Womble, if you have no trouble manual focusing then why did you fit a
Katzeye screen?

I think anyone that is saying they can sharp focus in manual is probably using a larger depth of field and therefore a large margin of error. I cannot see how it is possible to manual focus otherwise.

How can you use manual focus? Are you using a focusing aid? When I have tried it I can get it pretty close but not close to get an exact focus point at f1.4/f1.8

Chris, will do, I'll post some examples tomorrow.

You are correct that the testing is conclusive. Unfortunately, the more I read the more I suspect that it isn't a fault with my camera and therefore returning it will not sort the problem, it seems it's just that the K5 is crap at focusing.

I dare say that a lot of K5 users may not be affected by it, for instance it will not manifest itself in the majority of shots, but I shoot at wide aperture and usually portraits. This means that the bad focusing is pretty evident and I usually try get the person's iris as the focus point but when I typically try that I get blurred eyes and usually a sharp tip of nose or hair in front of the forehead.

But that article isn't about focusing is it?

Yes, good post.

Dave I have considered it may be faulty but there are hundreds of references to users with the same problem. So it must be a common fault.

If I shoot a portrait I usually want the iris to be sharp. At the moment it's the end of the nose, no matter how good your eyes are you will not tell the differene until you have taken the pic.

Haha no way could you shoot an Asian wedding using manual focus, it would be physically impossible.

Why are people assuming that I am attempting to take shots in virtual darkeness? These tests took place in my smallish kitchen with 300Watts of tungsten lighting.

Even the girlfriend's Lumix pees all over my K5 when it comes to focusing.

I remember at college doing still life in the studio and having to suffer the embarrassment of my Pentax hunting back and forth before settling for an out of focus shot while all the Canon fanboys laughed while their cameras snapped to sharp focus in about a millisecond.