Originally posted by normhead SO I have to ask, what percentage of your shooting is AF.c? It may be one "small aspect" but that's where I shoot 99.9% of my photos. I'd also point out, on most other systems you double your subject acquisition time using multi focus points. So there's the trade off. If speed in subject acquisition is necessary, you cripple yourself using any multi-point function.
There are one or two systems where multi focus points aquisition is not as bad. SO even for AF.c tracking, there are reasons for not using it. It's fine to say Pentax only excels in one are, as long as you also point out, it's the one most of us use most of the time and also the fastest of the options. SO AF.s has the fastest most accurate times if speed of acquisition is important. As I have pointed out countless times, it gets really annoying people going on on on about how slow Pentax AF.c is, for a feature I hardly ever use, when it's faster for the feature I use.
Whenever I point out these stats, I get this mambly pambly waffling nonsense about "it's only faster in some circumstances." Well, the other better AF.c cameras are only better in some circumstances.
Why is it you point that out with Pentax, and everyone else gets a free pass?
People who have read too many DPR reviews seem to adopt their internal biases.
For many of us AF.c tracking is a completely unnecessary option wed' be happy to buy a camera without. Why it's given such a high value in evaluating a camera's AF is a mystery to us. IN these hugely biased evaluations, based on assumed but badly skewed usage expectations, Pentax speed of acquisition and accuracy are ignored in favour of performance in niche shooting techniques.
Everybody seems to want to buy the camera based on the fact they are hot shot action photographers. It's probably one of the most oversold gimmicks in any industry. Despite the availability of such cameras, it's rare I see really good action images.
I shoot about 20% in AF-C, if it were more, I would switch brands, the other 80% are more important though, so I stay with Pentax.
In my experience accuracy is not better at Pentax by the way, not worse either. In AF-S for stills every camera from the last ten years is sufficient imho.
Another point is, that there are very few lenses available where Pentax af is fast, the standard action shoot lenses, 70-200 and 50-135 are not on that list. The 70-200 by Pentax for example has about half the speed the Nikon F mount does.
Multipoint tracking at the Sony A9 II in my experience was that good that it was point and shoot. This is why it is used. When I do sport photography getting the subject in focus is one of the things I need to concentrate on, with the Sony it just is there, and this is a major gain for some.
If af speed would have been my priority, I would have stayed with the Nikon D200 and not switch to the k10d. Most of the time I am happy with that decission as af speed is not my priority, I use my FA77 in mf most of the time, because the keeper rate is at least as good as the af, if not higher, because I really hit the eye instead of gambling with a too big focus point.
The annoying part is only when we read a user experience here, where the op found his new camera to have better af, or the "I love every thing about my new Pentax but the Af" thread some members in this forum jump at those people and claim that the op talk bullshit.
It is for most people not the most important thing in the world, but just accept some want tracking and af-c, that actually work well.