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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 11:18 PM
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Glad that you understood because he is a native english speaker and he explained better than I would have explained. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 03:31 PM
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It's not. Keep in mind that there are kit lenses like 70-300mm that have f6.3 at 300mm and you have af on all af points no matter how much you close the aperture. The situation changes when you add a TC. The manufacturer will tell you in the user manual if your camera will have af at f8 if a 2x TC for example is added to a 300mm f4 lens and if it does, it will also specify with how many af points you can use the af.
But, even if in the user manual it is written that you will loose af at f8 if you add a TC, in very bright situations I had af (not very reliable) even with a D5300 with a 200-500mm f5.6 and a 1.4x TC. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 02:42 PM
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Only if you combine a lens with a TC and that combination will give you f8 at the widest aperture (300mm f4 with a 2x TC for example). In a situation like that the af may suffer depending on camera. It's a completely different thing shooting with a 300mm f4 lens at f8 and shooting with a 300mm f4 lens with a 2x TC at f8.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 02:06 PM
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Take some safe shots with your kids so that you can have some images of them and then challenge yourself by trying panning shots, by shooting wide open, different angles, etc. Soccer is for a photographer 50% anticipation and 50% finding good/different angles. My father was a soccer coach and I played soccer quite a few years. It's a challenging sport for a photographer but with practice you can get very good images.
Please don't get me wrong here. I understand that you may miss a lot of shots by doing what I told you, but if you get a few safe shots by shooting at f7-f9 and on top of that you will get even a single very good image out of 400 out of focus images, you will be happier with that different image than you will be with 400 images in focus in which you will also get the background almost as sharp as the subjects. And that one image will push you next time to try and get more similar images. :)
If you want safe shots (the ones that looks like they are taken with smartphones because everything is in focus), then a micro 4/3 camera will give you at f7 a DOF equivalent of f14 on a full frame and you will have everything in focus. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 10:08 AM
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Yes, but what about background or ISO or learning to deal with dificult situations? If I want a background as sharp as the subject, I shoot with my phone. :) If I want to isolate a subject like the dog from the above image, I rather try and practice as much as I can to nail focus at f4, not at f7 or f9. :) The idea is to challenge yourself as much as you can in order to gain experience and get the shots in difficult situations. You will not improve your tehnique by shooting at f7-f9. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 08:22 AM
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What do you mean by this? :) Why is normal to shoot at f7 instead of f4 or f4.5? If you think that an f4 lens is not sharp enough at f4 at the longest focal range, try f5.6 instead of shooting at f7.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2019, 01:59 AM
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I have EOS R in testing and what I can say is:
1. af-s is fast, af-c is ok but with 2fps when tracking is activated... :D
2. the grip and the general ergonomics are far better than any Sony, Fuji or Olympus cameras I've put my hands on
3. the touch bar is useless and I wish I had a joystick instead
4. image quality is similar to 5D Mark IV
What I like is that is small enough to be discrete. Here is EOS R next to my 5D Mark IV, both with 35mm lenses on.
Now, back to af-c and tracking. :) The advantages that makes me shoot faster with Canon in difficult situations are:
1. the possibility to change from AF-S to AF-C with a single press of a button, without taking my thumb from the shutter button. In figure 1 from the image posted below is the button that I configured just for that (when I press that button I go from AF-S to AF-C and if I press again I go back from AF-C to AF-S); that button is very important for me when I shoot action
2. the joystick makes changing the af points easier than with wheel buttons (figure 2)
3. AF-C cases - there are 6 cases just for AF-C and each case has 3 different settings that I can tweak in order to get the best performance in different shooting scenarious (figure 3)
4. the af points (figure 4) - let's say that:
- I have selected the top right af point and I want to select very fast the top left af point; I don't have to press the joystick to the left until I reach the top left af point. I can go to right and it will jump to the top left af point
- I can have one af point selected when I'm shooting vertical and in the same time I can have a different af point (or group of af points) selected for shooting horizontal
- I have the option to select in poor lighting situations only the 45 af points that are f2.8 sensitive
5. Af area selection (figure 5) - when I shoot action, I don't have active all 7 af areas (spot, single point, zone, etc.). I activate from the menu only the 2 af areas that I need so that if I want to go from spot to large area af I don't have to press 6 times the joystick. I use single point af and zone af if the subject is small and the background is not busy. So, when I shoot the bird on a branch, I shoot in single af point. If the bird is in flight, with one press of a joystick I go from single point to zone af.
People often think that only af is important when shooting action. But there is much more and a camera helps if it offers to the photographer options that makes shooting faster. And we have to include the lenses also for best results. K1 or K3 are not cameras dedicated to action. This doesn't mean that you can't take action with them. You just have to learn the camera and adapt your shooting style, that's all. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-12-2019, 10:50 AM
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The important thing is to know what you are doing, what you want to achieve and how good you know your gear. Fast subjects can be photographed also at low shutter speeds, like 1/50s for example. :)
Or, you can photograph birds in flight with a 35mm lens. :)
Or, you can use AF-S when you have to deal with subjects that are lazy and don't move too much. :)
There is no recipe that will work for everybody, no settings that will be good for every situation and no camera will give you best results as long as you don't know the behaviour of the bird you're going to photograph or if you know nothing about the sport that you are going to photograph or if you don't try to anticipate the subject intentions/moves. :) When comes to autofocus, what I see on internet is that everybody seems to be some kind of International awarded sport/action photographer and the demands in terms of af are as high as possible, even when comes to cameras that have nothing to do with sports cameras. :D
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