep your options as open as possible. High-ISO Noise Reduction is not applied to RAW data, only Slow Shutter Speed Noise Reduction on K20D(dark frame extraction), which you should set to Auto.

But ISO 6400 is really noisy no matter what you do. Ideally you want is a fast lens with a larger maximum aperture to enable lower ISO

If anyone whats to comment or give me some more advice please feel free as everything has been a great help to date.

I have found myself shooting more and more in the TAv mode in this situation and just keep adjusting speed and aperture to try to keep below ISO 3200.

I am usually quite remote form the stage so have to shoot with a telephoto-zoom which by nature is slow (I can't afford a nice fixer F2.8 right through its zoom range) and have to make do with F4.5 - F 5.6 but have got some good results.

In a gig situation you might be able to get closer to the stage and use a fast (f1.4 or faster) 50 or 80 mm lens if you have one which could give some good results.

Don't forget the black and white option either this can give some nice result when you are just pushing the colour exposure to far. A moody grainy,shadowy shot could give good feel for the atmosphere at the gig.

This has been a great learning curve for me which has thrown off other benefits in that I give a lot more though to setting white balance and regularly checking the histograms in every situation now. I have also got to know my K20D a lot more and appreciate what it can really do.

Hope this is of some help

Andrzej