I was messing around with the GL2 today and I noticed something weird. When I tilted the camera at a certain angle and pointed at a certain image, the focus would just keep hunting going in and out and will do this forever until I reposition the shot or shoot another angle/spot. I tried turning to manual and using the manual focus, but it does this either... Is this normal or a defect?

Check in your manual as ther are certain things that are difficult for the AF system to lock on. I doubt your camera has a defect it's just that the AF is not infallable and has trouuble in some situations. Also, when in Green Box mode you cannot disable the AF. You must be in either A, TV, AV or M to be able to use manual focus.

I didn't think my camera had a defect too, but it's weird. I am just posting to see if any others have had the same experience (hopefully).

David, this is pretty normal for miniDV cams when in auto.

Actually, when I changed it to manual, it did the same thing too. The focus just kept going in and out for some reason. Maybe I didn't fully disable manual.... or it has to do with the AF, perhaps? It's just weird that the focus goes in and out on certain objects or spots... Never knew it was possible.

I mean, I would acknowledge that the focus would be slow on some parts, but this focus just searching and going out and in of focus forever.

Remember that there is manual focus and manual exposure. They are not linked.

Huh?

Read pages 76-79 of your manual carefully.

Oh, okay.

I was just wondering if anyone actually had the same experience as I did. I mean, I haven't seen this before where the autofocus just goes on forever in and out searching, ever.... :/

I think all AF systems have problems with certain subjects and situations. If I were you I'd test the AF on some easy targets and see how it behaves there. If that goes fine, then I doubt you're having any "problem" that we don't all have.

Yeah, I have this problem sometimes on my GL-1, especially when we're filming a wide shot of our church stage and the house lights dim. Even though our orchestra has stand lights the Canon can't lock onto the players.

Also if we're filming a large are with lots of near and far objects, like kids playing basketball on full court; sometimes it'll lose the lock on the near kids and try to focus on the far kids. Nothing wrong with the camera, just a good reason to use manual focus in those types of situations <G>.

Jeff K

It was strange at first when this occured. I thought the autofocus would either not focus or just not do anything, but it kept searching in and out and I waited a few seconds thinking "Oh, maybe the focus is slow." But it just kept searching, going in and out of focus -- thats when I panic'ed, thinking something was wrong with the camera cause I have never seen this before.

At that time, I tried doing it from different angles and spots, that seem to resolve the autofocus. But, I don't really understand how the autofocus really works and why certain spots are impossible to lock onto, thus resulting an endless in & out autofocus!