Originally posted by waterfall Are you shooting through viewfinder or live view?
viewfinder, live view is extremely inconvenient when shooting animals with longer lenses
when it comes to wildlife I need a reasonable amount of point and shoot accuracy because of moving target factor
what I don't expect is the AF (single fixed center point) to lock on random clumps of grasses or tree limbs nearly 20-25% of the image frame away.
ever since the summer when I went to Yellowstone and have really advanced my pursuit of wildlife, I've wanted to throw my damn camera in the grabage a few times when it's missed critical images, preferring to lock onto random objects rather than the subject. it's especially apparent on smoother furred or feather wildlife where I guess there's not enough edges for the PDAF to understand what it's supposed to focus on. its further exacerbated but lighter to medium toned birds or animals.
I can't tell you how absolutely unnerving it is to raise your camera to take a picture knowing that there's an 80% that the picture will be worthless because the AF picks a different target. It's bordering on enough to make me decide I'm not buying a K3 because I'm buying a d800 instead
I have read a couple articles across the web where this phenomenon has been documented, so I know it's not a photographer issue. it's actually another reason I'm hesitant to buy a K3. I'm not entirely convinced Ricoh has fixed this atrocious error.
There was another thread on here entitled "why is the K3 considered a pro camera?" the answer is very simple, until ricoh fixes their AF failure rate, no sports/wildlife shooter would consider it.
I'm stuck with my K5iis right now, so ricoh has about another year to come out with the next gen camera that addresses these AF issues. If they don't, I can see a big chunk of my budget going toward a system that functions beyond 2 sec MUP images.