[kenyee]

Post D800-AF fix, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would never use a K5 again in lowlight if given the choice to use a D800 instead.

You're comparing a super high end 51 point AF system to the K-5's The AF on that (improved from the D300/D700) is meant to compete w/ Canon's 1D high end AF system.
The K-5 is more on the lines of the D7000's AF system (the D7100's is better than the K-5II's IMHO because of the extra focus points).

That said, if you're good w/ AF-C mode and use the AF-ON button on the back, you'll get good results w/ the K-5 as well...

[FrancisK7]

You're comparing a super high end 51 point AF system to the K-5's The AF on that (improved from the D300/D700) is meant to compete w/ Canon's 1D high end AF system.
The K-5 is more on the lines of the D7000's AF system (the D7100's is better than the K-5II's IMHO because of the extra focus points).

That said, if you're good w/ AF-C mode and use the AF-ON button on the back, you'll get good results w/ the K-5 as well...

As unfair as it is, it's still true. My point was that the best Pentax has to offer cannot compete with the best the competitor has to offer. I had the money and couldn't upgrade, so had to get that camera. I still use Pentax all the time, but there are things the D800 can do the K5 simply cannot. Money isn't really an issue if you're a professional. If you're a hobbyist, and money is important, then the comparison isn't fair, I agree.

[TimonW]

I wouldn't say it's bad for moving objects. I think it's just fine. No complains.

I'm not sure people have figured out that a subject moving sideways stays on the same plane, and is not a difficult scenario for any AF. Almost any focus system can get a fast moving object moving across the screen horizontally with a fast enough shutter speed or if you pan. I think I did get my answer here, Pentax is appealing to the street photographer/landscape/hobbyist, but the tracking AF seems to be subpar. Thanks all for your input, and great images! If I could afford several systems, then Pentax would definitely have its place!

[SteveB]

These French AF tracking tests seem to suggest that Pentax cameras are quite capable of tracking a car travelling towards the camera, much the same as other cameras until you get up to the D4 journalist machine gun cameras. A car is a pretty big subject though. http://multimedia.fnac.com/multimedia/editorial/labo/reflex_2013_v8.pdf

[JimJohnson]

I wouldn't say it's bad for moving objects. I think it's just fine. No complains.

Yet ANOTHER example of the subject moving laterally to the frame with the photographer doing half the work by panning. Again, it isn't that the photographer didn't grab a great shot, but it doesn't address the core topic of this thread.

I think I WILL have to take up Norm's taunt and do some example shots.... The toughest job for optical viewfinder auto-focus is when a subject is coming straight at (or straight away) from the camera lens. By the time the camera focuses and the mirror moves to present the image to the sensor or film, the subject may have moved out of the depth of field.

If you are shooting using the optical viewfinder, the only two reliable ways to counter this are to A- use a greater depth of field or B- to manually pre-focus on a distance and wait until your subject almost gets to that distance.

[andre-mz5]

If you are shooting using the optical viewfinder, the only two reliable ways to counter this are to A- use a greater depth of field or B- to manually pre-focus on a distance and wait until your subject almost gets to that distance.

Pre-focus + the 6FPS K5 can get you these kind of shots.




I've seen a test of a Canon D1 trying to keep track of a sprinter coming towards the photographer at 10 FPS and even that camera had a couple of misses.

[Rupert]

I've read a million of these "Pentax justification" threads, and mostly just avoid them. There is seldom anything new discussed, and it really boils down to your personal preference or your specific needs. There are cameras for most any need, some are Pentax, some are not.

My own experience has been that my K5 is the best Pentax I have owned, fully capable and a delight to use. Some thoughts after reading this particular thread........
It's not all in the camera, it's often in the skill of the shooter or just plain luck. Here is a shot I got that two Canon and one Nikon shooter missed, and it turned out to be one of the brides most favorites. I attribute it to the K20D, the DA*50-135....and since I am short on skill....a little luck.
[IMG] [/IMG]

At another wedding, Mrs Rupert was using a little Toy Camera X10 and captured this, which also turned out to be one of the brides favorites........had to be luck, she had never used the X10 before and is in no way a camera person.
[IMG] [/IMG]

Bottom line for me is to have a camera I like and can use, and use often. The name matters little, but Pentax has been a winner for me, and apparently for a lot of others...we do have a lot of Pentaxians here after all. These debates will never end, but us happy shooters will not be bothered by them, we are busy doing what we love best...taking great shots with our Pentax gear!

My K5 always puts a smile on my face...and sometimes on others too!
[IMG] [/IMG]

Regards & Happy shooting with whatever you shoot with!

[normhead]

You're comparing a super high end 51 point AF system to the K-5's The AF on that (improved from the D300/D700) is meant to compete w/ Canon's 1D high end AF system.
The K-5 is more on the lines of the D7000's AF system (the D7100's is better than the K-5II's IMHO because of the extra focus points).

That said, if you're good w/ AF-C mode and use the AF-ON button on the back, you'll get good results w/ the K-5 as well...

I have seen this kind of comment so often, but it seems to be nothing more than a statement of what the poster believes, often based on what they have read. People have opinions, other people have opinions, people read those opinions , people read each others opinions and people think that they understand an issue. But unless there is a fact in there somewhere you need to take it worth a grain of salt.

I'd be happy if I could find one test with a mechanical rabbit at a race track being pulled at a set pace towards a bank of cameras 100 times, with at least 6 frames taken in burst mode from each camera, and a published set of results of the percentage of images in acceptable focus from each camera. With each camera on a sturdy tripod with a remote trigger.

But that's what I'd need to be able to make these kinds of statements. Needless to say, I'm a little skeptacle of those who make these statements. Not because I think they are lying or even wrong, but because I'm not sure how comparable my shooting style is to theirs. My results could be different even if they are correct in reporting their own observations.

[JimJohnson]

I'd be happy if I could find one test with a mechanical rabbit at a race track being pulled at a set pace towards a bank of cameras 100 times, with at least 6 frames taken in burst mode from each camera, and a published set of results of the percentage of images in acceptable focus from each camera. With each camera on a sturdy tripod with a remote trigger.

Amen.

But since I don't have access to a mechanical rabbit, I tried to run a little test today while taking the dog for a walk. In my opinion it was too sunny to get the kind of results I wanted.

I put my dog on stay and squatting a dozen yards/meters or so away, had him come to me. My K-r was hand-held, set to Action mode on the top dial. My lens was a Pentax F 35-70 at 70mm. I had checked the focus calibration using this lens only a couple days ago.

I did two trials. I'll guesstimate my shooting distance was about 6 yards / meters. The first was using auto-focus and the second was pre-focusing manual at a set point. Even at ISO 200, my aperture was unfortunately a rather high f/6.7 for both images ... a full two-stops from wide open on this lens at 70mm. The camera selected shutter speed was 1/2,000 for the auto-focus shot and 1/500 for the manual focus shot.

I used a small treat for obeying me. My dog is a fast learner and came at a much faster pace toward me for the second round, the manual focus shot.

The image below is from the jpegs as captured by my camera and displayed in Windows 7 photo previewer. I enlarged the photos on screen side by side, pretty much the same to maximize the selected focus point (center). I copied what I saw on my 1080p monitor using a screen capture tool, and finally reduced the screen capture to 1024 X 518 pixels for upload.
Yeah, I know. Even that level of manipulation skews what you see, so I hope you will take my word on this.

The manual pre-focused shot is just a bit closer to the accuracy I wanted - my dog's eyes. But I'll be honest, neither is dead-on at higher magnification, and the difference between the two is slight. I'll need to try again some day using a wider aperture, and hopefully a more consistent speed. Maybe Norm lives closer to a Greyhound racing track than I do?

[Arpe]

After,all these threads, some guys will always post some pictures and say, you can get it done with Pentax, which, the picture prove, and some others say, you can get it done better with Canon or Nikon, but, the guys who say Canon or Nikon is better, never have the side by side images to show you what they are talking about. They say, "they get more keepers, but they can't say how many more, they say "it feels faster", but they can't say how much faster. I'm a show me kind of guy. I've been listening to this kind of stuff for years, and no one has ever done a side by side comparison to back up what they "feel" is true.

Pretty hard to take two photos at once with different cameras while shooting a sport to compare!

The only experiment done is a test setting comparing focussing in different systems, suggested Pentax's lock focus more accurately, better than any other system tested. So as much as I trust the guys who jump up and down about the vast improvement int the Nikon and Canon auto-focus systems, I've seen nothing that couldn't have been influenced by the "placebo" effect. After years on the forum, I still can't decide what we are dealing with. There is no information that would tell me if and when it would ever mean anything to me. The wife did a great shot with a 10 year old Pentax F 70-210 telephoto zoom and froze a low flying military plane in flight the other day. So maybe someone can explain to me, how it would have been better if I was shooting Nikon or Canon. Honestly, you would not have gotten a better picture. You can practically see the smile on the pilots face.

I was the same as you, confused. I've ended up taking thousands of sports photos a year, I was using the K-7 and Sigma 70-200, and I was getting frustrated. I finally took the plunge and moved to Nikon. The difference was dramatic. Keeper rate with Pentax was about 50%, now more like 80-90%. I now delete photos I would have been happy to keep with the Pentax. I mainly shoot rugby. A player running straight at me with the Pentax (this is at fairly close range) I would have been happy to keep 2 out of the 7 burst. I now expect all of them to be in focus with the Nikon combo.

Now I don't do tests, other than field tests, and I don't just have a "feeling", I KNOW that the Nikon D300s is waaaay better than the K-7 (similalrly aged tech) for focus speed and tracking.

I'm seeing lots of "sideways" tracking shots on here, so the camera to subject distance isn't changing so much, and also lots of smaller aperture shots, f8 etc, so you have a large depth of field anyway (and I used to stop down a bit with my K-7 too). I always now shoot wide open with confidence that the focus will do the job.

I have seen this kind of comment so often, but it seems to be nothing more than a statement of what the poster believes, often based on what they have read. People have opinions, other people have opinions, people read those opinions , people read each others opinions and people think that they understand an issue. But unless there is a fact in there somewhere you need to take it worth a grain of salt.

I'd be happy if I could find one test with a mechanical rabbit at a race track being pulled at a set pace towards a bank of cameras 100 times, with at least 6 frames taken in burst mode from each camera, and a published set of results of the percentage of images in acceptable focus from each camera. With each camera on a sturdy tripod with a remote trigger.

But that's what I'd need to be able to make these kinds of statements. Needless to say, I'm a little skeptacle of those who make these statements. Not because I think they are lying or even wrong, but because I'm not sure how comparable my shooting style is to theirs. My results could be different even if they are correct in reporting their own observations.

A mechanical rabbit or whatever may be okay, but I belive you want something a bit more erratic, not so predictable. It would be great if someone could mnage a controlled erratic test!

[normhead]

Pretty hard to take two photos at once with different cameras while shooting a sport to compare!
A mechanical rabbit or whatever may be okay, but I belive you want something a bit more erratic, not so predictable. It would be great if someone could mnage a controlled erratic test!

You're starting to think like me... I'm not sure that's a good thing.

[Arpe]

You're starting to think like me... I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Depends who thought of it first!

[Miguel]

It would be great if someone could mnage a controlled erratic test!

My kids on bicycles were willing subjects for my learning the ins and outs of Canon 7D predictive focus. I had a chalk line designating the starting and stopping points and they just wigged and wagged between them. It was fun too.

I can copy and paste your summary almost verbatim about the differences when shooting sports between Pentax and another brand. The only difference for me was my adding the Canon 7D over three years ago. Since then I've shot tens of thousands of soccer, baseball, and BIF shots. The keeper rates over my prior Pentax setup were remarkable.

The differences in consistency (which matters when you do this regularly) and repeatability can be difficult to grok for some folks who have only shot one brand. I'm the first to say that the ergonomics of my Canon equipment is generally inferior to Pentax, as well as heavier and bulkier, but for sports and birds those requirements are secondary at best.

M

[normhead]

Any chance you could lend those kids to someone with a K-30 or K-5 II? I'm sure they'd be returned in good shape.

[jkomp316]

I shot this today with my *IST DS circa 2004. @6.1MP cropped in quite a bit will still make a fine 5x7. Lens was an M series 50mm at around F/4. Shot with the sun going down 1/1500sec.