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Focus by wire, a catastrophe low light landscape
#1
Yesterday I was shooting at the blue hour just after sunset, ambient light was  too low for autofocus to work,  however manual focusing on my 10-18 was totally impossible, barely some landmarks visible in the viewfinder to allow composition but not focus at 10mm, no focus scale on the lens, since I was on bulb exposure, focus bracketing wasn't an option so I had nothing but a color soup, Canon should work on this, the lens  or camera should be able to write focus distance and obviously the hyperfocal distance. what's the point of good optics if you can't focus accurately

#2
Focus by wire is generally an unpleasant experience, a fine adjustment is basically complicated or impossible. It's a cheap way for the manufacturers and more often badly executed than well done. As if manufacturers think, our AF is so great, nobody uses MF anyway. 

 

Other lens: Sigma 10-20/3.5, has manual focus without wire.

Other idea: put a good torch into your photobag and light up the spots you want to focus

#3
Quote:Other idea: put a good torch into your photobag and light up the spots you want to focus
That's very close to what I did, the bad part, they are marketing focus by wire as a novel addition to lenses, thanks, they can keep it
#4
Reading the enthusiastic PZ test about that lens, it was in several aspects better than 10-22 and Klaus didn't mention the downsides of this focus system.

 

However, a lot of Fujinons are also equipped with this feature, as well as the little Sigma cameras (what is understandable, because the lenses just might be too tiny to implement a clutch for AF / Manual focus. But given the price of your lens, it's hard to expect more, sorry. And what PZ and probably others liked was the optical quality, so it's still a bargain.

#5
I;ve never had any problems with focus by wire, not on Canon lenses (like the 85L), or on others.

 

Either the implementation on the 10-22 is not so great, or it requires getting used to.

 

HTH, kind regards, Wim

Gear: Canon EOS R with 3 primes and 2 zooms, 4 EF-R adapters, Canon EOS 5 (analog), 9 Canon EF primes, a lone Canon EF zoom, 2 extenders, 2 converters, tubes; Olympus OM-D 1 Mk II & Pen F with 12 primes, 6 zooms, and 3 Metabones EF-MFT adapters ....
#6
Quote:However, a lot of Fujinons are also equipped with this feature,
 

With a little twist though, most of the wide angle Fujinon primes have a focus distance scale on the lens and they match the distance as you turn the ring. Which means they behave just like a conventional lens.

 

Also, I never really had any problems with focus by wire neither. It actually provides much better adjustment as it moves slowly the slower you turn the ring on Sony lenses.
#7
2 (two) wide-angles out of 7 lenses have this feature. One of it, the 23/1.4 is pretty slow in AF. All new f/2 lenses are focus by wire, all zooms as well and the focus scale on the back display is a bad joke. Too small, with nearly invisible distance mark and the DoF bar again is far too tiny. My dated Sigma Merills have a better interface in that aspect.  :o

 

Even Zeiss, which you mentioned in another thread as "doing their job properly" is relying on focus by wire on their Touits. Right, Zeiss just never made a proper AF lense with manual focus override in a mechanical version, such as Nikon, Canon, Tamron and Sigma know how to do.  Wink

#8
3 wide angles. 14/2.8, 16/1.4 and 23/1.4 Smile.

Can you think of an AF mirrorless lens without focus by wire? I can't really remember any. Not that I really mind though, I like focus by wire.

#9
Only if this lens had focus scale on the barrel or could the camera tell me focus distance , I guess both are easily feasible, focus distance does exist in the exif, why doesn't the camera show it ?

I think magic lantern will listen to us better than canon here.
#10
Quote:3 wide angles. 14/2.8, 16/1.4 and 23/1.4 Smile.

Can you think of an AF mirrorless lens without focus by wire? I can't really remember any. Not that I really mind though, I like focus by wire.
 

To my excuse, I preferred the Touit to the 14/2.8 because of the 2 mm shorter FL.  ^_^ and I have no idea about other mirrorless lenses with a clutch or something else than focus by wire, but then I also have no overwiew about µ 4/3 systems or Sony with it's countless mounts, lenses and whatever. Focus by wire is a bit odd and sometimes gnarrly, depending of the used actuator. Can't say I like it. Especially the 100-400 Fujinon is an unpleasant thing to focus manually, I get crazy while turning and turning that bloody focus ring - just to realize, ooops, I did it again: turning in the wrong direction.  :wacko:
  


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