P1 AFD AF accuracy?

[jmvdigital]

While I wait for the Fedex man to show today with my new kit, I've read the Phase PDF manual, I've cleaned the used 80 f1.9 lens I already got, and I sit with a smile on my face. One more big thanks to Chris at CI!

Anyway.... I'm wondering how reliable/accurate the autofocus system is? Is it a fun "feature" than can be used in a pinch on an obvious and well-lit subject, or can it be used regularly without worry? Mind you, I'll be going out to shoot with it today, so I can probably figure this out, but it never hurts to learn from the experiences of others in advance. Might mean the difference between a keeper or not.

 

[Jack]

Set the new body to ALL af points and it is very usable. Works even in lower dusk and dawn outdoor lighting, and medium indoor lighting. It will hunt in very low levels of light. Also note that with your manual lenses, the green dot will light up as a manual focus confirmation, but several of us got new bodies that for whatever reason have the focus arrows pointing the wrong directions!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Justin make sure they put the right focusing screen in that represents the P30 plus. Little hint the P25 framing is fairly close around the edges the P30 is further in. If that baffles you when it shows up call me

 

[Guy Mancuso]

S mode you can hold half press to freeze AF than recompose if needed

 

[jmvdigital]

Excellent. Thanks guys. It will be a relief if the AF works great. Tired of all the Canon threads about the AF needing calibration, front focusing, back focusing, outer focus points not being reliable, yada yada. I don't need 45 AF points... 1 will do if it works properly. Ha!

I'm assuming that Chris put in the proper screen. How can I tell?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

You can always do a test on framing. But if the black lines look much smaller than the whole frame than you would have the right one

But your buying the whole package together so it should be correct , mine Jacks and Ray's came separate because we bought very early and the body was not ready yet and they mixed mine up and Ray's also with the wrong screen . They fixed that right away though. Should not have to worry though

 

[harmsr]

If you have some reasonable amount of contrast the AF works very well and accurately. The only time I have issues and the lens hunting, is as Jack mentioned, in very dim light that the AF assist light does not reach to or when a subject is strongly backlit (as in a sunrise beach shot).

 

[Bob]

I have more or less abandoned auto focus when shooting models.
It seems that when the subject is well framed, often parts that are covered by the AF sensors happen to not be in the same plane as the model's eyes.:shocked:
So, I tend to manually follow-focus using the eye as the reference. This works very well when there is enough light to see a catch-light in the model's eye from a modeling lamp and is much more reliable for me.
Otherwise, I am reasonably happy with the AFD's AF in reasonable light.
-bob

 

[Guy Mancuso]

My trick is AF the face than pull the ring back to manual focus. That way it won't hunt after you got it but Bob is correct sometimes or most time your focus point will be on the chest or belly area and no contrast there with clothing or bare skin.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Justin this is a P30 Plus file shot with the 150 2.8 at F10 . Plenty of detail

 

[Jack]

I basically do what Guy does, only using S mode AF OR the AF lock with continuous AF (depending on the nature of the shoot). I then lock on the eye, hold focus, recompose and release. Works great for me. And FWIW, my camera locked focus fine on the morning sunrise shoot in Florida...