K20D + DA*s

leadbelly · 10-14-2008, 08:00 AM

I tried out my friend's K20D to see if it's worth upgrading to and if the DA*s really do perform better than with the K10D.

With my K10D, when shooting wide open, the DA*s (16-50 and 50-135) are both soft in their respective wide ends... they only get sharp when stopped down to f5.6. So I always had to zoom in first to lock focus, then zoom out, recompose, before taking a shot. I put the DA*s on the K20D, thinking this 'quirk' would be fixed. However, I still had the same focusing problem wide open, at the widest end, for BOTH Da*s... this is very disappointing for me since many times I lose great shots because the subjects were not focused... I am sorely tempted to get rid of both zooms and get myself FA limiteds instead...

Do any of you experience this as well? How do I fix this?

soccerjoe5 · 10-14-2008, 08:32 AM

So they're out of focus, not soft? That's weird, let's compare our stuff this week bro! My 16-50 doesn't give me out of focus shots nor and softness issues with my K20. It's sharp wide open.

rfortson · 10-14-2008, 08:50 AM

My 16-50 occasionally seemed soft and prone to PF on my K10D. However, I haven't really noticed this on my K20D. The PF is definitely gone, and the softness is pretty much gone as well. I can still get some focus errors with the 16-50, but no more so than some of my other lenses.

The 50-135 has performed well on both bodies. It's just superb!

leadbelly · 10-14-2008, 09:45 AM

I wonder what's wrong with mine? Or maybe I'm just too paranoid? Will go out tomorrow and shoot... let's see the soft:sharp focus ratio then...

petenick · 10-14-2008, 10:47 AM

Check dpreview's review of the K10D. It is clearly a much better camera in RAW mode. The comparison pictures of the JPEG and RAW pictures are alot different, with RAW being much better. Try shooting in RAW and see if you get sharper images.

dafiryde · 10-14-2008, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by leadbelly

I tried out my friend's K20D to see if it's worth upgrading to and if the DA*s really do perform better than with the K10D.

With my K10D, when shooting wide open, the DA*s (16-50 and 50-135) are both soft in their respective wide ends... they only get sharp when stopped down to f5.6. So I always had to zoom in first to lock focus, then zoom out, recompose, before taking a shot. I put the DA*s on the K20D, thinking this 'quirk' would be fixed. However, I still had the same focusing problem wide open, at the widest end, for BOTH Da*s... this is very disappointing for me since many times I lose great shots because the subjects were not focused... I am sorely tempted to get rid of both zooms and get myself FA limiteds instead...

Do any of you experience this as well? How do I fix this?

i came from old school,, and what one did, was zoom in, focus , recompose and shoot , which is what you described above
and was then told with these type lenses today, you have to do the opposite. which is, compose, focus, recompose, then shoot.
it has something to do with parafocal and varifocal lenses. in that if you zoom in and focus then zoom out the point of focus is no longer there, and your pictures end up comming out soft. the reason why, when you step down the lens it comes out good, is because by stepping down the lens you just actually increased the dept of field

Dave