Leica SL3 AF

[petereprice]

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19 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Does 4fps work better than 5fps? Remember that AF does not wor above 5fps.

Oh…I actually didn’t know that!  That would make sense.  Thanks for the heads up on that.  I think I might have skipped 5fps.  I’ll try it out and report back.  
 

With that said.  Why would Leica disable AF after 5fps?  Is the expectation that those of us who also shoot M glass would yield faster burst rates but focusing manually?

[Photoworks]

9 minutes ago, petereprice said:

Oh…I actually didn’t know that!  That would make sense.  Thanks for the heads up on that.  I think I might have skipped 5fps.  I’ll try it out and report back.  
 

With that said.  Why would Leica disable AF after 5fps?  Is the expectation that those of us who also shoot M glass would yield faster burst rates but focusing manually?

it keeps the focus setting from the fist image   sorry to quick

5fps is 12bit

Edited March 12, 2024 by Photoworks

[tom0511]

vor 58 Minuten schrieb petereprice:

Been testing the continuous AF this morning, experimenting with different modes and moving back and forth from subjects, and here is what I've found.

• I've been mainly in the AF-C mode, to test out the continuous AF on the SL3.  I can say with confidence that it works way better than the SL2 and SL2-S when it comes to locking on subjects with confidence.  When I had the SL2-S, whenever I was in AF-C mode, the lens would constantly breathe and reset especially with moving subjects.  This does not happen with the SL3. 

• The SL3 seems to track subjects moving side to side or up to down, with fairly good accuracy.  I've found it tracks eyes very well and for portrait sessions, I think this camera is pretty spot on.

• The SL3 does have issues with the subject moving towards you or away from you.  I tried multiple burst modes, and focus profiles, and the best results I got were when I was in 4ps AF-C, I got mostly 80-90% Accuracy.  However, whenever I up the burst mode past 4ps, AF-C keepers went down drastically.  This feels like it could be addressed in future firmware.

...

So the AF works well if the distance doesnt change much but the subject is just going from left to right or up and down? Lets say the SL3 is mainly a camera not made for sports but great for landscape, portrait etc.

I hope they bring a sportscamera one day, maybe a SL3-S (S=Sports ) with an AF on par with other sports cameras.

[Photoworks]

3 minutes ago, tom0511 said:

So the AF works well if the distance doesnt change much but the subject is just going from left to right or up and down? Lets say the SL3 is mainly a camera not made for sports but great for landscape, portrait etc.

so that is when the subject is at the same distance, just pan the camera.

that is great AF

[SrMi]

7 minutes ago, petereprice said:

Oh…I actually didn’t know that!  That would make sense.  Thanks for the heads up on that.  I think I might have skipped 5fps.  I’ll try it out and report back.  
 

With that said.  Why would Leica disable AF after 5fps?  Is the expectation that those of us who also shoot M glass would yield faster burst rates but focusing manually?

Many manufacturers have an FPS limit above which AF and metering stop working (they lock at the first shot). I assume the system cannot wait for AF acquisition/update when reading the sensor frequently. 

P.S.: SL3 can do up to 15fps with an electronic shutter, 12-bit lossless, and no AF.

[SrMi]

18 minutes ago, tom0511 said:

So the AF works well if the distance doesnt change much but the subject is just going from left to right or up and down? Lets say the SL3 is mainly a camera not made for sports but great for landscape, portrait etc.

I would say that SL3 requires higher photographic skills than other cameras when shooting sports or wildlife. After all, you can shoot sports with manual focus as well.

[tom0511]

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vor 5 Stunden schrieb SrMi:

I would say that SL3 requires higher photographic skills than other cameras when shooting sports or wildlife. After all, you can shoot sports with manual focus as well.

yes you can for sure. it has been done for many years. But since my skills are limited a camera which does the job helps me to get more consistent results. You can also get from A to B riding a horse instead of driving a car.

 

[Ken Abrahams]

SL3 with 90-280 AF 

 

[Stevejack]

19 hours ago, tom0511 said:

So the AF works well if the distance doesnt change much but the subject is just going from left to right or up and down? Lets say the SL3 is mainly a camera not made for sports but great for landscape, portrait etc.

I hope they bring a sportscamera one day, maybe a SL3-S (S=Sports ) with an AF on par with other sports cameras.

There are two parts to the autofocus equation; the lenses have to be up to the task as well. I don't have experience with the SL lenses and I would assume they would be fast enough for most situations, but I know on my Sony system adapted lenses like Sigma / canon were never able to obtain and follow focus rapidly enough to keep up with the cameras. Even Sony's older lenses were too slow and they have been gradually replacing them with faster autofocus motors.

I'm not saying they gimped the SL3 to hide issues with lenses, but it will be interesting when Leica do release a camera capable of decent FPS with constant autofocus whether their lenses can keep up.

[la1402]

2 hours ago, Ken Abrahams said:

SL3 with 90-280 AF 

 

6695e652de08460b899eb9706d576d73.mov

Looks ok to me.

[LBJ2]

21 hours ago, petereprice said:

Oh…I actually didn’t know that!  That would make sense.  Thanks for the heads up on that.  I think I might have skipped 5fps.  I’ll try it out and report back.  
 

With that said.  Why would Leica disable AF after 5fps?  Is the expectation that those of us who also shoot M glass would yield faster burst rates but focusing manually?

From the SL3 manual, but similar to how the SL2 operates as well:

"The following applies for continuous shooting with +2 fps to +6 fps: Automatic settings (exposure settings in operating modes P/A/S, automatic white balance and autofocus) are implemented individually for each frame.

The following applies for continuous shooting with +7 fps – +15 fps: Automatic settings (exposure settings in operating modes P/A/S, automatic white balance and autofocus) are implemented for the first frame, and are then applied for each subsequent frame in the same picture series." 

*So, there is Autofocus engaged on the first frame only when using mechanical shutter from +7 fps and electronic shutter +9 fps to +15 fps. *Being aware of DOF can go a long way to using AF on the first frame only fps modes effectively. 

Also you can further fine tune the SL3's AF via the four AF Profiles: Children/Pets, Team Sports, Runner and Wildlife and their three parameters ( sub settings) per profile: Depth Sensitivity, Field Movement and Shift in Direction. ( See pages 129 and 130 in the English manual)

[tom0511]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Ken Abrahams:

SL3 with 90-280 AF 

 

6695e652de08460b899eb9706d576d73.mov

Thank you for the movie. So what is your conclusion?

[tom0511]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Stevejack:

There are two parts to the autofocus equation; the lenses have to be up to the task as well. I don't have experience with the SL lenses and I would assume they would be fast enough for most situations, but I know on my Sony system adapted lenses like Sigma / canon were never able to obtain and follow focus rapidly enough to keep up with the cameras. Even Sony's older lenses were too slow and they have been gradually replacing them with faster autofocus motors.

I'm not saying they gimped the SL3 to hide issues with lenses, but it will be interesting when Leica do release a camera capable of decent FPS with constant autofocus whether their lenses can keep up.

Well, I asume that Canon and Nikon do have advantages with their lenses (speculation), at least they have a lot of experience with lenses for sports, action and wildlife.

The 90280 is a great range but also quite heavy lens. So I assume these masses are harder to move fast than for example the light 70200/2.8 RF Canon lens. But maybe we will see some new faster lenses in the SL lineup in the future.

[LocalHero1953]

16 minutes ago, tom0511 said:

The 90280 is a great range but also quite heavy lens. So I assume these masses are harder to move fast than for example the light 70200/2.8 RF Canon lens. But maybe we will see some new faster lenses in the SL lineup in the future.

Like all modern AF lenses, the weight of a lens bears no relationship to the mass of glass to be moved. 

I doubt that motor speed or mass of the glass to be moved is a limitation to focusing speed in the 90-280 lenses (or any other of my SL lenses except the Summilux 50. When it sees something to focus, it seems very quick to me.  I suspect it’s the firmware and its interaction with the CD and PD hardware that is the main factor. 

[Ken Abrahams]

1 hour ago, tom0511 said:

Thank you for the movie. So what is your conclusion?

I just finished a medium to long reply about my thoughts and when hitting submit, it went poof. I don’t think I can rewrite it I’m sorry. It was a pretty good reply too. 
 

Basically, anything that improves my hit rate with the 90/280 is worth it. I don’t need Sony or Canon fast but I do want accurate focus. It seems to do that even if if shows a slight “stutter” still. 
 

[SrMi]

2 hours ago, LBJ2 said:

From the SL3 manual, but similar to how the SL2 operates as well:

"The following applies for continuous shooting with +2 fps to +6 fps: Automatic settings (exposure settings in operating modes P/A/S, automatic white balance and autofocus) are implemented individually for each frame.

The following applies for continuous shooting with +7 fps – +15 fps: Automatic settings (exposure settings in operating modes P/A/S, automatic white balance and autofocus) are implemented for the first frame, and are then applied for each subsequent frame in the same picture series." 

Yes, that is in the manual, but it is a typo. 6fps does not provide AF per the table below and the camera's information when choosing continuous shooting.

 

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[Stevejack]

9 hours ago, SrMi said:

Yes, that is in the manual, but it is a typo. 6fps does not provide AF per the table below and the camera's information when choosing continuous shooting.

 

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I wonder if this is a lens related restriction (autofocus motors aren't capable of keeping up with anything over 5fps) or a camera related restriction?  
I would assume camera, other manufacturers tend to list the FPS capabilities of each lens rather than a global setting for all attached lenses. Do the L lenses perform any better on Lumix bodies?
 

[SrMi]

Just now, Stevejack said:

I wonder if this is a lens related restriction (autofocus motors aren't capable of keeping up with anything over 5fps) or a camera related restriction?  
I would assume camera, other manufacturers tend to list the FPS capabilities of each lens rather than a global setting for all attached lenses. Do the L lenses perform any better on Lumix bodies?
 

I speculate that it is a camera-specific restriction. 

[Ken Abrahams]

I know the VE 90-280 has DSD. Dual Syncro Drive. Two AF motors does the job very well, considering the mass of glass involved. 
K 

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[Stevejack]

38 minutes ago, Ken Abrahams said:

I know the VE 90-280 has DSD. Dual Syncro Drive. Two AF motors does the job very well, considering the mass of glass involved. 
K 

Yeah it's amazing to me that any lens can move its glass fast enough keep up with even 5fps, let alone the 30+ fps available these days. It's an amazing time we're living in for photography. 

I've maxed out the capabilities of my existing setup with shots like this one; https://www.instagram.com/p/CQktdlVDiRw/  . Even 30 fps isn't quite fast enough to reliably capture these guys feeding, my hit rate is probably 5% or less. So many "almost" moments but the lenses and the AF algorithms are still only able to work so fast. Once the AF lands on the subject it's pretty good at sticking with it, but that initial acquisition is still far from reliable. I don't use any AF tracking / object detection features because the latency is too high for these kinds of shots. 
Not sure if a global shutter would perform any better either because I'm not really sure where the bottleneck is. There are a lot of things that all have to work together to give meaningful improvements.