[enoxatnep]

I won't even bother to describe the compromise I found with my K20D yesterday while shooting photos of my son playing in a hockey arena. Needless to say, my best compromise wasn't that impressive, and I've done my share of AF.C shooting with fantastic results in higher light.

So my question with the K-5 is, in low-light situations where you can't use/don't want flash, how is this camera with continuous AF mode? I've read how it's vastly improved with high ISO and single-shot AF accuracy for the most part, but now what about throwing AF.C into the mix in low light?

[hcc]

On a related, although situation, I used successfully my K-7 in low light sunrise and High continuous shooting in MF with my fast prime (Nokton 58mm f1.4). More generally, in very low light, I prefer to switch to MF for a faster response.

I will be interested to hear the responses to your thread on AF.C that is a worthwhile one.

[elho_cid]

What do you mean low light? In f2.8, 1/60 iso 1600 light level the AF-C on K-5 worked flawlessly - I made 2 consecutive photos on my girlfriend approaching me in continuous hi, AF priority. The AF didn't hesitate at all.
I didn't challenge it more so far.

[enoxatnep]

What do you mean low light?

Okay, I don't know what you mean by that, whether you're being sarcastic, but I guess "low light" doesn't exist any more in K-5 land, so maybe that's what you were thinking about.

Anyhow, the low light I referred to originally is hockey arena lighting. With my K20D the best I could do yesterday was ISO 1250 at f/3.2 using my FA 50 f/1.4. My shutter speed averaged around 1/200 sec. for most shots. This wasn't enough to freeze action and prevent some blur, but any higher ISO and the noise would have been even worse and any wider aperture and I would have missed focus on a lot more shots since the AF was slow and missing the target most times. Like hcc, I eventually resorted to MF for better accuracy.

Ideally, I would have liked f/4 with 1/750 sec., but I would have had to push ISO to over 2000, and that would have been a noise disaster on the K20D.

I'm thinking, by what I've read, that the K-5 could have achieved f/4 at 1/1000 sec. with ISO 3200 or thereabouts and the noise would have been minimal. I'm also thinking that the AF.C would have been faster and more accurate. If so, I'll start saving for the K-5. But before I do this, I'd like to know from user feedback if this would be the case, or if I'm dreaming.

[pefoto01]

енохатнеп: Аз имам подобни въпроси защото правя репортажни кадри при често лошо осветление и АФ на моя К-20 ми прави проблеми!
Наистина ли АФ на К-5 е по-чувствителен и точен при слаба светлина?
Никой ли,от притежателите на К-5 не снима репортажни снимки в тежки условия и динамични ситуации?
Салют!

[elho_cid]

Okay, I don't know what you mean by that, whether you're being sarcastic, but I guess "low light" doesn't exist any more in K-5 land, so maybe that's what you were thinking about.

I didn't mean to be sarcastic. But the idea of low light changes from one person to another. In the situation I described the AF was fast and accurate, I didn't use the AF-C in lower light yet.

[nanok]

af-c for me is still not good enough in low-ish light (overcast, snowing, so very low contrast too, heavy snow so lots of small objects in the way to ofcus on ) for tracking my puppy while it's running (towards me or even otherwise). but this is with the two kit lenses (my only af lenses), and i'm quite inept when it comes to using af anyway (i have a split screen on my k20d, and i'm getting one for the k-5 too, most my lenses are manual, if it tells you anything). these are extreme conditions though, i think. overall af does seem to be quite a bit faster than my k20d