Auto focus question

[Eyeonyou]

I just noticed this today and was wondering what it is. Been using the auto focus on my Mavic pro since I’ve owned it and just noticed when you touch the auto focus symbol up in the top right of the screen it goes from the square green af to a yellow bulls eye thing. What does this do?

 

[brett8883]

I just noticed this today and was wondering what it is. Been using the auto focus on my Mavic pro since I’ve owned it and just noticed when you touch the auto focus symbol up in the top right of the screen it goes from the square green af to a yellow bulls eye thing. What does this do?

The yellow bulls eye is for spot metering. It only works a auto exposure but instead of calculating exposure off the average of the pixels it will only use the pixels around that spot when you click on the screen to set the exposure. This is important for backlit screens like the sun set for example. You put the bulls eye on your subject which will ensure the subject is metered correctly even if that means blowing other parts of the frame

 

[Eyeonyou]

Ok thanks for the info. I’ll probably just leave it on the green square seeing how I’m not a photographer or anything. I just fly and leave everything stock, it’s good enough for me. Question, does the green auto focus square always have to be on the screen while flying? Mine never goes away,’even after it auto focus. Is there a way to not have it on the screen or go away after it focuses?

 

[brett8883]

Ok thanks for the info. I’ll probably just leave it on the green square seeing how I’m not a photographer or anything. I just fly and leave everything stock, it’s good enough for me. Question, does the green auto focus square always have to be on the screen while flying? Mine never goes away,’even after it auto focus. Is there a way to not have it on the screen or go away after it focuses?

A pro tip is that, because of the nature of that camera the infinity focus will work at any distance more than like a foot away. (The Mavic Air and Spark for example don’t even have adjustable focus for example for the same reason.)

Because of this you can autofocus on something that is at least 50m away and then switch to manual focus to lock in infinity focus. Now everything will always be in focus. No need to focus on anything ever.

You can then hit that yellow bullseye to switch it into spot metering mode but don’t select a spot metering point and the green thing will go away, you keep average metering and then everything will always be in focus! ?

 

[Eyeonyou]

So is that better then just leaving it in auto focus?

 

[brett8883]

So is that better then just leaving it in auto focus?

I would say in this case it’s as good as autofocus but you also get rid of the green thing and you don’t have to worry about adjusting the focus all the time. I’ve had some good shots messed up cause the MP autofocus decided to refocus right at a critical point in the take.

Using infinity focus this way won’t work on all cameras and it’s not as good as setting focus manually for every scene but that’s unrealistic anyway. it’s as good as the Mavic Pro auto-focus for sure.

Try it out what can it hurt?

 

[Eyeonyou]

Ya I think I’ll give it a try. So how far away from a subject do I need to be to set the focus? And it won’t matter unless I get really close to something?