focusing on 717

mdursoit · Sep 2, 2003

Hi,

I own a 717 from about 1 month. I am very disappointed about the autofocus system of this camera, but I fear it is a problem of my camera since all the review that i read are very good.

When I shot photos to people very often the people is not in the focus, sometimes is the background other times is nothing.
If someone can explain me how to upload the pictures I can send some examples.

Does anyone find out the same problem or can give me some suggestions?

thank you very much.

regards
marco

Graham Sprake · Sep 2, 2003

mdursoit said:
Hi,
I own a 717 from about 1 month. I am very disappointed about the
autofocus system of this camera, but I fear it is a problem of my
camera since all the review that i read are very good.

When I shot photos to people very often the people is not in the
focus, sometimes is the background other times is nothing.
If someone can explain me how to upload the pictures I can send
some examples.

Does anyone find out the same problem or can give me some suggestions?

thank you very much.

regards
marco

The 717 is superb but some cameras suffer from a programming defect which may be the cause of your problem.

Go to the official Sony site and check the serial numbers for recall. If yours is on there then ring Sony, they will collect, fix and return in about 7 days. I did.
Of couse it may be you are not focusing correctly.

To check, set the auto focus to the small square and centre it, focus on some easily defined item, and then shoot the picture. Read pages 46 to 48 in your camera manual. You'll see how it is possible to focus incorrectly with the Autofocus.
Hope this helps
--
Graham

mdursoit · Sep 2, 2003

Hi Graham,
thank you very much for your suggestion.

I would like to check the sony site but I cannot find the link with the defective serial number. Can you please send it to me?

I've already tried to set the focus on a well defined item and everything seems to work right. I have problems mainly focusing to people. Even if I focus on the big part of the body and keep the shot button half pressed, very often the subject results out of focus.

regards
marco

Graham Sprake said:
mdursoit said:

Hi,
I own a 717 from about 1 month. I am very disappointed about the
autofocus system of this camera, but I fear it is a problem of my
camera since all the review that i read are very good.

When I shot photos to people very often the people is not in the
focus, sometimes is the background other times is nothing.
If someone can explain me how to upload the pictures I can send
some examples.

Does anyone find out the same problem or can give me some suggestions?

thank you very much.

regards
marco

Click to expand...

The 717 is superb but some cameras suffer from a programming defect
which may be the cause of your problem.
Go to the official Sony site and check the serial numbers for
recall. If yours is on there then ring Sony, they will collect, fix
and return in about 7 days. I did.
Of couse it may be you are not focusing correctly.
To check, set the auto focus to the small square and centre it,
focus on some easily defined item, and then shoot the picture. Read
pages 46 to 48 in your camera manual. You'll see how it is possible
to focus incorrectly with the Autofocus.
Hope this helps
--
Graham

hewy · Sep 2, 2003

The F717 autofocus has two modes.

In the first mode the camera will decide what it will focus on. This mode can be recognized by a rather large focussing rectangle that is shown in the display. Once the camera has focused it will show a smaller square to indicate what it has focussed on. A lot of people (including myself) find this mode rather ackward en somewhat unreliable since the camera has a mind of his own that cannot allways be predicted.

In the second mode you can choose what the camera will focus on. This can be recognised by a far smaller focussing square. You can move this square with the jog dail when it is not on your subject. In this mode YOU decide and the camera will behave predictable and very reliable. A technique used very commonly in this mode is:
1. select the center focussing square

2. aim the square on your subject (for portraits the eyes of your subject are usually best)
3. half press the shutter, the camera will focus and the square turns green

4. reframe the image but keep the shutter half pressed (you can even zoom in or out while doing this as long as you keep the shutter pressed).
5. If you like what you see: fully press the shutter.

This method should give 100% well focussed and sharp images (unless of course your shutter speed is too low

). If it doesn't something might be wrong with the camera...

Another good thing about this method is that the reaction to the final shutter release is really fast (0.12 seconds to be exact) because the camera is allready focussed...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

R2D2 · Sep 2, 2003

hewy said:
The F717 autofocus has two modes.

In the first mode the camera will decide what it will focus on.
This mode can be recognized by a rather large focussing rectangle
that is shown in the display. Once the camera has focused it will
show a smaller square to indicate what it has focussed on. A lot of
people (including myself) find this mode rather ackward en somewhat
unreliable since the camera has a mind of his own that cannot
allways be predicted.

In the second mode you can choose what the camera will focus on.
This can be recognised by a far smaller focussing square. You can
move this square with the jog dail when it is not on your subject.
In this mode YOU decide and the camera will behave predictable and
very reliable. A technique used very commonly in this mode is:
1. select the center focussing square
2. aim the square on your subject (for portraits the eyes of your
subject are usually best)
3. half press the shutter, the camera will focus and the square
turns green
4. reframe the image but keep the shutter half pressed (you can
even zoom in or out while doing this as long as you keep the
shutter pressed).
5. If you like what you see: fully press the shutter.

This method should give 100% well focussed and sharp images (unless
of course your shutter speed is too low ). If it doesn't
something might be wrong with the camera...

Another good thing about this method is that the reaction to the
final shutter release is really fast (0.12 seconds to be exact)
because the camera is allready focussed...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

--
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries

DannyV · Sep 2, 2003

Go here, http://www.pbase.com/help/register , create an account and upload the image. Then come back here are post the URL to your picture. There are instructions in the help section on pbase.

mdursoit said:
Hi,
I own a 717 from about 1 month. I am very disappointed about the
autofocus system of this camera, but I fear it is a problem of my
camera since all the review that i read are very good.

When I shot photos to people very often the people is not in the
focus, sometimes is the background other times is nothing.
If someone can explain me how to upload the pictures I can send
some examples.

Does anyone find out the same problem or can give me some suggestions?

thank you very much.

regards
marco

--
Daniel
http://www.pbase.com/dvogel11

mdursoit · Sep 3, 2003

Hi Hewy
Thank you very much for your explanation.
Unfortunatly I've already tried what you said and I noticed the following:

In the first mode (large rectangle) the rectangle becomes green but it doesn't reduce in size indicating where it is focusing on.

In the second mode I tried to use the small rectangle at the center of the image, half press until it becomes green and then shot; but sometimes the subject I was aiming to is out of focus

In any case my problems happens very more often at night (not so dark to use nightframing but the hologram AF starts). With daylight the camera works a lot better (very few picture out of focus but in the first focusing mode the focusing rectangle remains large).

thank you very much.
best regards
marco

hewy said:
The F717 autofocus has two modes.

In the first mode the camera will decide what it will focus on.
This mode can be recognized by a rather large focussing rectangle
that is shown in the display. Once the camera has focused it will
show a smaller square to indicate what it has focussed on. A lot of
people (including myself) find this mode rather ackward en somewhat
unreliable since the camera has a mind of his own that cannot
allways be predicted.

In the second mode you can choose what the camera will focus on.
This can be recognised by a far smaller focussing square. You can
move this square with the jog dail when it is not on your subject.
In this mode YOU decide and the camera will behave predictable and
very reliable. A technique used very commonly in this mode is:
1. select the center focussing square
2. aim the square on your subject (for portraits the eyes of your
subject are usually best)
3. half press the shutter, the camera will focus and the square
turns green
4. reframe the image but keep the shutter half pressed (you can
even zoom in or out while doing this as long as you keep the
shutter pressed).
5. If you like what you see: fully press the shutter.

This method should give 100% well focussed and sharp images (unless
of course your shutter speed is too low ). If it doesn't
something might be wrong with the camera...

Another good thing about this method is that the reaction to the
final shutter release is really fast (0.12 seconds to be exact)
because the camera is allready focussed...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Peter Aczel · Sep 3, 2003

mdursoit said:
I've already tried to set the focus on a well defined item and
everything seems to work right. I have problems mainly focusing to
people. Even if I focus on the big part of the body and keep the
shot button half pressed, very often the subject results out of
focus.

Don't focus "on the big part of the body", but focus always on the face. Isn't it possible the exposure time is too long? To determinise if your camera is defective or not: use a tripod or put the camera on a stable horizontal surface, use self-exposure, focus with the square in the middle on a vertically well articulated surface. The result must be good. If it is so, the exposure time you had used shooting people was too long, or their face wasn't taken by the focus.
regards
Peter

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.A. Hungary http://web.axelero.hu/paczel

hewy · Sep 3, 2003

Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you will find all you need to know (and a lot more

).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

mdursoit · Sep 3, 2003

I made several test and I would exclude a problem due to too low shutter speed. Consider that quite often the background is really well focused while the subject is out of focus (to be true there are some shots where everithing is out of focus but they are quite few) and that should exclude a low shutter speed.

I will search for HAF problem as soon as the search is available. In any case I hope that it is something that canbe fixed.

I will let you know if I find out something more.

In any case thank you very much for your suggestions.

best regards
marco

hewy said:
Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

mdursoit · Sep 3, 2003

After reading this I was quite sure that my camera has the HAF problem. I checked upon the internet but I found out that my serial number is not affected and I have also tried some test.
My problem is very similar but probably is not the HAF problem.

I also tried to see the distance where autofocus was focusing half pressing the shutter with AF on and, without release the shutter, setting the camera to manual focus. Well, in a range betwenn 1 to 3 meters I'have found that eveything seems right with zoom at tele but with a wideangle zoom the distance is never precise (sometimes I abotain different distances without changing anything, just refocussing).

Any more suggestion?
thanks a lot
regards
marco

hewy said:
Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

hewy · Sep 3, 2003

The f717 is great for shooting images but it is a very poor device for measuring the distances... What I mean to say is that it is perfectly normal for any F717 to get the estimated distance wrong in wide angle. I think this lies in the fact that the distance indication is calculated from the lens focus setting/position in combination with the choosen zoom position. In wide angle the DOF is so large that the slightest mistake/deviation in reading the focus position will imediately result in a rather high inaccuracy in the readout, but please don't worry: usually (appearantly not in you case !) the camera is focussed for a sharp image. The distance indicator is just not reliable.

So I don't think you test tell you to much. Best way to test (I guess) is to take a flat object with a lot of contrast (a large photo would do) and place it at a defined distance from the camera. Put the camera on a tripod (or on a table if you don't have one). Make the camera focus and shoot an image. Now move the object away in small steps. Keep taking images. Afterward check the images to see where things where in or out of focus.

One more thing (this may sound silly) but: are you aware of the fact that there is a minimum distance between the object and the lens ?. I gues you know that, but it would explain the background being sharp and not the subject....

Hewy

mdursoit said:
I also tried to see the distance where autofocus was focusing half
pressing the shutter with AF on and, without release the shutter,
setting the camera to manual focus. Well, in a range betwenn 1 to 3
meters I'have found that eveything seems right with zoom at tele
but with a wideangle zoom the distance is never precise (sometimes
I abotain different distances without changing anything, just
refocussing).

Any more suggestion?
thanks a lot
regards
marco

hewy said:

Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

mdursoit · Sep 3, 2003

Hi Hewy,

I will try the test that you suggest and I will let you know. For the moment that a look at this picture.

http://www.pbase.com/mdursoit/inbox

It was shot at night with HAF on and Aiming at the body of the man. Look at the result. Please consider that I have a lot more like this.
I hope it can help you to understand. It is really driving me crazy.

P.S. I know that there is a minimum focusing distance and in 717 shold be 90 cm at full tele, but I should not be in that problem.

best regards
marco

hewy said:
So I don't think you test tell you to much. Best way to test (I
guess) is to take a flat object with a lot of contrast (a large
photo would do) and place it at a defined distance from the camera.
Put the camera on a tripod (or on a table if you don't have one).
Make the camera focus and shoot an image. Now move the object away
in small steps. Keep taking images. Afterward check the images to
see where things where in or out of focus.

One more thing (this may sound silly) but: are you aware of the
fact that there is a minimum distance between the object and the
lens ?. I gues you know that, but it would explain the background
being sharp and not the subject....

Hewy

mdursoit said:

I also tried to see the distance where autofocus was focusing half
pressing the shutter with AF on and, without release the shutter,
setting the camera to manual focus. Well, in a range betwenn 1 to 3
meters I'have found that eveything seems right with zoom at tele
but with a wideangle zoom the distance is never precise (sometimes
I abotain different distances without changing anything, just
refocussing).

Any more suggestion?
thanks a lot
regards
marco

hewy said:

Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

hewy · Sep 3, 2003

We can rule out anything else but focussing indeed. For some reason it focussed on the background pretty well....

Hewy

mdursoit said:
http://www.pbase.com/mdursoit/inbox

It was shot at night with HAF on and Aiming at the body of the man.
Look at the result. Please consider that I have a lot more like
this.
I hope it can help you to understand. It is really driving me crazy.

P.S. I know that there is a minimum focusing distance and in 717
shold be 90 cm at full tele, but I should not be in that problem.

best regards
marco

hewy said:

So I don't think you test tell you to much. Best way to test (I
guess) is to take a flat object with a lot of contrast (a large
photo would do) and place it at a defined distance from the camera.
Put the camera on a tripod (or on a table if you don't have one).
Make the camera focus and shoot an image. Now move the object away
in small steps. Keep taking images. Afterward check the images to
see where things where in or out of focus.

One more thing (this may sound silly) but: are you aware of the
fact that there is a minimum distance between the object and the
lens ?. I gues you know that, but it would explain the background
being sharp and not the subject....

Hewy

mdursoit said:

I also tried to see the distance where autofocus was focusing half
pressing the shutter with AF on and, without release the shutter,
setting the camera to manual focus. Well, in a range betwenn 1 to 3
meters I'have found that eveything seems right with zoom at tele
but with a wideangle zoom the distance is never precise (sometimes
I abotain different distances without changing anything, just
refocussing).

Any more suggestion?
thanks a lot
regards
marco

hewy said:

Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

R2D2 · Sep 3, 2003

Technique.

There is almost zero contrast in the shirt., especially in low light.

hewy said:
Hewy

mdursoit said:

http://www.pbase.com/mdursoit/inbox

It was shot at night with HAF on and Aiming at the body of the man.
Look at the result. Please consider that I have a lot more like
this.
I hope it can help you to understand. It is really driving me crazy.

P.S. I know that there is a minimum focusing distance and in 717
shold be 90 cm at full tele, but I should not be in that problem.

best regards
marco

hewy said:

So I don't think you test tell you to much. Best way to test (I
guess) is to take a flat object with a lot of contrast (a large
photo would do) and place it at a defined distance from the camera.
Put the camera on a tripod (or on a table if you don't have one).
Make the camera focus and shoot an image. Now move the object away
in small steps. Keep taking images. Afterward check the images to
see where things where in or out of focus.

One more thing (this may sound silly) but: are you aware of the
fact that there is a minimum distance between the object and the
lens ?. I gues you know that, but it would explain the background
being sharp and not the subject....

Hewy

mdursoit said:

I also tried to see the distance where autofocus was focusing half
pressing the shutter with AF on and, without release the shutter,
setting the camera to manual focus. Well, in a range betwenn 1 to 3
meters I'have found that eveything seems right with zoom at tele
but with a wideangle zoom the distance is never precise (sometimes
I abotain different distances without changing anything, just
refocussing).

Any more suggestion?
thanks a lot
regards
marco

hewy said:

Well if it occurs only when the laser is used for focussing your
camera could indeed suffer from the well known HAF problem. When
search is back up again that do a search for "HAF problem" and you
will find all you need to know (and a lot more ).

Last thing that could be a user error (or better mistake) is using
a shutter speed that is too low. The camera usually will warn you
about this by showing a hand in the EVF. Check the exif on your
images (you can do this by using EXIFER, it´s for free downloadable
from the net). See what the shutter speeds are. If you see the
focussing problem occuring with a couple of images that are taken
with shutter speed higher then say 1/100 seconds you can rule that
problem out also.

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

--
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries

Steve Cavigliano · Sep 3, 2003

This is a common issue. Especially for users new to DC's. Also, especially urksome when trying to shot group shots...lol When I first got my 707, I used to get alot of shots like the example shot. Two, or three OOF heads and a perfectly focused tree, or piece of furniture between those OOF heads...lol

As R2 wrote, it's technique and practice. Make sure you focus on a contrasy part of your subject. Even if you have to zoom all the way in to get lock and then zoom out and re-compose (while continuing to 1/2 press). Again, as R2 wrote, the shirt, or the faces, have little contrast compared to the sharp edges of that column that runs between the subject's heads. If you were using centerpoint AF, the camera did it's job well. Unfortunately, it was unaware that you were more interested in capturing people than architecture...LOL

Bottomline is, that your camera is fine and you will see less and less of this type problem, now that you are aware of it, and as you get more shots under your belt

Steve

R2D2 said:
There is almost zero contrast in the shirt., especially in low light.

hewy said:

We can rule out anything else but focussing indeed. For some reason
it focussed on the background pretty well....

Hewy

--

Click to expand...

http://www.pbase.com/slo2k
'The question is not what you look at, but what you see' - Thoreau

R2D2 · Sep 3, 2003

I was in a rush and had to go fix dinner (lame excuse I know).

md' follow these two basic rules regarding contrast-based focusing and you'll get much better shots, I guarantee (cuz I've been down the same road).

You won't believe how many great shots of my back hedgerow I have. Of course, there's always some furry out of focus object in the foreground sitting on my deck rail (like a cute squirrel eating walnuts).

Rule #1. The camera will focus on the object with the greatest contrast within the focusing frame (like something in the background).

Rule #2. The camera will focus on the closest of the contrasty objects within that area (like foreground leaves or grass).

Do this:

Take a furry little object (if you don't have access to a trained pet squirrel, then the back of a teddy bear will do nicely).
Set it out a ways in front of a contrasty background, and try focusing on it.

See how much of the bear needs to be within the focusing frame in order for the camera to choose to focus on it.

Try it from different distances, lighting angles and conditions. Just get a feel for how the 717 handles focusing.

Soon you will just automatically choose a nice contrasty part of the image to focus on (like the eye/head as mentioned earlier).

Remember too that low light is the most challenging condition for the camera to focus in.

I actually keep the hologram focus assist turned off, and rarely have a problem with focus. You too will soon have little problem, I'm sure.

Hope this helps some,
R2

Steve Cavigliano said:
As R2 wrote, it's technique and practice. Make sure you focus on a
contrasy part of your subject. Even if you have to zoom all the
way in to get lock and then zoom out and re-compose (while
continuing to 1/2 press). Again, as R2 wrote, the shirt, or the
faces, have little contrast compared to the sharp edges of that
column that runs between the subject's heads. If you were using
centerpoint AF, the camera did it's job well. Unfortunately, it
was unaware that you were more interested in capturing people than
architecture...LOL

Bottomline is, that your camera is fine and you will see less and
less of this type problem, now that you are aware of it, and as you
get more shots under your belt

Steve

R2D2 said:

There is almost zero contrast in the shirt., especially in low light.

hewy said:

We can rule out anything else but focussing indeed. For some reason
it focussed on the background pretty well....

Hewy

--

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

http://www.pbase.com/slo2k
'The question is not what you look at, but what you see' - Thoreau

--
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries

mdursoit · Sep 4, 2003

I will try again to shot to people at night and I will let you know. In any case tanks a lot to everybody. I am new with DC but I would like to learn a lot.

best regards
marco

R2D2 said:
md' follow these two basic rules regarding contrast-based focusing
and you'll get much better shots, I guarantee (cuz I've been down
the same road).
You won't believe how many great shots of my back hedgerow I have.
Of course, there's always some furry out of focus object in the
foreground sitting on my deck rail (like a cute squirrel eating
walnuts).

Rule #1. The camera will focus on the object with the greatest
contrast within the focusing frame (like something in the
background).
Rule #2. The camera will focus on the closest of the contrasty
objects within that area (like foreground leaves or grass).

Do this:
Take a furry little object (if you don't have access to a trained
pet squirrel, then the back of a teddy bear will do nicely).
Set it out a ways in front of a contrasty background, and try
focusing on it.
See how much of the bear needs to be within the focusing frame in
order for the camera to choose to focus on it.
Try it from different distances, lighting angles and conditions.
Just get a feel for how the 717 handles focusing.
Soon you will just automatically choose a nice contrasty part of
the image to focus on (like the eye/head as mentioned earlier).

Remember too that low light is the most challenging condition for
the camera to focus in.
I actually keep the hologram focus assist turned off, and rarely
have a problem with focus. You too will soon have little problem,
I'm sure.

Hope this helps some,
R2

Steve Cavigliano said:

As R2 wrote, it's technique and practice. Make sure you focus on a
contrasy part of your subject. Even if you have to zoom all the
way in to get lock and then zoom out and re-compose (while
continuing to 1/2 press). Again, as R2 wrote, the shirt, or the
faces, have little contrast compared to the sharp edges of that
column that runs between the subject's heads. If you were using
centerpoint AF, the camera did it's job well. Unfortunately, it
was unaware that you were more interested in capturing people than
architecture...LOL

Bottomline is, that your camera is fine and you will see less and
less of this type problem, now that you are aware of it, and as you
get more shots under your belt

Steve

R2D2 said:

There is almost zero contrast in the shirt., especially in low light.

hewy said:

We can rule out anything else but focussing indeed. For some reason
it focussed on the background pretty well....

Hewy

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'The question is not what you look at, but what you see' - Thoreau

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Jean Valentin · Sep 7, 2003

Hi Hewy,

I had the opposite experience.

hewy said:
The F717 autofocus has two modes.

In the first mode the camera will decide what it will focus on.
This mode can be recognized by a rather large focussing rectangle
that is shown in the display. Once the camera has focused it will
show a smaller square to indicate what it has focussed on. A lot of
people (including myself) find this mode rather ackward en somewhat
unreliable since the camera has a mind of his own that cannot
allways be predicted.

I always knew what the camera focused on.

hewy said:
In the second mode you can choose what the camera will focus on.
This can be recognised by a far smaller focussing square. You can
move this square with the jog dail when it is not on your subject.
In this mode YOU decide and the camera will behave predictable and
very reliable. A technique used very commonly in this mode is:
1. select the center focussing square
2. aim the square on your subject (for portraits the eyes of your
subject are usually best)
3. half press the shutter, the camera will focus and the square
turns green

When the square turned green I knew that the cameara had a focus lock. The problem was that if anything else was in that square area, the camera could focus on the other thing. Since I'm using the center square, I assumed that the camera is focused on the right place. I had a lot of out of focus pictures.

When using the wide rectangle, at least you see exactly where the camera is focused.

hewy said:
4. reframe the image but keep the shutter half pressed (you can
even zoom in or out while doing this as long as you keep the
shutter pressed).
5. If you like what you see: fully press the shutter.

This method should give 100% well focussed and sharp images (unless
of course your shutter speed is too low ). If it doesn't
something might be wrong with the camera...

Another good thing about this method is that the reaction to the
final shutter release is really fast (0.12 seconds to be exact)
because the camera is allready focussed...

--
Hewy
F717
http://www.pbase.com/huubverm

hewy · Sep 7, 2003

Jean,

Glad to hear some people know how to handle the focussing function with the large square. Before I bought the 717 I used a lot of film SLRs that had an autofocus system that only had a small center square on which it focussed. Perhaps I got some much used (and trained to) using this system that I couldn´t get used to this new thing anymore...

On my summer vacation I took around 250 pictures with only one out of focus, so I am satisfied with the "small square" focus system (have to admit that I shot around 50% landscapes and it is of course not very difficult to get these in focus).

Hewy
F717
member.home.nl/huub.vermeulen

ask not what a digicam can do for you, ask yourself what you can do with a digicam *

focusing on 717

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