C100: autofocus issues since latest firmware: looking for responses

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icicle22

Well-known member
Since upgrading my c100 2-3 weeks ago, I have noticed that the one touch auto focus is not working properly anymore. I mentioned this in another thread and someone else is having the same problems. Here is what is happening:

point your camera at an object that has good contrast.
press the auto focus button and hold it.
the focus starts to move around to find the focus point but then stops well before it is even close and is done.
try again, and it does the same thing. Repeat multiple times. It only seems to work about 1 out of 5 times.....roughly.

Prior to this upgrade this feature found focus every time. With the rare exception if I was pointing it at a wall that was flat lit....it might not find enough contrast....which is to be expected.

I know auto focus is not a big deal to many on these forums (and even to me most of the time) but I do use it sometimes to setup shots and it can save your backside in certain scenarios.....so to have it actually become worse after this firmware upgrade is indeed a disappointment. It was also a bonus reason I switched from the Black Magic Cinema camera also...

Can we get a group of us to test this out? If this is indeed a problem across the board we need to let Canon know about it.

Thanks.....I hope some of you can add to this to see what is going on here.
 
Burners said:
Mine seems to work as before.
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Did you actually test this since I posted or are you just basing this on your experiences since the upgrade? I hope this was an isolated incident for me but I have seen it a few different times on the same day. I will test when I get home tonight to confirm that it is continuing to happen.
 
I've got patchy results.

Over half the time, I'm getting reasonable results, just like before. The rest of the results are split 75:25 with 'almost' and 'no' respectively.

Is this worse than before? To me, it's a little more polar. Before, it kinda worked, but nothing like you'd want to rely on it or shout about it.

Now, it's a little faster and more accurate most of the time but there are too many situations where it wusses out.

But i'm in line for the new AF upgrade. LOL
 
MattDavis said:
I've got patchy results.

Over half the time, I'm getting reasonable results, just like before. The rest of the results are split 75:25 with 'almost' and 'no' respectively.

Is this worse than before? To me, it's a little more polar. Before, it kinda worked, but nothing like you'd want to rely on it or shout about it.

Now, it's a little faster and more accurate most of the time but there are too many situations where it wusses out.

But i'm in line for the new AF upgrade. LOL
Click to expand...

Well, from my experience it would grab accurate focus almost everytime before. Now.....the results are sketchy. Again, what I was experiencing when it was working was this:

press the button and hold it
the focus would bounce back and forth to extremes while the camera determined which way to go
then it would get very close and continue to do minor focus adjustments until it got it just right.
the box on the screen would turn green and the object in the center was focused.

Now I see the darn thing stop way sooner when all it really did was the coarse adjustments and never even gets to the fine tuning.

This is bizarre.
 
I think you are onto something, though.

The 'one shot AF' thing was so 'meh' for me I didn't really look into it or do appropriate tests. However, your post has sort of highlighted the fact that it's not quite what it was before.

It's not quite as if 'every lens I owned is now bestowed with Sigma AF' (though I could warm to that analogy) but it does give up too early. The cheaper lenses no longer 'chuckle' according to my son. If you've heard them you'll know what he means.

The cynic in me thinks this will push people to the new AF upgrade, the Spock in me thinks that this is a sort of 'can't be one thing or another' move, or is trying to speed up the response (bloody hell, the previous version was slow!)
 
Well the old way it worked was definitely very slow, but it was also very accurate in my mind. I used it to "assist" when my eyes would start to get a little strained or tired. When I used it on Saturday and it stopped focusing when it was obviously still very blurry, I began to questions my eyes.....but alas it was the camera not finding the focus.

If I understand correctly, there is no way to flash to a previous version of the firmware....correct?

Thanks.
 
Without having both to compare at the same time, it's going to be hard to really know. Anyone have access to a pre-firmware update C100 and an updated C100 to have a shoot off? I've got an updated C100 here in Seattle, so if someone around here has one without the new firmware I'm down to meet up and run some tests.
 
I have two C100s, tried out the push focus before the upgrade a few times just to check it out but wasn't a regular user. I did the upgrade a few days ago and after reading this thread, tested it again. It seemed to work just like before.
 
Since not all lenses are created equal, it will be hard to find a consensus anyways.
icicle22 - what lenses do you use? Do all focus considerable worse the before the update?
 
Spartacus said:
Since not all lenses are created equal, it will be hard to find a consensus anyways.
icicle22 - what lenses do you use? Do all focus considerable worse the before the update?
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I just tried it 5 times in a row, in my basement in a very well lit area and it worked fine 3 out of 5 times.

The lens in question for me is the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f.2.8

It is the same lens that I used prior to the firmware update that had no issues. I will test again in a few minutes and then also test with my 24-105mm F4 lens.
 
OK. It just worked like ten times in a row. Again....in good lighting. I also tried my "nifty fifty" and it worked well albeit super noisy when auto focusing! It definitely sounds like snickering. Perhaps it isn't so bad. I will try again when I get home later in the same environment I had issues on Saturday and see if it still happens.

Thanks for everyone who is contributing.
 
I tested mine with a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 last night in a room lit only by a Christmas tree and a small lamp and AF worked 7 out of 10 times. This seems similar to the few times I used it pre firmware upgrade. I don't use AF much but In the past I found my canon 70-200 F4 L was successful more often than the Tamron.
 
Curnsie said:
I tested mine with a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 last night in a room lit only by a Christmas tree and a small lamp and AF worked 7 out of 10 times. This seems similar to the few times I used it pre firmware upgrade. I don't use AF much but In the past I found my canon 70-200 F4 L was successful more often than the Tamron.
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Drew,
I appreciate your reply and checking. Can you answer this thought? When it doesn;t work, does it actually turn green or does it turn red? Previously, when I would try to autofocus on something that was too low light or too low contrast, the camera would try to focus for 3-4 seconds and then ultimately it would stop and the box would turn red. This indicated that the auto focus was basically saying "nope....I can't get a focus this time".

The issue I am seeing now that is different, is that when it fails, it still seems to turn green (as if it thinks it hit the focus correctly) and it does this rather quickly.....as if it didn;t really finish it's routine to find the focus. Almost as if there is a bug and it just skips a bunch of code and displays the green box, even though it didn't actually complete the cycle.

Does any of this make sense? When you said it focused 7 of 10 times.......did it turn red on the times it failed? Or did it appear as though it "thought" it was focused and turned green?

Thanks.
 
I set up my C100 with the Canon 24-105 outside in shaded conditions with proper exposer and One Shot Focus took 5 to 6 seconds and nailed focus every time. No red box. Only went from white to green. A little hunting but never the less it works. Tried all focal lengths and different f-stops with no difference. I feel it's the same as it was before the update on the Canon 24-105. slow. :-D

I also tried going way out of focus to make the camera work harder and it didn't seem to matter. This is the lens I used the most with the One Shot Focus function.

I'm sure or at least I would hope the One Shot feature will improve with the Duel Pixel upgrade. It should, and if it does thats a good thing. As is it's slow but helpful never the less.
 
Curnsie said:
When it failed it went green. Its like it just gave up!
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Good to know.....or bad to know??? Anyway....any info is helpful. I am going to be setting up my camera rig to shoot a brief ribbon cutting ceremony this evening at a local museum....so I may do some testing. I'll even try the 24-100 lens but I can't really use that in this setting as it is too slow.
 
It still works but imo there definitely is a difference. It stops on green squares a lot more but with everything out of focus. It didn't do it half as much as before. Red squares a lot less, sometimes half searches and gives up alltogether.

tried with 24-105
100 mm and 50 mm all the same
 
Sickone said:
It still works but imo there definitely is a difference. It stops on green squares a lot more but with everything out of focus. It didn't do it half as much as before. Red squares a lot less, sometimes half searches and gives up alltogether.

tried with 24-105
100 mm and 50 mm all the same
Click to expand...

Yeah. That's what I just experienced. I focused about 15 times in a row on items that are within 5-10ft without a single issue. I pointed outside my office at objects about 20ft away and it became inconsistent and would turn green even when the screen was an entire blur....far from being in focus. I'm not saying that is a distance thing, but I will say in my brief test it was far more consistent within my office than when I pointed it outside of my office. The areas I was focusing on out there had pretty good contrast so it should have been able to lock on.

Well.....I know I won't trust it on my shoot tonight....that's for sure!

Thanks for all the input.
 
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