HMC 150 autofocus goes crazy?!

F

firehawk

Veteran
The last 30 minutes of a 2.5 hour dance recital my hmc150 autofocus started going berserk.
It worked fine the first part. I was sitting on the front row. And it worked fine the day before shooting from a jib.
All the sudden i started noticing the AF feet going drastically from infinity to like 8 feet and 100ft and rapidly back and forth!
I had to take a moment to look and make sure I wasn't using an AC160 or 130!

So I switched to Manual and tried the push auto which sometimes worked.
The not-so-good LCD screen is hard to focus with especially when you are completely exhausted.

Any ideas what to do? The things got like 40 hrs on it; less than a year old.

Any tips for focussing during a recital? Pick the middle distance dancer and focus on her maybe?
I was approx 30 feet from a lot of the action. It couldnt handke large group wide shots or duet tight shots.
I was Using spotlight mode if that matters.
 
Hi David

That sounds exactly like my AC130's ..the AF used to go totally crazy running back and forth sometimes from 3' to infinity and back again when I was doing wedding guests on a dance floor and really not a lot of change of distance as it was full. The only trusted method to say "should I focus on ...." is to use the DOF calculator which will tell you what is in focus both in front and behind the subject that you have locked on. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html For the HMC150 you will need to set it on 1/3" sensors ... When you get your Sony you will really enjoy the focus peaking as that shows you what is in focus.

Chris
 
I do many stage events and have found at a distance of say 50 feet that I need three focus settings (front stage, mid stage and rear stage).

I wish I could have focus pre-sets that I could recall via user buttons or via a three-way toggle switch on a remote.

I don't think most stages are such that you have to worry about your angle relative to your position (middle versus left or right).

Easy to imagine with changing lights (flashing, intensity and color), lots of movement and glittering costumes that your AF would have a rough time.
 
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Thanks guys.
I'll check out the DOF calculator.
Also the front stage mid stage rear stage distance is a good idea too.
I was trying to determine in my head the distance the dancers were from me but since I was almost stage level to eye level it was hard to judge. When they closed the curtain I got a focus measurement lock of 25ft so I tried to base my focus feet off of that as a guide.
Next time I'll have someone stand front mid and rear and pull tape before hand so I'll have some distances in my head to adjust.
What gets me is the thing worked fine the first 2 hrs of the show. But since then it goes crazy except on obvious large slow focussing tasks, ie.. a wall, a curtain, etc.
It's like something just broke!
I asked another guy located mid right and he said his 150 wasn't doing that. He ran it on autofocus the whole show.

Yeah Chris. The Ea50u is a joy to focus!
I got in it and tested it for an hour the day of the show. Focus in red (or white/yellow) works so easily.
The whole time I was fighting with the 150 (3hr show Saturday) I was wishing I had the EA50 in my hands instead but I had it stuck up in the catwalk for a birds eye view because I figured it wouldnt match the panasonics.
Focussing the 150s is a pain with the lousy LCD. I wish it had focus in red.
What got me was
 
The best I could tell it was 25 feet to the curtain from me. There is a large wooden "pre" stage before the actual stage starts that they mostly didn't use. I guessed much of the dancing was around 35-45 feet and the rear around 50. But the autofocus seemed to want to go to infinity a lot. Why? It even went to macro sometimes.
The lighting wasn't all that extreme compared to what I've seen. Much of it was flat red or bluish without any flashing or color changing effects. Some costumes were shiny and glittery though.
The DVX100b didn't have trouble last year on the sane stage from the same seat.
 
I added the Sony CLM-V55 5-Inch Portable LCD Monitor which has focus peaking and many more features. Much sharper than the HMC150 LCD monitor which you can then use as a waveform monitor if needed.
 
Fire a red par can down an autofocus lens and they often do very odd things - the intense hotspot and the star points it produces seem to confuse the cameras sensing system. I work in theatre practically all the time and never ever use auto focus - none are reliable enough and with dancers the appearance and then disappearance of limbs into close ups sets the auto focus off on a wobbly. If shooting from the audience, I focus on the floor, about 1/3 of the distance between the house tabs (or where they would normally be, downstage) and the rear cloth or cyc, because this is the main performance area. Activities upstage are more uncommon. DoF is sufficient to keep everything from the tab line to quite a way upstage sharp. In general on my manual focus cameras, this is a short distance from infinity, and if I zoom in tight, only a small adjustment is required.
 
Hi David

Just for interest run the EA-50 on the PP3 profile and then lift saturation in post just a tad. (In Sony Vegas I use the color corrector plugin and just lift saturation from 1.00 to either 1.25 for indoor shots and up to 1.5 for bright sunny shots and it will match the Panny color nicely. I shot weddings (indoor and outdoor for a while with one Panny and one Sony and they matched well with that trick) If you are contemplating using 3rd party lenses then DON'T buy a cheap adapter!! I use my Nikon mount lenses and they are magic with the Novoflex NEX-NIK adapter ... you can even run the cams in auto and just set the iris (and focus manually as well which is so easy with focus assist!! (I use yellow/mid level FYI) The camera simply measures the incoming light and adjusts shutter and gain/iso automatically for you.

Chris
 
A big thanks to everyone for the great advice and help.
Adhering to what you said I think I can do better next time.

The Sony CLM-V55 5-Inch Portable LCD Monitor looks nice.
Problem is i need a ninja 2 recorder and cant afford both right now. In your opinion can the ninja 2 substitute for the sony monitor?

Chris, thanks for the help. I was hoping I could match up the EA50 with my panasonics. I'm going to try what you said.
I'm probably going to get a low light lens for it later when I can. I haven't had time to do much testing yet with it to see just
how well it does. So far I like it a lot! If it matches the panasonics then I'll like it even more! :)
 
Hi David

I struggle using prime lenses on video especially where space is at a premium so for my main camera in low light I have a Sigma 24-70 constant F2.8 and for my B-Cam in low light I use a Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and they work really well!! The Sony PP3 setting is very flat saturation so it's easy to match up in post with the Panny's ...on their own they are very uninspiring but lift the saturation a tad to the 150's level and they shine!!

Chris
 
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