Pinpoint Focus ROCKS!

P

ProDude

Guest
I got bored just before bedtime and was playing around shooting out from my office room to the rather darkened living room. For the first time I hit the video button just to see how that worked as I don't do video. I panned around my office and was astounded how utterly stable the video being produced in the viewfinder presented itself as. I noted when I came upon the doorway since it was on continuous focus it got a bit blurred out for a second as I panned then locked focus pretty quick on a small table and stuff on it.

I was curious what might have thrown off the focus as afterall there was little to no light outside of the doorway out towards the living room which had no light on in it, just a low level one in the kitchen a ways away. So just for the heck of it I moved the focus into the "Pinpoint" mode. I was planning on avoiding this as I just (mistakenly) assumed it was going to be the same debacle the Z series cameras had run into using their Pinpoint focus, which from several reviews they all suggest staying away from it as it didn't work well at all and would lose focus.

I was blown away aiming at some objects such as the window frame and blinds in the nearly dark living room, and holy crud it was locking focus using Pinpoint almost immediately NO hunting at all. No matter what I aimed at in this darkened room it nailed focus no effort at all. I'm WAYYY impressed I must say. I purposely avoided it from Nikon's experience with it but clearly that is in NO way how it works for the S1 I'm using. It seems when you have the "1 Area" focus chosen it is possible that in some cases if the lack of contrast is such it can lose focus causing it to hunt back and forth till it locks. But with the Pinpoint that wasn't a problem. I'll be checking this out a bunch more to be sure as clearly it has it's advantages. Just wanted to pass this on to those still exploring all the features of the S series camera they may have.
 
Pinpoint has always worked well on Panasonic M4/3 camera bodies.

CDAF has always been regarded as being more accurate than PDAF but has suffered the “slings and arrows” of popular feedback from early implementations being “slow” and subject to hunting.

Even PDAF systems switch to CDAF for final focus precision as far as I know.

For whatever reason I don’t know Panasonic has chosen to refine CDAF rather than go down the PDAF track. Noteworthy there are other companies using CDAF as far as I know and they don’t seem to get as much negative feedback as Panasonic does - perhaps it is because Panasonic makes such a virtue out of necessity?

In any case Panasonic CDAF works for me in M4/3 and will assuredly work for me in L-Mount.
 
I agree. I also noticed this with pinpoint on my S1. I was using 1-area then switched to pinpoint some days ago. Happy with it.

BTW, am I understanding that you had the camera with you when you went to bed (because you love it so much)? Have to admit I’ve been tempted many times to do just that...

caver3d
 
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BTW, am I understanding that you had the camera with you when you went to bed (because you love it so much)? Have to admit I’ve been tempted many times to do just that...

caver3d
LOL nah I have my CPAP on my end table so there wouldn't be any room ;-)
 

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