Originally posted by EricT Chill down, Ray. I'm not trying to prove anything here, I'm just reporting my experience before and after service, as requested by several members here. Do you own the FA 50mm lens? This is representative of its performance wide open. Remember, this is a 100% crop, with no sharpening applied. Even if these pictures are soft, they prove that contrast AF and phase-detect AF give similar results.
Oh, here is another picture. The K-r actually works at narrow apertures as well. Amazing!
FA 50mm, f/8, ISO 200, 1/125s. Lit by a Metz AF-48 flash in a 24" softbox.
Eric,
No need to worry about chilling. Just posting my observations.
FYI, I own the following 12 lenses right now (LBA is not a new thing for me as I have been shooting Pentax since 1978
):
DA 16-45
DA* 16-50
DA 40
DA* 50-135
FA 31
FA 43
FA 77
FA 50
Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Tamron 90mm macro f2.5
Sigma 18-50 f2.8
Sigma 70-210 f2.8
The FA50 is known to be low contrast wide open.
I gave away two DA 50-200's, 2 18-55s, 2 F 50 f1.7s, 1 FA 24-90, and some other stuff I cannot remember (relatives get the hand-me-downs).
I sold the FA 28 f2.8 and more recently the DA 14 f2.8.
Since the dawn of the digital era I have owned and extensively shot with:
2 istds bodies
2 K100 bodies
2 K10 bodies
2 K20 bodies (I still have one)
and 3 K5s that I returned for FF at EV 3-4.
Note that every one of the K5 bodies had FF shift in reduced light. I returned one K10 for focusing issues and it was exchanged.
However, I have shot quite extensively indoors with all of the bodies, and while all FF in lower light, I am able to keep the subject within the DOF so that they look acceptably sharp with every one of them but the K5.
My indoor settings are ISO 400 f 5.6 with bounce flash, and with every K5 I tried, I could not keep the subject within the DOF at f5.6 unless I dialed in all of the AF adjust. Of course, if a lens starts out more FF than another, it may be that it cannot be dialed in at all in lower light (my 43 is like this).
The Kr seems to have a very similar problem that is more than well documented.
I guess that it would be good news(?) if Pentax simply needs to repair thousands of cameras for some mechanical fault, but it is just not clear that the repair route works, hence the interest in seeing results for "repaired" cameras.
Have fun with the little one (mine are long grown, but I am a grandfather several times over).
Ray