Focus pulsing in Video

[Mpi]

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I do some video work (very little, so I am not experienced by any means). My typical video setup is a Nikon Z 6 with a Atomos Ninja V. I am contemplating selling my Nikon cameras and lenses in favor of Leica (I would either buy a SL2-S or a Panasonic S1H -- my main goal here is to use Leica lenses). The video stuff I am doing is mostly talking head, sometimes in challenging light conditions (no a studio, so I have very little control over the light). So for testing I shot a few videos with my Leica SL2.

Generally I am super happy with the performance of the camera. However, the focus hunting is truly terrible! I had a scene with some Christmas lights in the background and the lights would just pulse like crazy - I showed footage to some other people and just asked what they thought about it and the reaction was "it's really interesting how the lights in the background look like they're breathing"...

Now I wouldn't mind too much focusing manually, but manual focus on an AF lens is imho not a great experience. Also, AF would just be a nice to have but now I am afraid using it because this is a problem I can't correct in post. Is this better with other L-mount cameras? People on YouTube complain a lot about the S1H AF but honestly I don't trust those reviews (people there complain about the Nikon Z6 AF and as long as you don't have subjects running around trees it's perfectly fine). I heard the SL2-S had better AF then the SL2, did anyone test this? Is there some test footage I could look at? Or does Leica plan to upgrade the SL2 firmware so I could test with that one first? (Eventually I want a lower resolution camera for video, but I could use the SL2 as a testing camera)

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[Photoworks]

In many cases video people  try to control their settings by shooting manual. If you just shooting people talking that don't move much on Tripod, I would recommend setting in camera Focus to manual and using the little nipple joystick To push focus whenever you need it.  
Alternatively, there is an update for leica lenses to set the focus turn to linear manual focus. That makes focus pulling easier.

Don't count the AF on this camera to get so good that you can use af-c

[Slender]

The manual focus linear update for Leica L lenses makes MF much better for video, make sure it's installed on your lenses (lens FW 2.1).

I too dip my fingers with video on SL2+Atomos (thanks Atomos for the latest L-Log update by the way), and it is really pleasing so far as long as you know what you are doing. Face detect is decent for selfie I found, but being a traditionally trained camera assistant in the motion picture world, I prefer MF anyway.
 

For serious video work (with XLR sound recording, mixed lights, long runing times, ProResRaw integration....) with Leica lenses I would strongly look towards the S1H, a truly impressive tool with much better integrations, that can even be had with a free Atomos Ninja 🤯 at CVP here in the UK.

[Mpi]

Yes the linear focusing makes it usable (still not like an actual MF lens). I am ok doing manual focus in general (I sometimes shoot in very dark settings where I am using a Nikkor Noct f/0.95 which is manual focus only). I mostly still miss the stops at the beginning and end.

The thing is purely about laziness: sometimes I just have a talking head and I don't want to stand there and do small focus adjustments every minute or so. It should be easy enough for the camera to do the focusing and 9 out of 10 times the Leica does a good job. But it is in these 10% of the cases where I can't use the footage. So the question was more around: for very very simple situations (a subject that barely moves, light that doesn't change, etc), do other cameras in the L-mount family a better job than the SL2? I can live with slow AF, but the unpredictability is what makes this almost unusable.

I did quite some research and I believe that for most situations the Lumix S1H would work. If I have small light sources in the background I probably still will need to do manual focus (but I need to test this). So I ordered a S1H (should arrive tomorrow) and will test. I already have a Atomos Ninja V, so no free stuff for me -- but if this works out all my Nikon stuff will still make me enough money to pay for this and buy another Leica lens (probably the 50mm Summilux as all my other lenses are "only" f/2 -- though the dual ISO feature of the S1H might compensate for slower lenses).

[makmatti]

Leica SL in continuous AF are not that great for video, neither S1H, but it is usable if well setted.

Pulsating background is due little focus adjustment. It is more noticeable when a lenses has two different mobile elements for focusing. It happen even on other body  renowned for video focusing, using this tipe of lenses.