Question about Pentax *ist DS Digital Camera

Beginners question : Autofocus

I've received my IST Ds, and boy am I happy :) Coupled with my Sigma 18-200 it's just a fine do it all, and with my F 1.7, it seems more than capable at doing nice portraits. Obviously I have tons of things to discover, but right now I'm just wondering about one simple thing : On my bridge, mid pressing the shooter button started the autofocus. Then you could keep it mid pressed till you shooted. yes same. BUT, when you had pressed, if you came back to mid pressing without fully releasing, it would keep your set focus. very useful for portraits when you wanted to shoot fast without using a (too) rapid shooting mode. And without going manual (I'd rather not for the time being. And with that solution, if the subject moves, I can just autofocus again pretty fast). Any clue about how to do that ? Possible at all ? Apart from that I noticed that it seems to underexpose quite a lot, so I set it at +1. And that indoor photos need a custom white balance, otherwise they just turn out very yellow. And the autofocus is fine, even at low light. Well, that's all for now, I need to dive into the manual.

2 Answers

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You can always do it the other way around, then - program the "OK" button to do your focusing. Then you take repeated shots on the same focus without hitting "OK" again. Of course, then you have to remember to actually use it when appropriate. But I could imagine developing that habit doing studio work. FWIW, though, switching to manual in these cases it quite easy - the button is quite easy to find. Take one picture auto, then switch to manual to take the others. Also, even if you leave autofocus enables and don't do *anything* special, I think you'll find that re-focusing on a subject that is already in focus is close to instantaneous.

Posted on Sep 08, 2005

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542 Answers

In the custom settings, you can program the "ok" button of the 4-way controller to disable AF. It's kind of a handy little trick. It's called "Ok button when shooting" or something.

Posted on Sep 08, 2005

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