Panasonic Eye AF Looks Like 'FAIL'
See my L-mount mirrorless wishlist and Leica M wishlist.
Sony Eye AF has a near perfect hit rate for me.
The Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-SL ASPH delivers beautiful and luscious images for portraits. And it was about time to show some portraits.
Tonight I shot 18 portrait images with the Panasonic S1R + Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-SL ASPH, intending to present images that the lens is best at. A few were very nice.
Out of 18 images, maybe 1/3 had acceptable focus on the eye, sort of. Well, not really—the iris needs to be razor sharp, not a touch off with sharp eyelashes. The ones which are just sharp enough to be usable most all had sharp eyelashes and an iris almost but not quite there. Which means that the camera allocated sharpness in front of the iris of the eye. For many, it looks like it went for eyelashes.
As it stands, I call this a total fail. I'll check all camera settings and try again and with the Panasonic 50mm f/1.4 to see if that makes a difference.
Below, many of my shots looked like this, with a blurry iris. Some are better with sharp lashes and a sort-of-sharp iris. That’s not good enough—the iris should be razor sharp—at f/1.4 at close range a few millimeters off is a disaster.