Out of focus

Heads up to anyone that owns a Pentax K5 camera because the auto focus on some of the K5’s needs to be calibrated. It appears that some of the K5 cameras are back focusing. Last year when I bought the Pentax K5 I thought I would have so many wonderful alpaca pictures to share with everyone. I was so excited when the K5 arrived because it’s so superior, in every way, to my old Panasonic. I knew there might be a learning curve so when my pictures didn’t come out, as nice as I wanted them to, I thought the problem was on my end.

It has been very frustrating and upsetting to see that the main subject in my photos was blurred most of the time. The other day I decided to get to the bottom of this problem. At first I thought maybe I’m getting old and I don’t realize that I might be shaking. Ok first of all I’m not that old and no I don’t shake so scratch that off. I tried every setting under all different kinds of conditions and still the alpacas in my pictures were out of focus 90% of the time.

Here are some examples. Take a look at the photos of this little alpaca, Passion and you’ll see why I’ve been pulling my hair out. You’ll notice in the first photo her face is blurry but the hair on her back is in focus. The second photo her face is very blurry and the fence in the background is in focus. The third photo is just a closer look so you can see how clear the fence looks. What is going on?!!!

I finally decided to search the web to see if other Pentax K5 users were having similar problems. Low and behold… yes there is a problem with the K5 camera back focusing due to a problem with the auto focus calibration being out of wack. I contacted Pentax and they suggested that I mail my camera to their service center in Arizona.

I read on a forum that someone sent their camera to Pentax to be serviced and that Cris did an excellent job fixing the focusing problem so I requested Cris to fix my camera. I mailed my camera in and it was returned within three weeks. They adjusted focus for optimal resolution focal point and adjusted to manufacturers specifications. I guess they adjusted my lenses too. They checked and cleaned everything. My camera came back and it was serviced by CRIS. I had to laugh because CRIS is not a person it is a camera servicing company, Criscam.com! lol!

Finally my Pentax K5 works the way it should. I’m so excited because my photos are turning out beautiful!!! Lately we’ve been so busy with shearing so now I just need to find the time to get out and take some alpaca photos!