Autofocus on the S70

[Fotosmurf]

Hi,
I've bought a Powershot S70 about a week ago and I have to confess that I am quite disappointed with the performance of the autofocus. When the lightlevels drop even a little bit it just does not focus correctly.
I bought the S70 after having read numerous testreviews where everyone was raving about the fantastic autofocus capabilities etc.... So after having done some tests yesterday I was convinced that there was something wrong with the camera...

So I went to the store today and ofcourse, being there, everything worked perfectly fine... So the guy in the store made me look like a fool and started to explain what autofocus was... As if I didn't know!! Anyway, bottomline is that there was nothing he could do as he did not see the issue. I did bring all the out of focus pictures, but he probably thought I was a lousy photographer and just couldn't take photo's...:evil:

Coming home I went to take photo's in the garden during the afternoon and ofcourse this time it worked quite fine... :rolleyes: I had the problems mainly indoors with lower lightlevels, the auto-focus assist light is turned on, I use the macro when I get too close, I selected the middle focus point etc.
Am I the only one who is experiencing this issue or are there others?

Does anyone has tips, tricks or anything that will make me happy again...??

Thanks!!
Simone

Visit my site www.fotosmurf.nl (http://www.fotosmurf.nl)

[S45_fornow...]

If you haven't already done so, turn off the AiAF focussing and use the center-box focussing. That will help tremendously.

[Fotosmurf]

Well.... it doesn't. I have used the center box from the beginning.... Still the same issue!

[S45_fornow...]

I've never heard that any Canon Powershot camera excelled focus-wise in indoor low-light conditions. Some are better than others, but none are worth raving about. Most contrast based focus systems (like Canon Powershots) are not good at low-light focus.

Try using the hyperfocal method for your indoor shots. This involves manually setting the focus to a hyperfocal distance and a corrseponding aperture value such that everything X feet in front of the HF distance and everything Y feet past the hyperfocal distance will be in focus (otherwise known as DOF). This setting can be saved as one of your custom settings on the camera.

You'll need to do a search to find a hyperfocal chart for your camera for the distances and aperture settings.

Sorry I can't provide more info on the hyperfocal technique. The info is out there, but you'll need to do a search for it.

Here's a start: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50585&highlight=hyperfocal

[Fotosmurf]

Thanks. I will try and see if that works better!

[ByteTheBullet]

My S70 seems to focus just fine. I take band pics on occassion with and w/out flash and the focus looks good. I use center focus most, if not all, the time. What happens when you take focus bracketing shots? I have never messed with them, but that may give you a better idea of a problem. Of course I could be way off base as I have never tried it myself.

ETA: I do not use the focus light.


ByteTheBullet (-:

[Fotosmurf]

No idea how the focus bracketing might work but I will look that up and try it out. I tried the hyperfocal suggestion but that just leaves out any spontaneous shots at all. It is not very userfriendly on manual, so I don't think that would work out.
I use centerfocus all the time, as I hate the camera to decide for me where I want to focus. THe one other thing I can try it to turn of the focus light. It could be that that is where the problem lies... (seems unlikely, but I am willing to try everything!)
Thanks