GH2 AF follow focus/tracking via touchscreen.

Yep touch af works. I have pancake and 14-42mm, the pancake aint so fast at focusing at f1.7 but the 14-42mmm at f5.6 zoomed pretty much seems to focus good when someone walks towards you. But I dont have 14-140mm, so that might be abit quicker.
 
Someone mentioned in another thread that Panasonic is advertising the follow focus to be working in the GH2. If they really do that but it doesn't work for real then that is false advertising.
 
When if they are advertising it, everyone should complain. Then they'll have to bring it back.
 
It appears to have been taken out of the production model. pre production model had this function for video with 0.2 firmware. 1.0 firmware has disabled it. Time to kick up a stick fellas =)
 
MR Fanny said:
It appears to have been taken out of the production model. pre production model had this function for video with 0.2 firmware. 1.0 firmware has disabled it. Time to kick up a stick fellas =)
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I don't believe it was ever in there. Some people are confusing the term Continuous focus with focus tracking. They are two entirely different things. Please show me a video with focus tracking from any consumer interchangeable lens camera. I don't believe it exists.
 
i am only going by third party info on vimeo which i see you are already involved in. probably should have said that when i posted =) the whole on the phone with a panasonic guy who said it does work on his pre production gh2, then going through step by step on both pre production vs production model, and then narrowing it down to different firmware because his pre production does have this feature working sold me =)

I still dont see why they can't implement it if it works in still with the new processing power and all. whats the difference between shooting stills and video? the lens is still tracking either way. I dunno, im still hoping we will have this feature eventually.

It supposedly works on the G2, can anyone with a G2 confirm this? be interesting to see.
 
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That's going to be a real, real, real drag if the GH2 doesn't have any kind of video follow focus. How can anyone do any kind of run & gun shooting whether it be for documentary or home-movie shooting? A touch screen is not the answer. Especially for those like me who just bought a Merlin. or use gimballed stabilization. Try to touch the screen in that situation.

RBG
 
well i ve been planning to buy this camera until this discussion. now i have big question mark on this issue ;so af tracking works or not?

Bruce Dale says that it works in his GH2 camera with firmware 1.0 and 14-140mm lens with 1.4 firmware. but his gh2 is a pre-production model so i'am assuming it could be different than production models. so im kinda confused . did anyone try af tracking with 14-140 lens with the latest firmware?

cheers
 
RBG said:
That's going to be a real, real, real drag if the GH2 doesn't have any kind of video follow focus. How can anyone do any kind of run & gun shooting whether it be for documentary or home-movie shooting? A touch screen is not the answer. Especially for those like me who just bought a Merlin. or use gimballed stabilization. Try to touch the screen in that situation.

RBG
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The track point autofocus isn't reliable or fast enough to work well with video like this anyway.
 
Yes things are being mixed with each other here;

1) Continuous focus is assigning a box somewhere in the frame which is static and will be used for focusing. Normally this is a small box in the center of your screen. The GH2 can do this. In still cameras this box can be moved left or right or up or down, maybe the GH2 can do this too. Sometimes size of box can be changed too. Personally whether I'm shooting video or stills and am using auto-focus, I use push focus only and a small focus box in the center of the frame. Some still camera's have 132 focus points. I always turn them off, 1 focus point (and some DOF theory knowledge) should be sufficient.

2) Track auto focus: same thing as 1), but the box in which the auto focus is active, automatically follows subjects when they move around within your frame. I assume the GH2 cannot do this and that Panasonic never claimed it can do this in the first place. Personally I wouldn't want this anyway, this is something you find in cheap consumer camcorders. In some consumer camcorders this function is combined with face recognition. Nice for spying on your baby sitter but not for creating movies.
 
I can see conditions where this feature would be useful, having more options is always a good thing in my book.

Have we got many G2 users on this forum that can test this out? If it really does work on the G2, more the reason Panasonic should have given it to us on the GH2
 
RieniO said:
Yes things are being mixed with each other here;

1) Continuous focus is assigning a box somewhere in the frame which is static and will be used for focusing. Normally this is a small box in the center of your screen. The GH2 can do this. In still cameras this box can be moved left or right or up or down, maybe the GH2 can do this too. Sometimes size of box can be changed too. Personally whether I'm shooting video or stills and am using auto-focus, I use push focus only and a small focus box in the center of the frame. Some still camera's have 132 focus points. I always turn them off, 1 focus point (and some DOF theory knowledge) should be sufficient.

2) Track auto focus: same thing as 1), but the box in which the auto focus is active, automatically follows subjects when they move around within your frame. I assume the GH2 cannot do this and that Panasonic never claimed it can do this in the first place. Personally I wouldn't want this anyway, this is something you find in cheap consumer camcorders. In some consumer camcorders this function is combined with face recognition. Nice for spying on your baby sitter but not for creating movies.
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+1

Here's an example of track AF to help differentiate from regular ol' continuous AF Youtube.
 
Looking at that clip it looks like it would track fast enough for video. But in 24p mode where the sensor is slowed down, the contrast focus system would be similarly slowed down. Still for slower moving objects it would be fine. For example if I wanted be in a shot with my baby crawling around. We might have more chance in getting the feature reimplemented if we kicked up a fussy on some Japanese messageboards
 
Dazza said:
Looking at that clip it looks like it would track fast enough for video. But in 24p mode where the sensor is slowed down, the contrast focus system would be similarly slowed down. Still for slower moving objects it would be fine. For example if I wanted be in a shot with my baby crawling around. We might have more chance in getting the feature reimplemented if we kicked up a fussy on some Japanese messageboards
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I certainly hope Panny would enable this feature, especially if it worked in pre-production models. Even with limitations, it would be a cool tool to have for certain situations. That said, face detection / tracking still works in video mode, which might accomplish what you want.
 
RieniO said:
Yes things are being mixed with each other here;

1) Continuous focus is assigning a box somewhere in the frame which is static and will be used for focusing. Normally this is a small box in the center of your screen. The GH2 can do this..
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You're right and I wasn't being clear. But continuous focus is what I was talking about. And I would be happy with that minimum. You're saying that exists now? Good. The facial follow focus would just be a bonus, but certainly not any kind of deal breaker from my POV.

RBG
 
Eximious said:
I certainly hope Panny would enable this feature, especially if it worked in pre-production models. Even with limitations, it would be a cool tool to have for certain situations. That said, face detection / tracking still works in video mode, which might accomplish what you want.
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So continuous face tracking IS available in the GH2 for video now? Having never used a GH1 for video I have no comparison point.

Can someone give a rundown of what sorts of autofocus can be done. So there is single point continuous autofocus, which can be changed in position and in size? Shutter button activated point focus and face detection? Touchscreen tap autofocus? Anything else?
 
What I understand is that face recognition auto follow focus for video is not available, though it apparently made a brief appearance to some degree in an earlier preproduction model. Currently there appears to be a "continuous focus" for video where I understand that anything in the center of the frame will go into focus.

RBG
 
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