[Heidasch]

Guys,

already checked new 1.02 firmware ?
Take a look https://network.pentax.eu/

Regards

Wolfgang

[jolepp]

@Rupert: As far as I can see this issue should not affect MF as such. The focus viewfinder focus confirmation indicators depend on the AF sensor(s) so using that with MF is affected: I seem to recall a post or two stating that relying on this results in front focus just as using AF. However, using one's sharp vision only should work as always :-)

[raist3d]

Guys,

already checked new 1.02 firmware ?
Take a look https://network.pentax.eu/

Regards

Wolfgang

How on Earth did you find this?! You are a god send. I am updating mine as I type this. I will verify later tonight how the AF is. Hope this is a real file! Sounds weird it would be so hidden?

- Raist

[Heidasch]

How on Earth did you find this?!

To be honest: On german dslr-forum

They´re already testing but it sounds as it hasn´t anything to do with the AF problem.
Look here Firmware 1.02 für Pentax K5 - DSLR-Forum

Wolfgang

[Wheatfield]

I have been reading all of this, and like a few others here that are not of a technical inclination regarding electronics, I don't understand much of the discussion in technical terms. I just take photos and hope I get a few right, and sometimes I do get lucky......mostly not.

I have been wanting the K5 since it was announced, but like others, I am not wanting to play the back and forth return game, I just want to use the camera I get without a problem other than me, which is usually sufficient for enough frustration.

So, can someone answer my concerns to the best of their ability? Does this affect MF at low light levels? What I am reading is that we finally have a camera that is superb at low light shooting with excellent High ISO results, what I am looking for, but you can't focus with it unless you make continuous back and forth adjustments of lenses, which may or may not solve the problem? Is this a wrong assumption, right assumption, or did I just get it all wrong? It appears that this problem is universal, yet a few do not report a problem in this area...I do not understand how this can be? Can that be explained?

The sensor stain is not an issue, easily found and repaired/replaced, but a camera made for low light shooting among other attributes, that won't focus in low light....that is a problem I don't want.
Thanks in advance for any replies you can give.
Rupert

One thing to remember is that whether they fix the AF or not, the camera is still useable several stops below the AF.
AF in this camera is rated to EV -1 (and appears about 4 stops off of that in critical close focus situations), but the sensor is capable of giving very usable images as low as EV-3 to EV-4.
Here is a handy exposure chart that I reference to quite frequently when I want to know what a particular EV value relates to in the real world.

http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

You posted a quite nice picture of a red bird on the "how long for a k6" thread. I figure that shot is ~EV 7.5 or so, which is well within the range of the K5 AF to operate accurately. A couple of stops less light though and you might want to keep an eye on your AF.
Also, if you aren't doing close ups and if you can stop down a bit, and the AF inaccuracy will be masked somewhat by DOF.
As with most things on the internet, this particular issue, while there and quite a fail for Pentax, does not render the camera useless, to a certain extent it is another thing blown out of proportion by single performance metric users. Were it that big a deal, it wouldn't have taken two months to find it given the manic penchant the members of this forum have for finding every possible flaw with their equipment.
What I think is of greater gravity is the bounciness at 1/15 second. I suspect more shooters will be affected by this than by any low light AF problems.

[Rupert]

Thanks Wheatfield, that was a very good site to explain things in terms I can understand. It seems apparent to me that EV7 or thereabout is where I shoot the most, and seldom go below EV-1, if ever. So, this should not be a problem for me, and probably not most others either. While the slow shutter speed problem is actually more worrisome, as you noted, I don't shoot a lot in that range and would have to see how it affected me personally and how often it was a problem.
The high ISO benefits outweigh a lot of negatives for me, and that is before we even get to some of the other great features that seem to have been overlooked in all these discussions. I guess that until I actually get a K5 I will not be fully confident of what the advantage will be overall.
It seems fair to say that the low light focus will not make much if any difference to me, and most likely the shutter at low speeds will be a minimal problem. It does seem that once a snowball gets rolling it picks up a lot of debris along the way and makes it hard to see the overall view. Perhaps this has been the misfortune of the K5 to date, and real shooters in the real world will begin to report on the advantages as vigorously as the negatives have been bounced around?
Thanks for the time you took, I appreciate it!
Best Regards!
Rupert

[raist3d]

@Wheatfield - that is some work around but I can't agree with you on the rest. This is an issue, and if you are looking for a low light performance this is one of the things that needs fixing. What's the point of advertising the Safox new module can recognize wavelength of light if it's going to do this?

In my case I am switching from 4/3rds looking for this, and while I can work around by stopping down 1 stop and using an AF adjust for low light situations, that work around erodes some of the advantages of going to the system in the first place.

- Raist

[Ray Pulley]

One thing to remember is that whether they fix the AF or not, the camera is still useable several stops below the AF.
AF in this camera is rated to EV -1 (and appears about 4 stops off of that in critical close focus situations), but the sensor is capable of giving very usable images as low as EV-3 to EV-4.
Here is a handy exposure chart that I reference to quite frequently when I want to know what a particular EV value relates to in the real world.

Ultimate Exposure Computer

You posted a quite nice picture of a red bird on the "how long for a k6" thread. I figure that shot is ~EV 7.5 or so, which is well within the range of the K5 AF to operate accurately. A couple of stops less light though and you might want to keep an eye on your AF.
Also, if you aren't doing close ups and if you can stop down a bit, and the AF inaccuracy will be masked somewhat by DOF.
As with most things on the internet, this particular issue, while there and quite a fail for Pentax, does not render the camera useless, to a certain extent it is another thing blown out of proportion by single performance metric users. Were it that big a deal, it wouldn't have taken two months to find it given the manic penchant the members of this forum have for finding every possible flaw with their equipment.
What I think is of greater gravity is the bounciness at 1/15 second. I suspect more shooters will be affected by this than by any low light AF problems.

Wheatfield,

While there is some truth in what you are trying to say it is completely beside the point.

To start with I am pretty sure that the K5 specifications as advertised by Hoya/Pentax do not state that the AF will fail completely at EV 3-4 or so and that the camera will be all but unusable at the specified lower limit of the AF operating range.

Many (like me) did not buy a K7 because the DR and noise performance was not an upgrade over the K20, and in fact was not competitive. The K5 IQ is class-leading and well worth the upgrade as long as you do not need to ever shoot an image below EV 3-4. While one can certainly make use of the DR of the camera in many situations other than lower light, there are many shooting situations where the excellent noise performance of the K5 allows me to choose a higher ISO and therefore a higher shutter speed or larger DOF in a low light situation. Not so if the camera cannot focus properly in this light.

The K5 even ruins situations where you might choose a flash to light the scene as the camera will front focus whether you have a flash on or not. In fact, I first noticed significant FF in a room on Christmas eve where I was shooting with bounce flash. I have been shooting in this room on Christmas eve for decades with many different Pentax bodies, and focus has never been an issue. My normal setup in this situation is ISO 400, f 5.6, and this was NOT enough DOF to mask the FF. I had to dial in all of the AF adjust to get properly focused images.

There is no way I can shoot the K5 in a typical indoor wedding reception, also a situation I have had little trouble with using other Pentax bodies. The K20 might have been slow to lock focus in low light, but it either gave up or locked at a good focus even if slow.

Why would one need a good SR mechanism to be able to shoot hand-held images at slow shutter speeds (normally lower light situations) if the camera cannot properly focus in this situation?

I note your concern over blur at 1/15 sec. Many situations where this blur might appear are going to be low enough light levels that the mis-focus is going to make any shutter blur a non-issue.

I'm also not sure I will be able to get a good focus in a studio lighting situations lit by the modeling lights on my flash banks.

Lastly, the problem is not an either/or issue. The camera shifts towards FF as the light is reduced, which can limit use of shallow DOF wider apertures even in higher light levels. In addition, I have some lenses that need AF adjustment in good light for FF. These lenses have very litle room for further adjustment, which means in lower light, I cannot use them at all.

No, I think that there are many situations where users will see this in the images they are trying to capture, even one as simple as a child's indoor birthday party, and the real fear is that Hoya will neither acknowledge the issue nor fix it, just like SDM failures and shutter blur.

Ray

[znieh]

Ray, this sums it up pretty well. Only want to add, that the preview function with CF saves the one or other picture, but not all the situations where you don't have the time to start preview, wait for focus which is very slow, and then hope you don't have to refocus again. "Hey my son, could you pls look the same way you were looking 10 seconds ago? It was so nice I'd love to take a picture. But pls hold this look for 5 seconds, as I have to focus in preview mode..." Bad if your child is still a baby or your subject of interest is an animal, or.., or...

[simico]

Interestingly, my replacement K-5 did not front focus at any time in my living room on the past two weeks. Same conditions, same tungsten light as before - the previous K-5 always front focused. Now everything is spot on even on shots taken with 1.4 aperture, even on close-up shots. Strange.
If weather gets a bit warmer (expected on the weekend) then I'll go out for some night shooting and see how it behaves in really low light.

[Tommot1965]

whats your serial number start with..and the build date as found in the EXIF with Photo ME ?

[Rupert]

Well, for Ray this is a real obstacle in his work, and assuming that he is honest in his experience, and I have no reason to believe he isn't...he does appear to be a loyal Pentax a shooter, this will need to be corrected or many will be unable to fulfill their duties or find much joy in this camera.
It is only fair that it work as well as past models, and although it might or might not affect me personally, it should not be adverse for others. If I got a new K5 and found it was missing the video....I would never say a word....maybe a little chuckle to myself, but for others this would be a disaster. We need to think of everyone, not just ourselves. My recommendation is to send back any camera that does not perform to the specifications promoted. Do it until you get one that does or just get a refund. An unhappy shooter is no fun, and life is too short for that to happen.
Best Regards!

[Tommot1965]

Well, for Ray this is a real obstacle in his work, and assuming that he is honest in his experience, and I have no reason to believe he isn't...he does appear to be a loyal Pentax a shooter, this will need to be corrected or many will be unable to fulfill their duties or find much joy in this camera.
It is only fair that it work as well as past models, and although it might or might not affect me personally, it should not be adverse for others. If I got a new K5 and found it was missing the video....I would never say a word....maybe a little chuckle to myself, but for others this would be a disaster. We need to think of everyone, not just ourselves. My recommendation is to send back any camera that does not perform to the specifications promoted. Do it until you get one that does or just get a refund. An unhappy shooter is no fun, and life is too short for that to happen.
Best Regards!

well said
and good advice

[dlacouture]

Many (like me) did not buy a K7 because the DR and noise performance was not an upgrade over the K20, and in fact was not competitive.

Well, I had (to replace my K20, which replaced my K10 before that), and the K7's AF was more accurate (but slower) in low-light than with the K5... It was more prone to some hunting/checks, but in the end it was either properly focused, or failed and prevented the shot.

I was particularly interested in low-light and Tungsten AF problems when going from the K20 (really sensitive to these) to the K7, and the K7 was really good. And now with the K5 I'm back to problems I left behind with the K20...
The K7's AF assist lamp also kicked in before when compared to the K5, so maybe it masked the problem.

[jbinpg]

Just curious, is there any difference in AWB versus Tungsten WB as far as focussing accuracy?