Help! Embarrasing problem infront of Live Audience!

J

Jlucan

Active member
Ok, I just received my new dvx-100a and got the opportunity to film a talent show. The camera was hooked up to the big screen. Everything was going smoothly, I believe I had it on auto for a while and all of sudden the focus blurs on me. I don't know what it is but I use the ring zoom and it became out of focus and blur when you zoom in or out and you can't fix it. I DIDN'T TOUCH ANYTHING, it just did it on its own and in the middle of the recording. I tried and tried to correct it.....it was embarrasing, what the hell is wrong the focus. It just came out of nowhere. Somebody HELP!
 
Was the auto focus on? What were the lighting conditions like? Are you saying that when you zoomed in or out the focus changed? If so it may be a back focus problem.
 
yeah, I think it was auto focus at the time. And no matter what you did, nothing would fix the problem. I had to turn the cam off and turn it back on again.....and then it went away. The wierd thing is it just came right out of the blue. It would stay a little in focus only on one point on the ring zoom, then when you would zoom further or zoom out it would just blur. This is the second time this has happened
 
it sounds like your auto focus was given a tough situation. auto focus isn't fool proof, if you give it a tricky subject under low light you can trip it into hunting where it just can't lock on anything. i usually just leave it in manual and use push auto if i need to change focus on something.
 
Also, if you were shooting in one of the progressive (30p or 24p) modes, the camera takes longer to focus as the camera is not getting samples of the scene as often as when you shoot in 60i.
 
yup, unless you have to try not using the auto focus, just zoom in with the camera , focus on an object and then pull out.... also in a pinch in manual you could push down on the focus tab...
 
Also if you had the auto-focus still on while you were trying to focus on the ring it won't work. You have to have auto-focus off if you want to use the focus ring.
 
combatJJ said:
Also if you had the auto-focus still on while you were trying to focus on the ring it won't work. You have to have auto-focus off if you want to use the focus ring.
Click to expand...

Actually that's not competely true.
The focus ring when touched, will override the auto-focus. That means even if you are using auto-focus, a turn on the focus ring will change your focus, meaning if the auto-focus is focused on infitity you can pull of a rack focus to a foreground subject even when you are in auto. Keep in mind though that you are still in auto-focus mode, and the auto-focus will take over again as soon as it notice a change in the scene.

Overall, manual focus is the way to go if you want full control with no surprises.
 
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