[Eagle94VT]

I've been working on my techniques ever since I got my first pair of progressive lens glasses a few months ago - it was hard enough looking around with glasses, now I get to roll m eye around even more to look thru the right part.

[clackers]

Jeanterrou, MF and unpredictable subjects means pre-focus, large depth of field means narrow aperture and hence flash. More than one child would mean something like a Stofen on the flash to cope with shadows/blocking.

[ddharriman]

+ on what clackers (and others) say:

1 - f8 at least - advice test first the latitude of the much of deep of field you get;
2 - pre-focus;
3 - flash - if you have one besides the one in camera, bounce it and do +1 or +2 ev compensation on the flash, if you have just the camera flash you can try the lightscoop (I have one and inside a normal house I get good results ith it).

...and this should improve your keepers.

Best regards,

[Alex645]

Definitely spend a bit of time with the AF fine tuning to make sure this is calibrated to your lens.

a) Consider using a prime lens. With larger apertures (f/1.8, 2.4), your finder will be brighter and easier to focus. However to help with DOF, consider shooting with smaller apertures (f/4) and increasing your ISO if needed indoors.

b) Use Continuous Shooting mode to capture bursts of shots. Your moving subjects in one frame may be soft, but in the next enter sharpness so that at least in one sequence youʻll have a keeper. Lots more editing, but you got the shot.

c) I donʻt know what type of external flash you own, but there are potentially three advantages with it: 1) Even with bounce flash, the increased light will give you smaller DOF and thus more in focus; 2) The flash duration is so short, it will freeze your subject much better; 3) Many of the better flash units have an infrared AF assist that will aid your camera AF confirmation speed and accuracy. The better Pentax units use a white LED that works similarly.

And as others have mentioned earlier, AF lenses have focusing rings that require less turning to focus. This helps for speed, but manually itʻs harder for precision. MF lenses require more turning to focus which will help with precision, but take longer. Using lenses that support Quick Shift is my personal preference, with AF on, but I can quickly manually tweak the focus if needed.

Lastly, you may want to post a couple of shots that show examples (and the EXIF data) of images that missed the mark. What you may perceive as not in critical focus could be a slow shutter blur issue, etc.

[GUB]

I have a K30 and struggle to focus MF lenses through the optical viewfinder. My K01 taught me to use Liveview with focus peaking on and with a LCD viewfinder attached. I now do the same on the K30 with far superior results over the optical viewfinder.

[stevebrot]

My guess is that the S-type screens are best for speed.

Unfortunately, they are spec'ed for lenses f/1.8 - f/2.8 and dim rapidly at slower than that.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Definitely spend a bit of time with the AF fine tuning to make sure this is calibrated to your lens.

OP uses manual focus per thread title and original post.


Steve

[jeantarrou]

Thank you for all the replies, and to all my 4-eyed brethren, I feel your pain!!!!

I'm shooting exclusively in MF because my K30 succumbed to the dreaded aperture block failure so I'm limited to lenses with aperture rings, and, therefore MF. And actually, is this correct? Are there any AF lenses with an aperture ring?

FWIW, the lenses I own are a Samyang 35mm f1.4, Samyang 8mm f3.5, Pentax K50 f1.4 and a Pentak A35-105mm f3.5, Takumar 200mm f5.6 (I rarely use this one...). And my flash is a Yongnuo YN 560 III

I have attempted many of your wonderful suggestions all with varying success...
Liveview: I can't get comfortable taking pictures this way, I especially dislike the delay after clicking the shutter which inhibits quick fire shots. That being said, under certain circumstances I do use this method and when magnifying on the screen my focus accuracy is pretty reliable.
Prefocusing: I use this technique but it isn't something that's is practical when I'm quickly grabbing my camera for an ephemeral moment.
Cycling focused and unfocused: This is what I do most often, combined with spray and pray... It has probably produced my greatest success but still with a very poor keeper rate...
Macro: I don't shoot macro, ever.

I really like the Catch-In-Focus idea, I'll definitely give that a try.

Sounds like I should attach my flash more frequently too, makes sense.

I will also dial in my AF fine adjustment, BUT, the aftermarket focusing screen I installed is not shimmed, does that negatively impact the AF accuracy of the camera??? Instead of shimming the screen could/should I just compensate through the in camera AF fine tuning?

Also, regarding aftermarket focus screens, I initially wondered what the heck the point of the S screen was, but as some of you explained and after actually reading the product description I think this might be a good option.

Here are some good examples of photos where I feel like I "missed it"... Unfortunately because I'm using an aperture ring there's no F Stop data. Also, I think the final pic is a good example of my low light challenge (and white balance...), often I'll intentionally underexpose with a quicker shutter speed and lighten the image in PP.
1/50, iso500
6 by , on Flickr

1/100, iso800
4 by , on Flickr

1/40, iso400
2 by , on Flickr

1/125, iso3200
3 by , on Flickr

When my subjects aren't moving and I have the time I'm pretty pleased with my results though!

1/60, iso400
Beer brewing by , on Flickr

[marcusBMG]

One thing that has not been mentioned is being quite liberal with upping the ASA to give better shutter speeds. Always a bit of an either/or; is it focus or is it shake?

I have been more inclined to Live view/video style mode now that I have a hoodman type loupe to click onto the back of my K5.

[baro-nite]

I'm shooting exclusively in MF because my K30 succumbed to the dreaded aperture block failure so I'm limited to lenses with aperture rings, and, therefore MF. And actually, is this correct? Are there any AF lenses with an aperture ring?

Yes! All F- and FA- series lenses.

I will also dial in my AF fine adjustment, BUT, the aftermarket focusing screen I installed is not shimmed, does that negatively impact the AF accuracy of the camera??? Instead of shimming the screen could/should I just compensate through the in camera AF fine tuning?

The autofocus system is entirely independent of the focusing screen, so shimming the screen won't affect AF in any way.

Because I tend to favor MF glass I've installed S-type screens on both my Pentax DSLRs. Accurate shimming is a must. Out of the box, with the stock focusing screen, my K10D needed a shim. I only realized this when I started using f/2.8 and faster glass.

[jeantarrou]

Because I tend to favor MF glass I've installed S-type screens on both my Pentax DSLRs. Accurate shimming is a must. Out of the box, with the stock focusing screen, my K10D needed a shim. I only realized this when I started using f/2.8 and faster glass.

How do I know if my screen needs to be shimmed or not?

[baro-nite]

How do I know if my screen needs to be shimmed or not?

You can do a simple test to check if what you see in focus in the VF is the same as what the camera records. I like to use a ruler for this, shooting with a fast lens wide open, at a 45-degree or so angle to the length of the ruler.

[jeantarrou]

You can do a simple test to check if what you see in focus in the VF is the same as what the camera records. I like to use a ruler for this, shooting with a fast lens wide open, at a 45-degree or so angle to the length of the ruler.

So it's similar to checking for back/front focusing? Isn't that what the AF fine adjustment does, compensate for front/back focusing?

[E-man]

Sad to say, my manual focusing skills have deteriorated greatly since I quit using my 35mm cameras. I shot my last frame with my beloved Minolta X-570 between Christmas 2004 and New Years 2005 and I limped along with a wretched little Minolta Z1 digital point-n-shoot until I picked up my first Pentax in the summer of 2012. Since that time, I have gotten extremely spoiled by autofocus. At one time, focusing on the fly was all muscle memory; I did it without thinking. Now, with the two manual focus lenses, a Pentax 50mm f2 and a Sigma 100-300 zoom, both with KA mounts, I find I have to really think about what I'm doing, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, none of my Pentax digital bodies have split prism focusing screens, which I really miss when manually focusing. To help ensure accuracy, I've mounted my sharpest AF lens on each camera body, focused it in under good light conditions, and made sure the diopter adjustment was dialed in properly for my 50-something farsighted eyes. I only wear cheap readers and they're usually on top of my head when I shoot, since I often need them to see the settings on the camera body itself.

[baro-nite]

So it's similar to checking for back/front focusing? Isn't that what the AF fine adjustment does, compensate for front/back focusing?

Yes, but again, the focusing screen and the AF system are unrelated. Catch-in-focus and the focus indicator are tied to the AF system, of course. If you also want accurate visual focusing you need a properly-adjusted focusing screen so you can see what you're doing.