[Mystic]

I bought it!

I was very hesitant to buy because of all the bad experiences of others posted here in the forum..

anyhow tomorrow I have a job assignment so desperatelly neede a camera.

so I went to the local shop and after quick inspection and firmware update I pushed the button. and carried it home with me.

the local shop also had battery adapter, but I did not buy at the moment. will do it later.

So far, even I was looking for all kind of flaws I couldn't find any.

maybe i'll spot them later but so far.. it seems that it does a pretty decent job..

It feels and looks great, all buttons in their places, no squeeking or something, all buttons work.


what about focus?

well

first it made me worry a little..

but after fine focus adjustment on -5

it focuses right there, where I want it to.

I tried with AWB and tungsten presets, shot in raw and here are the result
(not scientific, but in both occasions I tried to focus on the letter K with the center focus point, and reframed)
AWB


Tungsten


Now I tested it only in artificial light, that is at home..

Tomorrow I have a job assignment so, will test it further.

The serial number of it starts with: 391****

So this is the experience after first testing

I'm satisfied.

will update it in a few days and comment on my experiences with it after more thourough experimentation.

---

Last edited by Mystic; 01-10-2011 at 04:30 AM.

[EricT]

Congrats! This certainly looks very good. Thanks for posting, it's reassuring to see that it can in fact work properly. I will send mine in and hopefully get it back in a better condition. I love pretty much everything else about the camera.

[ukwoody]

nevermind the focussing, the level of detail captured is fantastic!

woody

[vass]

I bought it!

I was very hesitant to buy because of all the bad experiences of others posted here in the forum..

anyhow tomorrow I have a job assignment so desperatelly neede a camera.

so I went to the local shop and after quick inspection and firmware update I pushed the button. and carried it home with me.

the local shop also had battery adapter, but I did not buy at the moment. will do it later.

So far, even I was looking for all kind of flaws I couldn't find any.

maybe i'll spot them later but so far.. it seems that it does a pretty decent job..

It feels and looks great, all buttons in their places, no squeeking or something, all buttons work.


what about focus?

well

first it made me worry a little..

but after fine focus adjustment on -5

it focuses right there, where I want it to.

I tried with AWB and tungsten presets, shot in raw and here are the result
(not scientific, but in both occasions I tried to focus on the letter K with the center focus point, and reframed)
AWB


Tungsten


Now I tested it only in artificial light, that is at home..

Tomorrow I have a job assignment so, will test it further.

The serial number of it starts with: 391****

So this is the experience after first testing

I'm satisfied.

will update it in a few days and comment on my experiences with it after more thourough experimentation.

Congrats! I too bought the K-r a month ago and so far no worries. I couldn't understand the sentence, 'but after fine focus adjustment on -5'. Can you please elaborate it for me? I'm new to the SLR field.
Have happy days with your camera.
Cheers,
Vass

[ukwoody]

Vass, some K-rs focus a little in front of where they should do in certain situations. There is a correction you can carry out in one of the menus but to be honest, since you are new to dslrs and you are happy with your camera, and not noticed any faults, dont get hung up on it! Ignore any nay sayers (not reffering to mystic here) and just enjoy your great camera!

woody

[vass]

Vass, some K-rs focus a little in front of where they should do in certain situations. There is a correction you can carry out in one of the menus but to be honest, since you are new to dslrs and you are happy with your camera, and not noticed any faults, dont get hung up on it! Ignore any nay sayers (not reffering to mystic here) and just enjoy your great camera!

woody

Thanks for the quick reply.I'm not pretty sure about my camera's efficiency. Are there any prior tests before purchase a DSLR? However, i'm happy with the quality(as i switched from a point and shoot cam)-comparatively. Any suggestions for beginners will be greatly appreciable.
best regards,
Vass.

[Navajo]

Hi guys,
I bought my k-r a month ago. My expectation was to combine both still image and camcorder in one device. High ISO, CMOS sensor, HDR, crisp images. Pentax kx, kr or Sony SLT A 33 was in my short list. I have picked up pentax k-r after I have seen autofocus speed and AF light. It is something like it fits you and intuitively you know which button is doing what. Also I liked the way of display where the only necessary info is highlighted with capital letters. It’s clear. I didn’t hesitate to buy it.

I didn’t like AF in video in first days, because it was my misunderstanding of what AF is in the video recording. But on the other hand I’m much more satisfied with the still image of my k-r. I will not consider capturing video with my k-r. Image quality is superb particularly in high ISO. Filters are great fun. No need to a PC for simple processing on the images after photo taken. I didn’t try macro shots yet.

My serial number starts with 384**** but I don’t know what is means? I have heard about the new firmware update and I will update it in the following days. I don’t know what it will bring, but I’m sure some necessary patches are available. I will look for a tele lens for my k-r later on. I’m very happy with this camera and autofocus issue is something that I haven’t seen much problem. I’m so satisfied with the k-r performance and features. I’m one of the pentaxians now.

[Mystic]

Last night as I've mentioned I had a work assignment.

The work had to be done in the night club.

the light was close to zero. it was horrible.

If to shoot without flash you'd have to use ISO4000 to see the view. in some situations, there wasn't any light for camera to focus.

I chose my strategy to:

use External flash AF 540gz use camera on Manual, set 1/80 shutter, f/5.6 iso 2500 and set flash on M, and 1/32 power.

so the people in front would be lighten well, and some ornaments and light and some people in the back would be visible, too.

so.. the main struggle was to focus. since the flash has its own focusing aid, so camera's focus assist lamp did not kick in..

however to focus properly was the main issue.

Since viewfinder on the kr is not huge, I chose to use Auto 5 and tried to point the center of the frame on the subjeck, but as it is sometimes hard to do accurately, I was relying on any point close to center to iluminate. to have focus lock.

the main problem was not, accuracy of the focus, the main problem was to lock the focus. I experienced many uncomfortable situations where people were posing, but I couldn't take picture of them because did not have focus locked.

I believe K5 would do better in such conditions, yet, I only have kr.

my main lense was sigma 17-70 f/2.8-4.5, and it had more troubles to focus, than briefly used pentax 12-24mm which was locking focus almost twice as fast.

a shame that my beloved lense Sigma, is not that optimized on kr. If I would have same focusing capabilities with sigma as with 12-24 then I would be more satisfied.

will add some pictures later this evening.

[EricT]

Sounds like a painful gig! In situations like these, pretty much all cameras struggle, and manual focus is the only way of getting consistent results.

[GerryL]

I always use manual focus for dark situations.
I am more confident of my eye rather than the camera and in manual focus, you don't need the lock focus..if you press the shutter button, it will fire focused or not.
In any case, you had a flash attached.
With the manual focus + flash, tweaking the aperture opening to a smaller aperture opening would assure you of a greater DOF thus ensuring focus too!
I never let the camera decide for me which should be in focus specially on dark situations..probably also because I was trained on the SLRs with manual focus lenses that I can rack the focus manually back and forth without too much an effort that it is like second nature to me.

[Mystic]

Finished editing pictures.. out of 350 Chose 100 to hand in.

I'm satisfied with the results, however at the moment cannot share any of the pics, because they are left in another computer..

I have absolutely no problems with focus accuracy neither ff or bf.

however extremely low light situations are difficult because of not locking of focus.

I believe all cameras would struggle to lock focus in such situations, and I believe, that some better lens, than my sigma 17-70.. would make kr even more functional in those difficult conditions.

but what to choose? which lens would do what sigma does, and would be pentax.

pentax 17-70? but it's SDM and f/4 well, maybe it could..

maybe pentax 16-50? but I need that extra reach..

anyhow.. I will share the results only tomorrow.

but I can clearly say, that I like pentax kr! it's good. it served me well.
the battery life is great.

Focusing in low light is great if you have a proper "low light focusing" lens, like kit lens, or 12-24mm, or some other.

if you happen to get kr with 391**** it should be perfect.

so pictures will come tomorrow. now i'm going to sleep.

see you guys.

[Navajo]

I'm looking forward for your pictures Mystic to see the performance of kr at very low light. By the way is the lens effect the low light AF? I didn't know that. Whick pentax or sigma or tamron lenses are suitable for low light?
Thanks in advance.

[Mystic]

I'm looking forward for your pictures Mystic to see the performance of kr at very low light. By the way is the lens effect the low light AF? I didn't know that. Whick pentax or sigma or tamron lenses are suitable for low light?
Thanks in advance.

yes I've noticed that my sigma 17-70 focuses much worse than pentax 12-24 in the same conditions. that is slower and more hesitating.

here are some of the pics




















comments and critique are welcomed.

will continue with more pics if you guys see that it's needed.

[Frogfish]

100 out of 350 is a pretty good keeper for anyone - even more so at a gig under those conditions.

Some excellent shots in there.

yeah, more photos of those beautiful women please

[Mystic]

I always use manual focus for dark situations.
I am more confident of my eye rather than the camera and in manual focus, you don't need the lock focus..if you press the shutter button, it will fire focused or not.
In any case, you had a flash attached.
With the manual focus + flash, tweaking the aperture opening to a smaller aperture opening would assure you of a greater DOF thus ensuring focus too!
I never let the camera decide for me which should be in focus specially on dark situations..probably also because I was trained on the SLRs with manual focus lenses that I can rack the focus manually back and forth without too much an effort that it is like second nature to me.

Just found out that Kr has a custom function feature for dark situations
custom function 9 option nr. 2 release priority. Shutter will be fired even if focus isn't locked on.

So next time will use this feature.

all of the handed in picturres are here:
(resized and sharpened via porta somehow much of colors and vibrancy are gone)

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