[manacho2005]

Thanks @mikeSF
-I owe the isolation to the reflection of the building behind me

There sure are a lot of good shots in here that I haven't seen in other threads.

[HSV]

Just curious, I've never taken action shots...what would be the suggested aperture and shutter speed range for panning and for freezing motion? Should one use the center AF sensor or choose an arbitrary one?

Honestly, I'm very impressed with kkoether's pictures.

I've had a Nikon D200, and the AF is truly a lot more responsive than the k20d that I had at the time. As far as I heard, the king of action shooting right now is the Canon 1DX.

[kkoether]

HSV, Thanks. Panning is just a matter of rhythm and practice. I use AF C and center focus. I usually shoot in AV mode. That goes back to my ME Super that I started with years ago. The EXIF data should be included on each picture. In AV mode shutter speed is varied to match your aperture so my shutter speeds vary a bit. Good results seem to occur around 1/60 to 1/90 of a second. Using a zoom or telephoto lens and being a little farther away seems to help because your not having to track quite as fast. The nice thing about digital is you can practice and get instant results. Find a busy road and give it a try. Pick a point to start from and follow your subject and take the shot. Pick each successive subject up at the same spot and repeat. Good Luck!

[mrNewt]

Pentax can do sports ... what it can't do is fast fps.

Panning is the nicest way to do sport photography and have great fun .
These are a little older, and I used the K10D ( tried to get as much motion blur as possible - all hand held, manual focus ):

[JimJohnson]

Here is the problem with any mirror reflex system with the subject headed directly toward the lens....
If the object is moving and the object is in focus and headed toward the lens, if moving fast enough, the object will move out of optimal focus during the time the mirror moves and the shutter opens.

I don't trust ANY SLR's AF for this type of picture. If you insist on using the optical viewfinder, you must pre-focus ahead of the subject and release the shutter just before the subject reaches that focus point. And I recommend using burst mode.

The alternative is to use Liveview with continuous focus. However, the AF used for Liveview tends to be slower than when using the optical viewfinder.

For the record, most of the photos posted in this thread are of subjects moving parallel to the lens. Panning works great because the plane of focus doesn't change much during the shot.

[SteveB]

Here is the problem with any mirror reflex system with the subject headed directly toward the lens....
If the object is moving and the object is in focus and headed toward the lens, if moving fast enough, the object will move out of optimal focus during the time the mirror moves and the shutter opens.

I don't trust ANY SLR's AF for this type of picture.

That's what predictive focus is for, to compensate for that time lag and subsequent subject displacement. Whether a particular DSLR is any good at it or not is another matter though.

[kkoether]

Here is the problem with any mirror reflex system with the subject headed directly toward the lens....
If the object is moving and the object is in focus and headed toward the lens, if moving fast enough, the object will move out of optimal focus during the time the mirror moves and the shutter opens.

I don't trust ANY SLR's AF for this type of picture. If you insist on using the optical viewfinder, you must pre-focus ahead of the subject and release the shutter just before the subject reaches that focus point. And I recommend using burst mode.

The alternative is to use Liveview with continuous focus. However, the AF used for Liveview tends to be slower than when using the optical viewfinder.

For the record, most of the photos posted in this thread are of subjects moving parallel to the lens. Panning works great because the plane of focus doesn't change much during the shot.

That's one reason I keep the F-Stop in the F8 to F16 range so the DOF isn't too shallow. It's not perfect but it helps.

---

Last edited by kkoether; 01-13-2013 at 05:28 PM.

[TimonW]

Here is the problem with any mirror reflex system with the subject headed directly toward the lens....
If the object is moving and the object is in focus and headed toward the lens, if moving fast enough, the object will move out of optimal focus during the time the mirror moves and the shutter opens.

I don't trust ANY SLR's AF for this type of picture. If you insist on using the optical viewfinder, you must pre-focus ahead of the subject and release the shutter just before the subject reaches that focus point. And I recommend using burst mode.

The alternative is to use Liveview with continuous focus. However, the AF used for Liveview tends to be slower than when using the optical viewfinder.

For the record, most of the photos posted in this thread are of subjects moving parallel to the lens. Panning works great because the plane of focus doesn't change much during the shot.

Maybe that's relative, but I've shot with the Canon 5d, 5dii, Nikon D3 and D700, and there's clearly a difference with the tracking between the D3 and everything else...with the right technique (I use the back button as full-time focus which lets me snap as soon as the subject is in focus). I've had no issues with subjects moving towards me shooting wide open (F1.2-f2) with the Nikon system (99% keep rate) and Canon clearly is worse (50% keep rate), so relatively how good is Pentax? I'm tempted to pick up a K5 iis just to test myself.

Here's an example of a real world situation, shot pretty wide open at F/2 with a Nikon D3s + 85 1.4G (a portrait lens). I'd post the rest of the series, but just to confirm, all six in this sequence came out in focus. I used to shoot the same way with Canon and it was about 50/50. People would fall back on the cliche that it's a thin depth of field, blah, blah, but it's funny how those physics all of a sudden "changed" when I'm shooting with a Nikon. Predictive AF was off- this is just purely a finely tuned AF machine. Unfortunately, the newer Nikons have reverted to everyone else's phase detection which is only accurate to F/2.8.

[HSV]

HSV, Thanks. Panning is just a matter of rhythm and practice. I use AF C and center focus. I usually shoot in AV mode. That goes back to my ME Super that I started with years ago. The EXIF data should be included on each picture. In AV mode shutter speed is varied to match your aperture so my shutter speeds vary a bit. Good results seem to occur around 1/60 to 1/90 of a second. Using a zoom or telephoto lens and being a little farther away seems to help because your not having to track quite as fast. The nice thing about digital is you can practice and get instant results. Find a busy road and give it a try. Pick a point to start from and follow your subject and take the shot. Pick each successive subject up at the same spot and repeat. Good Luck!

Thanks!

[baldrick]

This is a very interesting thread. I`ve been told quite few times that Pentax cameras are no good for sports/action photography especially airshows which is my main interest, because the AF is too slow. These photos were taken in January 2010 at Temora NSW. I was lucky enough to be standing beside runway 05 about level with the Gable markers. Aeroplanes taking off and landing were coming almost straight at me at considerable speed. although they are not brilliant they are acceptable and the notorious Pentax AF seemed to cope well enough.




Back then I was using a K10d and a Sigma 70-300 lens.
Simmo.

[Digitalis]

me shooting wide open (F1.2-f2) with the Nikon system

There aren't any FX format f/1.2 lenses with full AF in the Nikon system. Only Canon have AF lenses from f/1.0 - f/1.2 - and trust me you wouldn't want to use tracking AF with an f/1.0 lens on any canon DSLR - my 1Ds MKIIN could probably do it, though with a 90% failure rate.

[TimonW]

There aren't any FX format f/1.2 lenses with full AF in the Nikon system. Only Canon have AF lenses from f/1.0 - f/1.2 - and trust me you wouldn't want to use tracking AF with an f/1.0 lens on any canon DSLR - my 1Ds MKIIN could probably do it, though with a 90% failure rate.

Thanks for the reply, but what I stated was F/1.2-2.0 with Nikon AND Canon. More precisely the Canon 50 1.2L and Nikon 85 1.4G. I didn't mention f/1.0 at all but that has more to do with the lens build and the poor AF on that lens more than anything. Tracking AF with the 50 1.2L was about 50% dead on, sometimes better. My question is not the physics of the thin depth of field or predictive focusing (which somehow everyone always ends up talking about), but the fact that with the right technique and the right gear, 1.2/1.4 can be used to track moving subjects with some accuracy, and I prefer that. Even for portraits, I like my subjects moving. I've been shooting weddings for about 7 years so I understand that it's much easier to stop down to gain accuracy when your system just can't hang, but with Nikon I never had to. But that is what separates good systems from great ones. With Nikon, it was deadly accurate at 1.4. With Canon, relatively accurate at 1.2, but not any better stopped down to f/1.4 or f/2, so it wasn't the depth of field. But I'm at a point where I have a very specific image quality/rendering in mind and don't want to do a whole lot of post processing, and Sony and Pentax have what I need to get what I want in-camera with little to no processing.

To clarify, my question is...how is Pentax AF in comparison to the big 3? I don't really need to know about focusing physics in general, just a point of comparison. Thanks. Are there any other wedding photographers using Pentax? Here's an example of subjects moving towards me relatively rapidly, shot with a 50mm at 1.4 with a Canon 5d3.

[Digitalis]

how is Pentax AF in comparison to the big 3? I don't really need to know about focusing physics in general, just a point of comparison. Thanks. Are there any other wedding photographers using Pentax?

I don't do wedding photography - my specialities are studio & on location portraiture, sports photography, wildlife,macro and fine art landscape. But for sports I find the AF on pentax DSLR cameras adequate. I commonly use a K7 with a Sigma 100-300mm f/4 APO EX DG alongside a Nikon D3s with the Nikkor 400mm f/2.8G* ED VR and the AF on the Pentax K7 manages well - the keeper rate isn't quite as high as what I get from the D3s, which is why I upgraded to the K5IIs. My impressions of the AF on the K5IIs is that it feels considerably more confident than the K-7 or the K10D - it is less prone to hunting. But due to the fact that the K5IIs has no bayer AA filter focus accuracy becomes rather problematic - especially with telephoto lenses. If you are planning on using telephoto lenses 100mm and longer with the K5IIs I would strongly recommend a lens calibration system like the Lens align Pro.

* usually with a 2X teleconverter

[FrancisK7]

It's not bad but it's not good either. The AF system sucks. I will never stop saying it.

Shot a few months ago with K5+50-135:

[Zafar Iqbal]

To clarify, my question is...how is Pentax AF in comparison to the big 3? I don't really need to know about focusing physics in general, just a point of comparison. Thanks. Are there any other wedding photographers using Pentax? Here's an example of subjects moving towards me relatively rapidly, shot with a 50mm at 1.4 with a Canon 5d3.

I do weddings - here's some of my recetly posted wedding photos_ https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-k-30/192015-post-your-k-30-photos-...ml#post2239200

The fastest AF lenses I own are f2.8's (except for FA 50mm 1.4 but I haven't used it for any weddings yet). AF accuracy (or lack of) with moving subjects would be clearer to see if I had faster lenses. My impression is, that my K-30 can do the job but not without me being nervous about it missing the focus. As you mentioned, some can be technique related and I'm not going to say the K-30 AF sucks, but tracking subjects moving towards the camera is though for my camera. Focusing in low light can slow too but I do not know whether I'm expecting too much on this one - I'm talking about spontanois moments when guests pose. Their motivation is up and peaking for a few seconds, but sometimes it takes the camera those few seconds to lock and I miss the shots I really wanted.

I do not have any experience with other brands so I can't really say how good or bad K-30 is in relation. I feel somewhat same with it though - I've even dared thoughts about shooting weddings with only 21mm and 70mm lenses - I love them but they also generally focus faster and more accurate than my zooms. that's the impression at least. Never did scientific tests.