[biz-engineer]

Sorry, I do not understand your logic. If image processing is not good enough then how can you legitimize the remark when you say you can obtain what you want through in-camera HDR processing

HDR cartoonist style is not necessarily what we want, it just reveal how much information can be pulled out of the RAW files. If I use other in camera Pentax JPEG styles, I don't find them being refined. I don't like the in-camera JPEG landscape style of the K1, for me it is unusable. I like to use in camera JPEG processing because it saves time for most shots. I don't necessarily want to go through a detailed post processing with third party software. JPEG camera processing is not necessarily useless and K1 should not necessarily use the same styles as a K30. That's my point.

[Schraubstock]

I see.
If I understand you correctly - you want better in-camera processing which will allow you to better tweak to your liking. Am I correct ?
Pardon my ignorance, I don't shoot JPGs, can't you tweak K-1 JPG in-camera rendering to your hearts content now ?

Am I totally wrong here?

[reh321]

Improving autofocus is the top priority in high end digital cameras currently. Sony and Nikon have poured resources into this aspect of their flagship cameras over the last several years and are still working on improvements. Nikon added a dedicated processor to bring the 850 autofocus up to the D5 level. The market is so enthusiastic about the results that Nikon cannot keep up with the 850 demand. Sony has very attractive "eye autofocus".

I am quite happy with my Pentax K-1 and K-3 cameras and various Pentax lenses.

My hopes for Pentax are 1) that it survives as an ongoing business; and, 2) that it develops and offers state-of-the-art autofocus capabilities. I believe that the second will be essential for the first.

This is a technically and economically difficult challenge, but is feasible. I hope Pentax will take it on. All other improvements are of marginal and non-essential importance.

Have you been following this other K-1 related thread? Autofocus is a partnership between body and lens. Pentax's latest lenses are picking up the pace. Unless you have one of the latest lenses, you don't know what your camera's AF can do speed-wise {earlier responses talk about how much faster the PLM lens and the new 50mm f/1.4 lens are when compared to older lenses}.

In my mind there's starting to be a thing. Older Pentax glass in one category, performance glass in another. Anything before the 150-450 is in the standard category, although that's just what I suspect. I don't own one so I can't say for sure.

I just know my DA*60-250 and DA* 200 aren't in the same ballpark or even close to the 55-300 PLM.

Anyone used a DA 150-450 to compare the focus speed to a DA*.s?

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/363978-development...ml#post4284956

[awscreo]

AF is a specialty of/to itself. Large producer Nikon has several lines of camera, only one of which features fast AF, and/but most of those cameras don't have particularly high Image Quality. Pentax doesn't have the resources to provide multiple lines, so they must me more focused on what they provide; from their words and actions, they have made clear that they are seeking high Image Quality. They are also making marginal AF strides, but they simply cannot focus on everything at once.

D500, D850, D5 are in another league in terms of af. D810 was not bad either, just not at the level of their newer flagships. I'd say K-1 is similar to d800 in terms of af, at least from what I remember shooting with d800 few years back.

I'd vote for a significant af improvement for the next update, which I'm sure Pentax will implement.

---------- Post added 05-20-18 at 11:48 AM ----------

Pentax has it's strengths and weaknesses in AF, just like many other brands.

It seems common to assume AF only has to be is 'fast' to be good. But often other dimensions of AF performance are missing from this common measure of 'good'.

A few things that spring to mind are the accuracy of camera AF performance (with related issues of how consistently accurate the AF is), and the working range of the AF, in particular it's light sensitivity. If the AF can't work in low-light, a whole range of shooting scenarios are off-limits, and the calculus of what 'good' AF performance means needs to reflect that.

On the 'accuracy' variable, Pentax has usually tracked well here from various testing sites (if memory serves, demonstrated by tests from France 'Chasseur d'Images' & 'DigitalFotoNetz' in Germany) where the measure is reliably producing sharp images. But there is a big caveat, of course, to any claims of superior shot-to-shot AF accuracy in any PDAF system, where accuracy depends on, amongst other things, normal camera/lens variation.

On the matter of low-light AF, it's notable that Pentax has consistently led other DSLR brands with the low-light sensitivity of it's camera AF: the K-5II came with -3EV AF sensitivity in 2012, whilst the first Nikon to meet that specification (the FF D750) came out in 2014, and the first Nikon APS-C to match -3EV (the D7200) only came out in 2015. Similarly with Canon - the FF 6D did -3 EV in 2012, but no other Canon until the APS-C 7D2 in 2014 was provided with the same sensitivity. And despite the 645Z/K-3/K-3II/K-S2/K-70 etc coming along, no Sony got anywhere near -3EV EV AF sensitivity until the A7S was released in 2014.

TL; DR - AF is a huge can of worms. Pentax does OK, depending how you look at it.

I had massive issues with af indoora with an expensive "pro" dfa 15-30, slightly better with dfa 28-105. Screw drive lenses - 50/50, which isn't a great result. I don't think speed is a huge issue, accuracy is, at least to me