Hasselblad XCD 28P Focus Shift

[Steve Hendrix]

Thanks, Matt. Yes, there are settings for sensitivity as well (I think). I've tried a few different colors and futz with this a bit more.

John

I've not found a sensitivity setting for focus peaking, and being Hasselblad, I assumed there wasn't one so didn't look too hard, but maybe there is, although the nice thing about the Hasselblad interface is you don't have to worry too much if you don't find something that it is hiding in some other irrational location in the menu system, like ... Fuji and others.

I've never liked the idea of peaking for anything other than rough focusing. It can be fooled and it can be inaccurate and imprecise. Of course less of an issue where depth of field is a priority and aperture is stopped down. I tend to follow the path Victor is on where I manually focus zoomed in. For me, that was perhaps the critical killer app for mirrorless in my use - the ability to auto zoom in the EVF. I like pre-seeing the results with my own eyes. So ironically, as a historic champion of auto focus with every camera I ever shot with (because I was so terrible at manual focusing), the mirrorless cameras have reversed that and now almost everything critical is manual focus for me.


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[rdeloe]

Fuji provides lots of focus peaking options on the GFX cameras, but like Steve and Victor I find them unreliable except for very coarse focusing. Magnification on my GFX 100S is sufficient to allow for reliable critical focusing at all focal lengths. The main challenge is getting used to the display so you know what "in focus" looks like with different lenses.

 

[MGrayson]

I've not found a sensitivity setting for focus peaking, and being Hasselblad, I assumed there wasn't one so didn't look too hard, but maybe there is, although the nice thing about the Hasselblad interface is you don't have to worry too much if you don't find something that it is hiding in some other irrational location in the menu system, like ... Fuji and others.

I've never liked the idea of peaking for anything other than rough focusing. It can be fooled and it can be inaccurate and imprecise. Of course less of an issue where depth of field is a priority and aperture is stopped down. I tend to follow the path Victor is on where I manually focus zoomed in. For me, that was perhaps the critical killer app for mirrorless in my use - the ability to auto zoom in the EVF. I like pre-seeing the results with my own eyes. So ironically, as a historic champion of auto focus with every camera I ever shot with (because I was so terrible at manual focusing), the mirrorless cameras have reversed that and now almost everything critical is manual focus for me.


Steve Hendrix/CI

I would agree with you, except that the magnification is insufficient! What I see on the laptop is a lot more detail than I see on the screen at maximum magnification, and I just can't judge. Even playback magnifies more than live view. (Weirdly, I just tested this and the EVF on playback magnifies the same amount as live view. The LCD magnifies more.)

Depending on the subject, peaking can be very useful. I get a greater hit rate on eyes by placing the peaking band the right distance behind the eyebrows. With isolated subjects, you have to go back and forth and judge when the peaking is maximal. It doesn't always work, but magnified focus - as implemented on the X2D - I'm just not very good at.

Oh, I see the problem. Magnified focus without peaking works much better on the EVF, and I've never been comfortable using EVF's as a glasses wearer. The X2D has a great EVF and the best diopter adjustment I've encountered. Maybe I can use it.

Matt

 

[tenmangu81]

I wear glasses, too, and until now used 50% zoom manual focusing on EVF, and it works wonderfully, but only on the selected AF zone, of course. So, I have to try focus peaking which gives a general view of what is focused and what is not.

 

[Steve Hendrix]

I would agree with you, except that the magnification is insufficient! What I see on the laptop is a lot more detail than I see on the screen at maximum magnification, and I just can't judge. Even playback magnifies more than live view. (Weirdly, I just tested this and the EVF on playback magnifies the same amount as live view. The LCD magnifies more.)

Depending on the subject, peaking can be very useful. I get a greater hit rate on eyes by placing the peaking band the right distance behind the eyebrows. With isolated subjects, you have to go back and forth and judge when the peaking is maximal. It doesn't always work, but magnified focus - as implemented on the X2D - I'm just not very good at.

Oh, I see the problem. Magnified focus without peaking works much better on the EVF, and I've never been comfortable using EVF's as a glasses wearer. The X2D has a great EVF and the best diopter adjustment I've encountered. Maybe I can use it.

Matt

Yes, I find the LCD magnified ever so slightly more than the EVF on the X2D (but pretty close). But compared to the GFX 100 cameras, the EVF manual focus magnification is significantly less. That's too bad, maybe they can improve that at some point in the future.


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[Steve Hendrix]

I wear glasses, too, and until now used 50% zoom manual focusing on EVF, and it works wonderfully, but only on the selected AF zone, of course. So, I have to try focus peaking which gives a general view of what is focused and what is not.

Robert, do you mean that only a portion of the screen is magnified when you manually focus? Which of course it would, it couldn't show you the entire scene magnified at once. But you can use the rear dial to pan around while the magnification stays zoomed in. Slightly confused by what you meant when you said "selected AF zone".


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[MGrayson]

The biggest problem with focus peaking (for me) is that you can't (AFAIK) turn it on and off quickly. If you use it, then your landscape looks entirely magenta. If you're using an AF lens, then you can do it by switching focusing modes. But an adapted MF lens is all or nothing.

 

[vjbelle]

Fuji provides lots of focus peaking options on the GFX cameras, but like Steve and Victor I find them unreliable except for very coarse focusing. Magnification on my GFX 100S is sufficient to allow for reliable critical focusing at all focal lengths. The main challenge is getting used to the display so you know what "in focus" looks like with different lenses.

When I had the 100s my constant complaint was the fuzziness of the EVF and the LCD screen when viewing at 100% pixels. For sure it is something to get used to. The 100 II solves all of that and, for me, is worth every penny for upgrading. There is no finer EVF in the industry that I know of.

Victor B.

 

[Steve Hendrix]

When I had the 100s my constant complaint was the fuzziness of the EVF and the LCD screen when viewing at 100% pixels. For sure it is something to get used to. The 100 II solves all of that and, for me, is worth every penny for upgrading. There is no finer EVF in the industry that I know of.

Victor B.

I tend to agree!

https://www.captureintegration.com/the-fujifilm-gfx-100-ii-has-the-worlds-best-evf/


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[jng]

Thanks to all for your replies. And apologies up front for sending anyone down some rabbit hole(s) looking for menu functions that existed only in my imagination. I just had a chance to take a closer look on my X2D and 907x-CFV100C (yes, I am one of those crazies who owns both). My findings verify what you all have written about since my last post:

1. On both bodies, there is only the option to change the color of focus peaking, but not its intensity. Re: the latter, I must've been thinking about some camera I owned in the past.

2. Focus peaking works at normal magnification as well as zoomed in @ 100% (thanks @MGrayson for pointing out that it's sometimes just harder to see).

3. When manually focusing the lenses, focus peaking only works if the camera body is set to MF mode (I know, duh), or on the XCD-V lens if the focusing collar is slid into MF mode while the camera is in AF mode. The peaking is not enabled if I simply turn the focusing ring while the camera is in AF mode (or the focusing ring on the XCD-V lens is in AF position while the camera is in AF mode). The behavior of focus peaking on the XCD-V lens was not at all obvious to me before today.

Apologies again for not doing my homework before firing off my previous post.

Other observations:

Other than the lack of IBIS, one drawback of the 907x body compared to the X2D is that there's no back button autofocus option without using the side grip. Neither are deal breakers for me, but rather just point to the strengths and weaknesses of the two bodies' configurations: the X2D is more versatile, whereas the 907x-CFV100C is more compact.

On the X2D, I find manually focusing at 100% magnification to be much easier when using the viewfinder than the LCD. As noted by others, however, the viewfinder can be a pain when wearing eyeglasses, which I sometimes do when not wearing my contact lenses. In these instances, activating the viewfinder is near-impossible with my eyeglasses, which are quite thick and suitable for Mr. Magoo.

Last month while out shooting waterfalls, I discovered that focus peaking came in handy, as focusing on the rapidly moving water was just about impossible even at 100% magnification, given the rate at which the water was streaming and the refresh rate of the LCD monitor.

John

 

[jotloob]

I hope I haven't opened a can of worms by raising the question of focus shift in the other thread earlier today. As I wrote in the other thread, I don't expect perfection from the 28P. It isn't marketed as a landscape lens (the marketing implies that the lens is for urban street shots and the like) nor is it priced at the same level as the V or original XCD lenses. That said, it is a little disappointing that the focus shift is so marked and at the aperture that I use most often. What makes it awkward for me is that I have the 907x without the accessory grip and there is no option to use stopped down focussing in that configuration. I've only had the lens a few days and have already got somewhat used to making allowances for the focus shift by deliberately focusing closer than I would otherwise do so for a given desired DOF (the photograph of the tree below was when I first became suspicious of focus shift because I knew I had focussed on the front of the tree yet it is the branches further back that are in optimum focus). Deliberately focussing a bit closer seems to work okay but it does feel a bit of a fudge and something I thought I'd left behind with some Leica M lenses prior to that company becoming wise to the phenomenon.

Lovely two images . The nice time of the years has arrived . For me , that feeling just springs out of the images .

 

[tenmangu81]

Robert, do you mean that only a portion of the screen is magnified when you manually focus? Which of course it would, it couldn't show you the entire scene magnified at once. But you can use the rear dial to pan around while the magnification stays zoomed in. Slightly confused by what you meant when you said "selected AF zone".


Steve Hendrix/CI

Yes Steve, thanks, but it's not so easy to find the part of the image you want to focus on while zooming when you look through the EVF. I agree that it's easier when you use the screen rather than the EVF, as you have then an overall view of the scene looking at it.