Originally posted by gatorguy Bruce,you almost certainly already know this but I'm a relative newborn with flash and did not.
Setting up for a photoshoot today where much of it will be in an old west indoor movie set inside I was trying to work with the autofocus assist light on my V860II and Godox trigger. (Would love to work with available window light but...)
Just wasn't seeing that "crosshatch" I supposedly should. I followed several different links and setups before someone was nice enough to ask what AF setting I used. Typically it's AFC. It has to be in AFS. Now it works. Perfectly. Geesh, I'm hoping that's the fix for low-light focus issues I sometimes have. After the fact I saw a thread here at PF with the same answer.
Such a simple thing that I just never learned.
Yeh I knew about AF.C being no good for flash/AF assist. I almost never use AF.C as a mode, reserving it only for sport and action shots where flash wouldn't be involved.
My issue was perplexing to me because two things;
1) The camera seemed hell bent on trying to find focus first on it's own, only once it failed did it try to use AF Assist. This for me was unacceptably slow to do a formal photoshoot.
2) When the AF assist did kick in it was too localised for a wide angle lens, the assist beam looked like a concentration of spot focus green light that didn't assist at all if the focus was away from the spot focus point.
Yesterday I was in my house during a powercut and had nothing to do so I set up my home studio to do more practising. It was still daytime however overcast (due to rain and stormy weather) and so I noticed as the day went on and the light changed in my house I could observe the AF system just struggle to find focus, whereas earlier in the day when the light was better it was quicker and nailing focus faster. This is definitely a thing I need to troubleshoot properly. I'm now feeling that AF Assist beams are not ideal for how I shoot, and I'm not sure guests in front of the camera appreciate standing there and then suddenly being exposed to an intense beam of green or red rays for the shot. I think that some kind of gentle support light for overall subject so that focus whereever you decide it to be will come to the rescue makes more sense.
My solutions seem to be;
- Use a V1 as a trigger and take advantage of its modelling light feature. Bonus is it may also provide fill light if needed.
- invest in some kind of external light that can be mounted to the light stand or camera/tripod/L bracket to assist with focus
I think the tricky point of both these options are intensity of light. I don't want to blind people nor do I want the exposure the AF assisting light will give off. It's about finding what level of light the AF system really starts to struggle with. More testing required.
Originally posted by Digitalis There are manufacturers of smart LED bulbs that have IR emitting capabilities for use with security cameras, however there is a possibility of IR contamination if the light is too strong. IR contamination will show up as darker colours being rendered lighter with a distinct red cast, and skin tones on those with darker skin tones can get screwy. Needless to say these kind of colour rendering errors are bit of a headache to correct for in post.
Now that I didn't know.