Panasonic Lumix G80 strange focus problem.

Imagewerx · May 22, 2018

I was out at the weekend taking photos at a local car show and experienced something new to me in photography.
I took photos of five red cars,and three of the came out like this......

Another two of the red cars I took photos of came out like this where the first one(s) I took were out of focus.....

So I forced it to pick a focus point by tapping the screen and just a few seconds later it came out like this......

In all cases the camera settings were the same (49 area focus etc),the camera was on a tripod,the 2 second shutter release was used,the sun was in the same position directly behind me and they all had the same very bright highlight spots on them.The two cars this happened on were a very slightly darker shade of red than the ones it didn't happen on.Every single other photo I took that day of every other coloured car focused perfectly every time.
Has anyone else seen anything like this,or can give an explanation as to why this happened please?

Tatouzou · May 22, 2018

Imagewerx said:
I was out at the weekend taking photos at a local car show and experienced something new to me in photography.
I took photos of five red cars,and three of the came out like this......

Another two of the red cars I took photos of came out like this where the first one(s) I took were out of focus.....

So I forced it to pick a focus point by tapping the screen and just a few seconds later it came out like this......

In all cases the camera settings were the same (49 area focus etc),the camera was on a tripod,the 2 second shutter release was used,the sun was in the same position directly behind me and they all had the same very bright highlight spots on them.The two cars this happened on were a very slightly darker shade of red than the ones it didn't happen on.Every single other photo I took that day of every other coloured car focused perfectly every time.
Has anyone else seen anything like this,or can give an explanation as to why this happened please?

You were shooting at f9 1/640 with a 17mm lens, which means a huge depth of field. Yet, the whole scene in picture 2 is out of focus, from foreground to background: to me, it looks like something shaked your tripod.

By the way I dont understand why you used a tripod with 2" timer to shoot a parked car at f9 1/640 in bright sunshine.

Nor why you used 49 area focus with the camera on a tripod. I thought everybody would use single point AF in such shooting conditions.

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Imagewerx · May 22, 2018

Tatouzou said:
You were shooting at f9 1/640 with a 17mm lens, which means a huge depth of field. Yet, the whole scene in picture 2 is out of focus, from foreground to background: to me, it looks like something shaked your tripod.

By the way I dont understand why you used a tripod with 2" timer to shoot a parked car at f9 1/640 in bright sunshine.

Nor why you used 49 area focus with the camera on a tripod. I thought everybody would use single point AF in such shooting conditions.

Paul Auclair · May 22, 2018

i haven't read a camera manual cover to cover in a long while but i do recall many with an illustration very closely matching your image(s) detailing typical situations which could adversely effect AF performance.

the other illustration i recall is of a tiger (vertically striped cat) behind verticals bars (ie zoo cage). so avoid relying on AF if your shooting tigers through vertical bars too.

larsbc · May 22, 2018

I dunno...maybe the AF system was fooled by the specular reflections? In any case, I'd use single point AF so I'd know what the camera is focusing on.

Imagewerx · May 23, 2018

larsbc said:
I dunno...maybe the AF system was fooled by the specular reflections? In any case, I'd use single point AF so I'd know what the camera is focusing on.

Thanks but I understand that,why just a couple of red cars with the same reflections as the others?

spike29 · May 23, 2018

sounds as a longshot, but isn't it just that green and red has the same grey %? so the contrast focus has trouble to define the car from the grass?

easy test, transfer image to black and white. (we see color but the camera does not.)

i remember a funny thing that a friend of mine did't see the red car in the shadow of a tree against the bushes wile everyone else did see it clearly. we forgot he was colorblind for red and green all looked greyisch for him..

Imagewerx · May 23, 2018

spike29 said:
sounds as a longshot, but isn't it just that green and red has the same grey %? so the contrast focus has trouble to define the car from the grass?

But they were all parked on green grass,all with the same bright highlights.

spike29 · May 23, 2018

Imagewerx said:
spike29 said:

sounds as a longshot, but isn't it just that green and red has the same grey %? so the contrast focus has trouble to define the car from the grass?

Click to expand...

But they were all parked on green grass,all with the same bright highlights.

No i ment the fact that that example red car and green grass when in grey monochrome can be looking the same if the grey precentage is the same. And that that contrast of grey can blend in each other that much that a object is blend in to much, like a bird in a tree then a AF 23 point will hunt also.

Like i said, just monochrome the image and you know.

The G80 has a very good AF so it shouldend be hit wrong that much.

Personally i think the wheel arches and wheels it self should the camera be able to lock focus.

Chas2 · May 23, 2018

I have a US spec G85 with Lumix G 12-60 and I had issues with a California ocean sunset. The cam would not focus on the sun and dark horizon

I could not get it focused. I had to focus on cliffs half a mile away hoping that was close enough.

Imagewerx · May 23, 2018

spike29 said:
No i ment the fact that that example red car and green grass when in grey monochrome can be looking the same if the grey precentage is the same. And that that contrast of grey can blend in each other that much that a object is blend in to much, like a bird in a tree then a AF 23 point will hunt also.

Like i said, just monochrome the image and you know.

How can I check the grey percentage as it's difficult for me to tell by eye?

Is there anyway I can view the focus points my camera selected like I could with my Canon?

s_grins · May 23, 2018

In order to understand strange behavior of AF, you need to take some similar photos of Green cars and Blue cars to eliminate any influence of sRGB.

Imagewerx · May 23, 2018

JaKing · May 23, 2018

I always use single point AF when shooting cars and similar.

Your blurred shot looks as if your camera could not find focus because of the wide expanse of practically identical colour, so it gave up and racked to one end or the other of the focus range.

spike29 · May 23, 2018

much better translation.

Imagewerx · May 24, 2018

JaKing said:
I always use single point AF when shooting cars and similar.

Your blurred shot looks as if your camera could not find focus because of the wide expanse of practically identical colour, so it gave up and racked to one end or the other of the focus range.

Ok I get this,but I'm interested as to why a few shots in particular when the others of red cars focused properly?In these cases they were all focused on the minimum possible distance.

JaKing · May 24, 2018

Imagewerx said:
JaKing said:

I always use single point AF when shooting cars and similar.

Your blurred shot looks as if your camera could not find focus because of the wide expanse of practically identical colour, so it gave up and racked to one end or the other of the focus range.

Click to expand...

Ok I get this,but I'm interested as to why a few shots in particular when the others of red cars focused properly?In these cases they were all focused on the minimum possible distance.

With multipoint AF and large areas of relatively even colour, your chances of getting your camera to focus at all is somewhere between nil and SFA (Sweet Fanny Adams ... ). IMO it's amazing that cameras will focus at all in many circumstances.

It's also lens dependent, just to throw another variable into the mix ...

I got this one, and there was plenty of detail! Another reason for chimping ...

Jensen

I noticed, so took another one, as you did.

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Imagewerx · May 24, 2018

JaKing said:
With multipoint AF and large areas of relatively even colour, your chances of getting your camera to focus at all is somewhere between nil and SFA (Sweet Fanny Adams ... ). IMO it's amazing that cameras will focus at all in many circumstances.

It's also lens dependent, just to throw another variable into the mix ...

I got this one, and there was plenty of detail! Another reason for chimping ...

I noticed, so took another one, as you did.

From memory it picks out the edges of the windows as focus points.

But I need to ask this question again as it still hasn't been answered yet.Can I somehow see which focus points it used like I could with my Canon? I tried a plugin for Lightroom but it said that my camera is not supported.

spike29 · May 24, 2018

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JaKing · May 24, 2018

Olympus cameras show the focus point used while the image is still stored in the camera. I don't know about Panasonics.

Panasonic Lumix G80 strange focus problem.

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