ALL: Does this look like an Autofocus Bug to You?? -- Video Clip

Yak said:
In no way was my post "meant to take a shot at anyone" it was as a support reviews by "professional videographers" like Adam Wilt as well as reviews from members of DVXuser who have posted there experience with this camera. It is unfortunate that a number of users are not happy with the autofocus aspects of the AC160/130 and it has been very helpful that they have shared their knowledge. It seems that if autofocus is very important to your needs then this .
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Thank you for clarifying. I hope I didn't sound harsh in my reply and apologize if taken that way. Most of us are Panasonic lovers and we need to support each other by allowing their concerns to be voiced through this forum. Panasonic should take a more serious look into this problem if we support the people who have clearly demonstrated it's failures. We all know we can work around it, but we shouldn't have to and in some cases we just can't. If iPhones, Canon XH-A1's, and other considerably less expensive camcorders can provide good autofocus, so should these expensive camcorders. While some may feel it is not their problem it obviously is a major concern for others. We are hoping Panasonic responds with a timely fix. Please allow the people with these concerns to petition Panasonic without compromise. Thank you.
 
I to hope that if a firmware upgrade can improve the Autofocus then Panasonic will take care of it. I had experienced a "beeping" problem on my HVX 200 when the 16g P2 cards came out and after a number of people complained Panasonic took care of the issue. Until a resolution of this issue is offered by Panasonic it is important to know of the work arounds. I do not feel that trashing a camera manufacture is a very productive way of resolving problems (not saying that any one has), I have found that Jan and Panasonic to be very responsive in the past in providing customer support and I would expect that they will continue to do so in the future.
 
Deer Film said:
The HMC150 handled autofocus very well. Why is the Ac130/160 way off on the autofocus?
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Because the HMC150 had a lot lower resolution sensor and a lens that's half the size. The AC130/160 are much higher resolution cameras, and the higher the res, the more precise the autofocus needs to be. The lower the res, the sloppier the autofocus can be, because people will never notice it. Then, on top of it, look at the amount of glass the HMC150 has, vs. how much the 130/160 have. There's probably twice as much glass, overall, in the 160. Getting that glass slung around is a bigger job.

I'm not disputing that the HMC150 can outperform the 160/130 in autofocus in low light conditions, it definitely does. But there are probably good reasons. If the 160/130 had a 12x lens like the HMC150, the autofocus would probably be a lot more comparable. Or if it had 960x540 chips, the autofocus would be a lot more comparable. But in reality it has a massive 22x zoom range, combined with ultra high resolution chips, and perhaps the combination of those two things is making the job of autofocus harder.

With all respect, if you don't use autofocus, then great for you. But the people that bought this camera thinking the autofocus would be as good as the HMC150, we are upset.
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Understandable. I don't think the autofocus is as snappy or locks on as well as an HMC150. But I'm starting to think that it might be unrealistic to expect it to be, given the differences between the cameras.


We just want a simple answer from Jan or Panasonic if they are still looking into this issue and what they might do about it.
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We know they are looking into it, and we know that they said they would give us an update.
 
pulpfiction007 said:
Just out of curiosity....does this AF problem occur throughout the zoom range or is it just past the 12 x area. Has anyone done a test of the entire lens range to check for this....it might be illuminating, then again I could be just making a wild guess about what's happening based on something Barry said earlier.
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Interesting idea. I think there will still be differences based on the amount of glass being shuffled around, and the sharper image being tighter in tolerance of focus issues, but it would at least eliminate the third major difference between these cameras which is that beyond 51mm, the AC and HPX250 cameras are going to have shallower and shallower DOF, which will make autofocus's job harder still.
 
pulpfiction007 said:
Just out of curiosity....does this AF problem occur throughout the zoom range or is it just past the 12 x area. Has anyone done a test of the entire lens range to check for this....it might be illuminating, then again I could be just making a wild guess about what's happening based on something Barry said earlier.
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I posted a clip where the auto-focus hunt & seek is seen when zoomed full wide open. I believe there is another clip (maybe from LanceOregon?) where it is wide open as well.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?265419-Pany-AC-160-zoom-and-focus-lunch-test...
 
Thank you Harry...I just went back to review several clips in the thread and it does appear to happen in many circumstances and different ranges. I do hope there can be a resolution to this issue soon for both current owners and prospective buyers to make a choice. They just look like such excellent cameras in every other way, great features, great IQ...and priced right.
 
Put me on the list here. Though, I stay away from AUTO-FOCUS, I did use it over the holidays. I would get out of focus shots for no reason. My family offered to pay for a set glasses. My XF-100 and XF-300 and my cheap SONY CX series camera never had this problem.
 
Barry_Green said:
Interesting idea. I think there will still be differences based on the amount of glass being shuffled around, and the sharper image being tighter in tolerance of focus issues, but it would at least eliminate the third major difference between these cameras which is that beyond 51mm, the AC and HPX250 cameras are going to have shallower and shallower DOF, which will make autofocus's job harder still.
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It's a valid argument, but the XF300 has almost the same focal length (18x vs 21x) and as far as I know, it has no AF problems. Of course, it's twice the price of the 130.
 
Phil1076 said:
It's a valid argument, but the XF300 has almost the same focal length (18x vs 21x) and as far as I know, it has no AF problems. Of course, it's twice the price of the 130.
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well the AC160/130 is 22x not 21x which is 20% longer also is the xf300 a macro lens like the Ac 160/130?
 
bump
To be or not to be?
That is the question.
Still waiting for a sliver of information on the autofocus issue.
 
Deer Film said:
bump
To be or not to be?
That is the question.
Still waiting for a sliver of information on the autofocus issue.
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I actually called B&H yesterday asking if they heard if there was a fix yet. The salesperson tried to reassure me that the ac130/160 and hpx250 had no autofocus issues at all. He said they thoroughly tested them and the Auto Focus worked as well as any other camcorder. He tried to tell me that it was only a few cameras that were defective, not all of them and he insisted that the autofocus works just fine. He has sold 70 and only 2 have come back as returns with that problem. I hope to think he is not bsing me because I do believe that their salesman do not get any commissions so he would have no motive. He repeatedly insisted that there is no problem with these camcorders auto focus. Can it possibly be that a small batch of these camcorders are defective and that is why Panasonic has not responded? Or can it be that not enough people have made their problems known and Panasonic and other retailers are clueless or in denial of this problem?

Other than this issue I would purchase one of these cameras. If I lived closer to B&H I would go test it myself and make sure they knew if it was a problem or not. I really would rather not purchase another brand but am starting to think I need to consider the Sony NX5u. The Canon XF300 is way overpriced! Is it worth it?

Come on Panasonic, help us with this issue!!!
 
hollyburgh said:
....He tried to tell me that it was only a few cameras that were defective, not all of them and he insisted that the autofocus works just fine. He has sold 70 and only 2 have come back as returns with that problem.....
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The lead Panasonic representetive here acknowledged the problem and said Panasonic was looking into it, but they seem not to want to talk more about it. There is no way a salesperson can override that, until we get it directly from the Panasonic representetive.
 
hollyburgh said:
I actually called B&H yesterday asking if they heard if there was a fix yet. The salesperson tried to reassure me that the ac130/160 and hpx250 had no autofocus issues at all. He said they thoroughly tested them and the Auto Focus worked as well as any other camcorder. He tried to tell me that it was only a few cameras that were defective, not all of them and he insisted that the autofocus works just fine. ....

He repeatedly insisted that there is no problem with these camcorders auto focus. Can it possibly be that a small batch of these camcorders are defective and that is why Panasonic has not responded? Or can it be that not enough people have made their problems known and Panasonic and other retailers are clueless or in denial of this problem?
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I bought my AC130 from B&H. I purchased it the day after their first batch of the camcorders arrived at their warehouse. Should I send my AC130 to Panasonic to have it checked out? Did the salesman say anything about early samples being bad?
 
qap15 said:
The lead Panasonic representetive here acknowledged the problem and said Panasonic was looking into it, but they seem not to want to talk more about it. There is no way a salesperson can override that, until we get it directly from the Panasonic representetive.
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Well, if after first acknowledging that people were experiencing issues and complaining, and saying that they were investigating the situation, they then just do a 180 and totally ignore the issue and refuse to make any further comment at all, folks will certainly take note of them doing that to their customers.
 
I think Panasonic has made a decision not to address this "auto focus bug". I know Jan is aware of it nad has advised to wait for Panasonic to work the problem. See Jan's ansewer to my inquiry in Dec.
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12-14-2011 07:16 AM
Hi everyone,

The factory is looking at this and will hopefully report back in a week or two.

Best,

jan

Well today is Feb 22 and I am still waiting to hear from Panasonic that they are in fact working this issue. Has anyone heard from Panasonic. I can not understand Panasonic's silence in this matter. Have those of us who bought the new Panny AC 130/150 or 250 cameras have been abandoned by Panasonic?​
 
jtczere said:
Well today is Feb 22 and I am still waiting to hear from Panasonic that they are in fact working this issue. Has anyone heard from Panasonic. I can not understand Panasonic's silence in this matter. Have those of us who bought the new Panny AC 130/150 or 250 cameras have been abandoned by Panasonic? [/INDENT]
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Hi,

Sorry it has taken me so long to post back here; I have been looking at the Auto-Focus function and studying it. It seems that for some of the very reasons that Barry pointed out in one of his replies that the camera is not going to be just like any other camera. The lens is the longest lens in the market; it has a full pound of weight over say the HMC150's lens. It has four times the resolution of the HMC150's imager and this does in fact come into play when working with Auto-Focus. Auto-Focus can be faster with a lighter lens, it can be less accurate and thus fast in reaching focus when it doesn't have the same pixel count(620,000 vs. 2,000,000). We have been testing this camera and looking at the places where it is right on the money. Have we been able to make it not auto-focus or hunt, sure, but once we applied knowledge to it and started to use the tools in the camera, its performance improved. I think the thing to do in looking at any auto-focusing system, is to understand how it works. They are not all built the same way, and they will all fail under certain circumstances. Having an idea about when it might is a very important piece of information. Heck my Nikon D700 doesn't always nail the auto focus either, and it too is a pretty expensive camera. There are times I just have to use manual focus.

The Camera uses a piezo electric focusing technology that looks for contrast in a scene, if there is no contrast, it will be hard for those 2 million pixels to decide where to put the focus, so you will have to help it, and if you cannot improve the situation, then move to manual focus.

In looking at the clips in this thread, I think I can describe why the camera did what it did in each case. I know in another thread I tried to point to the Function Knob Focus Area feature so that one could tell the camera where to look. I find when I use that Area Focus the camera is pretty much right on target. I encourage people to do this. I encourage you all to learn how to work with the camera, and tell it where you want it to focus. To not use the focus area, is to not take advantage of the feature set built into the camera to help it define the priority for focus.

All I can say is that there is no way to make this camera perform like the smaller lighter cameras. Laws of Physics just cannot be denied here. We have been working on a Training Video about this function, which does feel a little odd, but we felt that because this lens was so different from the others that are out there, it might be called for. Anyhow as soon as it is done, I will post back. In the interim, do study how to use that Area Focus, it is your best friend if you need Auto-focus.

Best,

Jan
 
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