Yours regards, Alan Chan http://www.pbase.com/wlachan
I don't want to direct this at anyone personally, and I don't want to cast any stones, but I am getting increasingly surprised by the constant issues with AF that people seem to have. So much so, that I decided to sit down and think about the issues.
Fair enough, if a camera has a worse accuracy than we know is achievable then this should be corrected, and people are right to say that Pentax should have done better.
However, I REALLY don't understand the people who complain about the fact that AF is so much less accurate and/or reliable than manual focus.
Now I accept that I may be looking at this from a biased point of view because I never could focus s**t manually and most of my shots going in the bin were due to incorrect focus, bad flash exposure and bad composition - in that order. And this was in the days when there were focus aids in the VF, and despite my trying to focus correctly.
OK, so there are some innacuracies in AF, and it sometimes makes a mistake. This is miniscule compared to my personal efforts to handle this manually.
The thing that none of the detractors/complainers seem to realise is that they are looking through the finder when the camera does the AF. If the camera doesn't focus correctly then this is just as visible to you as it would be if you were focussing manually. So if it gets it wrong, release the shutter and have it try again, or do it manually. Maybe 'decisive moment' type stuff could be missed due to the delay, but most of the complaints so far seem to deal with fairly static objects.
Maybe everyone should repeat 10 times that the focus confirmation beep is not the final stage - your eyes give YOU the last word. Don't complain after the event that all your shots were no good because you used AF - look through the finder while you are taking them. Press the button half way down and don't take the shot until you are happy all is well. If your eyes are good enough to focus yourself then why are you taking shots which you should be able to see are not in focus?
</RANT MODE OFF> (sorry in advance if this upsets anyone - nothing personal intended, just needed to get it off my chest)
In final analysis, I think I may have been subject to more innacuracies on the *istD than the MZ-S but then most of my shots are of the children who never stand still so I often have to pass on a shot which doesn't focus in time anyway. I am probably passing on a few more shots now, which *may* be due to focus innacuracies, slower focus, or it might just be down to less co-operative children these days...!
Rob
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