[kyukyu]

Hi everybody,

me too would like to share some experience with K1 and af.c.
I come directly from a K20, so for me the improvement is of course huge. I am not a sports shooter and even less a burst shooter: I use af.c for my kid but don't usually shoot bursts. Nonetheless I tested some bursts for the sake of it and to share them with you other users.
I had tested the Canon 7D of a friend and the K1 is not at all on the same level of responsiveness. The 7D could focus from anywhere to anywhere in just no time and there will surely be situations where the 7D will achieve focus and the K1 not. But I think the main question is how difficult needs a situation to be, in order to make the K1 af.c unusable. Some users like Fstoppers have had bad results even in quite easy situations, although they seem to have properly configured the AF and to know what they were doing. Others have had better results. Others again ask if the K1 can be usable for kids or weddings.

So here are some results from me. Generally speaking, AF Hold=off needs to be selected for subjects coming towards you, but this has been stated many times. I didn't play with release/focus priority and left focus priority on.

The first 2 galleries are in the pit lane of the Spa 24H GT race, at night in pretty dark conditions. I used AF Sel2, not in the center but somewhere on the left, because I wanted to keep the car on the left in the composition. It was dark enough that I couldn't see the AF point itself. DA 50-135 @ f2.8 (not the fastest lens!), crop mode.

(if you click on the fotos, the galleries will scroll to the right)
1 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it
2 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it

Personally I find the result fully usable for a non-professional in such difficult situation. In the 2nd sequence the BMW went out of focud when passing behind the marshall, but then recovered in the next shot. Overall the camera felt pretty confident. I tried other sequences with point selection on AUTO33, which usually works good in daylight, but in the dark it proved either too difficult for the camera, or it would focus on the illuminated asphalt, which was actually the brightest part of the scene.

The 3rd sequence is on track at about 150/180 km/h. It is not a frontal sequence, more sort of 45° but hey, I had no Pass for the press! Again it was deep in the night and the car was just lit from the headlight of the following car.
3 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it
Again the camera felt totally confident and I am personally very happy (expecially with the last picture).

4th sequence is in daylight. No prefocusing here. 1st 2-3 shots are off, but then it recovers good. From the pictures this looks more like a sideway sequence but actually the cars were moving pretty much towards me. The 1st pictures are fully zoomed, the closest are at 50mm.
4 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it


Now with (my) kid at play. 1st sequence is my kid on a swing coming frontally at me, at close distance. I used the 43mm here @ f3.5 in FF mode. here the burst rate felt a bit slow, but the keeper rate is very high. I had some fear before doing this test, but again I was totally satisfied. Here I don't remember the settings regarding AF point selection.
5 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it

And in the last sequence my kid is running towards me. again I am very pleased with the results and have several oher sequences with the same keeper rate. Here I used the 77 @f2.2 in FF mode.
6 - - Tommaso Bientinesi - www.tommasobientinesi.it


So to summarize again, up to now I have had no problems with subjects moving at "everyday" speed and even with prety fast cars in very scarce light. I did have problems with the GTs coming fully towards me at 260 km/h after the eau-rouge with the 50-135. Here I felt the lens was too slow, can't say how it would have been with another lens.

In all of this I didn't even mention af.s. But if the camera can snap focus and produce a picture with some content where I could see ABSOLUTELY nothing with my naked eyes, well then what should I add?

Again I am very happy, but I hope my images can help others to make their own judgements based on their own needs and expectations. I am not trying to convince anybody, but just to counter a couple of very negative reviews, whose results are, for whatever reason, much worse that what my camera actually does in my not so expert hands.

On a fnal note, I find TAV mode very useful with my moving subjects. I can control directly the DOF and the time (to avoid or allow movements in the picture) and with the low noise of the camera I have a very large useful range of sensitivities

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Last edited by kyukyu; 08-11-2016 at 04:37 PM.

[C_Jones]

You have some nice car shots there.

[RobA_Oz]

Thanks for sharing, Tomasso. As you say, the daylight racing sequence misses focus for the first few shots, and seems to have locked on the foreground safety railing. Did you have the AF on auto33, which you indicated works well in daylight?

Perhaps our friends at DPR might think about substituting this sort of night racing event for their bicycle AF test.

[kyukyu]

Thanks C_Jones

Thanks for sharing, Tomasso. As you say, the daylight racing sequence misses focus for the first few shots, and seems to have locked on the foreground safety railing. Did you have the AF on auto33, which you indicated works well in daylight?

I will check tonight at home which settings I had (now it´s 10 am here and I am pretending to work ). AF33 does actually work well when I photograph my kid, because it allows me to adjust the composition without thinking too much if the AF point is on the subject. In good light I can´t notice any hesitation compared to other selection modes, but have to accept the fact that some close-up shots are focused maybe on the shoulder instead of the head. Of course it is a situation where the subject is easily recognizable.

Perhaps our friends at DPR might think about substituting this sort of night racing event for their bicycle AF test.

Luckily I didn´t test it at the Nürburgring 24H bicycle race a colleague of mine took part in!

[kyukyu]

I have checked the settings and it was on Sel2.

[RobA_Oz]

I have checked the settings and it was on Sel2.

Thanks. I'm still puzzled as to how it missed focus by such a wide margin, unless the lens simply didn't have time to refocus after some previous shots.

[clackers]

Thanks. I'm still puzzled as to how it missed focus by such a wide margin, unless the lens simply didn't have time to refocus after some previous shots.

The DA*50-135 is a very slow focussing lens, Rob!

[RobA_Oz]

The DA*50-135 is a very slow focussing lens, Rob!

It rather depends on what you're attempting, though (I have one). I guess the first couple of shots might not have been pre-focussed very precisely. Getting that lens (it isn't an orphan in that regard) in the right street before shooting action should be SOP. Those shots are in the next suburb.