[Gorgarath]

After losing our last cat, my wife mentioned to a co-worker to let us know the next time her cat had kittens as we might be interested in getting one then. She still had one kitten left from the last litter. So we've ended up with a new cat a bit sooner than expected.

I'm not sure this photo works. He kind of blends into the OOF cat tower due to the similar lighter shades of his fur and the fabric. I know I can tell the difference, but I also know exactly what was in the photo. And with his pointy ears, I ended up cutting off the top of the one. Thinking perhaps I should have stopped down to 2 or 2.8 to make a bit more of the cat tower and his body in focus to differentiate between the two a little better and maybe a half step back to get his ear in the frame.

Or am I wrong and the shot works as is?

Hopefully soon, he'll get a bit more use to us and to the camera so he's not jumping around so much when I try and get some pictures. Got a ton of blurry shots because he almost never seems to stay still and goes running at the slightest unexpected sound.

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[Ivan]

Congratulations, our family took a kitten six months ago. It's not an easy job to make a high-quality photo with a young cat.

[Gorgarath]

Congratulations, our family took a kitten six months ago. It's not an easy job to make a high-quality photo with a young cat.

Especially when I'm using a manual lens while still learning to manually focus. Much easier when he's laying down at least.

[Ivan]

I have two restless daughters, a capricious wife, and now a cat that looks like a mongoose. I can't afford to manually focus. When my environment gets older, that's when...I put up the photo not because it is better - it is also far from perfect, but because I do the same things at home as you do.I can remove it if you want.

[Gorgarath]

I have two restless daughters, a capricious wife, and now a cat that looks like a mongoose. I can't afford to manually focus. When my environment gets older, that's when...I put up the photo not because it is better - it is also far from perfect, but because I do the same things at home as you do.I can remove it if you want.

No need to remove it. I was agreeing with you in that it's not easy to get a high-quality photo of a young cat.

I mentioned the manual focus as I don't have any fast zooms and my primes are all MF. With the poor lighting in the living room (a floor lamp and/or a table lamp) I'm generally pushing ISO3200 even at f/1.7. I do get fewer blurry shots when using AF. I did pick up a DA50-200 which I've been using the past day or two, though it's a bit long for inside the house. Still need to pick up a DA18-55, probably try and get a WR version as I don't have any WR lenses. Started questioning why I didn't get the WR version of the DA50-200 after I picked it up.

[troika]

Can the K-7 do "Catch-in-Focus"?

One of the greatest features of Pentax in my opinion. Check your manual or do a search. I think K7 did have this feature. If you get it working, you'll be giggling for hours at what a great hack it is.

[Gorgarath]

Can the K-7 do "Catch-in-Focus"?

One of the greatest features of Pentax in my opinion. Check your manual or do a search. I think K7 did have this feature. If you get it working, you'll be giggling for hours at what a great hack it is.

It can, but I don't believe it works with back-button focus. I'll have to double check on this to verify. CIF definitely seems like it would make focusing on moving objects much easier. User mode might be a good option for setting up CIF instead of jumping through the menu. As I find myself often relying on the green in-focus hexagon to tell me I'm in focus, I should fine-tune the focus on my lenses so that as soon as the hexagon appears I know it is in focus.

I keep trying to pick up some AF versions of my primes, but they tend to be a bit more than I can comfortably drop on more lenses when I already have them in Pentax-A. Though, finding some of the Pentax-A lenses is a challenge sometimes as well. I know I could go with easier (and often cheaper) K or M (my M50 is nice, though I did upgrade to the A50) versions, but I like being able to control aperture from the body. I need to start offloading some of my lenses as well. Have a Phoenix/Samyang Auto Zoom 70-210 Macro w/A mode that is nice, but I just find the push/pull zoom style odd and don't use it. Holding on to the M50 and kit F35-80 (though I might find some use for it now until I get a DA18-55) in case my oldest does want to get into an ILC as I can pick up an old body and have two lenses they can use. I currently already picked up 2 different bridge cameras to give as a b-day present and am still considering scrapping them and picking up a K10d or *istD or something. Might end up giving the Pentax to my youngest (I messed up and forgot the X-5 didn't have AV/TV modes like the older X70) and the GE Power X500 to the wife and pick up a DSLR for the oldest yet.

And now I've gone completely off topic and apologize and am back to welcoming critiques of my poor photo skills so I can try and improve.

[Ivan]

And yet K7 manual https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mqR5VboF5tIJ3WxTva1cioMyeKj9-6EV page 128. I'll try it tomorrow. I will report in detail. I really didn't want to criticize you, I wanted to show my cute cat.Here's another one but not from Pentax.

[troika]

Catch-in-focus. It changes everything when it comes to using manual lenses. It will almost turn your MF lenses into AF lenses.

[Ivan]

Thank you for reminding us about this feature. But I never managed to use it. As I understood it, the contacts that my lenses do not close. In General, I will tomorrow, or rather today, to experiment on the job.

[troika]

I am not sure what you mean. CIF will work with any manual lens. It doesn't pertain to exposure, only focus. Once set up, you press and hold the shutter release and either a) focus on your subject manually just like you normally would or b) focus on a point that your subject is going to pass through and wait. In either case, when your subject is in focus, the shutter release will fire and you will have captured an in-focus shot. It's nearly magic.

[Ivan]

Everything worked out. But with a caveat. Contacts on the camera I had to cover with conductive tape, then it happened).And Yes, you need to keep the shutter button pressed, even the series works.The main thing is that the autofocus was in order.

---------- Post added 02-19-20 at 04:44 AM ----------

Contacts must be closed otherwise it didn't work for me.

[Gorgarath]

I have the option for autofocus on half press of the shutter release turned off, which I believe CIF needs turned on in order to work.

I could be wrong, but that's what I seem to recall reading when I went about setting it all up. I haven't had a chance to verify yet.

---------- Post added 2020-02-19 at 05:29 PM ----------

After some testing where I was not getting CIF to work at all, I did manage to get it to work. I had forgotten the camera has to be in AF.S mode, not AF.C mode where I've been keeping it. Once I made that switch, I verified that if I have AF on shutter press disabled that CIF does not work. If I do re-enable the setting CIF does work. I might have to set the User mode on the dial to be used for Av mode and CIF. Then a simple turn of the knob and flip of the AF lever, I'll be able to switch to it quickly when switching from AF lenses to MF lenses.

(Shorting the contacts seems to be required for AF lenses, but don't think it should be needed for manual lenses. Worked fine on my A series lens.)

[troika]

Right, if an AF lens doesn't have a MF switch and you want to use CIF, you would need to convince your camera that is a MF lens, by blocking the connectivity. It never would have occured to me to do that, but it makes sense, I guess.

I use CIF successfully with both SMC (K) lenses which have no electronic connections and A lenses which have connections for aperture, but are MF lenses. Coupled with in camera stabilization, this feature is a particular area where Pentax stands alone among competitors, including market leaders.

[Gorgarath]

Right, if an AF lens doesn't have a MF switch and you want to use CIF, you would need to convince your camera that is a MF lens, by blocking the connectivity. It never would have occured to me to do that, but it makes sense, I guess.

I use CIF successfully with both SMC (K) lenses which have no electronic connections and A lenses which have connections for aperture, but are MF lenses. Coupled with in camera stabilization, this feature is a particular area where Pentax stands alone among competitors, including market leaders.

I just wish it worked with back button focus as that's how I do use my AF lenses. As I haven't been trying to do CIF, I hadn't bothered switching out of the BBF habit. (I actually had it in the back of my head but kept forgetting to give it a try.)