[dr5chrome]

As some know, the K-1 is new to me.

I may just be doing something wrong, but has anyone ever had this problem...

I like to use manual lenses, sometimes attachments to the lens.
Has anyone ever experienced "in focus" by eye through the viewer, the camera beeps and says its in focus - but the file is "way out of focus".

Is there any reason the live-view/final shot and view-finder should be different? [this would be unheard of on a film camera].

This doesn't occur on all lenses, fyi.

Is the camera the problem or operator error?

regards, dw

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Last edited by dr5chrome; 11-01-2019 at 01:08 PM.

[Paul the Sunman]

It's a DSLR. Focus through viewfinder and on sensor are the same (give or take any adjustments you may have dialled in).

Do you have AF-S or AF-C set? If the latter, the focus can change after the beep.

[dr5chrome]

It's a DSLR. Focus through viewfinder and on sensor are the same (give or take any adjustments you may have dialled in).

Do you have AF-S or AF-C set? If the latter, the focus can change after the beep.

..it is set on AF-s

[othar]

Has anyone ever experienced "in focus" by eye through the viewer, the camera beeps and says its in focus - but the file is "way out of focus".

-Is it possible that you changed your diopter setting by accident? That could be an explanation for one of your problems.

-The focus confirmation via the optical viewfinder might needs some focus adjustments for your camera/lens combination (as this beeing a manual lens you only can adjust this via the general AF adjustment setting and this will change your setting for all your manual lenses, so don't do that if focus confirmation is good for your other lenses)
-The AF points for the optical viewfinder are only accurate for certain maximum apertures (I think f2.8 in the centre and f5.6 at the sides). If your used aperture was wider the AF confirmation might not have been accurate enough for your aplication.

[kiwi_jono]

The only cases for me have been:
1. Where I have subsequently bumped to focus ring. Just happened to me last night and ruined most of my fireworks shots - grrrrrrh!
2. Where I have had AF or focus confirm pick up on an unintended item - sometimes it can be subtle reflection.
3. Where AF fine tune is out (affects focus confirm too). For me its hard to tell from viewfinder if its perfectly in focus - especially as sometimes I have my glasses and sometimes not - so tend to not rely on how it looks for fine focus confirm.

You probably already know but the focus confirm it not super fine grained and usually there is a bit of focus travel while confirm is lit - I find its usually best mid way between going on and then off again.

The problem with this kind of discussion is that people tend to assume autofocus in all situations. I had a similar problem and I found it difficult to communicate the idea of actual manual focus, i.e., focusing by peeking through the viewfinder and rotating the focusing ring on the lens without any appeal to the camera's intelligence. After more research, I discovered that this matches the assumptions of the DSLR makers. Pentax doesn't even use the phrase, "focusing screen" for that part that makes the scene visible in the viewfinder. It's called a "fresnel" because it's got a bit of magnification to make the viewfinder image bigger, but there's no suggestion anywhere that you could use the viewfinder to focus the image. I found one place where they said that the purpose of the viewfinder is to generally know what the camera's pointed at.

I've stopped trying, it's practically impossible for me, with or without glasses. My solution was to "go with the flow" and make sure all my lenses are properly "calibrated" and use AF all the time, imprecise and slow as it is.

I don't understand why people want a system that's harder to use, slower, and fuzzier than what you can do with a good split-image focusing screen and manual focus. To me the only real advantage to the DSLR lies in the elimination of film-related inconvenience and expense. I can take a couple hundred pictures without having to change rolls, I can see what I've done right quick, and I don't have to mess with chemicals.

[Bob 256]

Ok. Let's approach this another way. Pick the lens you have the problem with and try to find a test shot which duplicates the issue (by examining the image right after it is taken using the rear LCD and magnifier). Make sure the focus is soft as you described. Now switch to live view and without refocusing, examine the image again using magnification. Is it still out of focus? Can you adjust lens focus to get a sharper image? If the later is the case, you may have an AF issue or something else going on. With liveview, you see the image exactly as the sensor sees it. If it's sharp, taking an exposure should capture it in focus. If the viewfinder AF system says it's in focus and it isn't, it's the phase AF autofocus or something else. You can also try for critical focus using liveview with magnification, and then switch back to the viewfinder and see if the phase AF agrees (beeps). It should.

[mattt]

Some comments from my experience shooting with MF lenses on K-1, K-5IIs, and K-r... it's not the camera.

Focus sensors with manual lens uses centre point only.

If you focus and recompose you're moving the plane of focus. Wide open, its pretty tough to keep things aligned and takes practice.

Shooting close to MFD means a thinner in focus plane, so critical focus is much more important.

Pick areas of excellent contrast for best results.

Often times when shooting with manual lenses we dont appreciate the shutter speed might be too low and where you think the image is OOF, you've actually got motion blur.

SMC Pentax M 85mm f2.0 wide open at 1/50 near MFD.

[Tas]

I like to use manual lenses

Your query relates to AF and I will leave the replies on that to others.

I also shoot with a lot of manual focus lenses with my K1. I did the same on my K5 and really struggled so I changed to an S type screen to help and it was a huge improvement.

As I struggled also with the K1 I asked about changing the screen and was told you can't but I did anyway installing one of these: Focusing Screen

It won't help answer your AF query but it will, when correctly installed, enable you to get more satisfaction and success out of using your manual lenses.

Tas

[MaineNative]

I often find on my K-1 that the in-focus beep with a manual lens isn’t always accurate. (Close but not perfect.) I would check the diopter adjustment under the eyepiece. I was having problems taking pictures of the moon and eventually figured out my pictures were out of focus because of the diopter setting.

[barondla]

Your query relates to AF and I will leave the replies on that to others.

I also shoot with a lot of manual focus lenses with my K1. I did the same on my K5 and really struggled so I changed to an S type screen to help and it was a huge improvement.

As I struggled also with the K1 I asked about changing the screen and was told you can't but I did anyway installing one of these: Focusing Screen

It won't help answer your AF query but it will, when correctly installed, enable you to get more satisfaction and success out of using your manual lenses.

Tas

So the focusing screen can be changed. Wow. Does it interchange the same way as other Pentax DSLRs. Is any camera functionionality, besides focusing, impacted

Unfortunately your link doesn't seem to be working. What screen did you purchase?
Thanks,
barondla

[Tas]

So the focusing screen can be changed. Wow. Does it interchange the same way as other Pentax DSLRs. Is any camera functionionality, besides focusing, impacted

Unfortunately your link doesn't seem to be working. What screen did you purchase?
Thanks,
barondla

Yeah, that is odd that the link is broken, I went there this morning to post the link and it's broken for me too. I tried using google and followed that link but also got the same. Not sure what's going on there, hopefully the lack of access is only temporary.

I found the process virtually the same as the K5 but don't think they designed the locking latch to be as easy to use as on the older camera. I went with a plain S type and had to change the shims after testing focus. Once the correct shims were fitted it worked fine. I use both AF and MF lenses and if something no longer works I've not noticed.

I recall somebody else around here has changed their K1 screen and I'd be surprised if only two of us have done so. It might be worth posting a thread to ask for some more feedback.



Tas

[barondla]

Yeah, that is odd that the link is broken, I went there this morning to post the link and it's broken for me too. I tried using google and followed that link but also got the same. Not sure what's going on there, hopefully the lack of access is only temporary.

I found the process virtually the same as the K5 but don't think they designed the locking latch to be as easy to use as on the older camera. I went with a plain S type and had to change the shims after testing focus. Once the correct shims were fitted it worked fine. I use both AF and MF lenses and if something no longer works I've not noticed.

I recall somebody else around here has changed their K1 screen and I'd be surprised if only two of us have done so. It might be worth posting a thread to ask for some more feedback.



Tas

I will post a new thread. Did your screen ship with shims?
Thanks,
barondla

[Tas]

I will post a new thread. Did your screen ship with shims?
Thanks,
barondla

Yes mate, it came with shims.