Auto focus

[tuggie]

Hi.

I've got a Pentax *istdl, I love the camera but have just found a massive problem. Last night was our company Christmas party. I took a bunch of photos but soon found out the autofocus doesn't work in low light, the only resort was guessing the distance as there doesn't appear to be a focus guide built in to the lens. The result is that most of the photos are slightly out of focus. I can get away with it on small prints, but screen size images are not that great.

My question is, can anything be done in photoshop and how can I avoid this situation in the future, the only way I can figure is buy a laser tape measure and gauge the distance with that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Tuggie

[BigPurpleOne]

Smart Sharpen in Photoshop CS 2 will go someway to correcting slightly out of focus shots but it is no miracle worker.. Are you sure it is out of focus ? or maybe there is a smal amount of camera shake due to a very low shutter speed in low light. Maybe you could try similar lighting and mounting your camera on a tripod to remove the shake.
I am not sure about your Camera but some have an "auto focus assist" that will pre fire the flash to light the subject.. Hope this helps a little

[Sierrakitten]

Stupid question, do you have the focusing area set to wide or spot?
Santa was very nice this year, but I haven't had your problem yet. I'll have to try it and see.

Just had to try a quick experiment, the only time I had problems it looked like it was caused by camera shake. Maybe that's the problem you had?