Does anyone use AF-S anymore?

nnowak wrote:

Based on many of the posts on this topic, it appears a lot of people do not understand how AF-C works. Contrary to what many are posting, you do not lose control of your AF point when using AF-C. If you want to use the smallest possible single point locked to the center of the frame, you can still do that with AF-C. Either AF method can utilize all of the same sized focus points as well as any of the focus point options such as Single, Zone, or All.

There are two ways to tell the camera to start focusing; either by pressing the shutter button, or by using Back Button Focus (BBF) where a button other than the shutter release is pressed to activate AF. BBF an be used with both AF-S or AF-C and it allows you separate AF operation from shutter actuation. For example, for someone doing "focus and recompose", they could use BBF to obtain the initial AF and then press the shutter button any number of times without causing the camera to refocus again. The above example would be true for both AF-S and AF-C

AF-S - When told to autofocus using one of the buttons above, the camera will attempt to achieve focus and then will stop all focusing operations once the camera believes focus is achieved. No matter how long you half press the shutter, the camera will only AF once and then stop. If your subject moves, you will need to press the button again to initiate a new focus cycle.

AF-C - When told to autofocus using one of the buttons above, the camera will attempt to achieve focus just the same as above. The difference is that the camera will continue checking and adjusting focus as long as one of the buttons is still being pressed. If the distance between you or your subject changes while the AF button is pressed, the camera will continually adjust to maintain focus.

From my own testing, I see no difference in initial AF acquisition speed using AF-S or AF-C. Especially when using BBF, I don't think there is anything you can do with AF-S that can not be duplicated with AF-C.

I don't use BBF but for me on my X-T3, if the AF-C is trying to grab on a difficult subject it will do a couple of hunts and just give up whereas the AF-S will do a couple more hunts and grab the focus.  I have been able to repeatedly test and prove this indoors and on items with low contrast.

Strange why they do this really. I used to leave my canon DSLR in continuous autofocus without problems but with Fuji X-T3, the AF-C is not as good so I do switch back to AF-S at times.