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Portrait autofocus with 56mm 1.2 and X-Pro2


lane

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First post by me, but I've been shooting X-Pros for five years now.  

I love the results I get on a good shallow-DOF portrait with my 56mm 1.2, but when it's wide open or nearly, 

1) I miss accurate focus on eyes too often

2) in iffy light, autofocus is slow.

I've tried zone focus, single-point focus, AFS and AFC, and Face Detection. I have yet to settle on a magic combination of settings where (e.g.) I reliably nail focus on the eyes of my bored or antsy kids.

What do others find the most reliable and fastest way to focus on eyes with this lens? 

Edited by lane
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  • 6 months later...
On 12/24/2019 at 10:47 PM, lane said:

First post by me, but I've been shooting X-Pros for five years now.  

I love the results I get on a good shallow-DOF portrait with my 56mm 1.2, but when it's wide open or nearly, 

1) I miss accurate focus on eyes too often

2) in iffy light, autofocus is slow.

I've tried zone focus, single-point focus, AFS and AFC, and Face Detection. I have yet to settle on a magic combination of settings where (e.g.) I reliably nail focus on the eyes of my bored or antsy kids.

What do others find the most reliable and fastest way to focus on eyes with this lens? 

The 56mm is notoriously slow in AF mode and and tends to ‘hunt’. On top of that, compared to e.g. the Sony A7 or Nikon Z, eye-AF on all Fuji Xs are poor at best, except for the X-T4 which is ok but still lagging. It’s not so much the speed, but mostly the accuracy and the erratic jumping from eye-to-eye that makes it hard to work with and get consistent results.

I use the X-Pro2 and the X-H1 with the 56, the 90 and the 16-55 in studios and I use manual focus. Once proficient, I have a higher hit rate and less frustration. It also slows down your pace which is actually for the better. I sometimes pick up the A7RIV from a collegue and that’s a world of difference (re. eye-AF).

By the way, stopping down to f2 or f2.8 makes focusing far less critical and often produces a more pleasing transition from focus to out-of-focus. Esp. frontals and 3/4s where the eye is in focus and the tip of the nose is out-of-focus gives an unpleasing result.

Edited by Herco
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