Just Curious - How's the Autofocus?
 

Not sure why this popped into my head - but how does everyone like the autofocus on the H1 (assuming it has both auto/manual)?

I had an XL1 (first vers) back in the day, and thought the autofocus had quite the tendency to 'roam'.

I prefer manual, but it's nice to click on the autofocus in a pinch, depending on what you're doing (ie: the PD150 - which is pretty reliable on auto in my opinion).

Just wondering - and thanks,
Shawn

Much improved over the XL1 (XL2...not sure), but 24F auto focus is a bit sluggish compared to 60i. It's still great in a pinch though.

I've found the focus assist works pretty dang good too. I always have peaking on (it causes slight ghosting in the image, but it saves your ***), even in SD, and occasionaly jump into magnification mode when tape isn't rolling. I actually haven't found the need to use the B&W mode, but I'm sure it can't hurt.

Auto focus will always be slower on lower framerate (24F compared to 60i in
this example), since it can do less samplings per second.

The auto focus on the XL-H1 is not as good as the one on the Sony Z1, is my experience. But I never use it anyways.

For anybody who has seen the "Watchmaker" demo material from Canon USA, about 70% of that was shot in autofocus.

And how did that worked out ( I didn't see it)?

It looked beautiful. Lot's of moving action, moving crane shots, etc. It was hard to believe that it was mostly auto focus, but it's true.

hmm, that's interesting. I'm gonna shoot a simple commercial tomorrow with the H1, I think I'm gonna try the auto focus out on some takes. Thanks for the info.

I find the H1 auto focus slower than my Z1, BUT it rarely roams or hunts instead tending to stay locked on solid. The focus assist works well too. I doo miss having a proper momentary auto push button though.

Yep, me too. I think that the Z1 is unbeatable with that.

AF is slow and VF too low rez. to do serious focusing manually. If your used to manual lens and high rez B/W VF then it´s a pain in you know where.

I can´t figure why the B/W mode. No more rez. No point at all. Peaking works fine though.

Still, I do LOVE the camera.

My guess is that a slow focus seems more natural, and the lack of wandering or busy focus is less distracting.

I agree that the VF is PANTS. Peaking helps but they really should have put a higher resolution VF on the camera considering the price. Even though the AF is slow I do like the way it works, and I too love this camera, I'm selling my Z1 and DSR570.

I agree on that, but the problem is it takes me about 1 second to focus a manual lens. AF sometimes use 4, and in the meantime your object is gone unless it was dead in the first place. You can´t really do it manually either because you have no real reference looking at the LCD. For shoot and run it´s a very REAL problem. So for this kind of work I´d say the optional B/W high rez is the ting.

I agree the AF is slow. I could live with that if the VF was better, but can only second Alister's comment that for the price the VF is poor.

Look at the price of the FX1 and for that you get a better VF, plus a nice LCD panel.