[Transit]

Hi,
Blowed if I can find this in the manual.
In LV I hit the OK button to magnify the view to check focus but it isn't enough for my eyes.
Is there only one choice in amount of magnification ?
Thanks
Pete

[Adam]

Yes, turn the e-dial to change the magnification.

[Na Horuk]

Go in LV, press the button for digital zoom and then turn the dial (on the right) to zoom in or out. There might also be an option in the Menu, but I forget what its called (Digital zoom, quick zoom, digital preview zoom?". Zooming in too much is useless because it only enlarges digitally. Around 6x is optimal.
Another good thing with the digital zoom is that it opens aperture of the lens. Live view is not always at wide open aperture. But in digital zoom it opens and you can see the DoF and bokeh change. This is why digital zoom works well with Focus peaking for fine focusing.

Edit: You can also download a PDF camera manual for your camera. Then you can easily search it. Most smartphones can read it, so you can always have it with you.

[pschlute]

Pressing the OK button should zoom in 100 %. No point in going any further than that.

[Gimbal]

Pressing the OK button should zoom in 100 %. No point in going any further than that.

Mine doesn’t, it uses the zoom level I used last time. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere?

[pschlute]

Mine doesn’t, it uses the zoom level I used last time. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere?

I use "Select" AF setting in LV, try that. p53 of the manual may help.

The amount of zoom is depending on what you used last time. It has no 100% setting but 10x should be 100%. I use 16x sometimes when setting focus on stars.

[Bob 256]

The maximum "zoom" is 16X the normal view. Hit ok and then use the back adjustment dial to dial in the desired zoom level which is shown on the LCD. Hit the ok button again or tap the shutter button halfway to jump back to normal view. Hitting the ok button again (while in live view) will return you to the last used value of magnification which can be adjusted up or down from there. Pretty simple once you're onto it and well thought out by Pentax. If you haven't tried focus sharpening, give it a shot too. It might help with getting a good focus. It works at all levels of magnification when it's selected. Vibration reduction is also applied to all levels when selected (try x16 without and see how steady your hand holding is).

[pschlute]

The maximum "zoom" is 16X the normal view.

10x is 100% view. 16x will give you greater magnification but you are zooming over 100% which may give you problems accurately focussing.

[Bob 256]

10x is 100% view. 16x will give you greater magnification but you are zooming over 100% which may give you problems accurately focussing.

I'm confused. 1x is the normal Liveview presentation and the maximum allowed is 16x which is a 16x magnification of the normal view. I'm not referring to any lens zoom but the electronic zoom which the K-1 allows in Liveview, and that does allow for a significantly better focus reference when zoomed to 16x. When the rear adjustment dial is turned after pushing the ok button (in Liveview mode), an electronic magnification is applied to the LCD display in steps (2x, 4x, 8x, 10x, 16x) up to the maximum of 16x. Hitting the ok button again or pressing the shutter release half-way, returns the LCD view to 1x or normal view. Hitting the ok button again jumps the view back to the last magnification that was dialed in. The value of each magnification level (other than 1x) is shown in the lower right corner of the LCD when magnification is used.

Also, I failed to mention that the arrow buttons allow you to look at different areas of the zoomed image when it's electronically zoomed so if the camera is on a tripod and you want to check the focus on an object in the upper left corner, it still allows you to do that. The LCD shows which portion of the image is being displayed when zoomed in with a small yellow rectangle in a larger one in the lower left corner (when magnification is turned on).

[pschlute]

1x is the normal Liveview presentation and the maximum allowed is 16x which is a 16x magnification

Bob

10x view is a 100% view. That means for each pixel that your LCD can display, it displays one pixel from the camera sensor. You may well be getting good focus using 16x, but each step above 100% will lead to pixelisation. It is a bit like viewing a 500 pixel wide picture in full screen mode on a 1920 wide monitor.

[Bob 256]

Bob

10x view is a 100% view. That means for each pixel that your LCD can display, it displays one pixel from the camera sensor. You may well be getting good focus using 16x, but each step above 100% will lead to pixelisation. It is a bit like viewing a 500 pixel wide picture in full screen mode on a 1920 wide monitor.

I understand now what you're referring to but that isn't exactly a 100% view - it is, as you said, a 1:1 pixel representation between the camera sensor and the LCD pixels (each of which is made up of even finer "dots" - RGB colored components). In my mind a 100% view is a view which shows 100% of the original picture elements (1x - although 1x may not be exactly 100% of the sensor image).

When you get to that point (10x), you won't get any additional image resolution by jumping to 16x but it will enlarge the 10x image a bit more through interpolation, so it offers better focus reference.

Consider you're shooting a checkerboard target right at the K-1 limit (and the lens can deliver full resolution). This is would mean that adjacent sensor pixels would be alternating black & white values. When shown on the LCD at 1:1 (10x mag), one would be hard pressed to see the alternating pattern unless the LCD screen was viewed with a magnifier that resolved individual LCD pixels. Normal eyesight probably wouldn't do that, particularly if the LCD is viewed from some distance. It would tend to appear an even gray unless closely examined.

Electronic magnification is capable of enlarging the checkerboard pattern even more (each checker will now cover more than one LCD pixel) so the sensor pattern could better be seen. This wouldn't necessarily result in any pixelation although it's open magnification as far as the camera sensor is concerned and no details beyond the camera sensor's capability would be observed. In fact, you could apply a 160x electronic magnification (10x 16x) which would show individual sensor pixels. Now you could see the checkerboard pattern on the LCD clearly but the edges of each checker are being interpolated so they don't represent that kind of sharpness at the camera sensor level. However, the best focus point could be judged by this enlarged pattern which would disappear when the lens is mis-focused.

16x magnification isn't that much more than 10x so the benefit is marginal but it's there to serve as a kind of extra display boost since details at the LCD pixel level are hard to see with the naked eye (a bit like using a 1.6x magnifier on the ground glass of a view camera - it doesn't increase the lens resolution but it lets you see finer details for focusing).

Of course, all this assumes a tripod mounted camera with stable conditions because any camera motion is also magnified and the magnified modes offer less and less benefit with greater magnification if the camera is moving.

I've attached three images. The first is a checkerboard pattern. The second is an electronically enlarged section of that pattern. Note the edges are blurred but the pattern is intact. The third image is an electronically enlarged section of the original pattern when it is out of focus. Even though the pattern is electronically enlarged (interpolated), it still offers an improved judgment of the focus of the original (especially if one has bad eyesight).

If the first pattern was shrunk to the pixel level of the K-1 LCD, you probably wouldn't be able to see the checkerboard, but the other two images (shrunken to the same scale) would probably be visible even though they are enlarged totally by electronic means.