[fulcrumx29]

Hi All,

Now I really feel frustrated about my K-7. Maybe it is not the right time to get "the camera for life" now and stay with my D90. Here is the new K-7's problem for me:

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I just cannot get as sharp image from K-7 as those from D90. The only problem I have on D90 is the color not as good as Pentax, but I can change the tones in PP if shoot in RAW. Other pros or cons of both cameras just seems not so important to me. I just care most about the IQ and color.

Maybe I should hold D90 and wait Pentax fix all the K-7 problems and then buy a stabler version (K-8 or K-7 super?) Hard to decide yet I have two weeks more time to choose ...

Thanks for your helps these days,
Tony

[kittykat46]

Hi All,

Now I really feel frustrated about my K-7. Maybe it is not the right time to get "the camera for life" now and stay with my D90. Here is the new K-7's problem for me:

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I just cannot get as sharp image from K-7 as those from D90. The only problem I have on D90 is the color not as good as Pentax, but I can change the tones in PP if shoot in RAW. Other pros or cons of both cameras just seems not so important to me. I just care most about the IQ and color.

Maybe I should hold D90 and wait Pentax fix all the K-7 problems and then buy a stabler version (K-8 or K-7 super?) Hard to decide yet I have two weeks more time to choose ...

Thanks for your helps these days,
Tony

Can't help you much with the lenses....some sort of combination of body/lens issue ? I've been very happy with my FA50 on the K-7.

Have you tried shooting RAW on the K-7 ? Just convert it in your PC without PP - I've been amazed at the quality of the K-7's images, coming from a K100D.

I'm still not happy with the K-7's in-camera JPG output.
Since I know just how good the RAW is, the on-board JPG results certainly seem underperforming to me.
Setting "Natural" looks better, and also increased sharpness +3 at low ISO. I suppose I have to play around with the settings more.

[krypticide]

Did you do the AF adjustment for your lenses? It might help.

[nostatic]

Are you shooting the K7 raw and what are you using for pp? You can't compare in-camera jpg in K7 to D90 raw - compare apples to apples.

Do you have examples of each?

[cwood]

Hi All,

Now I really feel frustrated about my K-7. Maybe it is not the right time to get "the camera for life" now and stay with my D90. Here is the new K-7's problem for me:

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I just cannot get as sharp image from K-7 as those from D90. The only problem I have on D90 is the color not as good as Pentax, but I can change the tones in PP if shoot in RAW. Other pros or cons of both cameras just seems not so important to me. I just care most about the IQ and color.

Maybe I should hold D90 and wait Pentax fix all the K-7 problems and then buy a stabler version (K-8 or K-7 super?) Hard to decide yet I have two weeks more time to choose ...

Thanks for your helps these days,
Tony

Got pictures?

[GLXLR]

Hi All,

Now I really feel frustrated about my K-7. Maybe it is not the right time to get "the camera for life" now and stay with my D90. Here is the new K-7's problem for me:

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I just cannot get as sharp image from K-7 as those from D90. The only problem I have on D90 is the color not as good as Pentax, but I can change the tones in PP if shoot in RAW. Other pros or cons of both cameras just seems not so important to me. I just care most about the IQ and color.

Maybe I should hold D90 and wait Pentax fix all the K-7 problems and then buy a stabler version (K-8 or K-7 super?) Hard to decide yet I have two weeks more time to choose ...

Thanks for your helps these days,
Tony

1. AF adjustment on the K-7
2. Shoot RAW.

Problem solved. Hell, I didn't pay $400 on my GX-10 to shoot JPEG. I coulda bought any cheapo P+S for that job.

[fulcrumx29]

Thanks guys.

AF tuning is not good enough. Here are some samples: left are phase detective, and right are live view focus. All figures are with AF fine tune at -10 for individual lenses.

Picasa Web Albums - Jian - K-7 focus test

You can see the front focus is most obvious on FA 50 and weakest on DA 16-45 at 16. Could you pls check them for me to see if the problem is from lens, camera or me (am I too picky)?

I was comparing K-7 and D90 in jpgs. Haven't done much with K-7 raw. Will test it more. I really love K-7 colors. Might get another FA 50 from ebay to see if it also front focus with K-7. I have an FA 50 before and it really rocks on my ist DL. The new copy of FA 50 is made by Hoya and the package is simpler than the old one. I am wondering if the quality control get worse nowadays. So will try find older ones on ebay to compare this new one from Amazon.

Thanks,
Tony

[nostatic]

Are those handheld?

[fulcrumx29]

With a tripod, but not a very good tripod.

[jamesm007]

I have done this test many times with many lens. First the best chart to use is the Nikon focus test chart. I have used the test charts your using but for some reason the Nikon is always better... just IMO. Because of the size of the chart and the small fonts printed on it, it tends to exaggerate readings a bit.

The 50mm f1.4 does not look so good, but here is a perfect case to use the Nikon chart. Print it and try your test on it and see what the results are. Here is the link. Turn off AF fine tuning for the test at first. I believe this is user error, if its FF that much you should be able to show real world pics with it, say of a fence.

http://focustestchart.com/focus21.pdf

Try this test following the directions to the letter. If you have done so already. Then so far I say from the results you posted I see no major problems. The FF/BF results are not suppose to be perfect, as long as the focus line is inside the area of focus, your OK. Now post some real life pics showing the problems with IQ.

[rawr]

As others will no doubt suggest, perhaps you could ask your Pentax service centre to 'tune up' your K7 and the two lenses that are having problems as a package.

That's the only way you will solve the issue once and for all, due to the issues with lens and body tolerance variation that this article discusses:

LensRentals.com - "This lens is soft" and other myths

The same issue crops up with all autofocus systems and cameras quite often. I notice from lurking around the dpreview nikon forums the same thing crops up frequently, and it seems Nikon do tune up body and lens as a package under warranty if the customer has FF/BF issues. Maybe Pentax will do so too.

'Softness' as an issue is harder to talk about because it needs to be defined better. Some example soft JPGs would be useful to see in order to understand your issue better. It could be caused by many many things - poor focus, poor lens optics, camera movement, motion blur, JPG settings, etc etc.

[eva2000]

Hi All,

Now I really feel frustrated about my K-7. Maybe it is not the right time to get "the camera for life" now and stay with my D90. Here is the new K-7's problem for me:

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I just cannot get as sharp image from K-7 as those from D90. The only problem I have on D90 is the color not as good as Pentax, but I can change the tones in PP if shoot in RAW. Other pros or cons of both cameras just seems not so important to me. I just care most about the IQ and color.

Maybe I should hold D90 and wait Pentax fix all the K-7 problems and then buy a stabler version (K-8 or K-7 super?) Hard to decide yet I have two weeks more time to choose ...

Thanks for your helps these days,
Tony

have you tried manual focus tests with both FA50 1.4 ? are they spot on compared to AF ?

tried resetting all menu settings to factory default and doing the tests again maybe the micro AF adjustments are stuck or not working ?

Do the FA50 1.4 both work on another pentax body i.e. K20D ? Maybe go into a local store with both lens and test in store with another pentax body ?

edit: Just retested my FA50 1.4 on K-7 v1.01 firmware, I noticed with Horizon Correction enabled in menu, my FA 50 1.4 AF focus was a bit off depending on subject matter it front or back focused slightly, disable Horizon Correction disabled, AF was spot on.

[davebris33]

Pixel peeping is killing photography

[LeDave]

Pixel peeping is killing photography

If that's so, then a lot of things would be "killing" photography. Considering the huge difference of the things in digital photography today compared to photography in the past.

[Class A]

1. Got front focus issues with two lenses.
2. Soft jpg image with noisy dots if pixel peeping as experienced by others from dpr forum.

I guess you are doing alright but perhaps you want to check out these
Autofocus Adjustment Hints.

Also note that the more the megapixels the worse pixel peeping will be. A 100% crop from my K100D will look better than from your K-7 but guess which camera will produce the better overall image. Try not to zoom into insane magnifications (which you are doing when pixel peeping). I don't know anything particular about the Nikon D90 but Nikon has been known to use NR to yield smoother (but less detailed) images.