Recently we had a
thread from a newcomer who was concerned about Pentax's future, seemingly thinking that the brand was lacking in some basic functionality that the competition have. Among a list of features mentioned 'touchscreen' came up, something I have heard other brands having and for sure Pentax doesn't (yet). The announcement of the new GRIII which has a touchscreen is interesting and perhaps this feature will be ported across to other models in the future... who knows.
I think touchscreens in general were not really well received by this Pentax community as being something that we urgently wanted, however it is this OP's opinion that a touchscreen would be a welcome addition (if that technology does not replace tactile buttons, but is an
addition to the feature set).
It got me thinking, and I went to check something out on my K-1 (and then KP) and
I discovered something that I didn't know the cameras could do before, and I bet a few of you are also unaware of this little trick, so I thought I'd share my findings.
Where I would value touchscreen technology on a camera would be times I am doing portrait shooting
at very wide apertures (f1.4-1.8 etc), and what I am of course trying to nail correctly is that sharp pin focus on the eyes. By perhaps touching the persons face on the Live View screen, double tap to zoom in further or even perhaps pinch and zoom would I think be really helpful.
Currently (in LV mode) we have to press the 'ok' button which zooms into the middle of the screen, and we use the rear dial wheel to zoom in more and use the directional pad to change it's location (as not every portrait has a persons face centre in the middle). ZZzzz... takes too long...
Well... here apparently is the next best thing, which I can confirm works for the K-1 and KP at least. Here's what you can do;
1) Using Live View, select the Autofocus method to being 'Face Detection' (this is important as this won't work on any other AF mode).
2) Once you get presented with the YELLOW box/Face Detection, use the AF/Shutter button and get a lock on focus.
3) Now... once you have that YELLOW/Face Detection focus box you can press 'Ok' button (no need to be a long press either, just a quick press will do) and the Live View will
zoom in on that location, even if that face is away from the centre of the LV screen)!
4) Now that you are zoomed in, with Quick Shift lenses you can fine tune that focus and get the eyes exactly how you want, with lenses that don't support this I actually just move the camera a tad closer or further away from me to get what I perceive to being sharper focus on the eyes.
Basically, this Face Detection AF option seems to be
the only one whereby you can bypass the directional pad controls and instead it will zoom in on the face regardless where it is on the screen, it's a pretty streamlined way of getting a quick shot off with added fine tuning, not a bad compromise for lacking touchscreen
Who else knew the K-1/KP (and perhaps other models) could do this?
It seems that any other LV AF Mode cannot do this, the 'green focus confirmation box' will not zoom in like this, it will take you to the centre only. You can however using the AF directional pad method select where about you want to zoom (as I point out above), but that takes time... and it cannot recall that point between shut downs or mode skips. At least with Face Detection you can get an off centre quick zoom in feature between different modes and power downs/ups. Sweet!
Cheers,
Bruce