AC160 the infamous focus issues

J

Josh Bass

Veteran
I keep hearing about these various focus issues with the 160/130. The autofocus stuff I'm not really worried about; hardly use it, if at all.

I am concerned about something I read in a thread on here where the LENS ISN'T PARFOCAL????? Isn't this unusual for a dedicated video camera lens? I thought they were designed to hold focus throughout the zoom range?

This thread was saying if you zoom all the way in, focus, then zoom quickly back out (OP used the words "power zoom"), it'll go soft again. Is this a regular thing with this camera? Was that possibly an isolated incident? I read about how macro focus kicks in automatically at certain distances and wonder if someone got confused.

I know the 160a is coming out soon with the new focus functions. . .how hard is it with the 160 to focus manually, in general? No different from any other cam (say, EX1) or are folks finding it especially tough?

Lastly, does anyone know if you buy the 160, and then later decide you can't live without the A upgrade, Panasonic will still do that for the stated price or will that offer go away after a while and you'll only be able to buy the 160A as a separate cam?

Thanks.
 
Hi, Josh... I guess a few of us should run some tests. As for the 160a strategy, I have a call in this morning to Panasonic to find out when they can do my upgrade.

Panasonic may not have decided themselves how long the upgrade offer will last.

Bottom line here is for 7% of your original purchase price you get something that probably cost Panasonic a bundle to bring to market and you never know with upgrades, what is announced may not make mention of small enhancements included in the upgrade.

I would go for it on general principles.
 
Fair enough. i'm still curious as to whether there are real focus issues, however. . .I'm used to doing the ol'l critical focus technique, so I could live without the push button instant focus, and not too worried about the 60p.
 
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