Hand held cams/camcorders

[Rosemarie]

I wonder if anyone can explain something to me. We use hand held/camcorders with autofocus, but the autofocus seems to take ages to focus when looking in the distance and is constantly focussing in and out unless you are pointing the cam at something fairly close up.

Its really starting to annoy me.

Any comments?

[lowbattery71]

FOr shooting in the distance try setting the focus to manual and setting it yourself so it's constant.

[Rosemarie]

Does that mean Id have to reset it again if I want to shoot something close up ('scuse me ignorance!).

[lowbattery71]

More than likely. It can be a pain but at least the equipment is optimized for the situation at hand.

[sector7]

i always leave my camcorder on a manual setting when using it at the same zoom or in a stationary position. The auto focus is just too much of a pain to want to risk losing something you possibly captured because it decided to focus when it appears.

[Rosemarie]

Ok, thanks. Looks like I'll have to get a bit more technical!

[stevedmvparanormal]

When using night vision sometimes if you have flashlights or any other kind of light other than your illuminator it can send your camera out of focus. The reason why the auto focus goes crazy when doing distant shots is because the illuminator only extends so far, and with night shot the camera can only see so far. My cam with the illuminator can see about 30', but anything longer than that it has trouble focusing in. There are some really good illuminator lights out there that can extend your camera's range of sight. It seems like the more illuminators in the light the farther you can see.

[lowbattery71]

Sony Camcorders will do autofocus in IR, but you need a decent illuminator to work with it or else it can drag bad.