[Winder]

The distance change looks pretty small anyway.

At 8.3fps the subject went from 16' to 8' feet and was moving away in a little over 1 second.

It's not that narrow, but narrow enough to show some errors.

The rider 2 feet closer is OOF. At the speed they are moving, that's not much distance.

I'm still waiting for samples of K-3 tracking subjects in erratic movement.

What subject did you have in mind?

[jaad75]

What subject did you have in mind?

Basketball/soccer players, playing dogs or children running around, birds fighting for food from a close distance etc.

[Na Horuk]

lol haters gonna hate, but I think this was a pretty good real-life test and it shows promising results.

Of course, I will only accept an AF test if it is done by a blind clown balancing on a giant ball taking photos of sparrows flying in front of a high-contrast background

[jaad75]

lol haters gonna hate, but I think this was a pretty good real-life test and it shows promising results.

The test is ok, but it's not something really demanding.

[7samurai]

I think the test is valid or at least a number of years back when they use to test predictive autofocus this way. I remember one of the web sites testing the early Canon 1Dx and a Nikon by having a Olympic sprinter run toward the camera. The winner was Nikon by having more pictures in focus.

[Andi Lo]

Have a toddler run down around in a playground, then tell me the keeper rate

[Vaikis_]

How is this?

do with around 1/200 as 1/640s (0.0016) is too fast for paning shots

[Joojoo2010]

That bike was coming straight at u, great pics. That AFC really works. Tnx for sharing this

[WillWeaverRVA]

Okay, I've rented one of these (I'm the first person to rent one from LensRentals), and I'm going to use it as my second camera at VCU's season opener on Friday night (backing up my K-5 IIs) to see what sorts of results I get. I'm hoping it can perform in the sort of environment where you'd typically get photos like this one (from K-5 IIs):

[rawr]

I've rented one of these

Be interested in how it goes. You've been getting great results with your K-5IIs.
Probably worth studying up on the K-3 manual before your shoot. The K-3 seems to have about a hundred more options for AF than the K-5 II.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Be interested in how it goes. You've been getting great results with your K-5IIs.
Probably worth studying up on the K-3 manual before your shoot. The K-3 seems to have about a hundred more options for AF than the K-5 II.

I've heard. I'll probably be doing a lot of studying before then, then a lot of testing when the camera gets here on Thursday. :P

[Miguel]

Okay, I've rented one of these (I'm the first person to rent one from LensRentals), and I'm going to use it as my second camera at VCU's season opener on Friday night (backing up my K-5 IIs) to see what sorts of results I get. I'm hoping it can perform in the sort of environment where you'd typically get photos like this one (from K-5 IIs):

This should be a fruitful weekend for K-3 sports feedback.

I've got one soccer match on Saturday and another on Sunday to cover. Theoretically my K-3 arrives Friday. I plan on using the Sigma 100-300mm f4. Since I have a shooting partner, I'll have some liberty to experiment with both the Sigma 1.4x TC and the good Kenko 1.5x TC.

I do have to do some homework here and grab some AF configuration settings to start with. For my Canon 7D + 100-400mm f4-5.6 I mostly shoot expanded center point AF with AF priority, back-button AF focus only, and AV mode strictly. And I'll use the Canon kit for comparison. . .and just-in-case the K-3 sucks. It took me dozens of shooting hours to figure out the Canon--in part because, unlike Pentax, the platform was new to me, but also because it's a complicated camera for better or worse. Hopefully my learning curve with the K-3 is faster.

That's a really fine shot BTW.

M

[Winder]

I've heard. I'll probably be doing a lot of studying before then, then a lot of testing when the camera gets here on Thursday. :P

Post some pictures when you get done. As someone who doesn't shoot a lot of sports/action, I was pretty impressed with how it performed. I stayed on the center point, but I probably should have tried out the area AF with the AF HOLD on different settings. Since you obviously have more experience with this type of work, I think you'll get very good results.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Post some pictures when you get done. As someone who doesn't shoot a lot of sports/action, I was pretty impressed with how it performed. I stayed on the center point, but I probably should have tried out the area AF with the AF HOLD on different settings. Since you obviously have more experience with this type of work, I think you'll get very good results.

I definitely will. I might be doing some experimentation, particularly with AF.C (lots of instances of players running toward me or jumping, the K-5/IIs seems to struggle in that situation). I'll also be switching up lenses during media timeouts - I currently use the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM and the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO Macro HSM II lenses, so I'll probably also see how the f/2.8 AF points work in practice (even though I typically stop down a bit, my best results usually come at f/3.5-4).

The good news is there's plenty of time to go back to what works if I don't have time for experimentation! :P

[DimC]

This serie of shots was easy I know, Swan are not THAT fast , but I am very happy with the result.

Heavy crop and great sharpness. Pentax 50-135mm.
I was using AF-C 9 dots area selection mode with HOLD AF set on "high".
They were pretty close to me passing by (30 meters) and I was surprised, had no time to set anything but press the trigger !













If you look carefully I did 7 shots with 4 of them spot on. The other ones were not good enough to heavy crop like theses.