Be afraid. Be very afraid

[Tom Gleeson]

I have just finished running a series of tests on a preproduction model of the Sony FX9 and surprisingly the Auto Focus system proved effective, configurable, smart and practical. It’s main technical limitation is it presently only works with Sony E mount lenses. I also understand the new Canon C500 has improved on Canon's already good AF system. IMHO the face detection systems and computational power in these cameras are game changers and are certainly a welcome addition to Full Frame cameras.

For smaller crews the AF is a gift from heaven and it will allow you to do shots that are incredibly difficult if not impossible to do by hand with low res viewfinders. Just try operating a camera on a gimbal and pull focus at the same time. On bigger jobs a first AC is still critical to run and configure the camera and AF system depending on the shot and there would always be a shot that manual control will be superior. With these AF systems if I said put the camera on a dolly with a 85mm wide open the 1st AC will no longer need to roll their eyes and we are more likely to nail focus on take one. Focus puller or not these new AF systems relieve much of the burden of focus. The Sony FX9 even has a mode for verite shooters that you control and pull focus on the lens to an object as per usual but if it just out of focus or buzzed the camera will nudge the focus to the object automatically. The FX9 will even recognise different faces and you can tell the camera to prioritise focus on one face over another!

I know there are people out there who wouldn’t touch AF with a barge pole but if your selling cameras in the budget range where an experienced Focus Puller is not going to be standing next to the camera on every shot it’s going to get hard to compete. I am happy to suggest that even on the biggest budget shoots reliable and accurate AF will have its place. Red needs to be thinking seriously on this issue and not ignore Canon and Sony.

The Sony and Canon systems are limited to their own lenses and mount types and this makes sense as the lens and camera need to talk to each other but this is a major impediment to many productions. Would it be possible for Red and/or Arri to design a system that could use third party glass? This would require communication from the camera to an external (premapped) lens motor but if a camera could understand what's in and out of focus like Sony and Canon can this might be possible? Sony and Canon are building these focus systems into their sensor designs and they are leveraging their extensive experience in AF in the stills world so it won't be an easy task to catch up. And yes there are systems like ultrasonic range finders that you can use on your camera but its the computational abilities of the new systems that leave that stuff in the dust.

 

[James Falco]

Actually I can think of more shots where AF is useless than helpful in production.
AF as Auto Focus, means the a mechanism is deciding what is the focus. In production the focus is part of the script. What comes or goes out of focus as well as the speed it happens in is all part of the narrative.

 

[Tom S]

Puritans will scream that professionals will never use AF, but damn I would love it as an option that I could turn on and off.

 

[paul ross jones]

Actually I can think of more shots where AF is useless than helpful in production.
AF as Auto Focus, means the a mechanism is deciding what is the focus. In production the focus is part of the script. What comes or goes out of focus as well as the speed it happens in is all part of the narrative.

I primarily shoot stills, but with my Sony stills I choose the person I want in focus, and the person, eyes, or object is tracked very deliberately and reliably. I can pick where I want to hold the focus. yes, I understand how this AF won't work when you want to throw the focus from one talent to another, but I would argue you would have more times the focus stays on a single subject in a shot. try having a group of people running towards you and you want to focus on the eyes of just one of them- these are the times the focus puller pulls their hair out, but with a touch of the screen the camera will recognise the person, face and even the exact eye you want to hold with focus and track the whole time. You can even have objects passing in the foreground and it won't trick the camera. I am guessing the fx9 is a continuation of this same technology as the Sony A9, a7rIII, a7rIv have had for some time. With photography, if you miss focus you completely miss the shot, probably more critical than cinema imo.

Paul

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

It's quite amazing how long it took for AF to be useful for cinema. Even the best DSLRs can't match the A9, simply because the A9 (and here, the FX9) are looking at the actual image off the sensor. You can't do that with AF points above a mirror.

This won't replace a focus puller, but at the same time, which would you rather do: pull focus yourself, or make use of a sophisticated, mostly reliable AF system? What is progress for, anyway?

 

[Ryan Sauve]

Buying a full frame Nikon Z6 with AF revolutionized my gimbal and handheld shooting on corporate run and gun shoots. Excited to see how far this tech can be pushed.

Right tools for the job. I group the anti-AF guys with the anti-8K guys. So much to gain from either with the right job.

I still think compact lightfield tech is coming and will make AF that's any better than what we have now unnecessary (except for live applications).

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Actually I can think of more shots where AF is useless than helpful in production.
AF as Auto Focus, means the a mechanism is deciding what is the focus......

James,

Nobody is suggesting that you let the camera decide what is in focus. The cinematographer decides what is in focus and the AF's job is to keep it in focus. These systems whilst quite smart still need human management to properly configure depending on what you need and I can't imagine a sophisticated production not using manual control for some shots. I can imagine a professional AF setup that would allow a smooth hand off between auto and manual mid shot

The vast majority of shots I do are for commercial and drama clients and they want to see an actor or talent in focus. AF is quite good at this and if this system can save a couple of good takes every day I am in . AF systems I have seen in the past have been crap but the computational power in modern cameras is changing the landscape and it is a pretty safe bet that these systems will improve at a rapid rate. This is why I believe Red has to have a horse in the race.

The AF in a camera like the FX9 is in a whole different universe to the puny AF in a Red camera. You really need to see it in action.

 

[Daniel Porto]

I took acid 1.5hrs ago

 

[Phil Holland]

Shockingly Autofocus is a tool and a quickly advancing one for motion these days. It's honestly not needed for much of my work narrative or otherwise, but I 100% see applications where it shows it's advantages.

No need to have a war against it. It's been around for a long time and getting better ever 3-9 months or so.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Autofocus is for sure one of the first things that will make dsmc2 cameras feel old. I would use it almost all the time if I had it. It would also dictate what lenses I would use etc.

But I think ACs will not be without work but maybe they will be called focus programers or such in the future. As I think the capabilities of AI driven focus systens can and will go very deep for the professional cinema market. So there will still be need for someone on set to be dedicated to picture focus.

Touchscreen driven finger point focus with smooth transisions when pointing at a new object etc. When such stuff becomes available then I think people will adapt it and ask for more.

 

[Daniel Porto]

Shockingly Autofocus is a tool and a quickly advancing one for motion these days. It's honestly not needed for much of my work narrative or otherwise, but I 100% see applications where it shows it's advantages.

No need to have a war against it. It's been around for a long time and getting better ever 3-9 months or so.

A while back I did stills with a Century Canon 150-600 Zoom no autofocus for a local footy game. Out of the 300 shots I reckon 3 shots were sharp... so many almost sharp shots. Autofocus is a godsend for stills

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

AF as Auto Focus, means the a mechanism is deciding what is the focus.

That's a really basic way of looking at it.

In some situations, what you say is true. But with the new AF-technologies you need to think about it more as 'auto focus distance tracking'. What is being tracked (or focused) can be decided by an operator. Sometimes you just want to identify a face on the screen and tell the camera to track that. Or you can have 'live' tools that allow the operator to move the tracking area around the screen in real time with a joystick or similar.

The problem AF wants to solve is really setting the lens' focus distance correctly. In full auto the camera might want to decide what the relevant focus plane is, but with more sophisticated tools that were developed specifically for film cameras, it's reasonable to assume that the operator controls what's being tracked. Since, you know, the people making the cameras know that's what you might want?

 

[Bérenger Brillante]

Buying a full frame Nikon Z6 with AF revolutionized my gimbal and handheld shooting on corporate run and gun shoots. Excited to see how far this tech can be pushed.

Right tools for the job. I group the anti-AF guys with the anti-8K guys. So much to gain from either with the right job.

I still think compact lightfield tech is coming and will make AF that's any better than what we have now unnecessary (except for live applications).

Same here. Anybody who have worked with a perfect AF (like the z6) will immediatly get a change of mind.
AF doesn't mean full AF all the time, but it works 99% of the time and simply turn it off when it's a narrative driven focus.

 

[paulcurtis]

I can see this as a tool but also can see plenty of cases where it simply won't work and if you build an environment that relies on AI detection i think most productions will end up a nightmare.

I'm writing some image processing based around face recognition and deep learning so actually right now i'm seeing the sharp end of that world. And this is being processed on multicore workstations, not low power camera hardware.

In controlled environments it's fine. Add some smoke or haze into the scene. Some stark lighting where you can only see the glint of an eye. Rapid lighting changes. Fast motion. Oblique angles. Many faces, occlusion, unusual camera angles (upside down, sideways) and watch it all fail. A lot of focus is also about anticipation, moving into focus. Using focus creatively, focusing through reflections, dirty frames - that's the reality of drama production. I think we're a long way off this working in a practical way.

Now talking heads, interviews and documentary work - sure, i can see those cases it all being invaluable.

As a layer of information on a screen that could be useful but not actually driving focus. TBH depth information is more useful, or tracking RFID tags in a scene.

But you're not going to replace a human who you can talk creatively about how to pull focus for certain scenes and dramatic impact.

My IMHO

cheers
Paul

 

[Les Hillis]

Focus-where-you-look would be a neat kind of auto-focus, ie. Track the 'focus-pullers' eyes as they look at the scene on a screen, and translate what they look at into what the camera/lens focuses on. Even better if the tracking can be done by looking at the real-life scene itself instead of a screen.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Autofocus is for sure one of the first things that will make dsmc2 cameras feel old. I would use it almost all the time if I had it. It would also dictate what lenses I would use etc.

But I think ACs will not be without work but maybe they will be called focus programers or such in the future. As I think the capabilities of AI driven focus systens can and will go very deep for the professional cinema market. So there will still be need for someone on set to be dedicated to picture focus.

Touchscreen driven finger point focus with smooth transisions when pointing at a new object etc. When such stuff becomes available then I think people will adapt it and ask for more.

Useless for scripted work.

No one wil wait on the set for doodling the camera algorythms to mimic a human hand and perfectly adapt to shot rythm and context according to director's intent.


"Everybody on the set wait 'till I set this thing up".

/money rolling away, actors stuck in emotion on hold/

"Thank you bye bye"

/Enters AC ninja hitting focus without the monitor/


Also, when you tap on the focus point you are already late.
Focus pulling is predictive. Focus puller has to follow action, anticipate and adapt in real time. There is no stuff to program, actors, camera and scene change and improvise on the go.

Eye tracking, cat tracking, whatever tracking is useless if you have a rack focus from eyes to a cat to whatever, exactly at the right moment depending on a/b/c otherwise shot context changes, shot is not editable, shot makes less sense on none at all.

 

[Johnny Hurberg]

Who should be afraid?

 

[Mike P.]

I'm really interested in and intrigued by the FX9's "nudge" focus. (E.g. if it's buzzed, it auto-corrects to tack.) That's almost more impressive to prioritized faces to me (which has been around since at least the a6300).

I have a feeling a lot of people poo-pooing on continuous AF haven't actually used it thoroughly (for the most part it's been on consumer mirrorless, not digital cinema cameras). Now that it's making it's way to "real" cameras -- C500, FX9 (hesitant to put Komodo here, because Canon and Sony have been doing it for years and have a dozen cameras/iterations between them) -- I suspect quite a few people to be pleasantly surprised/eat crow.

I'd also argue that features like this are what's worth upgrading for these days. After a point, resolution and DR spec increases don't add as much value (certainly don't make your job/post any easier or make your work much better). Whereas being able to quick release a 2lbs camera with AF onto a gimbal and have it maintain focus without having to waste time/energy/money setting up, troubleshooting, and powering additional focus/monitoring tools, actually enables production. Or at the very least, speeds it up.

Just my 2 pennies.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Embrace it. Fear not.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

I can see many shooting situations where this tool would be helpful. But as a cinematographer, the biggest obstacle I see is having to choose between the look of the lens that you want and the utility of the autofocus tool. No matter how good the tech gets, there are many of us who will continue to want the look of Cookes, Zeiss Supers, Master Primes, anamorphics, etc. The lens choice makes a such a big difference to the quality of the final image that I would hate to be confined to shooting only with clinical modern autofocus lenses. If they can also make this work with any lens by outputting the camera’s data through a cable from the lens mount to an external MDR, then I think more cinematographers would choose to use it on bigger budget projects.