Originally posted by Hoggy I've been wondering about this sort of thing for a while now. Before I couldn't figure out how to do it with my bridge camera, a Fuji Finepix S7000.
So when I got my K30, I was hoping it would finally be possible to have 2 separate functions. After reading this I became disappointed.
However, playing around with the button customization, it seems I was able to get them to work separately --- unless I'm missing something (which I probably am ;-). I set the 'AF/AE-L' button customization to 'AE lock'...
Now when I press the shutter halfway, it will lock the focus, but not the AE - I press the AE-L and it will lock the AE.. If I then let go of the shutter (while keeping AE-L pressed), I can press the shutter halfway again for another AF lock - while the AE settings still remain locked from when I first pressed AE-L.
Could this newbie have cracked the problem???
(Somehow I doubt it... I must be missing something, but don't know what yet. :-/)
The point of this thread was to disassociate AF from shutter press completely. So you have the ability to press shutter without actually focusing. What you use, indeed, AE-L and AF are separate, but AF is connected to shutter release, so you're forced to focus every time you want to take a picture. With separate buttons such as on K-5 you can for example: focus (via AF) -> exposure lock (via AE-L) -> recompose -> press shutter -> press shutter again (without refocusing). There's no way to do this on K-30 outside manual mode (see below).
Originally posted by nfiduccia You can assign and use the ae/af lock button to independently set focus. To also lock the exposure, just press the green button in manual mode. The exposure will set to expose correctly and remain locked. You should be able to simulate aperture priority or shutter priority according to the custom function "green button while in TAV & M". If you set it for "Tv shift", the shutter speed will be adjusted to the aperture selected before the green button was hit. This is how it works on my K20D and I hope someone with a K30 will chime in to confirm if Pentax left this functionality in the new camera.
I think the K30 button layout is simple and clear and I wouldn't want them to add any more buttons for this level of camera. If you want more buttons, buy a K5 or K5II.
Yes, you can customize green button on K-30 to do TV shift in M mode (it's what I use). You could even customize one of the user modes to do Av shift in M and get easy access to M (Tv shift on green) and M (Av Shift on green) modes, thus simulating both Tv and Av modes. You still loose two things though:
- Auto ISO - I have my Av mode set so that the other dial changes ISO and green button resets this to auto, giving me quick access to ISO changes. In M, changing ISO is more work.
- AE-L functionality in M mode - if you have back button set to AE-L and press it in M mode, it locks exposure to shutter value. I find this pretty handy when I want to take same picture, with same basic exposure, but for example close aperture a bit more, I press AE-L, change apperture and shutter changes accordingly.
If you can live without these, using M mode instead of AE-L actually makes lot of sense, since AE-L lock is time limited anyway, while M will remember the settings until YOU change them.