Alright, I've had to momentarily de-lurk again because I cannot stand
it when misinformation persists. It drove me crazy with "you can't
hand-hold a Pentax 67" and now it's this.
Jens, I e-mailed you off-list to correct some misapprehensions you had.
Instead of taking that information in, you've continued to post
outright lies, over and over again. Since you're not taking the hint
and are continuing to insist that what you say is true, I am compelled
to make this public.
1: AF is slow, compared to the competition. Focusing in low light will
require 2-4 secs (according to dpreview tests).
You may use MF, and save time experimenting with AF. Enjoy using old,
lovely, smooth MF lenses.
Low light shooting -- during skating? During baseball? At what event
are you discussing? The lighting is at these events is very high
contrast, an environment in which the Pentax AF excels. Yes, it is
very poor for shooting in a bar. Oh well. No one plays sports in a
bar. In addition, numerous people have described the proper way to
shoot sports to you. In the specific case of skating, you watch the
warm up, decide what you want to shoot from the routine, make your
notes (mental or otherwise), and pick your shooting position
accordingly.
2: Frames pr. second is just 2.5 (competition features 4-8.3 FPS). You
may
use single shot mode. Make sure to plan each shot carefully and try
not to
think too much about the athletes moving in a surprising way - you
know the
sports and can foresee everything that will occur.
This is condescending. Have you known any sports photographers who
shoot more than a couple of shots in a burst? They don't machine-gun
by mashing down the shutter button, they shoot and then shoot again and
shoot again, in rapid succession, PICKING each shot, not allowing luck
to determine whether or not they get the image. Shutter button
response is probably the most important factor here, and the Nikon guys
at the ballgames constantly complain about how much quicker their F3
was for actually getting the shot off.
3: Write speed is 8 secs for 1 RAW file (36-37 secs for a 5 shot RAW
burst,
14 secs for a JPEG burst). This gives you plenty of time for talking
to you
colleagues and for drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes.
I just fired with my DS2 -- I shot 5 raw files, filled the buffer and
then was able to shoot again after two seconds. TWO. Not
THIRTY-SEVEN. But, as everyone has pointed out, not only do sports
pros shoot jpegs (because when the hell will the process the raw files?
In the car? The paper needs them immediately!), they shoot 6MP or
lower jpegs because the images are going in the newspaper. Set to jpg,
the DS2 can fire off a burst of 9 and then shoot again after about one
second.
6: Availability of new, fast (F:1.4-2.8) lenses is very limited. Use
every
Monday, checking ebay for discontinued FA F.2.8 lenses. This is really
entertaining - much more enjoyable than the actal photographing.
I explained to you in no uncertain terms that the lens Pentax is
missing that kills them for modern, night-game, digital baseball is a
400mm f2.8 with AF.
7: Only 6MP leaves very little "space" for after-cropping. Enjoy the
art of
cropping the images while shooting.
Again, you are not speaking about sports pros.
8: Reviewing pix is relatively slow - and must await the rather long
writing
times. It's more fun taking chances. It's more exiting to check the
images
at home, later on.
Uh, have you ever seen a pro checking the little LCD during an event?
It's always in the lulls between plays/innings/skaters. They have
instant review turned off to save battery power.
9: No immediate histogram available. Enjoy your ability to judge the
exposure in advance, using the +/- settings.
I turned on the instant histogram in my DS2 in custom settings. Then I
turned it off in favor of the blinking "blown out highlights" warning,
which made more sense when photographing teams wearing white.
10:No flashing overexposure warning available for fast checking
exposure.
(Same comment as above).
Oh, uh, right.
You know why Nikon sucks for sports? Because the F3 is manual focus
and only uses film! Modern pros demand digital!
I will commence re-lurking now.
-Aaron
