Originally posted by harleynitelite A couple of folks recommended to shoot in live view to see what happens, then later on a few posts ago someone said if its accurate in LV then its the autofocus thats the culprit and not the lens. Could someone explain to me why this is? I understand they work differently yes, but why would the LV focus work and the autofocus not? I haven't tried it yet but will today b/c I figured if the focusing was screwed, it would be screwed up on both.
Although I've owned many cameras (a canon xsi, pentax k20d, kr, kx, and a d7000-which I didnt like) I've never had this problem or any problem for that matter so trying to solve this is way beyond me. After I sold my k20d I've regretted it ever since and every camera that came after that one didnt feel right to me like the k20d did, so I figured after the k5 dropped so much and I bought it I would feel like I did with the k20d.
Thanks to everyones input I really appreciate it, and no I'm not trolling... why someone would post bogus stuff is beyond me, I'm just looking for experienced help from advanced to pro Pentaxians that can point me in the right direction with all this and so far the help has been outstanding and I'm actually a bit suprised that so many people have offered their advice in attempting to help me solve this.
Basically, when you auto focus with live view, it uses something called contrast detect auto focus, which occurs at the level of the sensor. Since the auto focus occurs there, it is much less likely to have errors, as long as the lens is OK and it 's pretty immune to front and back focusing problems. the problem is that it is pretty slow (particularly on the K5), but if you can get sharp focus with it, then it indicates that lens can be focused sharp, it just requires quite a bit of adjustment to fix the problem.
For auto focus adjustment, I use this technique, which seems to work fairly well:
AF microadjustment for the 1Ds mark III, 1D Mk3, 5D Mk2, 7D, 1D X.