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AF OVF vs EVF

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Stephen L

Guest
I just got my camera today and I noticed when in AF mode, it is much better when using the EVF.. When using it the EVF it allows me to focus on spots where the OVF will give me a "AF!" can't lock onto focus warning..(not macro shots)

Why is that? I'm testing it at all distances, and the focusing with the EVF is just better.. I bought this camera because of the OVF.. and it's quite unusable at times.. Is it me or is it the camera?
 

Millsart

New member
The AF box in the OVF suffers some parallax error from where the lens is, as do all rangefinder style cameras

Its fine at normal distance though when its a small subject up close, the EVF works better.

I prefer the OVF myself, so what I do is in the custom mode make the distance scale one of the menu choices, just like it is in MF mode, so that way when the camera tells me its in focus, i can visually check and see if it says its focused at 30 feet when my subject is at 10 feet, knowing it didn't focus on what I wanted.

I find it to be a pretty good overall solution to help confirm the AF is on target, or if in doubt, you can quickly switch to EVF mode and back
 
S

Stephen L

Guest
It's not just close subjects though.. I'm saying 6 feet away from a door knob and I won't be able to lock focus with OVF, but as soon as I switch to EVF it locks.. pretty strange...
 
The parallax effect reduces the odds that you will focus on a given object as the object camera difference decreases.

In some situation (like the door knob) the error is significant, and in other situations the OVF AF will succeed at 6 ft. Also since the OVF window is not on the same axis as the lens, you can move the focus frame around to initiate your own parallax correction. The door knob in EV 7-10 light at 6 feet would be a good subject to practice this technique.

I just switch to EVF to focus when the distance is short. I switch back to OVF to make the photograph. When focus is critical, I use manual focus. I get the focus close using the AFL button. Then I check the focus by zooming with a command switch press. another press restores the full view. Or you can press the shutter in zoom mode.
 

OlliL

Member
I noticed, that when you get the red square in OVF and then switch to EVF, the subject is almost perfectly focussed.
 

paparazzi666

New member
I just got my camera today and I noticed when in AF mode, it is much better when using the EVF.. When using it the EVF it allows me to focus on spots where the OVF will give me a "AF!" can't lock onto focus warning..(not macro shots)

Why is that? I'm testing it at all distances, and the focusing with the EVF is just better.. I bought this camera because of the OVF.. and it's quite unusable at times.. Is it me or is it the camera?
My suggestion, set the camera to Manual focus mode.
Now use the AFL button at the camera rear to auto focus on your subject.
Now you can use both EVF and OVF without any problems
- in MF mode you can go all the way down to 4 inches (with EVF or OVF)
- in OVF mode, the frame moves down and right and it also shrinks to show a smaller image size, which is what is should do; brilliant
- the camera does not switch to EVF mode when you are in OVF mode when it is closer than 0.8 meters. haha thats something of a secret.

I use this mode now exclusively. Shoot a lot of reportage portraits with the Fuji x100. Here's the stream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paparazzi666/
 

John Kraus

New member
You can set the focusing square to be much smaller in the EVF than OVF. Because of this the focus gets less confused- the camera is choosing a smaller area to sample when focusing. Unfortunately if you're using the smallest focus square in EVF and switch to OVF, the square automatically gets larger. And then when you return to EVF the square remains larger- you have to reset to the smaller square if you wish to use it.
 
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