1st and 2nd Generation Autofocus Cameras

<p>As I said, I am not planning to go on to review the early AF camera, the <strong>Pentax ME-F</strong>, at least not any time soon.</p>

<p>However, in case anyone is interested in a detailed contemporary account of that camera - here is <em>Modern Photography</em>'s March, 1983 "Inside Your Camera Series #33" review.</p>

<p>It's a 656KB pdf file.</p>

<p>You mentioned DDR cameras. Have you seen the Praktica AF system? Well it wasn't really a system, just one B-mount lens. A Prakticar (made by Sigma) 55-200mm, which had the AF motor and sensor in the lens, some batteries too, 3 AAA if I remember correctly. AF activated with a half press of the shutter button, but there was nothing stopping you pressing the shutter all the way down before it focussed. Beeped when focussed. Speed was OK.</p>

<p>Presursor report (Canon AL-1 "Quick Focus") at http://www.photo.net/modern-film-cameras-forum/00cmRJ</p>

<p>Visiting the scene of the crime again, I got the original crossed-x Maxxum and tried it out again:<br>

http://www.photo.net/modern-film-cameras-forum/00cotw </p>

Well, I did get a Pentax ME-F, and will try to get to a report on it sometime....

Hmm, well, this is the first I've seen of this thread and I managed to read most of it up til this moment in time. I appreciate your dedication to the subject. Me, I was much more spotty in my absorption of autofocus tech. You know, when I bought my first interchangeable lens camera -- a Canon AE-1 -- one of the things I liked most about it was the power I had over image focus. To me, this was one of the funnest aspects of my newly found hobby. This attitude remained unabated even after Minolta announced their earth-shaking Maxxum 7000. And when Canon announced they were abandoning the FD mount for the EOS mount, I was pretty bummed. But I soldiered on for a few more years. At which point, I jumped ship to Nikon so that I could maintain a viable upgrade path. Ironically, my first AF camera/lens was an EOS! Which I bought less than a year after switching from Canon FD to Nikon. I didn't buy my first AF Nikkor until a few years ago.

 

There's no denying the usefulness of AF, but I still don't entirely trust it. There is still the occasional moment when I've zeroed in on a subject only for the lens to rack from close to far focus and then stop somewhere in between, then give up. By that point, the moment I was hoping to capture is gone, so any advantage I might have had because of AF has long since vanished. True, this sort of thing doesn't happen very often, but it seems that it happens at that moment when I'm hoping to capture the moment that will make for a brilliant shot. And of course, that's when it decides to nut up. These days if I'm taking an AF camera with me, I will always bring along an MF backup, preferably a mechanical manual one -- just in case.

Great write up, I learned a lot, thanks!

I price cameras for a charity shop occasionally, and an F501 came to me recently in pretty lousy condition, but the glass was good ( I forget which lens it was but I would have given it a quick google to check it wasn’t anything particularly valuable). I put in new batteries expecting it would be dead, but lo and behold it fired up and seemed fully functional. Inside in poor light it hunted around quite a bit, but for my kind of pictorial shots, I’m sure it would have been fine, and I was tempted to play with it a while. 4 no. AAA batteries were quite something at a time when most previous cameras ran off LR 44 s or similar, and the ‘power grip’ now ubiquitous in SLRs was also a bit of an innovation, that I must admit I wasn’t keen on for some reason that defied logic. The early autofocus cameras passed me by largely, having a bit of a hiatus in my camera fixation between about 88 and 93, and buying a Nikon F50 about the end of that time, thinking this autofocus thing was the doggies doo-daa’s ( that’l be doo-dads for most of you). My Yashica FX-D went into early retirement for a few years until I came to the realisation that the crazy button system for aperture control was inferior to the tried and tested lens mounted ring ( and better than the modern wheels in my opinion), at which point I succumbed to a Contax RTS which took me back to my comfort zone.

 

My limited experience with cameras similar to the F501 that have come my way in the charity shop bags is that they more often than not still work, but that I’m not tempted to buy any of them!

Thanks for the good and informative write-up.

 

I'd be interested in your opinion on the Nikon F4 as compared to the others you've listed. I know it definitely seems a lot faster than my 4004 and 8008, although the 8008s is close.

Welcome back to an old old thread long forgotten. With regard to the Nikon F4, I have one of these, and though it's hardly state of the art these days, I got it a few years ago, before getting any AF digital stuff, and was pleasantly surprised. It's much better than the Maxxum 7000, and not far behind the F100. Most of my use of it has been with manual lenses anyway, but the AF was sufficiently accurate and fast to be useful - something one really could not say about the Maxxum most of the time.

Nikon F4

 

I've never used the F4, but Matthew has his take on it just above. As I suggested in my earlier reports, most of my subject matter is sessile, so even the Maxxum and earlier AF cameras work fairly well for me.

Welcome back to an old old thread long forgotten. With regard to the Nikon F4, I have one of these, and though it's hardly state of the art these days, I got it a few years ago, before getting any AF digital stuff, and was pleasantly surprised. It's much better than the Maxxum 7000, and not far behind the F100. Most of my use of it has been with manual lenses anyway, but the AF was sufficiently accurate and fast to be useful - something one really could not say about the Maxxum most of the time.

 

I ask because I actually have two of them- an F4(4 cell battery grip) and F4s(6 cell). I agree on the AF being surprisingly good for an early AF camera. It can really pick up if you stick a fast focusing AF-S lens on it.

 

The biggest flaw I've found in it is that the AF doesn't have the low light sensitivity of newer cameras. It will sometimes give me an "X" where something like an N80 chugs along-albeit more slowly than the F4 can get there in good light.

The original Maxxum 7000 seemed so good because there wasn't anything directly comparable (AF motor in camera). When Canon and Nikon entered the race Maxxum didn't keep up in some areas. My best experiences were with the 8000i (using central sensor) and the 9xi (again just using the central sensor). The Maxxum 5 wasn't bad, but the viewfinder began to suffer some separation (color patterns near extreme edge). I have a Canon EOS Rebel K that focused well too. Not sure what generation AF that is. I think the 8000i was second generation IIRC.

As a longtime RF and later MF SLR user, in the late 1980s I began also to look at AF systems, and acquired a few popular P&S models and was impressed with the results. For me, though, the "aha" moment came when I discovered the Tamron Adaptall 70-210 AF/IF lens which could be used on virtually any SLR with an adapter. Although the lens performance was only mediocre, and it hunted a lot, its versatility was what fascinated me to the point of experimenting. Several years ago I posted on this site one of my experiments, mounting this lens on an RF body (Leica M4), using the RF frames for composition at the extreme ends of the focal length spectrum for this lens and thereby having autofocus on the kit. I eventually sold it to somebody who had seen my post, but it still is a great reminder of the early ideas in the realm of autofocus. Thanks for the writeup.

Back in 1989, my wife wanted a new camera, and thought AF was a nice idea, so I figured to look for a birthday present. I first tried the Maxxum 7000 in a store with its native 50/1.7 lens. It's hard to imagine nowadays, but I bought it for a reasonable price at a K Mart store, where a rather nicely equipped camera section existed, and this hot new model was there to try! The fast lens and the presence of plenty of vertical edges in the store made it seem pretty decent. It wasn't until some real world use occurred that it became clear that it required that fast lens and well defined edges and plenty of light. I rather suspect that the system itself was not bad, just not sensitive enough. As an MF camera the Maxxum worked a treat.

For me, though, the "aha" moment came when I discovered the Tamron Adaptall 70-210 AF/IF lens which could be used on virtually any SLR with an adapter. Although the lens performance was only mediocre, and it hunted a lot, its versatility was what fascinated me to the point of experimenting.

 

I picked up a somewhat similar Vivitar zoom a while back, albeit 35-70(I think) and in F mount. I'm too lazy to find the post, but I wrote it up(on a Nikon F) not too long ago.

 

It's fun to stick it on an F from ~1960, press the button, and see it snap into focus.

It's been more than two years since this one was re-animated, so here we go again...

 

However, I always disliked her "Me and Bobby McGee" rewriting. Kris Kristofferson threw in a bit of irony and commentary on being down and out, with the truism "Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free." Joplin turned this rather clever line into a silly hippie manifesto by changing it to the untrue "Nothing ain't worth nothing if it ain't free."

 

Strangely enough in a PBS special on music (I think it was a Burns show), Kris himself says something to the effect he was blown away by Janis' version :cool:

In my case I try to avoid autofocus which will pinpoint the nearest twig rather than what I wish to focus on.

 

The successors to the Leitz Correfot system may well have advanced in speed and selectivity, but even when i specify spot measurement for the focus and with some annoying button pressing finally manage to center the focussing spot on my Z-7 screen, I can get sharp backgrounds but mushy subject, or a perfectly sharp branch of the tree in front of a local deer. WIth manual optics and 100%enlargement , the distance setting may require more care, but will yield better results.

 

In the past I used Canons substandard SLR viewfinders plus their special manual focussing screen and experienced canons shortcut technology with their plastic lens design when a 50mm fell to the ground and split open. A reasonably robust autofocus camera was the little Olympus something with pop-out lens that I once bought for my elderly mother when she found her Retina IIc a bit cumbersome.

 

p.

My first AF camera was the F5 and it's near the last generation of AF film camera still I don't like its AF. So much so when I buy a DSLR I don't care so much for the AF performance, I am content to manual focus.

n my case I try to avoid autofocus which will pinpoint the nearest twig rather than what I wish to focus on.

Only if you pay no attention to what the camera is actually doing.

 

The successors to the Leitz Correfot system may well have advanced in speed and selectivity

Leitz early AF was not the cutting edge. Most modern AF systems descend from other early systems.

 

In the past I used Canons substandard SLR viewfinders plus their special manual focussing screen and experienced canons shortcut technology with their plastic lens design when a 50mm fell to the ground and split open.

Too extreme and not very accurate. I'm sorry your experiences were bad, and it's true that AF cameras in general, not just Canon, don't have exceptional screens for manual focus. However with appropriate attention to detail most work fine. I've shot a rather large number of early to recent AF cameras, and never had any problem. Moreover, no lens responds particularly well to being dropped. I've bought the "plastic fantastic" or "nifty fifty" Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens for as little as $25 in "pre-owned" condition, and rarely more than $50 for version 1. I've given them away to newbies as party favors. All that have passed through my hands are still working. I will confess that the "bokeh" of the lens is not so wonderful.

 

Don't blame the tools

I guess my 1st AF SLR was a 2nd generation AF camera, a Canon Elan IIe, with 3 AF points (center cross AF sensor), eye control, all electronic camera to lens connections, and a lens with a ring type USM AF motor. With its huge red AF assist lamp, it could focus in zero light as long as your subject wasn't more than 10-15 feet away. For anything moving AF was flawless (with USM lenses), and with moving subjects, you better only use the center AF point. In general, far more reliable and faster than the previous 25 years using mostly Minolta and FD Canon manual equipment.

I got a T80 in 2015 from a Goodwill eBay auction from a nearby store, to save shipping costs.

That one was $17.

 

The nearby Goodwill stores are now not doing local pick-up for Covid reasons,

which probably saves me from buying more.

 

I only had one roll in the T80, and remember a few times when it would decide to

refocus just when you were tripping the shutter, giving a completely out of

focus result. Otherwise kind of fun.

 

But I think when Nikon AF lenses first came out, I thought it was too strange,

and wasn't interested in buying one. (Especially for my non-AF FM.)

 

One of the few new lenses I ever bought, the AI 55/2.8 that was close to the

same price as the AF (close enough) version. But manual focus on the AF

lens didn't feel right.

I hadn't noticed this thread the first few times round, but it reminds me that I have one of the innovative Tamron 70-210 in-lens AF zooms in a drawer somewhere - in pieces. It went wrong and I dismantled it to attempt repair. It never did get put back together again properly.

 

All this makes me wonder if Nikon will ever get their 'stuck down a well, and looking at life through a floppy mirror' flakey AF system properly working, before the DSLR goes the way of the Dodo?

Many autofocus shots work,but it is the failures are remembered.

Current autofocus systems including Nikon & Canon do actually set distances fast and as accurate as the camera can measure. Yes undoubtedly enough attention to what the camera is doing is important even if such attention take time while the motive goes away.

 

I recently set aside my trusty 5yr old Olympus PenF because the focus and spot.metering point kept moving at random when using heavy optics & squeezing the camera body. It could not be fixed by the software, nor would superglue suffice without blocking access to the menu.

The Nikon Z ´s variety of moving focus point is not quite as bad, but it has some of the same tendencies.

 

As to Canons plastic and glue methods, yes their plastics does not easily break, but such constructions do not take welll to being dropped. I do not recommend dropping Leitz lenses either, but have inadvertently experienced both, Leitz survived, Canon did not.

 

As to the merits of first generation Correfot which came to nothing at Leitz,, and current systems .fattening lenses while crowding the sensors with sites for measuring distance ,

I am convinced that the contemporary systems act fast but remain less convinced of robustness , real long term reliability and value for money.

 

p.

My Canon EOS 630 had only one central autofocus zone, but capacity to memorize the focus while composing the picture.

I was a Minolta shooter for years (US 500si/600si/5/7), and I've been picking up some working used bodies lately just to make sure I've got some on hand that work. One of them was a 7000 (listed in BGN condition) that I got from KEH for $16. I already have lenses (including the 28/2.8, the 50/1.7 the 28-138/4-4.5 and the 70-210/F4). I've been impressed with it overall. Having used the 600si/7, and the 7D when I first went digital, the push button interface isn't my favorite, but the camera works well, the AF is at least predictable, and the viewfinder is nice and bright. I was genuinely impressed with the 7000. I'd love to get my hands on a decent 9000 (when I've had issues with the older cameras, it tends to be the film advance mechanism), but those are a little harder to come by (especially with readable LCDs).