K1 ii can actually auto focus at World Speed Challenge and Porsche GT cup

Barry Pearson wrote:

Greyser wrote:

Barry Pearson wrote:

Greyser wrote:

Kees77 wrote:

LOL. I'm tired of all the reviews and talk about the K-1ii especially the auto focus. I love this camera and am quite happy with the solid build and performance. This was a huge upgrade compared to my K-5iis and DA 55-300. I just picked up the DA150-450 lens and got to try in on the k1ii and the hit rate was in the 70% range. I have over 500 images to sort through and couldn't believe how well the combo performed. I tried a few in crop mode to get further reach and I spent most of my time in slower TV modes for panning. Feel free to critique.

It was foggy and raining for most of the day. Some of the pictures suffered from the fog. The weather sealing was great. Nice to see everyone else struggling to keep their gear protected.

It is very nice to see some confirmation of better AF, indeed. However, all images, including even low ISO shots look kind of soft and noisy to me. I assume that, if you could shoot at 1/800s-1/1600 and ISO 500 (last two images) and even achieve 1/1250-1/3200 at ISO 800 the light conditions at that moments were not too bad. Yes, lower ISO shots look a bit cleaner, but... still have some softness and noise.

Anyway, very good photographer job, indeed

I've looked at a couple of the images in Photoshop, and I don't think noise is the main problem. I think there is sometimes a trace of less-than-perfect panning.

I too often suffer from less-than-perfect panning when I'm deliberately using slow shutter speeds in order to get wheel-blur or background-blur. (Or propeller-blur on aircraft). The D FA 150-450 is very hard to pan precisely when hand-held.

I tried Photoshop "Filter > Sharpen > Shake Reduction" on those images, with some improvement. That is what I now try whenever I have less-than-perfect panning. It sometimes turns a "not OK" image into an "OK" image, or an "OK" image into a "Wow!" image.

Motion blur at 1/1250-1/3200 shutter speeds? I'm not sure about it.

The shutter speeds for the images were: 1/125, 1/125, 1/2500, 1/800, 1/800, 1/250, 1/3200, 1/250, 1/1250, 1/60, 1/2500, 1/1600, 1/800

To exclude the motion blur out of equation take a look at #3 (1/2500, ISO800, f/6.3), #7 (1/3200, ISO 800, f/5.6), and #11 (1/2500, ISO 800, f/6.3). As a birder I know very well what kind of crispness I can get at such short shutter speeds and no image stabilization at all. It is not what I used to see. And these car details are much more forgiving than birds feathers.

I was more interested in those with slower shutter speeds. I typically wouldn't use high shutter speeds for racing cars, because there is a risk that they will simply look like cars parked on the track. (If they have a clearly lifted wheel, that gives a suggestion of movement).

So I examined a couple of those with slower shutter speeds. They became sharper with Photoshop's "Filter > Sharpen > Shake Reduction", which suggests to me that they had "a trace of less-than-perfect panning". (As do many of my slow-shutter-speed images!)

I understand that it is more favorable for what you usually shoot. Not for me unfortunately.

I think there is a correlation in these images between shutter speed and ISO and noise. I wonder if any noise reduction was used in the higher-shutter-speed / higher-ISO images? (I would apply some luminance noise reduction in Lightroom at those ISOs. And I would also be careful to use some masking, if sharpening in Lightroom, to avoid "sharpening noise").

According to previous posts involuntary RAW noise reduction kicks in at ISO 640.

Each image needs to be considered on its merits, because the shooting parameters vary widely.

I agree. However, I'd like to assess ultimate capability first.