I'm going to be flip here, If I wanted my camera to think for me I'd get
a Sony.
That's not to say that Pentax auto focus is not among the least
sophisticated, of all the manufactures, but, really part of the joy of
photography is learning your equipment and subject to the point that you
get the pictures you want.
About 20 years ago I spent a couple of hours at a baseball spring
training camp in Florida, on the 3rd base line, shooting batting
practice with an LX and a M* 300mm f4.0, by the end, I was able to get
photos of the ball just as it came off the bat still deformed by the
hit. I have the negatives somewhere, and should probably scan them.
It was a fun and interesting exercise, today I would bet someone with a
Sony A9 would just machine gun at 20 frames/sec., load all the raw files
into editing software and scan to find the images I taught myself to get
in a single frame, while relying on the camera to focus and set the
proper exposure. Now that doesn't sound like much fun or satisfaction
to me.
The amazing part, actually, is that I just walked in, set up, shot my
pictures, and no one even questioned me. Somehow I doubt that would
happen today.
On 3/15/2021 11:10 AM, Darren Addy wrote:
I have owned Pentax DSLRs since 2008 (K200D) and I know that many here have
been invested in digital Pentax even longer. The main appeal to me, at the
time, was:
* Extensive Weather/Dust Sealing
* Used standard AA rechargeable batteries
* Pentax did not change the flange to focal plane distance or mount
compatibility, so I could use any previous Pentax-compatible lenses,
including m42
* In-body Image Stabilization (meaning those older manual focus lenses now
"come with" IS)
I've since owned the K-x (first Sony Exmor sensor and a huge leap in
image/noise quality).
K-5, K-5ii, K-3, and current K-3ii.
The O-GPS1 followed by the integrated AstroTracer was a brilliant
innovation to leverage the sensor control inherent in the in-body image
stabilization system.
Autofocus has long been the weak link in the Pentax ecosystem, but also the
least important to me (as my attitude has been that photographers achieved
great things without it for a very long time).
I have not kept up on Pentax news (as far as what they are possibly hinting
at for the future) but there is one very significant development that has
my attention:
Adding a 2nd processor that is dedicated only to the autofocus. This allows
deep learning algorithms to be applied to the autofocus system, such as
Canon's amazing wildlife eye-detection AF. By all accounts, Sony introduced
the concept, but Canon has surpassed it with their recent EOS R5 and now R6
models.
If you are a bird photographer, this is an absolute gamechanger as you can
no longer blame your camera's AF for OOF shots. See:
https://www.techradar.com/news/24-hours-with-the-canon-eos-r5-a-wildlife-photographer-gives-his-verdict
YouTube has a lot of videos on the R6, as well. I don't have the money to
sink into changing systems, at this point. But I have never even considered
it until this development.
The use of AI/neural networks/deep learning is something that is going to
have applications everywhere. Our software developer at work is currently
training a system to recognize nail head in a board, which will help
automate wall panel sheathing on our modular framing tables & sheathing
bridges. It has also been used to train human-like chess bots by feeding
them games of play at different chess player ratings.
I have no idea if Ricoh/Pentax is working in this area, but if they are not
they are missing a Big Boat.
Respectfully,
Darren Addy
Kearney, Nebraska
--
Any idiot can shoot with a Canon, Nikon, or Sony, it takes a special kind of
idiot to use a Pentax.
--
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