X-T5 AF-C custom settings for wide/tracking

[Mencius]

Hi All

I am new to the Fujifilm system with the X-T5 and am interested in the community's experience with the best AF-C custom settings for primary use with wide/tracking and subject detection, not zone or single point.

The way I love to shoot is in AF-C wide/tracking with subject detection on (face/eye or animal). I place the center wide/tracking point over my subject to initiate tracking with AF-ON and then quickly recompose while holding AF-ON until I am ready to press the shutter button.

This may sound like shoehorning a legacy DSLR focus and recompose technique into mirrorless but I find it very effective and faster than the AF joystick.

I have read many user experiences about AF-C custom settings with zone or AF-C and single point or AF-S but I haven't seen much exclusively about wide/tracking.

I am often shooting fast and unpredictable subjects, so I am currently using AF-C custom with:

• Tracking sensitivity +4
• Speed tracking sensitivity +2
• Zone area switching Auto

I want to know, what real-world downsides have people experienced on current firmware when maxing out tracking sensitivity and speed tracking sensitivity?

The manual says that maxing out tracking sensitivity will make the camera take longer to switch subjects but the way I shoot I never want it to switch subjects unless I release the AF-ON button and choose a new subject, so no downside?

For speed tracking sensitivity the manual says maxing this out will cause more difficulty acquiring focus on highly reflective or low contrast subjects. But I have experimented with this setting and have hardly been able to find a difference in those situations between 0 and +2. Does anyone have experience with real-world use of this setting where it has caused problems on current firmware?

Finally, zone area switching - does this have any effect in wide/tracking? The manual suggests not so it seems I can ignore this unless using zone AF.

 

[Morris0]

I don't want you to change you stile as it works for you so continue to use back button focus. I recommend zone as it gives you 3 dimensional focus control yet you can use wide/tracking and get good results in most cases. I'll comment on your settings below.

Hi All

I am new to the Fujifilm system with the X-T5 and am interested in the community's experience with the best AF-C custom settings for primary use with wide/tracking and subject detection, not zone or single point.

The way I love to shoot is in AF-C wide/tracking with subject detection on (face/eye or animal). I place the center wide/tracking point over my subject to initiate tracking with AF-ON and then quickly recompose while holding AF-ON until I am ready to press the shutter button.

This may sound like shoehorning a legacy DSLR focus and recompose technique into mirrorless but I find it very effective and faster than the AF joystick.

I have read many user experiences about AF-C custom settings with zone or AF-C and single point or AF-S but I haven't seen much exclusively about wide/tracking.

I am often shooting fast and unpredictable subjects, so I am currently using AF-C custom with:

• Tracking sensitivity +4
• Speed tracking sensitivity +2
• Zone area switching Auto

I want to know, what real-world downsides have people experienced on current firmware when maxing out tracking sensitivity and speed tracking sensitivity?

The manual says that maxing out tracking sensitivity will make the camera take longer to switch subjects but the way I shoot I never want it to switch subjects unless I release the AF-ON button and choose a new subject, so no downside?

Yes Tracking Sensitivity 4 has the camera track the subject for the longest possible time.

For speed tracking sensitivity the manual says maxing this out will cause more difficulty acquiring focus on highly reflective or low contrast subjects. But I have experimented with this setting and have hardly been able to find a difference in those situations between 0 and +2. Does anyone have experience with real-world use of this setting where it has caused problems on current firmware?

I recommend Speed Tracking Sensitivity of 1. This is fast enough for most situations and avoids focusing problems when contrast is low, there is glare, etc. I agree this settings sometimes doesn't seem to make a difference yet having done lots of testing it makes a subtle difference.

Finally, zone area switching - does this have any effect in wide/tracking? The manual suggests not so it seems I can ignore this unless using zone AF.

Zone Area Switching is only used for Zone and I recommend Center to avoid jumping to things in the foreground or a subject's nose.

This is my very popular setting for Fuji cameras for use tracking fast subjects:

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Subject Tracking and Face/Eye tracking are supposed to have priority over the traditional focusing modes. It works something like this when in zone (or wide/tracking): The camera starts to focus using zone, when it detects a subject, subject tracking takes over. If the camera louses the subject, it switches back to zone until a subject is detected.

Morris

 

[Mencius]

Thanks Morris, I'll experiment with your settings.

What do you mean by three dimensional focus control in zone AF-C?

The face/eye detection behaviour in af-c zone or single point is actually a minor reason why I prefer wide/tracking. I want face/eye detection but I don't like how it overrides zone to detect faces/eyes outside the zone. In wide/tracking it does not do this and will instead only detect a face/eye if I place the wide/tracking point (more or less) over the face/eye.

 

[Morris0]

Thanks Morris, I'll experiment with your settings.

What do you mean by three dimensional focus control in zone AF-C?

Lets say your camera's zone has these 3 points detected:

- Tip of nose

- Eye

- Ear

How does the camera know how far away to focus? Zone Switching tells it what to do:

Front - Closest to the camera so the tip of the nose

Center- The focus point in the middle of the detected focus points so the eye

Auto - It's automatically wrong!

The face/eye detection behaviour in af-c zone or single point is actually a minor reason why I prefer wide/tracking. I want face/eye detection but I don't like how it overrides zone to detect faces/eyes outside the zone. In wide/tracking it does not do this and will instead only detect a face/eye if I place the wide/tracking point (more or less) over the face/eye.

I've heard others say that one can control what subject is tracked this way. I don't find this to be reliable.

Morris