More New Fujifilm Firmware Autofocus Tests: From “My Nikon Z8 Can’t Manage This” to “Usable but Not Yet Perfect”

Thierry Gibralta

Thierry Gibralta shared a follow up autofocus test video which you can see above. I will provide a quick summary, but seeing with your own eyes is always the best option.

• VIDEO AUTOFOCUS
• previously constantly pulsing and hunting. Now much less pulsing. Overall for static talking had the X-H2S video AF can be used now
• walking away and towards the camera, the AF overall sticks to the person. When walking away, it can lose focus for a second or two, but that’s not relevant for his work, because he does not need to film people who walk away from the camera. Focus is not really smooth, there are some steps in the focus, but it is still for sure usable footage. A client would not really notice those AF steps.
• when running towards the camera, the AF steps are more visible
• when moving around with frequent turns, with eye AF, as long as the distance does not change too much it is good. If distance changes a lot and if you move out of the frame and then back, the focus can have a hard time. But with face detection he did not have this issue, so if you shoot people dancing, better use face detection
• in the past, when people passed by in the background, the AF would jump to the person passing by. With new firmware, eye/face detection did not get distracted by people passing by. He tested it with people passing behind and in front of the camera, and it would occasionally lose him, especially if he placed himself on the very side of the frame. If he stays in the center, the camera usually picked him up. But if you are on the side of the frame, it can jump to a person more in the center of the frame
• camera on the table with objects on the table and camera moved to focus on one object or the other. Multi Mode without subject detection. This gives the biggest problems. The camera did not detect the objects close to it on the table. Multi without subject detection is the worst performing
• STILLS AUTOFOCUS
• tracking is working very well and most pictures are in focus (people walking around and on bycicles)
• success rate is pretty good
• not perfect. he had instances like tracking a person on a bicycle but then the AF jumped to 2 kids walking by nearby
• CONCLUSION
• Autofocus is drastically improved over previous firmware
• It is not perfect
• for his work (wedding etc) and what he does, now he can use it for his work
• he’d like smoother focus transitions and eliminate the times it jumps to another person. Also Multi mode with no subject detection should be improved

Orsonneke1

Orsonneke1 says on dpreview:

I have been testing the latest firmware on the XH 2 wide open on my bordie.

My dog is a good and difficult subject to test focus performance.In the past quite some miss focus on the nostrils , black-white high contrast transition zones.

Even when eyes almost closed and the eyes being surrounded by black fur, the AF performance is now very good! Using the XF 50/1 wide open here with good results, is quite an achievement!

My Nikon Z8 cannot manage this!!

Andrea Cimini

Andrea Cimini was very critical about the mess with Fujifilm’s AF. Now he tested the new version, especially for stills photography tracking mountain-bikers jumping and racing around, side by side with an X-H2S with older firmware.

Conditions: 20fps, strong backlight, electronic shutter, biker racing.

• with face detection
• old firmware 93% hit rate (perfectly super sharp images)
• new firwmare 98% hit rate (perfectly super sharp images)
• with subject detection
• old firmware 95% hit rate (the ones not in focus are totally out of focus, NOTHING was in focus at all)
• new firwmare 99% to 100% hit rate (the totally out of focus does not happen anymore. It can focus on something else)
• with car/bike detection
• old firmware: 87% in focus
• new firmware: 93% in focus
  NOTE: the new firwmare started tracking the subject from more far away compared to the new firmware
• using wide tracking (not subject detection, but you put the focus box on anything and it will keep tracking it)
• condition: biker suddenly appearing in the frame
• old firmware: 85% in focus
• new firmware:  96% in focus
• Conclusions so far
• it’s not at level of competition, but the autofocus is usable again
• now he feels a bit safer and he can go shooting an assignement without fear
• electronic shutter gives better results. With mechanical shutter the percentage drops by 10% (at 20fps)

To make it clear: while there was an improvement, for his type of (very challenging) sports shooting conditions (bikers racing inside forests), he thinks Fujifilm must improve even further. But it is workable again.