> I rarely use autofocus, but am accustomed to using the focus-assist on the > F5, which I find wholly reliable and safer than my slightly dodgy eyesight. > However, the equivalent on the S2 is, unsurprisingly since it's based on a > cheapo body, a disappointment, flaky & erratic: it hunts all over the > place, flickers on & off, etc. I'm still not producing consistently > sharply-focussed results on the S2,
I am sorry you did not find out on time that for autofocus, you have to think Canon. All Canon cameras, including the "cheapo" ones not only have the focus asisst and works ok but you can also choose to have a blip sound to let you know you are in focus by sound. All Those cameras have a contradiction in their building: the smaller than 35 frame accounts for a mechanically bigger dept of field, just like when you go from one format to another, smaller one, but then the zoom factor, introduced in the lenses due to this smaller frame builds up a telephoto effect to all lenses. It is my opinion that this effect is more noticeable than that of the expected bigger depth of field, and then, the focusing is much more critical than in a full frame 35mm camera. If you add to this that the autofocus system in those cheapo cameras just follow the line of the better systems installed in the more expensive cameras( D1x and 1D,1Ds), then this is the final result : por autofocus more noticeable in Nikon and Fuji than in Canon, with Nikon D100 being probably the most hated machine of the 6MP generation. Also keep in mind the quality of the lens you are using to judge your cameras, since back compatibility with old lenses is just that, and focus and autofocus may have limited connection with this compatilibity. Many threads in the digital forums, which I actualy mentioned here, about what was called "Out of Autofocus" ended up being more a problem of using poor quality lenses , combined with blur/camera shake, which for some reason seems to be most noticeable in digital, more than actual problems of focusing /autofocusing. Last and not least, remember that the low pass filter in front of the chip will always introduce a soft focus quality to all files coming from all cameras designed with this arquitecture, and it has become customary to set up a "first sharpen pass" as something widely used , just to counter the softening effect of the filter, remotely equivalent to the softness introduced when scanning . For a review of this first sharpen method check this out http://www.robgalbraith.com/diginews/2002-10/2002_10_20_eos1ds.html All the best. Jorge Parra APA/ASMP www.jorgeparra.com =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
