HVX has a terrible slow AF

B

benn

Well-known member
I know that the AF of the HVX200 is not a masterpiece, my little Sony HCR 1 is twice as fast. The last months I used mostly manuell focussing because of my SGpro. Today I took the pure HVX, without any Filter etc. The AF needs 10 to 20 seconds to focus from the close area to infinity and its not straight, its driving around and you cant trust it really (as well without ND) For hit and run its terrible. When do you thing HVX AF is beside of "normal"?. Could it be bust? Are your experiences similar?
Thanks Benn
 
It's almost unusably slow on lower framerates like 24 because of the frame rate itself. Fewer frames equals that many fewer chances to calculate distance to focus. I never use it, ever.

In theory 60i should AF as fast as a conventional camcorder (at 60i), but I've never tried it so I can't be sure. Someone else here surely has...
 
Not only is it slow, but also sort of unreliable. Picture glides easily to backfocus. Hope the videoindustry could develop focus similar to SLR's - nearly instat and viewfinder show where the focuspoint always is. Could someone from manufactures staff explain why this is so difficult to achieve in videocameras?
 
I use autofocus all the time at 60fps.
The clips of mine that Disney licensed for their Jungle Book DVD were all shot with autofocus.

Autofocus is just a tool like anything else. There are times when it's handy and other times when you never want to use it.

Most "pros" don't use it because pretty much all "pro" cameras don't have it as an option.

If you understand it's strengths and weaknesses, it can be useful in certain situations.
 
Professionals

Professionals

Well don't you have quite narrow "focus" who is pro. How a heck you shoot sports (icehockey f.ex. in my case) with manual focus? I shoot a variety of subjects and need both ways. And stil hope that autofocus would work better...
 
I've spent time capturing (1080/60i) swans and other birds slowly floating around on a lake and found the auto focus to be completely unreliable, even when 'it' thinks 'it' has found the right setting. I only use manual now.
 
Maybe my camera is the exception rather than the norm. I pretty much always shoot at 720pn/60fps and autofocus usually works great.

If you seen any of my wildlife footage playing at NAB in 2006 and 2007, that was all shot with autofocus.

I guess if it doesn't work for you obviously, don't use it. For me, in a lot of situations, it allows me to concentrate on other aspects of the shot. So if I'm in a situation where it works for me, I use it without a doubt.
 
I depend heavily on autofocus. You definitely have to understand the tradeoffs; but the HVX seems to perform just fine.
 
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