Photos taken by a Pentax camera for tech. discussion - Season 0

[ricsal]

Hmm been seeing this topic on Manual focus discuss on Marco, prompt me to think how to do more with manual lens and manual focusing.

Just a few questions, normally when you all manual focus, do you all wait for the Auto focus confirmation to come out then you take the shot? Or by seeing through the viewfinder, you find it to be focus and you just snap it without the AF confirmation?

I try with the "catch-in-focus" , and had a hard time when i fully pressed and turning to focus and had to wait for the AF confirmation is up then it would snap even though i felt it is focus. (Shooting at low lighting taking photo of a baby, miss quite a few nice moment when it wont let me snap )
I try to snap without "catch-in-focus" and i prefer this option ;p

And also, with manual lens, erm.. can you recompose your shoots? Like focus on the person (With AF confirmation), shift and recompose and shoot? Would the focus be on the person?

Remember Fengwei said during the Photoskill workshop, manual focusing makes you think your set up before you take your shot. Anyone have any tips or rule of thumbs or shortcuts, like which setting (Aperture, Shtterspeed, iso) is best during a shoot? Landscape, portraits or maybe shooting during low lights?

Sorry to ask so many questions, :sweat: still new to it and still learning.

How come u can do Catch In focus with Manual Lens when I cant do it on mine...I even set the custom thing to Enable Catch-in-Focus. Still the same.

 

[otc]

I am sure some of us in CS are not the "nobody" as stated.
As a matter of fact, is there the possibility of members contributing a yearly token sum towards the running cost of CS?

Pentaxforums has the donation thing where you have to donate at least US$10 to sell things on the Marketplace, so that could be something that can be considered here. :dunno:

Pentaxforums do solicit for voluntary contribution from members to cover the cost of servers.

Designation to those who contributed, are site supporters, Loyal members, die hard pentaxian:bsmilie: so forth....

Admin could consider this voluntary contribution from members here to defray the cost.

otc

 

[ranchy]

How come u can do Catch In focus with Manual Lens when I cant do it on mine...I even set the custom thing to Enable Catch-in-Focus. Still the same.

Yeah, you must enable Catch in Focus to be able to use it. May i know how you try to take when you are using with Catch in Focus? Did you fully Pressed your shutter? Once, fully pressed, your IS should be activated (if you set it on) , then you focus manually until the the focus is lock on, it would snap the picture by itself. This is how i used it? Hmm.. i only try with the A50 f1.7. Think i go try out the full manual lens, see whether it would work ornot ;p

 

[ricsal]

Yeah, you must enable Catch in Focus to be able to use it. May i know how you try to take when you are using with Catch in Focus? Did you fully Pressed your shutter? Once, fully pressed, your IS should be activated (if you set it on) , then you focus manually until the the focus is lock on, it would snap the picture by itself. This is how i used it? Hmm.. i only try with the A50 f1.7. Think i go try out the full manual lens, see whether it would work ornot ;p

i did that. i'm using full manual also...sigh.

 

[Recoil3d]

i did that. i'm using full manual also...sigh.

I only got catch in focus to work with my m42 lenses twice:sweat: Its only works when the contacts on the camera mounts are "shorted" or connected. This normally happens when the lens is mounted on the camera but for old lenses there may not be such contacts and you may have to scratch off the paint at the area where the contact are supposed to be or you could place a piece of alminium foil ...

 

[ranchy]

I only got catch in focus to work with my m42 lenses twice:sweat: Its only works when the contacts on the camera mounts are "shorted" or connected. This normally happens when the lens is mounted on the camera but for old lenses there may not be such contacts and you may have to scratch off the paint at the area where the contact are supposed to be or you could place a piece of alminium foil ...

Ah I see. I have not try with an m42 lens, did try out with a M lens, catch in focus works, only I felt very slow for it to catch in focus, maybe due to low light bah

 

[darrrrrrrrrr]

don't bother with catch in focus lah, the problem is that the AF point thing isn't very sensitive and can kick in and stay on within a range of distances. so if you come in from infinity and you come in from close distances, the catch in focus will trigger at different points. just burst shoot your way through as you turn the focus ring, confirm something will be in focus hehe.

 

[ranchy]

don't bother with catch in focus lah, the problem is that the AF point thing isn't very sensitive and can kick in and stay on within a range of distances. so if you come in from infinity and you come in from close distances, the catch in focus will trigger at different points. just burst shoot your way through as you turn the focus ring, confirm something will be in focus hehe.

Wah.. like gambling like that lol. Sure got one strike. ;p . So you don't wait for AF confirmation when u manual focus (not using catch in focus)? Using ur eyes, once you felt focus, you take the shot?

Oh yah, does manual focus work like, AF confirmation on subject. Then shift and shoot works? Would the subject be in focus? Sorry for the noob question. :embrass:

 

[darrrrrrrrrr]

Wah.. like gambling like that lol. Sure got one strike. ;p . So you don't wait for AF confirmation when u manual focus (not using catch in focus)? Using ur eyes, once you felt focus, you take the shot?

Oh yah, does manual focus work like, AF confirmation on subject. Then shift and shoot works? Would the subject be in focus? Sorry for the noob question. :embrass:

Instead of wasting your time waiting and waiting for the AF thing to beep, might as well just shoot while you're trying to get the focus! If it's so dark that both you and the camera are struggling to get the correct focus, then desperate times call for desperate measures.

Focus-recompose works with MF as well, but of course you need to pay attention to how much DOF you have. If you're shooting with big apertures you might lose the perfect focus on the subject. Other than that, everything should work the same way.

The best thing you can do if you're serious about using old lenses is to get a split-circle focusing screen. The stock screens are designed for maximum viewfinder brightness with slower consumer AF lenses, not precision manual focus with old lenses faster than f/2.8.

The Nikon K3 screen from focusingscreen.com is highly recommended around here, Katzeye screens are even better but much pricier. If you're really short on cash you could try those sold on eBay. Better than nothing!

 

[Gengh]

Instead of wasting your time waiting and waiting for the AF thing to beep, might as well just shoot while you're trying to get the focus! If it's so dark that both you and the camera are struggling to get the correct focus, then desperate times call for desperate measures.

Never thought of doing it this way before, you're talking about shooting macro right? I like your flower shots, so this must work well... :bsmilie: Any guideline on what kind of shutter speed you stick to to keep motion blur from all the twisting of the focusing ring from showing up? Or is it the motion blur from rocking to and fro?

 

[ranchy]

Instead of wasting your time waiting and waiting for the AF thing to beep, might as well just shoot while you're trying to get the focus! If it's so dark that both you and the camera are struggling to get the correct focus, then desperate times call for desperate measures.

Focus-recompose works with MF as well, but of course you need to pay attention to how much DOF you have. If you're shooting with big apertures you might lose the perfect focus on the subject. Other than that, everything should work the same way.

The best thing you can do if you're serious about using old lenses is to get a split-circle focusing screen. The stock screens are designed for maximum viewfinder brightness with slower consumer AF lenses, not precision manual focus with old lenses faster than f/2.8.

The Nikon K3 screen from focusingscreen.com is highly recommended around here, Katzeye screens are even better but much pricier. If you're really short on cash you could try those sold on eBay. Better than nothing!

K k Thanks for your advice. :thumbsup:
I would save up for the K3 Screen from focusingscreen.com.
Hmm.. To buy with Grid or without Grid, difference in cost. ;p

Actually Focusing with the K-7 is alright for now. I will ,ake the final decision if i am my manual lens collection start going to get more ornot first. Must resist those LBA virus first.

 

[wongcho]

i did that. i'm using full manual also...sigh.

Besides the custom setting, on the physical camera switch at the side of the camera - try to switch to Auto Focus and see if it works. It worked for me on the K-x with the manual lens. P.S. I thought since this is Manual lens it should be set to Manual Focus(unfortunately
didn't work).

One thing about the catch in focus with Kx is - you may get a "shock" when the mirror
starts snapping - it is quite loud so you have to get used to it (could be my system only).
Also there is difference between coming from the near end and far end as mentioned by
another bro.

 

[darrrrrrrrrr]

Never thought of doing it this way before, you're talking about shooting macro right? I like your flower shots, so this must work well... :bsmilie: Any guideline on what kind of shutter speed you stick to to keep motion blur from all the twisting of the focusing ring from showing up? Or is it the motion blur from rocking to and fro?

Both for macro and when I shoot with my 50mm manual lenses. For macro with the Tamron 90mm, because it's an AF lens, I can use any of the 11 AF points for the focus beep in MF mode, unlike with older lenses where you can only use the center point. Since it's in broad daylight the focus beep thing works quite well, so I use that in conjunction with "eye power" to gauge my focus. With practice, you can tell when the object snaps into focus. Since I shoot with wide apertures (around f/4) the shutter speed doesn't really matter since it's always quite high that I haven't noticed it to be a problem. Of course if it's windy then I'll just squeeze off a whole burst and hope one is in focus :bsmilie:

 

[Gengh]

Both for macro and when I shoot with my 50mm manual lenses. For macro with the Tamron 90mm, because it's an AF lens, I can use any of the 11 AF points for the focus beep in MF mode, unlike with older lenses where you can only use the center point. Since it's in broad daylight the focus beep thing works quite well, so I use that in conjunction with "eye power" to gauge my focus. With practice, you can tell when the object snaps into focus. Since I shoot with wide apertures (around f/4) the shutter speed doesn't really matter since it's always quite high that I haven't noticed it to be a problem. Of course if it's windy then I'll just squeeze off a whole burst and hope one is in focus :bsmilie:

Ah yes, I tend to shoot my macros with f8 or smaller, and occasionally f5.6, so the shutter speed sometimes get low enough that handshake blur starts to set in. I'll try this burst method and see if it works out for me.

 

[Nanoo]

Hi fellow Pentaxians.
Recently i got interested in shooting the moon but found that my DA 50-200mm only gave me a small moon. (unless i crop the pic..but resolution suffers).
Here's my question - Should i invest in a 400mm lens or a mirror lens from say Tamron?
What are the pros and cons between these two? Any sample pictures to demostrate the power of magnification?
Thanks...
Here's my 200mm moon.:embrass:

 

[ricsal]

get a samyang 500mm mirror lens. hahaha

 

[ricsal]

Hi fellow Pentaxians.
Recently i got interested in shooting the moon but found that my DA 50-200mm only gave me a small moon. (unless i crop the pic..but resolution suffers).
Here's my question - Should i invest in a 400mm lens or a mirror lens from say Tamron?
What are the pros and cons between these two? Any sample pictures to demostrate the power of magnification?
Thanks...
Here's my 200mm moon.:embrass:

Actually, moon has diff distance to Earth. Why not wait for the ones that is nearer? Should be alright with the 200mm.

 

[Nanoo]

get a samyang 500mm mirror lens. hahaha

Thanks Ricsal..
Ya, maybe i shld wait till it's lunar 15th where the moon is big and bright...AHHOOOO....
May i know what is the damage?

 

[ricsal]

Thanks Ricsal..
Ya, maybe i shld wait till it's lunar 15th where the moon is big and bright...AHHOOOO....
May i know what is the damage?

Well, in mass sale someone selling it ard SGD400+ excluding shipping.

While I know someone got it cheaper in Ebay w/ shipping, Waiting for him to infect me. :bsmilie:

 

[Nanoo]

Nice...:thumbsup:
Woah..tomorrow is lunar 15th already...i'll try again...
After you're infected...please, infect me too...
Together, when full moon, we change into the samyang wolfie.. :bsmilie:
Thanks again bro...