SL2-s autofocus

[beewee]

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ToF sensors are useful at short ranges up to a few meters but have limitations at longer ranges primarily because it requires a light emitter. The longer the range, the stronger the emitter needs to be which consumes more power, generates more heat, requires better heat dissipation, gets bigger, etc…

The iPhone 12 Pro has a ToF sensor for auto focusing capability but I recall it also uses PDAF in addition to contrast detect.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[BernardC]

The main applications for ToF sensors are automotive and smartphones. The common smartphone use is to enable background blurring for selfies, which is the opposite of large-sensor camera requirements (they have too little depth-of-field, whereas smartphones have too much).  My intuition is that Leica's and Panasonic's implementation logic will be very different from what Apple is doing (not forgetting devices that implemented the tech before Apple did, of course).

I don't know any more than the average punter, but it seems like CDAF and ToF are complementary technologies. ToF provides an approximate distance measurement and, more importantly, a rate of change. That's the information that CDAF lacks; it would go a long way toward eliminating focus hunting. It probably doesn't matter if current ToF sensors provide exact measurements beyond 10m, they just need to tell the camera which way the subject is moving.

[sillbeers15]

SL2 + 90-280mm VE, AFC / Tracking mode

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[Jox]

Hello,

The SL2S/90-280 set is very pleasant, with really pleasant renderings even in fairly low light, very much in the spirit of those of the R APOs such as 180F2.8 APO (doubled APO or not) for example.
Back to autofocus after a long time without it, I tried a lot of programming possibilities but I must not be at the top for a particular application: birds in flight at medium distance.

I'm at
- "AFc" focus mode
- "Pursuit" AF mode
- "Wild Animals" AF Profile / Focus 0 / Lateral Movement +1 / Direction Change +2

In fact, even there, I can't find the responsiveness of my very old Nikon D2x/70-200F2.8!
I would be very interested in sharing experience on this point.

Thanks in advance.