S40 Autofocus

[Plugin]

There is a flowing comment about the auto focus problems in the s40. How bad is this? Is it real or just rumours? I am concidering buying one, and cant get the improved s45, so I want to really know about this problem.

[plato]

Well, I'm perfectly happy with my S40 and I have no hesitation recommending it if you want a high-end compact camera (note: high end COMPACT camera, not professional digital SLR or anything like that, so you have to understand there are limitations, eg can't change lenses or add external flash etc) that you can carry around with you everywhere that takes good pictures and captures colour well. I've had the camera for about 9 months now and I use it all the time because I carry it with me wherever I go.

Right, you want to know about the focussing... I admit that compared to some other cameras such as the Olympus 4040, the camera's inbuilt intelligence doesn't always do a good job of getting what I want in focus (esp macro shots of tiny objects such as a spider on a web), and when I first got it, I had to take many shots of small subjects before I could get one in sharp focus.

However, I think that it's a matter of getting used to the way the camera works, as with any other camera (every camera has its quirks). Nowadays I set the camera to manual focus when taking macro shots and I have less problems getting sharp pictures.

That being said, don't write off the camera's focussing ability. It takes sharp pictures most of the time (stick to ISO 50 though), though it has trouble as I said with some small subjects and macros.

If you don't believe what I say about the sharpness, then the proof is in the pudding... here are some recent photos I took with the camera, but excuse the photography skills... that is the fault of the photographer and not the camera. Please also note that I did use a bit of unsharp mask in a few of the pictures, but keep in mind that no amount of unsharp masking is going to fix a picture that wasn't in decent focus to begin with.

http://www.pbase.com/plato/mt_kinabalu_2002

As you can see, the S40 also captures colours very vibrantly. If camera-aided sharp focus reallly is a big issue with you, then I'd recommend the Olympus 4040, though I don't like it personally because it uses smartmedia cards (128mb limit, and this limit is tied to the camera, ie even if they come up with a higher capacity card, the camera may not support it... correct me if I'm wrong pls) rather than compact flash.

The other thing about it is that although it's focussing algorithm is much much better than Canon's (hear that Canon?? So if this can be fixed in firmware, I'm waiting!), the colour just doesn't seem as vibrant to me. But this is personal preference, so go try them both out and decide for yourself.

[tomx15]

Don't buy it if you want a quick point and shoot picture. You must push the shutter half way down, wait for auto focus to finish, then press completely down on shutter to take picture. I don't like this at all.

I think Canon should go back to the engineering department and rewrite the auto-focus software to work faster. It's way too slow.