[Bikertone7]

This is my first DSLR which I've now had for some months and have to say I'm disappointed with the pics it takes. They all appear soft to me I was expecting much sharper images and would appreciate some help. I'm hoping it may be just settings. I'm very much an amateur shooting mainly in auto mode. I've several manual lenses from an old film SLR that I've been playing with but would like to sort the auto side out first! (Look out for more posts! )

Two pics attached and would be really grateful for comments on the quality and if they could be improved. Don't want to use any additional software to correct just want to take decent pics.

Cheers.

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[Bertrand3000]

First, the K110D is quite an old camera ; you cannot expect it to take as good photo as a good smartphone today, sadly.


Then, the K110D is an entry level camera version of the K100D with one important feature taken out : Shake Reduction. This means that with this body, you will be more subject to motion blur if the shutter speed is not sufficient. To counteract this, you will need a tripod for any shot in low light (or a fast lens). That said, Pentax is one of the few manufacturers implementing body-side shake reduction ; Canon and Nikon do not offer this as far as I know.


You use the FA 35-80 lens, even if there are worse lenses than this, it used to be a kit for film bodies. You cannot expect miracle from such a lens either ; do not forget that it's only a 6 Megapixel sensor, though, so no need to search for an especially sharp lens that would out-resolve the sensor anyway.


That said, it does not look like motion blur here, more a lack of contrast. This can be explained by overexposed shot, and/or flare. Do you have a hood for the lens? It will help against flare. Also, try adjusting exposition compensation, lower it by -0.3 or -0.7 EV to avoid overexposed photo ; you may get better shots with such adjustment in plain sunlight.

[ProfessorBuzz]

Try a circular polarizer to deal with that sky.

---------- Post added 04-06-20 at 05:19 AM ----------

The sensor (and/or back side of the lens closest to the sensor) needs to be cleaned. There are 3 obvious dirt circles in the upper right.

[Parallax]

The issue may be that the K110D has no front focus/back focus adjustment as the K20D and later models have so you can't fine tune it to the lens.

[normhead]

Poor lighting conditions and slight over exposure wold be my guess.

IN the first it looks like you have really heavy atmospheric effect. The foreground looks pretty normal. As you get further and further from the camera the humidity is causing lack of detail. There's pretty much nothing you could have done beyond shoot on a drier day.

In the second
The wall to the right looks pretty good. Nice sun angle to the brickwork makes it standout, That eliminates motion blur. a -.7 EV setting is pretty much standard on this type of shot in fact I only shoot the the EV setting at zero against bright backgrounds.like snow.. The shadows being as bright as they are kills the contrast,. A contrast function applied in post processing you'd add a bit more zip. PP software with slider bar for black point and exposure will let you deal with that. But you should be using your camera settings to get it right.

IN both images, slightly bumping contrast and saturation will give them a little more punch.
If your PP software supports it I'd apply micro contrast (definition) to the whole image.

I do have a third party hood for my FA 35-80, and it does help. Just one of those cheap rubber screw on things camera stores sell.

Really, you're not far away from what you want.

With film images you pretty much took what you got with images like this.
With digital, you have a lot to work with.
Your problem isn't just sharpness, it's lack of perception of sharpness because of direct light and low contrast.

[ChristianRock]

The FA 35-80mm lens might not be the best to deal with this kind of harsh light - it was a cheap budget lens in the film era - so images straight out of camera will look a bit washed out and lack contrast, for sure.
But as Norm said, even that can be fixed easily with just a little bit of post processing.
The lens wasn't the sharpest lens either even back when it was sold, but at this resolution (6MP) that shouldn't really be a problem.
In one of the blogs I follow, the writer uses among other cameras a K100D with the SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 and the SMC DA 35mm f/2.4 - and he gets gorgeous colors straight out of the camera (which is his thing, to try to never do post processing...)

[Wasp]

The sensor needs a cleaning. The two pictures shows spots in exactly the same places.

Once that is done, try your old school lenses. They just might surprise you. As for metering, check the manual for green button. It stops down the aperture to take a light meter reading, just like the button on the side of Grandpa's Spotmatic.

As for the 35-80, it's not terrible but it doesn't represent the finest hour of Pentax either.

[Bikertone7]

Thanks for replies folks much appreciated. I've tried to alter the sharpness and contrast settings but cant figure out how to. The options are shaded in grey and won't allow me to make changes. Quality level is set to 3 stars. Can't really make sense of the handbook instructions. (Sorry to appear thick!) Cheers

---------- Post added 04-06-20 at 06:10 AM ----------

The sensor needs a cleaning. The two pictures shows spots in exactly the same places.

Once that is done, try your old school lenses. They just might surprise you. As for metering, check the manual for green button. It stops down the aperture to take a light meter reading, just like the button on the side of Grandpa's Spotmatic.

As for the 35-80, it's not terrible but it doesn't represent the finest hour of Pentax either.

Thanks but the K110D doesn't have a green button :-(

[normhead]

The FA 35-80 can do some great work. It actually was rated the best in my 35mm shoot-off for reduced in size images... but didn't do as well pixel peeping, so not text book sharp but it renders really nicely.
2016-12-Whiteny-2 | Norm Head | Flickr

My problem with it is 35mm isn't really wide angle on APS-c, so it's not as versatile as it was on film, and on FF, my DFA 28-105 runs the show.
But when I do take it out, I don't suffer.

[Bertrand3000]

You need to use exposure compensation button, the one with +/-. Hold it down while using the wheel to alter exposition compensation.

About settings being grayed out, it's because of Auto mode. Switch to P on the mode dial if you wish more settings while retaining automatic exposure.

[normhead]

You need to use exposure compensation button, the one with +/-. Hold it down while using the wheel to alter exposition compensation.

About settings being grayed out, it's because of Auto mode. Switch to P on the mode dial if you wish more settings while retaining automatic exposure.

And maybe if you're shooting jpeg, set your contrast setting a little higher. Hold down the EV button, set it to -.7
I use AV so I can control my depth of field instead of P but both work.

[WorksAsIntended]

If you use jpg with this generation you should not use the standard profile. If I remember correctly, and I am not sure about this as the last camera jpg I made with this generation is about 10 years ago, the profile "bright" was closer to the profiles of other manufacturers standard ones.

[Bikertone7]

Doh! just tried to upload another post but it disappeared hope this doesn't duplicate:

Altered the sharpness and been for a walk to take some more pics. Changed the lens to a SMC Pentax-A 1:2 50mm and took pics on mostly the P setting plus the AV. What a difference! What do you guys think?? When using auto does it remember the changed sharpness setting or does it override it? I'm definitely getting there with it now thanks to you guys. Delighted with the ones I've taken.

[Bertrand3000]

Good to see that with a serious lens and a few tweaks, things are much better. Happy for you.

I believe that in Auto mode, the camera will not use settings you can only set up in P or Av mode. Those settings are probably linked to the scene the camera has "detected".

As others has said, consider cleaning your sensor with an APSc swab, though, to remove those dirty spot in your sky photos.

[normhead]

Glad to help out... it's what we do here.