Focus Peaking now available for Pentax Q.

brandrx · Oct 24, 2012

I installed Version 1.10 into my Pentax Q and now I have focus peaking available.

I have a K to Q adapter that I bought from ebay and now I can enter SR focal length. You enter the actual focal length of the lens and the Q will calculate the equivilent for you.

So far so good.

Cheers.

Ron

Greyser · Oct 24, 2012

Ron, have you tried any long shots with Q yet? Good 200-300mm would be perfect for it at 5.5 crop factor.

BTW: if it reads lens FL now, how good SR is?

Mike Hiran · Oct 24, 2012

brandrx said:
brandrx wrote:

I installed Version 1.10 into my Pentax Q and now I have focus peaking available.

I have a K to Q adapter that I bought from ebay and now I can enter SR focal length. You enter the actual focal length of the lens and the Q will calculate the equivilent for you.

So far so good.

Cheers.

Ron

miles green · Oct 24, 2012

Cool!

That little thing is more & more tempting!

Soooo, what's your take: Q or Q10? (magnesium cover or updated sensor)?

Gerry Winterbourne · Oct 25, 2012

miles green said:
miles green wrote:

That little thing is more & more tempting!

Soooo, what's your take: Q or Q10? (magnesium cover or updated sensor)?

The IQ of the original Q is good - very good for what it is - but there's no doubt that something better is attractive. So far we don't know how much better the new sensor is, but if it's anything more than notional I'd say pick it. An alloy body is nice but the weight difference is only 20g in favour of the Q so I don't think it's a big deal.

brandrx · Oct 25, 2012

Greyser said:
Greyser wrote:

Ron, have you tried any long shots with Q yet? Good 200-300mm would be perfect for it at 5.5 crop factor.

BTW: if it reads lens FL now, how good SR is?

Hi Greyser,

Prior to this firmware update, I've tried the Nikon 400/2.8, Canon 400mm/4.5, Canon 200mm f4 Micro, Pentax DA*60-250/4, and Pentax DA*300/4 lenses, all on my heavy tripod and Wimberly Gimbal. These were all just test shots and I have done no further testing to date. I am still trying to figure out the best way to shade the sun from the LCD so I can see to focus. When I can see to focus it is pretty easy to do. You have the option of three different settings for MF assist. Off, 2X, or 4X magnification. Press the OK button to get the extra magnification. So, if you select 4X that would be 8800mm for focusing when using a 400mm lens (400mm times 5.5 times 4 equals 8800). An example is this: I shot at a Eurasion Collard Dove on the top of a telephone pole from about 300 feet using a 400mm lens. The dove filled the frame enough that it would not require any cropping.

Search through the threads in this forum. There are a few images made using long lenses by some of the folks. Especially look for those made by forum member snostorm (Scott). he is the one that started all of the interest in shooting extra long. You need a red dot sight in order to be able to more easily find the target in the first place (400mm times 5.5 equals 2200mm). You can search for "red dot sight".

I havn't done any testing since I updated my firmware to Ver 1.10 yet, so I cannot comment on SR yet other than to say it works. I took a handheld wide open shot in the house with the DA*55/1.4 (302mm equivilent) at 1/20s and it was fairly sharp.

I will be doing some more testing in the future with my Q plus long lenses.

Cheers.

Ron

brandrx · Oct 25, 2012

Greyser,

Here is a thread I did six months ago about 4488mm - Just to see if I could do it. Sorry that the images are no longer on line. However, you can read what was said by me and others.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/41308689

Ron

GeoffNS · Oct 25, 2012

That's great news. Thanks for posting Ron. Regards, Geoff.

DDoram · Oct 25, 2012

I have installed but haven't had a chance to test yet.

Dale

pebar_Walsall · Oct 25, 2012

Just updated. Very happy with focus peaking, and to my eyes, the IQ at ISO 3200 seems to have improved, and I'm not sure but AF seems faster and more positive.

BUT...

All my settings are reset to factory defaults. I've gone through and set everything back to how I wanted it (as far as I can remember)

AND... the big one...

The option to shoot RAW or RAW+ seems to have disappeared.

Please tell me I'm missing something simple.

pebar_Walsall · Oct 25, 2012

Forget that!

I'd caught the custom dial and jogged it on to position 1.

Everything's fine and I'm very happy so far.

brandrx · Oct 25, 2012

pebar_Walsall said:
pebar_Walsall wrote:

Just updated. Very happy with focus peaking, and to my eyes, the IQ at ISO 3200 seems to have improved, and I'm not sure but AF seems faster and more positive.

BUT...

All my settings are reset to factory defaults. I've gone through and set everything back to how I wanted it (as far as I can remember)

AND... the big one...

The option to shoot RAW or RAW+ seems to have disappeared.

Please tell me I'm missing something simple.

Menu Camera settings Tab #1, Image Capture Settings, File Format. Then select your choice of JPG, Raw, or RA+.

Ron

pebar_Walsall · Oct 25, 2012

Thanks Ron

I know where the setting is (I find it's quicker to use the Info button and the scroll wheel than going through the menu.)

It was just that RAW was greyed out -- I'd accidentally caught the custom wheel with my finger.

All's well now.

Cheers

Pete

sillyconguru · Oct 25, 2012

pebar_Walsall said:
pebar_Walsall wrote:

All my settings are reset to factory defaults. I've gone through and set everything back to how I wanted it (as far as I can remember)

Same here, it was a bit of a pain resetting it to my liking (and I've probably forgotten something).

jgoring · Oct 25, 2012

Kudos to Pentax for adding the focus peaking in a firmware update. Thats a pretty significant feature, and a selling point on many other Mirrorless cameras. To provide a backwards compatible improvement like that is rare. Installed 1.10 on my Q. Yet to see how the peaking and SR work with a C-mount adapter. Anyone give that a try yet? Focusing with a 48mm c-mount lens (equivalent to about 250mm+) was hit and miss. I hope this locks it in. Would be nice also to have audible or 'green frame' confirmation of manual focus. My old *stDS has this, so its certainly do-able.

waxwaine · Oct 25, 2012

Thankx for the good news.

Could sound a little freaking fanboy, but Pentax please, marry me!

WanderingMonki · Oct 25, 2012

Been testing it out with my MS Optical Sonnetar 25mm f/1.1, made the mistake at first by inputing the FOV and not the lens length and every time I snapped an image I got massive rolling shutter effects. Switched it to 25mm and man is it a dream to use, I swear by focus peaking and even though the focus peaking is no where near as strong as the K-01 (due to the DoF I'm guessing because when I drop that aperture on my wide angle on my K-01 focus peaking gets a little hard to see, but fixed by zooming in to focus) I'm sniping things with my sonnetar. One thing I did notice is with my sonnetar is the rolling shutter effect I had before SR was implemented, and still if I use SR only at the moment of capture I still get the rolling shutter effect unless the camera is perfectly still, but if you enable SR to be on at all times it makes a huge difference, I can walk and shoot like I like to and get perfectly sharp images, really does step the Q's game up massively, despite the weird noise SR makes while it's always on, sounds like a little robot in my camera moving the sensor around. This is areally good sign from Pentax Ricoh, updating old cameras (while the Q really isn't old since it's been out for a year) while a new one comes out and shows lots of respect to those of us who early adopted, Ricoh got like a +10 in my book for this...

remnant4 · Oct 25, 2012

Using the "Toy" lenses has been hit or miss for me, even when magnifying the image. Now with the focus peaking, it's a snap! Kudos to Pentax (also for improving the K-01's focusing with their latest firmware update)!!! Guess they've been listening to their customers!

WanderingMonki · Oct 25, 2012

remnant4 said:
remnant4 wrote:

Using the "Toy" lenses has been hit or miss for me, even when magnifying the image. Now with the focus peaking, it's a snap! Kudos to Pentax (also for improving the K-01's focusing with their latest firmware update)!!! Guess they've been listening to their customers!

same here, I felt the toy lenses did not manual focus great at all, I need to pull out my wide angle and see how it works now been hooked on my sonnetar all over again because of this focus peaking, I just tried my 01 in super low light sitting at my desk and I feel low light focusing has increased significantly...

snostorm · Oct 25, 2012

WanderingMonki said:
WanderingMonki wrote:

I just tried my 01 in super low light sitting at my desk and I feel low light focusing has increased significantly...

Hi WM,

I noticed the same thing -- but put it off to "firmware update delusion" since I really hadn't specifically compared before and after for focus speed or accuracy. Another user in the other forum has also commented about this, and although other confirmations aren't proof, I think this is something that those who have yet to update might want to test out.

Scott

Focus Peaking now available for Pentax Q.

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