On July 28, I shot my first wedding since I moved to the K5.
I have shot a number of weddings over the years, but almost always as "Uncle Ray", or my version of that fellow Uncle Bob that the pros hate so much.
It was a difficult venue that I had never seen before the day before the wedding. The time was 1:00pm (come on people, STOP scheduling weddings at high sun in mid-summer) and the ceremony was half deep shade, half brutal sun. Horrid, in other words.
I had some portable lighting to throw some light into the deep shade, but despite testing the day before, I had trouble with it and had to give it up due to time constraints.
The good:
The TR battery pack on the 540 was great. 2 second cycle time and I did not change flash batteries until late in the day despite using fill all day long. The cable is a bit short, however, and it kept pushing the RAW/jpg button when the camera was at eye level.
No lockups, buttons falling off, or mirror flops on two bodies and approximately 1300 shots.
My "strobist" Nikon SB/pocket wizard on a monopod with white umbrella worked perfectly (as usual) for off camera lighting of portraits. My lovely wife acts as the lighting tech with the mono-pod. Here is a pretty deep crop of the bride seated on a log in the deep shade in the forest lit with this rig:
The 50-135 is superb (well, optically anyway):
And, the K5 IQ is great, as everyone knows.
The bad:
Fill flash with the 540 is just all but unpredictable, from underexposure to completely white blown shots on occasion. I am now am experimenting with TAv for fill, which so far seems more reliable.
AF - I had several AF issues:
The maid of honor was dressed in a purple dress, and when she was taking up a large portion of the frame (she was pregnant, so there was lots of purple at times
) the AF was always just a bit off. Always, every single shot, daylight, shade, later on with flash in the evening, always.
AF speed - While the K5 has improved over my older Pentax bodies, I have some to the conclusion that SDM is just too slow for all but very slow movement. I shoot one body 16-50, the other 50-135, and the results of most shots with any semi-fast movement were not so good.
When I switched to my Sigma 70-200 2.8 screwdrive lens, or any screwdrive lens, the speed was adequate.
Conclusions:
Just as with my k20, the system cannot keep up using SDM lenses. This is a lens issue, and I am more convinced that ever that the knock against Pentax AF speed is mainly a lens issue.
Since we do not know when we will see an update of the DA* lenses, that leaves me with few choices:
- Try the Sigma HSM 17-50 f2.8, which is alleged to be faster than Pentax SDM. I will likely buy one and if the results are positive:
- Try and find a Sigma 50-150 f2.8
- Shoot screwdrive lenses/primes and zoom with my feet
- Move to Nikon (although they are having AF issues as well)
I love many things about Pentax and have been shooting the brand since 1978, but for some critical work, there are just a few quirks that always seem to bite me one way or another.
Ray