It seems the "norm" here is to be a gun cameraman producing great shots with the EX1 .... BUT ... rather than a cameraman who edits, I am an editor who shoots, and since having this wonderful camera I have made lots of mistakes!! If I were to be honest, I get better quality with my Z1 than my EX1, but that doesn't seem right.

I have still got some great shots with the EX1, but one area in which I have found the EX1 to be unforgiving is focus.

Everyone raves about having narrow depth of field, but it is a two edged sword. If you get it wrong - it shows!

Here in Perth, Western Australia we have extremely bright light generally, and even with a hood over my LCD it is bloody hard to see it clearly, especially with run'gun shoots, which I do a lot of - following people 'live" rather than set-up shots. The viewfinder is better sometimes, but not practical always ...

So, I have leant towards using either auto-focus or assisted Manual Focus, and have generally got better results this way .... but I would love to hear any tips on how to use manual focus in a mobile situation.

How do you approach the simple act of keeping a moving subject in sharp focus?

Peaking works ok on things like door frames, but doesn't show up so well with faces ....

Please discuss, and add your experiences,

Cheers

Peter

Peter...

All my work is run-and-gun. Presbyopia has fixed my eyeballs at a bit past infinity and reading glasses are too cumbersome.

I do all my focusing with the eyepiece and never used the LCD except to see the menu items while setting up the camera. The only other time I might use the LCD is in a studio where I'm shooting greenscreen, have the camera elevated, and can't see into the eyepiece.

The expanded focus button is also heavily relied upon.

I also use the eyepiece to judge exposure, relying upon the zebras set at 80 and 100, and also employing the histogram to give me a sense of dynamic range at a glance.

Here's a sample: http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/videos/mw_lures_2.mov

The depth of field is a little more shallow than most DV/HDV cameras but it's got a lot of tools to help you like expanded view, manual focus assist and peaking. I think those alone make it one of the most user friendly cameras to focus. But if that's not doing the job try a 7" HD monitor mounted on top of the camera. Lot more resolution than the EVF or the side monitor of the camera and much easier to see when you are in focus or missing it.

I wouldn't be surprised if someday we have lenses that get absolutely everything in focus and we play with depth of field effects in post. That would be fun!

-Noah

I am still learning my EX1 and haven't had much time to spend with it other than shooting my boys, but I've got quite a few hours in doing just that. I'm new to videography, from still photography, and I find focusing a much bigger challenge, especially with my EX1. I also have a little Sony HC9, and I very rarely have any focusing issues with it, everything stays sharp in autofocus, but that has very little DOF so it's understandable.

I can focus fine enough with my EX1 using shallow DOF, but as soon something moves further or closer, or I move further or closer, I have a tough time staying on the subject. That's obviously not an EX1 issue, but a moving subject issue. I'm still trying to figure out how you people keep a subject sharp as the distance changes. The auto focus hunts way too much to rely on it to keep up with something, at least in my experience. I will say this... at least in my opinion it is much more difficult to come away with a sweet video than it is to come away with sweet photographs. I've gained a whole new level of respect for you video pros who make it look easy.

I wouldn't be surprised if someday we have lenses that get absolutely everything in focus and we play with depth of field effects in post. That would be fun!

Adobe is already working on it.
Adobe shows off 3D camera tech | Underexposed - CNET News (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9793272-39.html)
Adobe Magic Lens • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control (http://www.videosift.com/video/Adobe-Magic-Lens)

google: adobe magic lens

Hi Peter,

As a run 'n gun event shooter I must admit the Ex 1 was a big jump up from Z1 and fraught with problems!

The auto focus just doesn't work as quickly and hunts in low light, but after doing over 50 weddings plus other jobs this year with it I just love the output when I get it right.

I just find having heavy peaking on and using the histogram for exposure are the two biggest aids for successful run and gun. (Must admit I haven't hardly used the focus assist - not enough time on the job).

I use the viewfinder most of the time as all my weddings (in the church) are done on a monopod, so the extra anchor point helps, and with heaving peaking in the viewfinder most of the time I am looking at crap in the viewfinder, but when I get home, as long as I got the exposure and focus right, the results still blow me away, let alone my clients.

Hope this helps, Cheers Vaughan

I'D agree peeking is your best focus friend. So is zooming all the way in, and 2X zoom button - take focus manually and zoom out. I have my peeking set to RED too. Also, check to see if you back focus is on - search back focus - as mine like many early users discovered was way off... YOu will notice this if you zoom in focus and zoom out - it should be in focus, if not - your back focus is off. I had my camera serviced by Sony and they fixed it along with a few upgrades.

Thanks for the responses guys, and I loved the fishing clip, Dean - very nicely shot and put together.

Keep the ideas coming - can't get enough of other people's experience!

Regarding the use of the histogram - I'm somewhat histo-illiterate, so how do you approach using this?

Peter

Peter,

Histogram....left = black levels.....right = whites.

Just go outside and watch whites crush, and go inside and open iris to watch the levels rise from black. You'll get the idea quick enough, so you can start quickly noticing if whites are too bright or picture is too dim.
This is a very quick way to get very reasonable iris settings, as depending on your PP settings, you can quickly notice when things are not within the range they should be.(ie. whites clipping). As long as there is space on either side of the histogram, your levels will be pretty good and it will give you a quick reference.

I started using the histogram from this forum when some videographers that came from still photos were already using the technology, and now I'm used to it, it does help a lot, as you can see your levels in an instant, and a quick tweak of the iris can make sure you're not crushing whites or blacks!

As I said previously, I use heavy red peaking for my run and gun, so with peaking on and referencing the histogram all the time, what I see on the day looks like crap, but virtually guarantees I'll get a good picture into the computer.

Cheers Vaughan

The histogram has a button assigned on the side of the camera to turn it on and off.

It displays the statistics of tonal distribution in your image. For example, if you see a spike at the left side with a very small amount of "mountain range" in the rest of the histogram, you have a dark image. Most of the data is in the lower portion of the tonal scale resulting in the spike on the left side.

A high-key image would create the opposite: a spike at the right side of the histogram. If it's an evenly distributed "mountain range" then you have a wide variety of tones in a well-lit scene.

If you "center" the "mountain range" in the histogram you're most likely going to be able to capture all the tones in the scene, from highlights to shadows. The "likely" part is that the histogram might not accurately represent what's happening in each channel of the image.

Let's say you're shooting a stage scene with red lights. Your histogram in the camera might be showing a spike to the left. Mostly dark. But if you look at the same image and look at the histogram for the red channel, that spike will be positioned much further to the right.

Anyway, the zebras plus the histogram, and watching for burnouts in the skin tones can help ensure good exposures. Of course that comes in addition to making sure everything is in focus, the composition is interesting and the camera is actually recording.

The histogram display is small so I treat it as a quick check. If envelope against the RH edge then something will be over exposed -- need to keep inside that edge. When under exposed the histogram will be peaking somewhat to the centre or further left. So a quick look tells you whether your exposure is not far out.
Then you have the brightness measurement and the two zebras plus, I suppose, how the image looks in the LCD (or EVF). I think the last is deceptive.

I have peaking set to yellow, to which the eye is quite sensitive.

I don't have any problems with focusing. I zoom in all the way, hit the 2x button, focus, and then zoom out. Cumbersome and takes time, but it works. Peaking also helps quite a bit, but nothing like zooming in.

Thanks Gabriel - yes, I'm up with the principles of focus, it's the practice of following a moving subject and keeping 'em sharp!

I do a lot of educational video involving children, which means I am often hand-holding the camera at waist level using the top handle. In this position it's often not practical to use the viewfinder, and in bright sunlight the flip out screen can be hard to see clearly.

Peaking is a big help, but as I said, it works better on sharp lines than faces.

Peter,

It has been mentioned several times in threads here that the EX 1 auto focus seems to be improved with the new firmware 1.11 that is out now.

I have sent one of my ex's back to Sydney for the upgrade and several fixes, so it will be interesting to try it out on it's return.

(supposed to take two weeks, and then we'll be in Qld for the school holidays so I won't be able to report on it for a while!!)

Vaughan

Thanks Vaughan - I'll be very interested to hear how this goes. One thing - the fact that the auto focus is slow to "update" can be seen as a good thing - momentary objects coming between camera and subject don't change the focus. It'd be nice to be able to choose between fast and slow reaction ....

I bought my EX1 from Sydney, but I'm in Perth - will cost a few hundred to send back including insurance, so I'm tempted to try doing the upgrade myself. I've downloaded the 1.10 and 1.11 firmware but haven't been game to do it .... yet.

Peter, presuming that you have an authorised Sony service place in Perth it might be worth checking with them about them sending the camera to Sydney. The people here sent mine up and back at no charge to me (Sony Warranty business).

Thanks Serena - good thought.

Yes Peter,

Same here. Went to Sydney via Melbourne service agent.

No charge to me that I know of!

Vaughan

Please forgive me if any of this stuff appears above but I wanted to give you a check-list for good focus with the EX1. You say you're familiar with the procedure for good focus but you don't specify.

First, avoid Auto Focus like the plague! It NEVER seems to focus on the subject for me. More usually the background - particularly if the subject isn't slap in the middle of the picture.

If you're learning to operate new stuff, forget shallow depth of field (learn to walk before you run). You can do the fancy stuff once you're proficient.

For the moment, concentrate on maximum DOF - that makes getting everything in focus much easier of course.

To get max DOF you need Minimum iris . . . BUT whatever you do, don't use an iris setting above f6.7 or the quality falls off. Above f8 it's awful.

I wonder if this is your problem rather than actual focus?

To get the f-number you want, you need to juggle with ND filters and a little gain. The change from one ND filter setting to the next is so drastic that it sends your iris setting way out, so I use the Gain presets to give me the fine-tuning I need to keep at f6.7 or under. I set low gain to -3 and Medium Gain to +3. There's no noticeable grain in either of these settings, but they go a long way to helping me control the iris setting.

Next thing is Zoom.
Max Zoom = Min DOF, so Zoom right back as wide as you can.

If your zoom's set to (say) 10% and your f-stop is 5.6 - 6.7, just about everything on the planet will be in focus from 1 mtr to infinity!
(Try using the manual focus and see how little difference it makes at these settings).

Auto Focus seems vastly improved with new Firmware 1.11 no one knows why but several of us have tested and it locks on much quicker and does not drift.

Just wanted to thank all respondents for a great range of suggestions which I'm looking forward to practising! (Currently bogged down with heaps of editing ...)

Hopefully some others will benefit from all this.

I am still learning my EX1 and haven't had much time to spend with it other than shooting my boys, but I've got quite a few hours in doing just that. I'm new to videography, from still photography, and I find focusing a much bigger challenge, especially with my EX1.

Welcome to the world of cinematography, Buck :-) There is a reason why a number of talented people upon this earth make a career as focus pullers. New compact HD cameras give us exceptional resolution that rivals film (in particular the EX1), but getting into the major league means you must learn the same skills.
I second Andy's tips about maximizing DoF... shooting wide will help you with run&gun work anyway.

I supplied three EX1's to a church, to be operated by young volunteers. After 5 minutes of showing the auto focus, we were all fed up with its erratic performance, and I opted to train how to manually focus; they've got the hang of it within a few days, and are thankful we went that route.

For run and gun shooting try this. I do a lot of hand-held documentary type stuff where you don't get a "Take 2", and would recommend setting your camera focus on infinity and physically moving your camera in and out for most things and minimizing zooming where possible. This will maximize your depth of field and keep most things in focus. Foreground and background.
I have peaking set to blue and for more critical focus situations always use the expanded focus feature with the view finder.
I have zebra set to 95 and push it to the limit.

kj

Hey guys this is my first post on this forum and also my first day of shooting with my EX1. For the most part it went great with the typical learning curve mistakes. I do have to do more experimenting with the peaking focus assist however. I was in a low light situation. And the peaking said I was in focus. When I looked at the footage later I was focus 10’ behind the subject. I think there was enough detail in the out of focus footage to fool the peaking. In the future I will use other techniques to check critical focus.

Bob, I got my 10" field monitor from ManhattanLCD (http://manhattanlcd.com) and focus has never been the same since - very happy! :)

Here's a high resolution low-cost 15" monitor which I am finding very useful as well: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sdtv-hdtv-video-monitors/240137-cheap-15-hd-monitor-looks-pretty-good.html

Probably already been said, but.....

If you're having trouble focusing, when shooting outside, try using the ND1 filter instead of the ND2. This will force the camera to use a smaller iris (like f8 or higher) which will give you a much wider depth of field.

Setting up and using the peaking is also a good idea (as has already been mentioned).

This will force the camera to use a smaller iris (like f8 or higher) which will give you a much wider depth of field.

True, but I think it's pretty commonly accepted that you lose a lot of sharpness when you go past f5.6 and the sweet spot of the lens is closer to f2.8.

I agree, but he's having trouble focusing....

I think an image with some de-fraction due to a high f-stop will still look better than an image that's simply out of focus.

you're not alone. this has plagued me since I have had my camera. I have to wear my glases to shoot with it. REally, it is almost too much to think about when you're
running and gunning. I have had more OOF video with the EX1 than my Z1u, which
was turn it on, and concentrate on composition.

As the chips in our cameras continue to grow in size the "problem" you're having with focusing is only going to get worse. As as the chip size increases, this interacts with the lens reducing the depth of field. Most people see this as a benefit because it makes the footage more cinematic as everything isn't in focus. A nice blurred background makes your subject really stand out. Some people refer to this type of image as having depth or being 3-dimensional. This is also the reason people purchase depth of field adaptors (Letus, Cinevate, Red Rock, etc....) Correct focus is CRITICAL when shooting with an adaptor just like it is when shooting a major motion picture. (why Hollywood hires "focus pullers" to maintain sharp focus)

But you're correct, if you're used to shooting with a very wide depth of field (normally because of the small CCD chip(s)) then it's going to take some getting used to.

Just thought a little background was in order. :)