[Ski Jumper]

Here are 3 example.

This works fine just using focus confirmation. Point, adjust focus till you get the beep and good to go.


Ninini Point Lighthouse Sunrise

Here is an example where focus
confirmation alone isn't good enough. Yes this is not f8 and the focus distance is quite close. Depth of field is very thin. What exactly is the camera focusing on when it beeps? The O-ME53 is very helpful.


McBryde Garden

Here live view because I am not focusing on the center spot and focus and recompose is not an option. Live view with focus peaking works well here or ignore the beep and use the view finder and your eyes to achieve focus. Again the O-ME53 is helpful.


Lensbaby Sweet 80, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

I played with it today for a short time and got some better results with focus confirmation. I had it set on spot focus and shot some stuff 5-15' away. The irix focus ring is firm and its easy to miss the confirmation and under/over focus a hair. Then have to start over. I'll use the lv fp next. It's just going to take some practice.

[Ski Jumper]

You mentioned astro and with an ultrawide like this you don't need astrotracer for sweeping night landscapes. The biggest issue is ensuring that you are actually able to hit real infinity and then stopping down to clean up coma and other CA. For night shooting using magnified live view and center a bright star with focus peaking off (focus peaking bloats stars). Then get the star to be as small as possible but it needs to be a star not a planet like jupiter, mars, or saturn which are up at various times now and really bright. You may also notice that at some point some of the brighter flickers on the screen stay on and this is also a good indication that you have managed a proper infinity focus as those bright flickers are probably dim stars and all of a sudden there are enough photons hitting a pixel to keep it illuminated in live view. For ultrawide astroshooting use 200/focal length to determine you maximum exposure length in seconds so at 15mm take 15 second exposures and you will have fairly round stars or 12 seconds if you want really round ones. With astro you are in full manual mode so manual ISO, f-stop, shutter speed and focus the camera will guess kind of wrong to completely wrong with the night sky.

Thankyou for the tips. Not using astro makes total sense. Much appreciated.

---------- Post added 09-01-22 at 04:39 PM ----------

From 35mm to 15mm is a huge gap. 15mm on FF is ultra-wide, typically used for indoor architecture photography, real estate. Obviously you can use 15mm for any kind of photography creatively but it's tricky. For the outdoors and astro, it's the 20mm to 28mm range that's more appropriate, typically 24mm (half way between 20 and 28). Regarding manual focusing, use live view, with magnified image on the rear display, while activating DoF preview so that your manual focusing also corrects for aperture shift , that'll give you the best possible sharpness

Thankyou!

---------- Post added 09-01-22 at 04:40 PM ----------

From 35mm to 15mm is a huge gap. 15mm on FF is ultra-wide, typically used for indoor architecture photography, real estate. Obviously you can use 15mm for any kind of photography creatively but it's tricky. For the outdoors and astro, it's the 20mm to 28mm range that's more appropriate, typically 24mm (half way between 20 and 28). Regarding manual focusing, use live view, with magnified image on the rear display, while activating DoF preview so that your manual focusing also corrects for aperture shift , that'll give you the best possible sharpness

Thankyou!

---------- Post added 09-01-22 at 04:52 PM ----------

The red light indicates focus point not focus obtained on most Pentax cameras. The green hexagon is what needs to light up to tell you you have achieved focus.

Got it finally. I just had to slow my hand down a bit until the indicator stayed lit. Thankyou.

---------- Post added 09-01-22 at 05:36 PM ----------

Here are 3 example.

This works fine just using focus confirmation. Point, adjust focus till you get the beep and good to go.


Ninini Point Lighthouse Sunrise

Here is an example where focus confirmation alone isn't good enough. Yes this is not f8 and the focus distance is quite close. Depth of field is very thin. What exactly is the camera focusing on when it beeps? The O-ME53 is very helpful.


McBryde Garden

Here live view because I am not focusing on the center spot and focus and recompose is not an option. Live view with focus peaking works well here or ignore the beep and use the view finder and your eyes to achieve focus. Again the O-ME53 is helpful.


Lensbaby Sweet 80, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

I wasn't aware of what the o-me53 was until I googled it. That looks pretty handy. Thanks!

[mikesbike]

Right away I noticed focusing is tricky. Almost impossible thru the viewfinder, especially indoors. I've only mounted it a handful of times and had to use the L.V. magnifier to get it close.

Oh yes, with ultra-wide lenses in low light especially, focusing can be very tricky. For one thing, objects with such a lens tend to appear a great deal smaller than usual in the VF, sometimes to the degree the focus point sensor has a hard time grabbing onto an edge to confirm focus. As others have mentioned, a good way to operate is to master using the distance/aperture/DOF markings on the lens to set your focus field instead of the usual way through the VF. With such an ultra wide angle lens, you might be surprised how great the DOF will be once you have it set up right, even at wide open aperture!

I have a pretty compact DOF scale I habitually carry in the zipper accessory compartment inside the lid of my bag that is far more specific than the one on the lens. Mine is by "Fotosharp" which I've had for many years. No doubt such as this one are still available.

[Ski Jumper]

Oh yes, with ultra-wide lenses in low light especially, focusing can be very tricky. For one thing, objects with such a lens tend to appear a great deal smaller than usual in the VF, sometimes to the degree the focus point sensor has a hard time grabbing onto an edge to confirm focus. As others have mentioned, a good way to operate is to master using the distance/aperture/DOF markings on the lens to set your focus field instead of the usual way through the VF. With such an ultra wide angle lens, you might be surprised how great the DOF will be once you have it set up right, even at wide open aperture!

I have a pretty compact DOF scale I habitually carry in the zipper accessory compartment inside the lid of my bag that is far more specific than the one on the lens. Mine is by "Fotosharp" which I've had for many years. No doubt such as this one are still available.

I looked and couldn't find any reference cards, everything is a pdf download nowadays or basic cheat cards free with a $99 photo course 😉.

[mikesbike]

I no doubt bought mine when still shooting 35mm film. Shown on it is a phone number. I wondered if they are still going, so I just googled FotoSharp- and then came up their website! So they are still there. I brought up their website, which has a list on the lower left. In this list I found- "Night Photography and DOF guides" which I clicked. Up came a page containing what appears to be the very same one I have, "for "Full Frame" digital and 35mm SLR cameras, etc." priced at $17.95 but says in red "On sale today for $12.95! It is made in the USA, and they are located in Normandy Park WA. The phone number given is still the same one shown on my unit- (800) 361-8341.

Hopefully, you can easily acquire this handy device. The distance scale on the lens you are using is usually accurate enough to establish distance well enough once you have secured good focus. Distance will be needed to use the DOF guide properly. However, on WA lenses the distance scale only goes up to around 8 ft or so before hitting infinity or near it. On ultra WA lenses this might only be 3 ft or so! Hyperfocal range is hit very quickly. This goes to show how much DOF will be the norm for WA and ultra WA use! I just noticed, the widest angle given on the scale for use is- 20mm! This means even more DOF with your 15mm lens than indicated for 20mm. But the device is very useful for lenses ranging up to and including 300mm. Maybe the latest version includes yet wider lenses. I hope this helps.

[Ski Jumper]

I no doubt bought mine when still shooting 35mm film. Shown on it is a phone number. I wondered if they are still going, so I just googled FotoSharp- and then came up their website! So they are still there. I brought up their website, which has a list on the lower left. In this list I found- "Night Photography and DOF guides" which I clicked. Up came a page containing what appears to be the very same one I have, "for "Full Frame" digital and 35mm SLR cameras, etc." priced at $17.95 but says in red "On sale today for $12.95! It is made in the USA, and they are located in Normandy Park WA. The phone number given is still the same one shown on my unit- (800) 361-8341.

Hopefully, you can easily acquire this handy device. The distance scale on the lens you are using is usually accurate enough to establish distance well enough once you have secured good focus. Distance will be needed to use the DOF guide properly. However, on WA lenses the distance scale only goes up to around 8 ft or so before hitting infinity or near it. On ultra WA lenses this might only be 3 ft or so! Hyperfocal range is hit very quickly. This goes to show how much DOF will be the norm for WA and ultra WA use! I just noticed, the widest angle given on the scale for use is- 20mm! This means even more DOF with your 15mm lens than indicated for 20mm. But the device is very useful for lenses ranging up to and including 300mm. Maybe the latest version includes yet wider lenses. I hope this helps.

wow. I looked all over, I may have misspelled or spell correct changed it and I didn't notice. Thank - I'll look right now.
Update- found them and ordered both the dof and night guides. Thanks a ton. I think I looked for fotoshop originally.