Shooting a couple of volleyball games today with the K10D and a Pentax FA 50mm f/1.4, I missed a fair number of shots because, well, when I went to press the shutter button, nothing happened. Not "shutter lag" properly speaking. I am not sure what was wrong - that's part of the reason I'm posting. My guess is that the camera or lens simply wasn't focusing. I am sure that was the case sometimes (I could hear the lens struggling), but I don't know if that's the whole problem.
I found it fairly frustrating to miss shots this way. In between the first game and the second, I made some changes: switched from the Pentax FA 50mm f/1.4 lens to a Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 XR Di. I had earlier tried switching to a fresh battery - although the camera didn't indicate that the first battery I was using was running low. And I tried switching cards, too. I think that the Tamron lens allowed me to miss fewer shots than I was missing with the Pentax lens, although I'm not SURE about that and I can't honestly say that it makes much sense to me.
I am aware already that I can disconnect auto-focus from the shutter button, so I'm not looking for that suggestion. I don't want to do that. An out-of-focus shot isn't worth taking, and besides, focusing with the AF button doesn't work very well, since my nose and my thumb are competing for the same spot on the back of the camera.
I might mention here, while I'm at it, that I also have VERY mixed results with continuous shooting. Sometimes the camera will give me a response that seems close to three shots per second - snap snap snap very quick. Other times, not so much: more like snap (breathe) snap (breathe) snap.
While the gymnasium isn't nearly as brightly lit as I would like, it's certainly not dark. I often try a variety of settings but the average settings for acceptable exposures were approximately f/1.8, 1/200sec, ISO 1100 - somewhere in that vicinity. I was shooting mainly in TAv mode and letting the camera adjust the ISO for me. No flash, of course.
I'm wondering if anybody can help me understand what's going on here or suggest something I might try to improve my response times. I tried changing from spot focus to auto, from spot metering to center-weighted, even switched for a while from TAv to M (hyper-manual) mode. As I said above, I am inclined to suspect that the main culprit is the Pentax 50/1.4 lens. But is that possible?
Will
P.S. Sorry for the careless misspelling of the subject! Looks like I can't fix it after the fact....
Last edited by WMBP; 05-08-2007 at 10:16 AM.
Reason: fixed misspelling in thread title!