Is the grass greener???

[PJwebbs]

Since day one on my 'Photography journey' I have used Pentax. I absolutely love most things about my Pentax equipment, the image quality and colours are amazing, in body stability is great which lets you use some lovely old lens easily, the ergonomics of the body are brilliant... I could go on.

However. As of lately I find myself missing more shots then I deem acceptable. The autofocus just doesn't seem to cut it, especially during tracking. My k5ii seems to have a hard time focusing, locking on and keeping locked on without hunting. This was realised yesterday during a day at a bird conservancy where I just couldn't get good sharp shots of birds in flight. Am I expecting too much from the camera? Was it the lenses fault? I was using a 150-500 sigma, it couldn't possible be my fault lol. Flash also seems simpler with nikcanons...

So the real question is, seeing as I only really just my 150-500 on my Pentax now (started using M4/3 for everything else) should I sell up and get a full frame and the 150-600 sigma contemporary? What cameras from the nikcanon ranges are know for snappy focus with excellent tracking? Keeping the price of a body around £800....

 

[StewartR]

Am I expecting too much from the camera? Was it the lenses fault? I was using a 150-500 sigma....

Dunno about expecting too much from the camera, but you might be expecting too much from the lens. Sigma in general aren't the fastest focussing lenses on the market.

So the real question is... should I sell up and get a full frame and the 150-600 sigma contemporary?

I don't think that will necessarily help very much. If the weak link in the chain is the Sigma lens, a different body may not be the silver bullet you're looking for.

 

[shapeshifter]

We are all the same.We all want to know which camera has the fastest most accurate autofocus.But no one can tell us.

 

[Mike.P]

I took my Pentax k-5IIs with the new 150-450mm and 7D with the 150-600mm contemporary to RIAT this weekend.

The Canon gear locked focus and tracked better than the Pentax but after trawling through the pictures yesterday I have to say that although I took a similar amount with both systems the images I kept were possibly 3 to 1 in Pentaxs favour. Saying that I am not a great fan of either 150-600mm from Sigma, I much preferred the 50-500mm I had previously.

 

[chris malcolm]

I have what is probably the worst possible combination of camera and lens for taking birds in flight -- the notoriously noisy Sony A77 and the notoriously horrid Sony 500mm reflex with fixed aperture of f8 which can only use the central focusing point and can't use any of the focus tracking modes. The angle oif view is so narrow it's pretty hard to find an aeroplane in the sky, let alone something moving as fast as a bird. I spent half an hour surrounded by swooping seagulls trying to improve my skills and never managed one single shot.

The first big problem was aiming the the thing. I solved that by fitting an aiming aid, a 1:1 red dot gun sight. With that I could aim it instantly, faster than any other of my lenses. Without even looking through the viewfinder I could place something smack on the central focus point. So if I put the camera on continuous focus and only shoot when focus acquired I could swing round following a bird in flight trying to keep the red dot on its head. If I held the shutter button down it would fire off a sequence of shots as soon as it got locked onto the bird. As soon as it lost focus it would stop. As soon as it got lock again it would resume.

That technique got me so many shots I had to slow down the repeat rate and only hold down the shutter for the best shots. I suspect I get more shots using this technique than most photographers using the best possible cameras and lenses on the best gimbal mounts or shoulder stocks etc..

In fact I'm not really interested in BIF shots. But I was annoyed by how difficult it was to use this lens. The BIF problem was a good handy extreme example of one of the big problems of using this lens. Everyone I asked for advice told me the solution to my problem was at least get a better lens, and probably a better camera. That's the camera shop salesman solution to the problem, and is always expensive.

My point is that there are often much cheaper solutions to the problems of not getting the shots you want than the camera shop salesman solution.

 

[pingu666]

yeah a external sight helps alot

ive head the pentax af maybe a little behind, but the 150 500 isnt quick either, being non oem and slow f stop