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06-02-2011, 06:47 PM   #1
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focusing: do I have a problem?

Hey all! Thanks for readying... Decided to make the jump from Nikon to Pentax based on all the amazing reviews on the K5. I was using the D300 and was unhappy with the unusable photo's taken even at 3200 ISO.

Anyway, decided i would go all out and got the K5 with the 60-250 f/4 lens to shoot some of my kids sports for poster size stuff in the basement.

My problem is the quality of the photos. Some are great ( I will include the nice ones) and then not minutes later, they frankly look like I took with a point and shoot.

I dont know if I have a focus problem? Is the lens the problem? (I hope not, I spent a ton on a "great" lens)

Please take a look and give me some guidance?

the top one looks really sharp while the second was taken at same settings and looks frankly unusable.


looking at the info from cam (exif)

1250 speed
f/4
spot focus
125 ISO

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06-02-2011, 07:55 PM   #2
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spineguy,
I'd start with checking priority settings whether you're in focus-release or shutter-release priority mode. It's the custom menu (C), page #3, item #15 (for AF.S AF mode) and #16 (for AF.C).
If you're in focus-release priority, then you might need to parse your pef/raw with smth like exiftool software and post the output here (it can happen that you might be tracking your son in AF.C mode with the shutter half-pressed and thus keeping the initial focus position - if your son was moving away from you then that's the case since the 2nd photo definitely shows front-focus off your baby; if he would be running towards to you, then you'd end up with backfocused shot)
If you're in shutter-release priority, then that's the case - you need to get AF confirmation 1st (green hex sign in the viewfinder and/or the audible beep sound) and then press it to the full stop until you need to get that very exposure right away by any means and of any quality.

Zig

P.S.
I assume you've not in LV mode - there's a huge lag in live view after you go with shutter release button and when the shot is actually taken.
06-02-2011, 08:04 PM   #3
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First of all, welcome to Pentax and to the forum!

How often does it happen? I've had one or two that did that, but they're rare. I don't have the 60-250, but I do have the DA*200 and DA*300 and they perform very well for me.

If it's a rare occurance, I'd recommend sticking with it and just making sure the camera is really in focus before firing. That second shot would be obviously out of focus, and I'm surprised the camera fired at all.

What mode were you using for AF? I generally use AF-S and center AF point. AF-C is okay for "spray and pray", and I'll get some shots in focus and others out of focus. If I'm careful and use back button focus with AF-C, I can increase my hit rate.

For shots like you posted, there shouldn't be a problem.
06-02-2011, 08:18 PM   #4
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Thanks for responding:

Zig: both the settings you asked about are in focus priority. I am confused about what you mean by "parse your pef/raw with smth like exiftool software and post the output here" im sorry, I am a novice at best"

which one do you think I should be set to for these types of shots. 90 percent of my shots are action sports type photos.

Russ: I would say that all my photos that included my son moving or the camera snapped at burst rate turned out just like my sample. I use af-c cause I want the camera to focus as he is moving.

I would really appreciate any recommendations as I dont think number two photo is acceptable for 2800 in camera equipment.

David (Spineguy)

06-02-2011, 08:44 PM   #5
Ash
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David, welcome here, and sorry to hear of your experience.
The 60-250 is known to be a very good lens.
I'm surprised at the results above - they don't appear to be the work of the 60-250.

Just shoot in JPEG mode for now until you appreciate RAW mode.
You will need to also consider learning about post-processing techniques to improve the look of your images.
Focusing technique is not as simple as pointing and shooting with SLR cameras - there is a lot less margin of error for focusing compared with point and shoot cameras.

But you were also shooting at such a low ISO. Why, when you have the K-5?
Go to ISO 400-800 at least and stop down to something in the order of f/5.6 to get adequate sharpness throughout your subject. Then observe your shutter speed (you've indicated 1250, but I think you mean 1/250 given you were shooting ISO 125) - keeping it at faster than 1/250 ensures that there will be minimal camera shake as well as motion blur. I'd suggest bumping ISO up until you get a shutter speed of 1/500 or so whilst at f/5.6 and see what your results are with that (TAv mode can help in that regard
06-02-2011, 08:45 PM   #6
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David,
Try this link. I'm not sure how much technical details you can pull out of in-cam jpg file, but if you're shooting in raw (either pef or dng) then you're definitely good to go.

Once again, the main idea here was that you might be tracking your son in AF.S (single, not continuous) mode having the shutter release button half-pressed with the distance between him and you changing. What happens here is, that camera focuses right when you do the half-press and then locks this focus position. This works if you do some panning on a static scene, but this is no way when shooting action. For the action tracking you need to set it to AF.C - continuous AF - mode (which is designed just for that), but I didn't shoot much in this one and thus have nothing to tell here, you can only refer to rfortson's experience.

Re focus-priority vs release-priority - that's apples vs oranges. In release-priority you may screw your shot up cause you were not in focus when you fully pressed the shutter release button. In focus-priority you can screw it up as well: if the scene is rapidly changing and/or it takes a long for the cam to focus (low light, low contrast scene, etc) then you'll end up with the shot that captured not that very scene you were hoping to get. I've set my K-5 for release-priority so I can control it - I mean I can get it 'somehow' or 'in any way' with immediate shutter release, or I can wait for the confirmation beep and then push the pedal to the metal do the full click.

Zig

P.S.
Actually, if you need your camera for action-oriented photography, then Pentax isn't the best choice here. I'm not to say that Asahi-Pentax-Hoya is a definite failure here, but the system that you moved away from is much better with their predictable AF that shows its best at 3D tracking.
06-02-2011, 09:04 PM   #7
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Ash: thanks for the response! As you can see im learning. No I actually meant 1/1250 shutter speed. I guess I have always tried to keep ISO as low as I can while shooting as fast as I can.

Zig: Ya , I was shooting in Jpeg so not much to see (I will paste the results below) I try to stay away from AF-S unless im shooting the kids in the backyard for portrait type shots. IM mostly in AF-C. AS far as Nikon vs Pentax for focus, I understand that Pentax is a little behind but I have also seen some amazing bird and wild life photos that move much faster than my 8 year old ball player and they are dead spot on.

Considering my ability, Im blaming the user (me) before I blame the camera. Just looking for some advice.

anyway: here is the exif info for what it is worth (it is on the second pic)

File name: karsen catch.jpg
File size: 1083014 bytes (1280x848, 8.0bpp, 3x)
EXIF Summary: 1/1250s f/4.0 ISO125 250mm (35mm eq:375mm)

Camera-Specific Properties:

Equipment Make: PENTAX
Camera Model: PENTAX K-5
Camera Software: K-5 Ver 1.03
Sensing Method: One-Chip Color Area
Focal Length (35mm Equiv): 375 mm

Image-Specific Properties:

Image Orientation: Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution: 300 dpi
Vertical Resolution: 300 dpi
Image Created: 2011:06:02 17:46:54
Exposure Time: 1/1250 sec
F-Number: f/4.0
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Rating: 125
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Metering Mode: Pattern
Flash: No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length: 250.00 mm
Color Space Information: sRGB
Image Width: 1280
Image Height: 848
Rendering: Normal
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Auto
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Contrast: Hard
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Hard
Subject Distance Range: Distant View

Other Properties:

Resolution Unit: i
Exif IFD Pointer: 222
Exif Version: 2.21
Image Generated: 2011:06:02 17:46:54
Image Digitized: 2011:06:02 17:46:54

06-02-2011, 09:15 PM   #8
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focus testing?

ash: I saw your post about you having a general setting of +7 for fine tuning the focus. is this something I should be trying?
06-02-2011, 09:24 PM   #9
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No, not at this stage.
Changing settings should only be done under more controlled testing conditions where you are certain of how focusing works on your camera.
For now, just start with shooting everyday items (static) to see if you can get sharp results at f/8 or so with shutter speeds of greater than 1/250.
06-02-2011, 09:30 PM   #10
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David,
Just found out that much more popular and user-friendly ('cuz its GUI, i.e. graphical application) PhotoME shows all the stuff too. But only if you shoot raw. Pls refer to Bicottero's post.
But since you've got jpg only we have to wait until you move further to either pef or dng.

The other way is you scratch you head doing your best to recall what you were doing then - and how - and advise whether you did any tracking there or not
Exiftool/photome are just the means to confirm or bust whether it's because of tracking or not.

Zig

P.S.
FWIW: you can go with exiftool.exe YourPhotoFileName.ext > output.txt (where YourPhotoFileName.ext is the filename and extension for the file to parse; obviously it's XXXXXXXX.jpg for jpg file, XXXXXXXX.pef for pef file and XXXXXXXX.dng for dng file) and voila: you've got text file that's easy to read and list up and down and do the copy-paste (it's output.txt in this case, you can change the 'output' that I used here as a file-name example for anything you prefer). This is called output redirection - any console application that outputs to console can be redirected to write the output into a file:
ThatVeryProgram.exe > outputfile.ext
06-03-2011, 04:56 AM   #11
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Sorry to see these, at least that last one, horrible picture. The K5+60-250 combo should be capable of giving you razor sharp pictures, so there has to be a solution to this problem. I don't have the 60-250 but the DA*300 and have been shooting various sports. Occasionaly I also end up with such shots as you show, but that's caused by me.
I noticed you use Manual mode, but when shooting sports I almost always use the TAv mode, thus I can select a fast shutterspeed (eg 1/1000) and select nice aperture (F5.6 or so) to control DOF. On the K5 I use an Auto ISO setting of 100-6400 which will give me almost noise free pictures. I now also use AF-C mode with the K5, never used that on my K10 or K7.
I recently did aa shoot on young kids, you can see some results here ; https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/145186-sports-young-kids...ng-soccer.html
When you resize a picture to show here make sure you use SAVE FOR in stead of SAVE FOR WEB or check that you can select SAVE EXIF INFO with the resize tool. The program Photome will show more than enough info from the JPG to analyse that picture. It will amongst other things show if the SR was locked.
06-03-2011, 05:14 AM   #12
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im really frustrated

starting to get really frustrated! I see these awesome photos and im left with garbage in my opinion. even in the manual mode I was able to shoot fast (1/1250) with F4.0 and iso really low as well. the camera is doing fine, its the focus im sure of that.

here is another sample taken min ago using higher F/8 and higher ISO as suggested above...


it clearly shows the leaves blurred to unusable (not that it is a nice picture, but should be detailed)

IM LOST!
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06-03-2011, 05:17 AM   #13
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exif in for last pic:


File name: IMGP1824.jpg
File size: 867618 bytes (2464x1632, 1.7bpp, 14x)
EXIF Summary: 1/30s f/8.0 ISO800 250mm (35mm eq:375mm)

Camera-Specific Properties:

Equipment Make: PENTAX
Camera Model: PENTAX K-5
Camera Software: Aperture 3.1.2
Sensing Method: One-Chip Color Area
Focal Length (35mm Equiv): 375 mm

Image-Specific Properties:

Image Orientation: Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution: 300 dpi
Vertical Resolution: 300 dpi
Image Created: 2011:06:03 07:56:38
Exposure Time: 1/30 sec
F-Number: f/8.0
Exposure Program: Not Defined
ISO Speed Rating: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Metering Mode: Pattern
Flash: No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length: 250.00 mm
Color Space Information: sRGB
Image Width: 2464
Image Height: 1632
Rendering: Normal
Exposure Mode: Auto
White Balance: Auto
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Contrast: Hard
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Hard
Subject Distance Range: Distant View

Other Properties:

Resolution Unit: i
Exif IFD Pointer: 214
Exif Version: 2.21
Image Generated: 2011:06:03 07:56:38
Image Digitized: 2011:06:03 07:56:38


btw: not a breath of wind

Last edited by spineguy; 06-03-2011 at 05:18 AM. Reason: adding info
06-03-2011, 05:23 AM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by spineguy Quote
exif in for last pic:


File name: IMGP1824.jpg
File size: 867618 bytes (2464x1632, 1.7bpp, 14x)
EXIF Summary: 1/30s f/8.0 ISO800 250mm (35mm eq:375mm)

Camera-Specific Properties:

Equipment Make: PENTAX
Camera Model: PENTAX K-5
Camera Software: Aperture 3.1.2
Sensing Method: One-Chip Color Area
Focal Length (35mm Equiv): 375 mm

Image-Specific Properties:

Image Orientation: Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution: 300 dpi
Vertical Resolution: 300 dpi
Image Created: 2011:06:03 07:56:38
Exposure Time: 1/30 sec
F-Number: f/8.0
Exposure Program: Not Defined
ISO Speed Rating: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Metering Mode: Pattern
Flash: No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length: 250.00 mm
Color Space Information: sRGB
Image Width: 2464
Image Height: 1632
Rendering: Normal
Exposure Mode: Auto
White Balance: Auto
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Contrast: Hard
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Hard
Subject Distance Range: Distant View

Other Properties:

Resolution Unit: i
Exif IFD Pointer: 214
Exif Version: 2.21
Image Generated: 2011:06:03 07:56:38
Image Digitized: 2011:06:03 07:56:38


btw: not a breath of wind
1/30s at 250mm could be contributing to the cause here. i.e pretty slow to hand hold at that focal length
06-03-2011, 05:42 AM   #15
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OMG I figured it out!

Guys, I figured it out.... to protect my lens, I bought a clear glass polarized screw in.

I took it off and:




any recommendations on which protector to buy.... too bad cause i spent like 60 bucks on this junk
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