GH2 GH2, having trouble filming my almost 2 year old. Used 20mm + 14-140mm.

S

sparky33

Well-known member
I am very new to this camera, and I'm sure it's me and not the camera. Went to the park with my kids yesterday. It seemed like no matter what I did, my 22 month old daughter's face was out of focus and the background was sharply in focus. If my wife was holding my daughter, my wife's face would be in focus and rarely would my little girl's be. I tried auto focus, half-pressing the shutter, starting and stopping many times. I tried stepping closer as well as back and still didn't have much luck.

What settings should I look for? I was reading the online manual and it spoke of "peripheral defocus" but I'm confused as that's a "scene mode" setting, and was told to always use "Movie mode" when shooting film.

Thanks to anyone with suggestions. I use the kit lens (14-140mm) and the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens.
Shawn
 
What filming mode were you using and what was your autfocus setting (AFC or AFS). The 20mm pancake is a little slow to focus, but I use the 14-140mm in AFC in iA mode all the time just to grab some shots of the kids running around, etc. and the autofocus is almost always rock-solid, only occasionally losing it when I'm zoomed in a lot on quick moving faces.
 
WEll, the autofocus isn't *that* fast. You should get used to manual, nice footage is about having control.
 
Since everything/one else was in focus except for your daughter, I'd start thinking of supernatural explanations. ;-)
 
trickhog said:
What filming mode were you using and what was your autfocus setting (AFC or AFS). The 20mm pancake is a little slow to focus, but I use the 14-140mm in AFC in iA mode all the time just to grab some shots of the kids running around, etc. and the autofocus is almost always rock-solid, only occasionally losing it when I'm zoomed in a lot on quick moving faces.
Click to expand...

I tried AFC and AFS. I still don't completely understand the difference in video mode between the two. Can you help me understand the difference? Yes, I've read the manual, but I'm not very smart.
Thanks!
Shawn
 
If im not wrong ARC is for autofocus only, and AFS is for following focus (arround moving objetcs). I own a GH1 and its autofocus is much slower than GH2. Either way the autofocus function in both cameras is no near the speed head movement of your child.

If you want to have ALOT of focus, increment the F stop in your lenses. If you are using a low f, like f2.0 or f4.0 its probable that your depth of field (the areas that are in focus) is shorter. increase the numer of the F stop to 11, 15, increment ISO to 3200 maybe, or 1600, AND PUT SOME LIGHT. Then you should get better focus all around. Good luck.
 
Out doors you should easily be able to set to F11 which means nearly infinite depth of field after a few feet away- especially on the 20mm pancake. So set that, set manual focus and just capture medium shots. Having focus issues outdoors in broad daylight shouldn't be happening.

Noah
 
use IA mode, and put it on Face tracking mode(this mode only works properly when you can see both eyes,nose and mouth). Other than using a higher F stop value to have a wider depth of field, you could get use to manual focus. You could try putting on Continuous autofocus (in he custom menu) that makes it more like a camcorder. If you're not using continuous autofocus put on the AF+MF in the menu, it will let you fine tune the focus after the AF has had a go by just keeping the shutter halfpress then you can turn the focus ring.

The 14-140mm is miles faster than the 20mm for focusing. If you use the 20mm practice keep your distance constant to the subject and stopping down to f2.5 to make things easier, f1.7 is pretty shallow if you're doing extreme closeups(ie just the face in the frame) or even medium closeups.

There is no difference between AFS and AFC when capturing video( they could have made it easily so though)
 
sparky33 said:
Yes, I've read the manual, but I'm not very smart.
Thanks!
Shawn
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I love the candor in that, haha. No help but you made me literally laugh out loud. I've heard people say so many reasons why they dont understand something but just saying "I'm not very smart" is brilliant in it's own way! I applaud you.
 
sparky33 said:
I am very new to this camera, and I'm sure it's me and not the camera. Went to the park with my kids yesterday. It seemed like no matter what I did, my 22 month old daughter's face was out of focus and the background was sharply in focus. If my wife was holding my daughter, my wife's face would be in focus and rarely would my little girl's be. I tried auto focus, half-pressing the shutter, starting and stopping many times. I tried stepping closer as well as back and still didn't have much luck.

What settings should I look for? I was reading the online manual and it spoke of "peripheral defocus" but I'm confused as that's a "scene mode" setting, and was told to always use "Movie mode" when shooting film.

Thanks to anyone with suggestions. I use the kit lens (14-140mm) and the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens.
Shawn
Click to expand...

Hi Shawn -- I have the GH2 and the 14-140, and the autofocus should be able to keep up with your daughter. My 4 year old is pretty quick, and it keeps up with him just fine :-)

In still or video mode, for people, I recommend setting the auto focus mode lever to AFC (Autofocus Continuous) and the auto focus mode dial to face detect.

If that doesn't work, try turning the mode dial to 1-area-focusing (little box in the middle), put the little box on the subject, and half press the shutter button or touch the subject's face on the touch screen LCD to get a lock. When I can't get the face detect to work due to low light or a person who won't look at the camera, I use this because it's simple.

If that doesn't work because the subject is moving around too fast, try turning the mode dial to AF tracking (the little target in the middle). A little more complicated, but you should be able to lock and automatically track your subject with the shutter button or touch screen.

Manual focus and increasing depth of field with aperture work, but they are too much for me to think about when dealing with kids. I started taking pictures with a Minolta SRT-101 38 years ago, so I know how to do it the old fashioned way, but the reason I have the GH2 is so I don't have to ;-)

Cheers,

Bill

P.S. This page from Panasonic may be more helpful than the manual in describing the various autofocus modes.
 
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