GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

So my holy grail would be to not have to manually rack focus when I'm open at 1.4 on a bride as she walks down a 30 ft aisle towards me at the altar. Any chance the GH3 can keep her in focus?

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Potentially yes. The face recognition software is very good and will lock on to faces with high accuracy. Except if there's lots of faces in the image, then you could have a crap shoot. I would be more comfortable with a loupe on the LCD screen and manually focusing.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

I'm actually going to give the loupe idea a go next wedding I do, I think it'll help tremendously.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Try the Varavon for the flip-out screen, not the one that attaches to the back only. It's a great little accessory. Also, I think shooting a moving subject at F1.4 is a very tall order, there's not much scope for error. Try 2.8, that's manageable and you'll still get nice shallow DOF. Keep the f1.4 for when they're sitting still or for static objects like flowers, glasses, etc.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Yeah 2.8 would be nice, I just try and stay as open as possible to keep my iso down and the video as clean as possible. Some churches I shoot in are reaaaally dark, and not to mention receptions with nearly no light! I'm starting to see the benefits of a larger sensor in this case.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Doesn't help your issue James, but I have noticed that many videographers that are very good with DSLR on these boards use a camcorder for that shot.

F/1.4 for a moving target is not feasible in my opinion. It's too messy, IMO. If you can pull it off, you are one heck of a shooter, and my hat's off to you.

The shot can be gotten, but I've screwed up enough times using the GH2 that I finally moved to a camcorder for the processional, at least for my downfront camera.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Well, I've decided that I'm going to attempt to shoot that shot wide enough and positioned enough to *possibly* be at hyperfocal distance and then boom they are all in focus. so we'll see how that goes. Yeah racking focus on that shot at 1.4 is pretty silly.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

You know James, I have used a 12mm F/2.0 lens unmanned, clamped on the end of the front pew on one side, while I shot with a camcorder on the other side. Got some great shots that way. It was from down low, so it was also kind of dramatic.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Thats kind of what I'm considering actually! What I want to do is have someone on a monopod getting that shot (or an unmanned tripod, problem is if its unmanned I'm worried about photog getting in front of it) while I sweep around from behind with the glidecam.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Chris - is this the Varavon you mean? Varavon Loupe EX-Solo Universal DSLR Optical VALU-LPEXUNI B&H

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

No, try this one, I think the flip-out version is better as it articulates with the screen so you can hold the camera high or low and still see - much like an ENG camera viewfinder. I bought mine from this guy - he is very reliable and well priced. You can also flip the loupe up and see the whole LCD if you want to use the touch screen controls - very handy, very practical.

Varavon Loupe for GH3 - Personal View Talks

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

Varavon has something strange going in with their web site (as of a couple of weeks ago). I ordered the GH3 loupe by e-mailing them directly and they set up a PayPal transaction.

Re: GH3 Owners.. how is the auto focus? Workable yet?
 

I would say they autofocus on GH3 is quite good but not as good as Sony Z1. I recently shot a promo for a event our local Council were giving. As it was going to be quite hectic I decided to go the autofocus route. It worked quite well but there were a couple of times when I was doing vox-pops that I got some strange hunting. The face was in focus but the background focus shifted a little

(The hunting can be seen at interviews starting at 0:55 and 1:25, video is only 2 mins).

Think I was in the matrix AF mode, the face mode may not of had this problem.

Basically for DSLR I think it has the best AF, centrality a lot better then Canon, Mirrorless cameras are a lot better as in terms of AF.

Ben