[jshurak]

I can see live view being handy for landscape photography. Mount it up on a tripod and pre-chimp! For moving subjects, like street photography, I can't see any benefit. you'll miss the moment.

that they'd been discontinued

Is this true?

[Ash]

Jeff, if you're asking about the K10D being discontinued, I don't believe that's happening worldwide (as others have mentioned - the K10D will continue to be sold and supported until late next year, apparently...), but I was reporting what my local camera stores (in Toowoomba, Australia) have been saying about the K10D - all of them have not stocked the K10D for some months now with no view to sell them again...

Doesn't bother me much - my K10D's on the way, and I can hardly wait!

[jshurak]

Jeff, if you're asking about the K10D being discontinued, I don't believe that's happening worldwide (as others have mentioned - the K10D will continue to be sold and supported until late next year, apparently...), but I was reporting what my local camera stores (in Toowoomba, Australia) have been saying about the K10D - all of them have not stocked the K10D for some months now with no view to sell them again...

Doesn't bother me much - my K10D's on the way, and I can hardly wait!

Yes I was, thank you.

[LeoTaylor]

I would love to have Live View for astrophotography. Most of you have not tried to focus on a star....

Often I focus my K110D by:

1. Center a bright star well, needed for step 5. There are few stars bright enough to see in the optical viewfinder, and without magnification they are too small for good focus.

2. Press shutter while aimed at star around 1/8 second exposure

3. Wait for 2 second delay - needed after you touch the camera.

4. Press review button, wait for display to come up.

5. Zoom to 8x to see star large enough to be focused. It saves steps if you preset zoom to 8x.

6. Turn focus knob a small amount, hopefully in the right direction.

7. Repeat from step 2 several times.

Note: The Pentax won't Zoom if you use the Preview Mode that does not store an image.

Compare that to those with a Canon 40D:

1. Use Astro software that supports only, "The Big Two" to display a large, live display on the computer alongside a computed focus rating.

2. Adjust focus in real time for smallest dot and highest rating.

Leo Taylor

[Lowell Goudge]

I would love to have Live View for astrophotography. Most of you have not tried to focus on a star....

Leo

A star, regardless of the "apparent size" is always a point source and will always be a single pixle. the moon or a planet would be better, since you can see some detail to focus on. and from that point onward, just leave it alone. I doubt the difference in focus from 1/4 million miles to 100 million light years impacts things much.

you should be able to focus manually, or just put the lens to infinity (unless it is defective and/ or focuses past infinity such as a telescope)

[Jodokast96]

6. Turn focus knob a small amount, hopefully in the right direction.

That makes it sound (at least to me) that it may indeed be mounted to a telescope.

[falconeye]

A star, regardless of the "apparent size" is always a point source and will always be a single pixle. the moon or a planet would be better, since you can see some detail to focus on.

In astro photography, one is always focusing on stars. Normally, the image of a star never is a point because there is no such thing as an ideal telesope. In focus, you see a star as a tiny dot surrounded by a first or even second circle of refraction. In order to focus, you try to achieve to get such an image as much as possible which can be terribly hard. Out of focus, a star looks like a disk.

[falconeye]

Compare that to those with a Canon 40D

Don't you have a PC-controlled focus motor on the telescope?

If you had, using Pentax Remote Assistant (don't know for K10D, I use it with *istDS), one could remotely shoot, evaluate and correct focus from the notebook. One could even write a small program which automates the process to some sort of contrast maximization.

I confess I did not try it yet but I am thinking I may do so.

[nosnoop]

not as many as you think. Mount a print and cover some of the too tightly corpped image and you will understand why it is still desireable

100% coverage may not be important to you, but it is still one of the most frequently requested feature of the pro grade Pentax.

really, what is the difference between having the exposure set differently due to a change in lighting, before shooting, and getting it wrong afterwords. also in many cases the histogram can't resolve high contrast situations....
if you have a K10D you can do this with the last shot you took, so the benefit already exists...
I think this already exists and if you do a preview what is the difference between this and just taking the shot anyway electrons are free.

The difference is user-friendliness and ease of use. Of course, histogram is not magic for all situations, but changing settings while watching the histogram change dynamically is much better and less time consuming than adjusting after the fact or after getting it wrong. And you may miss opportunities while doing the check.

Same for WB - who wants to check each and every shot afterwards? Sometimes, I don't - I would just concentrate on shooting and review the shots only when I take a break.

Just like auto-bracketing, you can, of course, get around it if it does not offer such feature. But having one is so much more convenient.

no, the monitor is not good enough for that, never will be IMHO

Why would that be? In future, we will have high res monitor. And when you magnify the image to 1:1 pixel representation of the final image, you can get Perfect Focus without much trouble. Much easier to achieve than using Optical viewfinder.

your right, I don't care

But I am sure many would find all shutter speed flash sync useful.

In the end, live view is simply a marketing ploy to make people "think" they are getting an easier to use camera.

But you got to admit that most people coming from P&S prefer live view. It is not simply a marketing ploy; there is huge market demand for such a feature. For people who have not been exposed to 35mm SLR or 35mm P&S, they simply don't care much about optical view finder no matter what optical or ergonomic advantages it may bring.

Also the view finder approach forces you to concentrate on the ssubject in the lens, and has all of your attention, live view does not achieve this,

It works both ways. Sometimes if you are aware of the whole environment instead of a tunnel vision on your subject, it may give you extra flexibility and opportunities.

[mutley]

OK, so it's going to be on all the new dSLRs now - and yes one does have the choice of using the viewfinder or the LCD, however the beauty, and what sets dSLRs apart from the competition, is the swift response - negligible shutter lag and rapid sequence shooting.

So, Pentax must have seen that the best implementations helping Live View speed and accuracy is Exposure Simulation, Live Histogram & Contrast Detect focusing, and then they make a point to not include any of that in the K20D?

Instead, all design resources are spent designing a clunky mirror flip operation.

I'm doubtful these features will appear in a future K30D because they could have invested K20D R&D time and money on these swift response features, but specifically invested that Live View R&D money in the mirror operation. It seems that maybe they aren't aware of what's important for this feature.

[nosnoop]

I'm doubtful these features will appear in a future K30D because they could have invested K20D R&D time and money on these swift response features, but specifically invested that Live View R&D money in the mirror operation. It seems that maybe they aren't aware of what's important for this feature.

You got it quite wrong. They did not have much time to invest on Live View, that's why they are using the mirror operation - which is the least R&D intensive implementation. And the marketing people dictated (quite rightly) that they really need live view in the product brochure.

Do you prefer Pentax to delay their K20D release to have a better Live View implementation? They have spent most of their effort in other areas including the new sensor implementation. So I personally would much prefer them to release K20D ASAP rather than waiting to refine Live View.

You keep complaining about this and other aspects of K20D and K10D and make your wild assumptions, have you ever put yourself in Pentax shoe and think for a second from their point of view?

[mutley]

they are using the mirror operation - which is the least R&D intensive implementation.

How do you know it is that much of a difference in R&D time? A couple of these features are already implemented in their P&S cameras, and just a different software design.

[nosnoop]

How do you know it is that much of a difference in R&D time? A couple of these features are already implemented in their P&S cameras, and just a different software design.

[sigh] There is a huge difference between P&S and DSLR. The DOF is the key difference. The fast AF speed in current crop of P&S is not due to the accuracy of the contrast measurement AF, but rather the adequacy of imprecision due to the huge DOF in P&S camera. P&S camera AF are in "steps" with ranges of focal distance. It simply zips through the focal range, get the highest contrast and move to the corresponding range. In DSLR, you cannot do this, and you need much higher precision.

And there may be differences between the Live View sensor read out vs the main exposure sensor read out. So features like Live histogram may not be a trivial implementation.

You simply cannot move P&S feature and move it to a DSLR. It is basically a brand new implementation.

[SpecialK]

I have had 3 Canon P&S cameras (first was stolen) and one of the main things I like is the rotating LCD - especially on the S3 IS because the viewfinder is so bad :-)

I like the ability to not always have the same eye-level view as usual, and it frees up some more creative angles that otherwise would be overlooked. Plus, candid people shots are a lot easier when it is not so obvious you are taking a picture.

Just this past weekend, I was shooting over a crowd with the KHundredD, and hoping for the best. Even though framing was inexact, I would not put Live View very high on my list of wants for a future DSLR upgrade.

[kittykat46]

There's a whole generation growing up whose only experience of photography is with a digital P&S, often without ever having used any viewfinder. Like it or not, Live View is going to become an "essential" specification for future dSLRs.