[C_Jones]

You may want to make sure you are in FF (full frame) mode, set your aperture to F8 or higher aperture number, shutter to about 250, and set the camera to TAV mode, and also set the camera AF mode to AF.C and the AF area mode to "Spot" (center point). Subjects you may want to try to approach could be flowers, signs, a parked car, or even a household item like a cup. Outside with daylight will most likely give you the best test results, or with a flash on the camera in or outdoors. Make sure the AF and SR are on also. For longer exposures of a still subject, you may want to use a tripod.

Those are just some suggestions that I have found effective for testing.

You should be alright. Good luck!

---

Last edited by C_Jones; 07-03-2018 at 10:53 PM.

[repaap]

It really matters that you make focusing correctly. Also as others has said, your pictures has something mssing, or there is too much of distracting elements. You can’t just poit it to something and expect that it will be amazing. Chair looks okay for f2.8 shot. Where your focus is. Bushes are focused there and here. So hard to see where focusing is to get it if it is there or not. Remember that even 2.8 is pretty thin in focus field. I got my 70-200 week a go, tested sharpness too. Mine is spot on, when I nail the focus. Key factor here.

As said also before, 28-105 WR lens should be also really good in terms of sharpness. It is not the only thing this 70-200 is good at. Especially little stopped down, colours improves as does contrast. Already @3,5 it is really good.

[Alex645]

Everyone said it would be a razor sharp lens but the way I see it is not much of a difference between this and the Kit 28-105

First: Anyone saying zoom and razor sharp in the same sentence is over stating the sharpness other than perhaps relative to other zooms they've used.

Second: As most have already stated, you'll want to avoid the extreme range of the aperture. f/2.8 and you'll have shallow depth of field plus soft corners and edges. At f/22 you'll be suffering with diffraction. Next time try f/8, f/9.5, f/11.

Third: If you are after sharpness, generally avoid the extreme range of the focal length. So instead of 70mm or 200mm, try 105, 120, 135mm.

Fourth: Eliminate any possibility of blur. If you are shooting still objects handheld, try a minimum of double the focal length...i.e. 120mm....use 1/250" or faster. Turn off SR. I would only use SR if you had to shoot handheld with slower shutter speeds.

Fifth: The 28-105mm kit lens is an excellent lens. Most kit lenses are underrated by users. They are usually paired with the camera because they are cost effective but produce excellent results. The 70-200mm is also an excellent zoom that gives you more range and is sharper than the kit lens at 105mm.

Six: Shoot RAW and use unsharp mask or a high pass filter to enhance your image sharpness.

Last: If your holy grail is sharpness, then you must convert to Primism. I am a believer. Solid tripod and discover the power of pixel shifting. Keep Calm and Carry Prime.

[repaap]

Well actually my 70-200 seems to be sharp from 70-200..especially 200 is good. Perfectly good @2.8 and really good little stopped down. Ofcourse prime would be better, but..zoom is handy. Posted couple shots at 70-200 club. There are couple @200mm and 100ish. Might be couple at 70 too. But really choosing subject and all means a lot too. SR is on except when on tripod. Really effective feature. Good shooting techique helps too.

[AI8877]

The other thing to keep in mind is your ISO. The K1 is quite competent and produces clear images up to 3200 ISO. I would suggest increasing the ISO and that will enable you to open up the aperture and use the shutter to set the meter to the appropriate exposure.

ISO is not a hard and fast rule. Just because you can shoot at 100, doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Looking at the EXIF files, I am seeing that you are using aperture in order to maintain a relatively light, fast response at ISO 100. Bumping up to 400 or 800 would allow you to open up that aperture, reduce the depth of field, create a sharper image with the 'intended' focal emphasis, without sacrificing stabilization as the camera will shoot 'faster' due to the higher shutter speed (due to the increased ceiling provided by the higher ISO).

My suggestion is to use the Live View and play with the parameters. See how all of the 'different' levers influence the image and each other.

That’s another suggestion that makes sense.
Thank you

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 11:51 PM ----------

First: Anyone saying zoom and razor sharp in the same sentence is over stating the sharpness other than perhaps relative to other zooms they've used.

Second: As most have already stated, you'll want to avoid the extreme range of the aperture. f/2.8 and you'll have shallow depth of field plus soft corners and edges. At f/22 you'll be suffering with diffraction. Next time try f/8, f/9.5, f/11.

Third: If you are after sharpness, generally avoid the extreme range of the focal length. So instead of 70mm or 200mm, try 105, 120, 135mm.

Fourth: Eliminate any possibility of blur. If you are shooting still objects handheld, try a minimum of double the focal length...i.e. 120mm....use 1/250" or faster. Turn off SR. I would only use SR if you had to shoot handheld with slower shutter speeds.

Fifth: The 28-105mm kit lens is an excellent lens. Most kit lenses are underrated by users. They are usually paired with the camera because they are cost effective but produce excellent results. The 70-200mm is also an excellent zoom that gives you more range and is sharper than the kit lens at 105mm.

Six: Shoot RAW and use unsharp mask or a high pass filter to enhance your image sharpness.

Last: If your holy grail is sharpness, then you must convert to Primism. I am a believer. Solid tripod and discover the power of pixel shifting. Keep Calm and Carry Prime.

What is the effect of leaving SR on at all times?

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 11:54 PM ----------

It really matters that you make focusing correctly. Also as others has said, your pictures has something mssing, or there is too much of distracting elements. You can’t just poit it to something and expect that it will be amazing. Chair looks okay for f2.8 shot. Where your focus is. Bushes are focused there and here. So hard to see where focusing is to get it if it is there or not. Remember that even 2.8 is pretty thin in focus field. I got my 70-200 week a go, tested sharpness too. Mine is spot on, when I nail the focus. Key factor here.

As said also before, 28-105 WR lens should be also really good in terms of sharpness. It is not the only thing this 70-200 is good at. Especially little stopped down, colours improves as does contrast. Already @3,5 it is really good.

Yes, I’m not bashing the 28 105 but I was rather expecting a huge difference in sharpness given the huge difference in price. Still like you all nice people said, I need to try more testing with different techniques.

[Alex645]

What is the effect of leaving SR on at all times?[COLOR="Silver"]

Yes, I’m not bashing the 28 105 but I was rather expecting a huge difference in sharpness given the huge difference in price.

I am old school and believe leaving SR on when it is not really needed because of good technique and fast enough shutter speeds will slightly shorten battery life and adds another tech complication that should be used when needed, but not when it is a redundancy. I'm splitting hairs here, but sometimes the devil is in the details.

Part of my reasoning is based on experience with Nikon's VR and Canon's IS, but at worse leaving those on all the time could lead to lens issues, which is less costly than a camera sensor issue.

The price difference between the 70-200mm vs. 28-105mm has a lot to do with:
a) Constant f/2.8 vs. variable f/3.5-5.6
b) 19 elements in 16 groups vs. 15 elements in 11 groups
c) AW all weather seals vs. WR weather resistant seals
d) Pentax rates the 70-200mm as one of their top of the line star lenses.

[blacklite]

I would suggest increasing the ISO and that will enable you to open up the aperture and use the shutter to set the meter to the appropriate exposure.

Bumping up to 400 or 800 would allow you to open up that aperture, reduce the depth of field, create a sharper image with the 'intended' focal emphasis, without sacrificing stabilization as the camera will shoot 'faster' due to the higher shutter speed (due to the increased ceiling provided by the higher ISO).

Don't you mean increasing ISO so you can stop down the aperture? The OP is shooting at F2.8 in two out of the three pictures, so not sure how he can open up the aperture any more than that.

[repaap]

That’s another suggestion that makes sense.
Thank you

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 11:51 PM ----------


What is the effect of leaving SR on at all times?

---------- Post added 07-03-18 at 11:54 PM ----------


Yes, I’m not bashing the 28 105 but I was rather expecting a huge difference in sharpness given the huge difference in price. Still like you all nice people said, I need to try more testing with different techniques.

I am old school and believe leaving SR on when it is not really needed because of good technique and fast enough shutter speeds will slightly shorten battery life and adds another tech complication that should be used when needed, but not when it is a redundancy. I'm splitting hairs here, but sometimes the devil is in the details.

Part of my reasoning is based on experience with Nikon's VR and Canon's IS, but at worse leaving those on all the time could lead to lens issues, which is less costly than a camera sensor issue.

The price difference between the 70-200mm vs. 28-105mm has a lot to do with:
a) Constant f/2.8 vs. variable f/3.5-5.6
b) 19 elements in 16 groups vs. 15 elements in 11 groups
c) AW all weather seals vs. WR weather resistant seals
d) Pentax rates the 70-200mm as one of their top of the line star lenses.

This is pretty much difference in prize, where cost really comes from. If it is high quality glass, it should be sharp. Also I find that 70-200 does not vingette really much. Where (I don't own 28-105(i will one day))28-105 vingettes quite a bit. That has been up on this forums several times. I have shot with many lenses, have to update my lens list btw, if they are great quality, if you stop them down, you will be hard pressed to tell them apart. Especially if you use flash/lights. Main thing would be tho have advantage in f 2.8 constant zoom, instead of 3,5 or f4 or so. Now I wanted Pentax, over much cheaper Tamron, because it was reported to being sharp untill stopped down to f4 or more. Pentax has upper hand there, and virtually no PF or ugly things appearing in high contrast situations gives it big advantage, but also big prize.

now back to your problem of maybe having a lemon. As suggested, tripod, ect, flat surface is good. I usually just find a scene where I can see clearly a subject, zoom in and out, same f stop, and then flat surface, same thing. Also you might notice different things. There are tools to see if it back focuses or so, but you can see also quite well from picture. This might be reason some times to have unsharp picture. you can adjust in camera. But looking at your picture of the chair, it looks quite good focus vise. Now find a pole or similar to try it out. not a bush

[interested_observer]

Years ago, I read that the first 1,000 images on a SLR were just throwaways. Today with digital cameras, you are able to burn through a thousand images in an hour if you wanted. I saw an update a while back, changing 1K to 10K worth of images. All this is really saying that it takes practice to become familiar with these camera bodies.

I was really very comfortable with my K5. It fit me like a glove and everything on it was easy for me. I really didn't have to think about it too much, to do something with the camera. Last August, I upgraded to the K1 mainly for astro photography and night shooting. I have learned (the hard way) that I have not used it enough to be able to use it really comfortably. I just retired from engineering a couple of years ago and was very familiar with architecting very large and complex systems. 2 months ago, my wife and I were on an Alaskan cruise, coming into Vancouver BC. I went up to the 19th deck to shoot the approach into the harbor in the early morning. Living in Arizona, I don't get to see a lot of ships and harbors any more. I'm use to shooting and watching. I found I could not do really any watching, since I needed to pay attention to the camera, setting it up to do what I wanted it to do - so, I stopped shooting to enjoy the harbor approach and the view of the city. The moral of the story, is that the K1 is a beast of a camera and it takes a while to learn and even more to stay competent with it.

Smartphones and point and shoot cameras are designed to be as simple as possible. You point them and capture an image - simple. DSLRs by their very nature are handheld computers with a lens stuck on the front. They afford the photographer with a lot of manual controls or overrides - so that you can set exactly what you want in order to capture the image, the way you want to capture it. That - especially the user interface, can make for a very daunting piece of equipment.

The settings you choose in which to test the lens, was really not that appropriate for the task. As others have posted, you need simpler and more controlled settings in which to test the lens.

[Rondec]

I think your images look OK, but they aren't images that are great for discerning sharpness. My experience with the DFA 24-70 is that it is pretty sharp in the center at f2.8, but the corners aren't as good. I still like it a lot and use it quite a bit. Stopped down it does great for landscapes.

[MJKoski]

Only way to achieve reliable focusing with high MP sensor is manual focus via zoomed in liveview. Traditional phase detect AF is guesswork at best, no matter what brand.

[sutherland]

Don't you mean increasing ISO so you can stop down the aperture? The OP is shooting at F2.8 in two out of the three pictures, so not sure how he can open up the aperture any more than that.

Great catch! I'll edit my post.

[UncleVanya]

First: Anyone saying zoom and razor sharp in the same sentence is over stating the sharpness other than perhaps relative to other zooms they've used.

I would beg to differ. My DA* 50-135 and 60-250 are razor sharp, also the FA* 80-200 I used to own equaled or outperformed my DA* 200 prime. The DA* 50-135 isn't any worse in sharpness at 70mm than the razor sharp DA 70 LTD.

[eyrr]

Also, I just came back from my full time job and I'm so exhausted so I do not have time today to go out and be creative.



Hellllllppppppp

... and that's likely contributing to the problem. If you're worn out physically and mentally, it's harder to focus - both physically and mentally. (Source: ample personal experience) There are time constraints for returning an unsatisfactory lens, so I understand why you had to try. I'm glad you posted here for feedback before letting your frustration and disappointment lead you to a potentially wrong conclusion.

f2.8 is a fairly shallow depth of field. Even a slight amount of change in your stance or grip could easily result in the shot no longer being in focus, which is possibly what happened with your second leaf picture. (Again, ample personal experience). The older I get, the less steady I get, the more tired I am, the more I rely on my tripod.

[SSGGeezer]

There is no lens anywhere in any system that will be stupendously sharp wide open. These look reasonably good. The biggest issue with these photos is no well defined subject and boring light. As others have stated, trees are terrible test targets because it’s not really one subject. I’ve taken hundred of photos of foliage, they mostly look boring and awful.

That is an issue where I live since I am surrounded by trees!

---------- Post added 07-04-18 at 07:12 AM ----------

What is the effect of leaving SR on at all times?

It may actually induce unsteadiness in the sensor causing blurring when you are focused. If you are on 2 second or 15 second delay it is turned off automatically by the camera.
If you shoot a wall or a tapestry to test sharpness, make sure that your plane of focus is perfectly square to the flat surface you are imaging. A tape measure is a big help with that. Or a well laid tile floor.