Future of Fuji (or mirrorless) AF performance

[FearTheXNoob]

Hi all,

 

We know that Fuji cameras (and mirrorless in general) are already well suited even for professional work. There are multiple wedding photographers even in this forum that now work exclusively with the Fuji X, and maybe even more portrait, street, etc. photographers.

 

For sports photographers, on the other hand, the Fuji system is not yet ready as the only system to use. I read a report from a professional sports photographer using the X-T1 at a soccer game and the person claims that the AF system is just not on par with the modern DSLR's speed and responsiveness. He further assumes that Fuji (mirrorless) ist 5 to 10 years behind DSLR concerning responsiveness (without cheating / pre-focusing). What do you think about this - how long will it take Fuji and other mirrorless camera makers to catch up to DSLR AF performance. I know the Fuji AF is good enough for most use cases and scenarios, but I am talking about professional level sports and action photography.

 

Thanks for your opinion!

[milandro]

I love this fanta-threads!

 

How would anyone know what the exact future of the AF function of Fujifilm cameras would be?

 

We can only speculate that it will improve ( by how much would depend on many things) since it is the most talked about limitation of the Fuji cameras along with their lesser video capability.

 

Will they ever match a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera autofocus performance?

 

Probably.

 

Ho long will it take?

 

Tough one.

 

How long is a piece of string? That long!  So my guesstimate is that we will know when we get there, in fact, because this is a rumors forum, we will know it beforehand.

[CRAusmus]

I think wildlife is really the only avenue that Fuji is behind in, and that will be solved as soon as they get the 100-400 and the Tele on the market.  I think it's a failure of the photographer for the most part thinking that Fuji isn't there in sports photography yet.  Go look in our photo section.  There is a photographer shooting motor sports.  Tell me how AF is lagging when this guy is shooting cars and motorcycles traveling over 100mph...

 

I haven't tried sport photography with my X-T1 yet, but I'd imagine that continuous in tracking mode would suit needs just fine for soccer/football, american football, and any other fast moving sport.  Most other sports you know where the action is going to occur.

[Marc G.]

It's certainly not top notch, but it's usable. Biggest problem is lack of experience in sports photography when it comes to mirrorless. I bet some workarounds could easily do some magic to improve the performance.

 

That said, I love the 50-140 and X-T1 for ice hockey...

[FearTheXNoob]

I don't think lack of experience is the reason all the time, since it was a long time professional sports shooter. I'm sure there are lots of people that are not experienced and they could improve by learning. Well, I'm sure I'm one of them...  But a professional can compare the performance well enough I'd assume.

 

I think the problem is not only tracking, but also how fast the AF focuses initially. As far as I know mirrorless has some drawbacks here and can only keep pace if it uses prefocusing - but that does not work for all situations.

 

Maybe there is someone that knows the technology and can explain the current drawbacks and the outlook for mirrorless sensors. I don't think it's purely guessing if we can gather more facts about the ucrrent state.

[CRAusmus]

I don't think he is insinuating lack of photography experience, but lack of experience with the camera platform.  In other words, knowing what settings will give you your best performance for the sport you are shooting.

[FearTheXNoob]

Ah ok, not sure about the Fuji experience in the report I have in mind. But are there really so many settings that are different compared to DSLRs? Other than high performacne mode and disabling face detection I cannot think of many more from the top of my mind...

[Marc G.]

It's about how the system reacts in certain situations. People got years and years of experience with DSLRs but pretty much none with mirrorless. If you want to use a mirrorless like a DSLR you're destined for failure. If there actually exists a sports shooter who actually shot loads of sport with mirrorless, that would be the person to ask for a review of the systems. But there is no such person. We'll have to wait and see. 

 

Mirrorless also has a giant lack of professional grade sports lenses with the 50-140 being the only one currently. Let's wait for the lens lineup to arrive and THEN look at the af performance again. I'm sure once the primes arrive, the AF will be on par with DSLRs.

 

And I still think it's usable, if you know what you're doing with the Fuji. But with only having a 70-200 equivalent, it's a rather small niche in sports photography that you can fill with Fuji currently.

[FearTheXNoob]

You are probably right when saying the lens selection is the limiting factor for many sports at the moment. However, there are sports that can be shot with a 70-200 lens and I'd assume you can compare that to a Fuji with the 50-140.

 

I'm no pro and don't claim to be able to compare the two systems objectively. But I have noticed the Fuji AF to be slower in tracking and especially for initial focus acquisition (especially in situations when it cannot pre-focus). Almost all blogs and posts from pros regarding this topic seem to agree with that. I'm sure you can get good results with Fuji in sports/action right now, if you have good conditions (and expectations vary from photographer to photographer ). But DSLRs are more robust regarding AF performance and I started this topic to find out if there are people here that have the technical background and can shed some light on how far behind mirrorless AF is at the moment.

[milandro]

The autofocus speed is, together with the video quality, the feature of the Fuji system that is making it be less appealing to some. This , coupled to the lack, in the system of any really long and light efficient lenses has produced a reduced popularity among the sport and  wildlife photographers.

 

The latest and most serious firmware upgrade squeezed as much performance as it possibly could from this sensor.  The rumors involving a sensor change have gone just about anywhere they could. So there were rumors of a larger sensor ( which would mean completely redesigning all the lenses and therefore unlikely) , or one with the same size but with more pixels, an organic sensor ...you name it.

 

The reality is that nobody knows.

 

Autofocus speed is, because of its lower performance, the field which will probably see more innovation in future. But no one knows when this will happen or can forecast beyond a guess any of this.

 

It is what it is now and it will be, possibly better.

[Marc G.]

Not really that far behind, imo. Regarding precision, mirrorless is already miles ahead of DSLRs. You simply don't have these front-/backfocus issues that PDAF systems are known for. Regarding the tracking and low light, I think it will take 2-3 years and mirrorless is on par.

[darknj]

Not really that far behind, imo. Regarding precision, mirrorless is already miles ahead of DSLRs. You simply don't have these front-/backfocus issues that PDAF systems are known for. Regarding the tracking and low light, I think it will take 2-3 years and mirrorless is on par.

 

Not really agreeing on the AF speed from the Mirrorless against DSLR, if you take the fastest focusing mirrorless camera against the fastest AF DSLR, the mirrorless camera will be more out of focus than the DSLR with equivalent lens and that number doesn't seem to shrink that much even with the fast pace of body release by a certain company.

 

The D3S I get to use on regular basis is miles and more ahead of my Fuji X-T1 in term of AF speed, I hardly need to do any half press with it to get an accurate focus and that camera is considered slow against the D4S and I have no doubt that the Nikon D5 will be a wonderful body too.

 

As for the low light, mirrorless is getting there. We have a couple of example where we are better than DSLR, Sony A7S line for example, it is still a very capable still camera even if it had to sacrifice much for the low light capabilities.