C300: C300 Mark II - Best lens to pair with DPAF?

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seanarmada

Well-known member
I just took my C300 Mark II out on its first proper shoot today. It was a run and gun style walking interview, mid-day overcast weather. I was using my 17-55, mostly at f2.8. 60% of the time it held up well, but I found it searching more than I would have liked, a few interview segments were kind of ruined because I was relying a bit heavily on face tracking.

From your guys' experience, which lenses play best with DPAF features?

Sean
 
The 17-55 hunts, more so in 4k, definitely can't keep AF on full time (even with face tracking), even during a sit down where the subject doesn't move much.
 
Ok. SoI use a number of different lenses on my Mk2 , I have the 17-55, 24-70, 70 -200 , 24,35,50,85 primes. I don't se a huge difference between them except that the 17-55 might be a teensy bit slower. As far as face tracking goes, hats, glasses, sunglasses, can all confuse facetracking at times sometimes in bad ways . Sunglasses seem to be the worst. Being too far away from your subject can also confuse the camera, having the subject turn away,or turn very profile to camera also can be bad.

I tend to use AF boosted manual focus With face tracking on more than anything else. Its sort of a hybrid setting which will allow AF to have an effect without totally handing over total control to AF. So if I was shooting a walk and talk I'd be that mode on whatever lens I chose for the shot.
 
I haven't tested this theory, but after using the C300mk2 for a few months, my gut is telling me the DPAF on the C300mk2 hunts a lot more than the C100mk2. Anyone else thinking this?
 
slavikb said:
The 17-55 hunts, more so in 4k, definitely can't keep AF on full time (even with face tracking), even during a sit down where the subject doesn't move much.
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What's your go-to lens when you need the most accurate DPAF? 18-135 also?
 
drummondb said:
I haven't tested this theory, but after using the C300mk2 for a few months, my gut is telling me the DPAF on the C300mk2 hunts a lot more than the C100mk2. Anyone else thinking this?
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The last firmware update mentioned very vaguely improvements to the auto focus functionality, but I haven't been able to notice much personally.
 
There have been a few times when my 300 Mk2 went off on a hunt for focus howeever that has been rare. I have no experience with the C100 and DPAF so I can't comment. I've been very happy with the 300 MK2 DPAF- it's far from perfect and still I am amazed at what it can do reliably
 
seanarmada said:
What's your go-to lens when you need the most accurate DPAF? 18-135 also?
Click to expand...

I think all lenses work fairly equally with AF if you use the toggle on/off method with the handgrip button 7. But if you try to leave the AF on for continuous shooting, that's when you start noticing hunting issues with the 17-55, for example. The 18-135 and 10-18, when left on for continuous AF, "check focus" every now and again, less hunting and more of a quick out of focus and back again. It's still noticeable and can ruin distract enough to ruin a shot. Better to rely on the toggle on/off method.

Although, I'm interested in Mark's use of the AF-assisted manual focus. I tried it when we first got the C300II but haven't actually employed it on a shoot. If Mark says it works, then I'm definitely going to try it on the next shoot.

Cheers,
Slavik
 
I never figured out how to use the AF-assisted manual focus. Think I tried once and didn't get it working how I imagined it would.
 
It just occurred to me to ask - does it matter if you're shooting LOG, WideDR, etc? For example, would the DPAF be more effective if I was shooting Clog-3 vs Clog-2 given that there is more contrast in the image, or from the perspective of the processor does that not matter at all?
 
seanarmada said:
It just occurred to me to ask - does it matter if you're shooting LOG, WideDR, etc? For example, would the DPAF be more effective if I was shooting Clog-3 vs Clog-2 given that there is more contrast in the image, or from the perspective of the processor does that not matter at all?
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I would expect that the DPAF works off the raw image, not what's eventually saved onto a card.
 
DPAF has been essential on some 4K shoots I have done where I didn't have a decent external monitor to use while shooting. Since these were interviews, and we were shooting C log 3 the DPAF + face detect was a really helpful backstop to the basic eyeball on focus. DPAF does start fall apart as contrast and edges are reduced, however it does work in C log modes. It seems like DPAF likes vertical edges with some contrast the most as these elements in frame generally produce the fastest response in my experience.
 
IanTheM said:
I would expect that the DPAF works off the raw image, not what's eventually saved onto a card.
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Fair enough, that's what I thought also, but just thought I would ask. I was shooting overcast on this particular shoot so I thought combined with Clog-2 perhaps it was stretching the processors capabilities.
 
if you have a decent exposure in C-log and subject matter that has some features in it, which is to say you're not shooting ripples in a bucket of milk, DPAF should work ok. There are always exceptions and sometimes even faces that are hard to find focus on.
 
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