GH2 AF is significantly improved with new GH2 firmware

M

mpgxsvcd

Veteran
The new 1.1 firmware significantly improves the AFC during videos of the GH2. Now I know most people will just assume that it means that it focuses faster. It actually doesn’t change the focus speed at all.

What it does is that it changes the sensitivity for refocusing. The problem I had with AFC during videos before was that it would constantly try and change the focus even when the subject hadn’t moved that much.

Some of the time this wasn’t an issue because the camera would guess the direction of movement correctly. However, most of the time it would guess wrong and you would see the dreaded backward and forward focus hunt. This was especially bad with the 25mm F1.4 and the 20mm F1.7 because of focus breathing.

With the new firmware it is much less sensitive to subject movement. It only changes when there is a drastic change in the focus distance. This means that sometimes the focus can go out for a split second. However, it also means that the focus hunting is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced.

I shot about 2 hours worth of footage in 1-2 minute clips this weekend. Every shot was with the 25mm F1.4 in AFC mode. Before the new firmware I would only use AFC for videos in very controlled shots and never in the low light of the climbing gyms that I usually shoot in.

Now I can shoot AFC all of the time. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It can still hunt and lose focus. However, those issues have been reduced from about 60% of the time to about 20% of the time.

For Professional shooters that won’t be good enough. MF will still be there best option. However, for casual shooters this could be a very big deal.
 
dcloud said:
have you tested it with a 14-140? or do you have one :D
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I have the 14-140mm. However, I have not tested the firmware with it yet. I was shooting in an extremely dark indoor cave all weekend so I didn’t even think about trying the 14-140mm. It doesn’t really have shallow depth of field so I wouldn’t expect as big of an improvement anyway.
 
My brief testing with the Olly 45 was problematic in AF, it would do some slow roll hunting back and forth between foreground and midground.
But I mainly use MF. I'm fairly impressed at how well my Canon camcorder just tracks faces and objects, I don't see that in the GH2 but it should be possible.
 
DrDave said:
My brief testing with the Olly 45 was problematic in AF, it would do some slow roll hunting back and forth between foreground and midground.
But I mainly use MF. I'm fairly impressed at how well my Canon camcorder just tracks faces and objects, I don't see that in the GH2 but it should be possible.
Click to expand...

The G2 and G3 will track a subject in video. That functionality was removed from the GH2 before its initial release. It will track a face as long as that is the only face in the frame.
 
When you shoot with AFC what mode do you put it in? Face detection? 23 area focusing? center focusing?
 
svem said:
When you shoot with AFC what mode do you put it in? Face detection? 23 area focusing? center focusing?
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I use center focusing with a very small box. I shoot climbing videos so the subject distance does not change abruptly unless they are doing a very dynamic move. I usually just focus on the wall and only refocus if the climber progresses significantly.

I find with the new firmware I can just lightly touch focus on the climber when they have moved. It will now gently glide the focus from the wall to the climbers new position. Also focus pulling from one climber to another in the background worked really well because of the new firmware.



I understand that most people would be skeptical about the AFC improvements. However, they are real and they are worth it. I just hope VK hacks it soon so everyone can have the best of both worlds.
 
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