Can K20 be adjusted for indoor Tungsten light?

[philbaum]

I've just done some volunteer work for a local playhouse group during their dress rehearsal. The pics are to be used in 8 x 12 format for the lounge area and billboards locally. So no pixel peepers here.

For my first outing with this group, i shot with 1 other photographer, and we both had some good shots but some out of focus as well.

I'm thinking the problem with Tungsten lighting affected both his Canon and my Pentax. More of the misses tended to come with the longer FL which have a much more narrow DOF.

These plays only come around every two months or so. Couldn't i load in a focus shift into K20 for the lens i intend to use for these plays, and have that help mitigate some of the effects. I can always remove it for outdoor use of the lens later, i think.

thanks for any help

[Quicksand]

Absolutely. I do exactly that when shooting indoors with my FA 50/1.4 at wide apertures.

I do two things:

(1) Adjust the focus. Outdoors in natural light, my FA 50 needs no adjustment so it's at zero. Indoors with warm incandescent lighting, I find that -9 is about right. After mounting the lens, I put this in the "per lens" adjustment, and when I'm done shooting, I set it back to zero before I remove the lens. For you, I'd recommend starting early (a little before the rehearsal) and doing some testing with the stage lighting on, verifying focus on a fixed object (person?) on the stage. Adjust, take a test shot, inspect, repeat until happy. I don't think there's any better way to do it.

(2) Manual white balance. Sure, you can fix this in post-processing if you're shooting raw, but it's nice to have reasonably dialed-in WB for review purposes, if nothing else. Auto WB doesn't compensate for incandescent temperatures on the K20D (I hear the K-7 is much better at this), so I usually put in something like 3200K manually. Take a test shot and tweak the setting until it looks good to you. Stage lighting is probably pretty different from what I'm used to, so I can't give you anything more precise.

With these adjustments I have been pretty satisfied! I wish I didn't have to do them, but . . . c'est la vie.

[GeneV]

Originally Posted by Quicksand

Absolutely. I do exactly that when shooting indoors with my FA 50/1.4 at wide apertures.

I do two things:

(1) Adjust the focus. Outdoors in natural light, my FA 50 needs no adjustment so it's at zero. Indoors with warm incandescent lighting, I find that -9 is about right. After mounting the lens, I put this in the "per lens" adjustment, and when I'm done shooting, I set it back to zero before I remove the lens. For you, I'd recommend starting early (a little before the rehearsal) and doing some testing with the stage lighting on, verifying focus on a fixed object (person?) on the stage. Adjust, take a test shot, inspect, repeat until happy. I don't think there's any better way to do it.

(2) Manual white balance. Sure, you can fix this in post-processing if you're shooting raw, but it's nice to have reasonably dialed-in WB for review purposes, if nothing else. Auto WB doesn't compensate for incandescent temperatures on the K20D (I hear the K-7 is much better at this), so I usually put in something like 3200K manually. Take a test shot and tweak the setting until it looks good to you. Stage lighting is probably pretty different from what I'm used to, so I can't give you anything more precise.

With these adjustments I have been pretty satisfied! I wish I didn't have to do them, but . . . c'est la vie.

Interesting tip on the focus adjustment.

The manual white balance seems to be more of an issue on the K20 than the K10, for some reason. My K20 doesn't seem to recognize tungsten light at all when set to AWB. Since I shoot raw, it is no biggie, but it bugs me a bit to see the yellow previews.

[MPrince]

Originally Posted by GeneV

My K20 doesn't seem to recognize tungsten light at all when set to AWB.

That's because the color temp of tungsten lighting is outside the range of AWB.

[jeffkrol]

Originally Posted by MPrince

That's because the color temp of tungsten lighting is outside the range of AWB.

And why the k7 SPECIFICALLY has a tungsten AWB setting....
Nobody reads the spec that puts AWB at 5000K (ish) cutoff..... when tungsten color temp. goes MUCH lower... Tungsten preset is better but still leaves a cast, as it should.....

[krypticide]

Wow, and I thought I read the manual pretty thoroughly. Thanks for pointing that out.

[kristoffon]

Originally Posted by jeffkrol

And why the k7 SPECIFICALLY has a tungsten AWB setting....
Nobody reads the spec that puts AWB at 5000K (ish) cutoff..... when tungsten color temp. goes MUCH lower... Tungsten preset is better but still leaves a cast, as it should.....

I think any digicam since 1999 has a tungsten setting.

[cabstar]

When shooting gigs with Tungsten light I have found setting to k5500 on my GX20 not sure how manual WB works on K20d but on GX20 we have 3 manual setting which I have at 4500 5000 & 5500, 5500 seems to be the best match & being high gives lots of room for adjustment in Lightroom.

[MPrince]

Originally Posted by jeffkrol

And why the k7 SPECIFICALLY has a tungsten AWB setting....

As does the K100D, and ( I assume) Pentax's other models, as well as most every digital camera on the market that I have ever heard of.

The K100D AWB has a range of about 4000K to 8000K. I'm no expert on all digital cameras, but I believe that is a fairly normal range. Tungsten light has a color temp of around 2850K.

So I'm always astounded by people expressing disappointment at how poorly their camera's AWB handles tungsten light. RTFM!!!

[philbaum]

Many thanks to Quicksand for confirming the usability of this method for indoor use. This post originally sank out of sight so i figured it might not be such a great idea. glad to know it has some merit.

I read that the reason many cameras don't automatically correct for tungsten light is that the frequency is close to that of sunsets and sunrises, and they didn't want to hear the complaints from camera users who couldn't get their sunsets to come out properly.

best wishes,

[jeffkrol]

Originally Posted by MPrince

As does the K100D, and ( I assume) Pentax's other models, as well as most every digital camera on the market that I have ever heard of.

The K100D AWB has a range of about 4000K to 8000K. I'm no expert on all digital cameras, but I believe that is a fairly normal range. Tungsten light has a color temp of around 2850K.

So I'm always astounded by people expressing disappointment at how poorly their camera's AWB handles tungsten light. RTFM!!!

Yes I suspect almost all cameras have a tungsten setting but the 7 has a "auto WB tungsten setting". I assume the first is one number (believe Pentax "tungsten" setting in the D was a t 3100k, for studio halogen tungsten lamps, too "cool" for little household tungsten's...... thus a yellow tint. Later models I believed dialed this down to be more "normal" ie 2600-2800). K-7 seems to have a "floating WB to automatically compensate for different tungsten color temps..
Sorry much of this is probably accurate in concept but the hard numbers may be "off".

[fb_penpho]

Why not shoot the pictures in RAW mode and then adjust the colour temperature to what you think gives the best results.

[fb_penpho]

Forget my answer, it is not correct for the question you asked, sorry.