[PixleFish]

Does anyone know of a link that compares the focus speeds?

AND if not

would you mind comparing them yourself and letting us know?

I hear that pentax focus is "probably" slower than Canon or nikon cameras, but I haven't seen any sites that indicate what the difference actually is. For an example if the difference is a fraction of a second... who cares.

[Ash]

Hi PixleFish.
Being relatively new here, I can understand you may not appreciate the differences in camera models, but you do need to be specific about which particular camera models you wanted to compare to.

The K-5 is Pentax's new flagship model and focuses fast, but not faster than Canon's 7D or Nikon's D300/D700. There are severeal threads here discussing comparisons of this sort, so you'd do well with a forum search.

[PixleFish]

thanks for your reply, and I did do some looking just saw a lot of opinions, and not any real comparisons. Ill look into the forums a little deeper.

[WerTicus]

the k-5 is as fast as the 60d and very slightly slower than the d7000 according to that french test:

http://uppix.net/1/d/2/413578746e3af6f74ccc8c15615fc.jpg

[blockamon]

To be fair, a fraction of a second can be a big deal when shooting fast-moving sports. Personally, however, I don't shoot those, so I don't see a real-world difference between the K-5 and my old Nikon D80. Granted, the D80 wasn't Nikon's fastest either. Bottom line for me, though, was that getting comparable performance from Nikon would require a larger investment when considering both the camera body and lenses. Remember that lens aperature matters when focusing in low light. When you look at the cost of Nikon's f/2.8 zooms (~$1700 for the 24-70 and ~$2200 for the 70-200) you really begin to appreciate what Pentax offers.

[MrPetkus]

Oh come on, not another AF thread!

[kasv]

why not; as Pentax improves AF to close up to the leading vendors, it's just understandable to see what the difference is (if there is still any). So I had the opportunity to do a very subjective "test" in comparison to D90 and EOS 500D. Both the latter in fact had a kit-lens with built in focus motor , while my K-5 screw-drove a Tamron 28-75. To be more "fair", I redid the "test" with the Tamrons aperture ring set to 5.6, the aperture the kit lenses have at 55mm, the focal length I was using at all lenses. I tried focussing at multiple objects with less and more contrast. My impression was, that the K-5's focus isn't slower, but it reproducibly failed (hunting to and fro) when targeting at a nearly flat surface with little contrasting texture, where both, Canon and Nikon still were able to focus on something.

Pls. no complaints about the methodoogy of this very subjective und non-scientific "test". I suited my needs and I will never redo it. To my impression, Pentax managed to improve the focus (at least over K20D that I know as well), but still has room for more improvement if they will.