rbelyell
Well-known
i cant believe we're discussing 'face detection' on a photography forum. honestly, just blows me away. maybe fuji can manufacture a tiny little photographer to carry in our pocket who will take photos for us...
tony
tony
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
A few decades ago it was "I can't believe we're discussing AE... AF..." etc.
Look, I realize that it's an not either/or question, but portraiture is not fundamentally about the technical achievement of ± a few mm of focus. When shooting a portrait do you want to put your effort into getting the iris of the leading eye in focus? The best current face detection systems let you choose: leading eye, trailing eye, or average. Is a technology that takes care of that not useful? Is it not better to put the photographer's focus on light, expression, and gesture?
mobilexile
Well-known
The allure of face detection eludes me. Guess that's because I like to take the pictures rather than have a camera do everything for me. Call me a purist.
mobilexile
Well-known
I tend to agree – the art of photography is being killed by technology. For this reason I'm unable to part ways with my Epson R-D1s – the camera makes you do all the work and it's a damn satisfying way to take pictures.
aizan
Veteran
the value of face detection is so obvious it's easy to overlook: it locks onto faces and keeps them in focus.
street photogs rejoice?!
street photogs rejoice?!
DougFord
on the good foot
Whether you use the feature or not is your choice. Perhaps some will use face detection for street and get the results that they're after. It's all baked into the firmware, makes no never mind.
fbf
Well-known
dont' care about the whatever new features they added.
Only two things I noticed: better sensor, faster AF
I'm sold. Pre-ordered
Only two things I noticed: better sensor, faster AF
I'm sold. Pre-ordered
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
A complaint about the "gimmicky" nature of face detection on an X100 discussion forum is like that old, tasteless joke whose punchline is "I already know you're a whore; we're just establishing the price."
Pardon the above analogy, but there is a certain hypocrisy in complaining about one piece of technology when the referent is a camera that has a "multi-AF" mode (useless as it is), DR extension, film simulation, auto ISO, a built-in flash, and a host of other automated features. Does someone want to argue that face detection diminishes the professional potential of the camera when the D800E has that feature? And no one is holding a gun (or sharpened stick) to your head and forcing you to leave all these features switched on.
Face detection is a proxy for old wide-area active IR focusing that focused on the closest object (in most compositions, usually a person). The X100's multi-AF mode doesn't even seem to focus on the same object twice, even in the same scene.
I'm with the others on the idea that sometimes your camera is used by others. Some of us are still young, thin and have all our hair - and don't mind occasionally being in pictures - especially with our children - that are well-focused and well-exposed (the "invisible dad syndrome") - and that aren't demon-red-eye atrocities taken with an iPhone. That's a very solid reason for face detection. The other is that when our spouses or significant others (who are not as heavily trained in using high-end cameras) randomly pick up our cameras to take pictures of our kids when we are not around (for me, most daylight hours), we want the pictures to come out.
For the people against, and when it's easy enough to get this into a good camera that is already using contrast detection, what's the suggestion - that we should all get a second point-and-shoot that our friends and families understand, that we should keep it charged at all times, and that we should have to haul it around? Or should our kids and grandchildren wonder what we looked like years ago yet marvel at the clarity with which the wood paneling in the background was focused and rendered where no human in the foreground is recognizable?
Dante
Pardon the above analogy, but there is a certain hypocrisy in complaining about one piece of technology when the referent is a camera that has a "multi-AF" mode (useless as it is), DR extension, film simulation, auto ISO, a built-in flash, and a host of other automated features. Does someone want to argue that face detection diminishes the professional potential of the camera when the D800E has that feature? And no one is holding a gun (or sharpened stick) to your head and forcing you to leave all these features switched on.
Face detection is a proxy for old wide-area active IR focusing that focused on the closest object (in most compositions, usually a person). The X100's multi-AF mode doesn't even seem to focus on the same object twice, even in the same scene.
I'm with the others on the idea that sometimes your camera is used by others. Some of us are still young, thin and have all our hair - and don't mind occasionally being in pictures - especially with our children - that are well-focused and well-exposed (the "invisible dad syndrome") - and that aren't demon-red-eye atrocities taken with an iPhone. That's a very solid reason for face detection. The other is that when our spouses or significant others (who are not as heavily trained in using high-end cameras) randomly pick up our cameras to take pictures of our kids when we are not around (for me, most daylight hours), we want the pictures to come out.
For the people against, and when it's easy enough to get this into a good camera that is already using contrast detection, what's the suggestion - that we should all get a second point-and-shoot that our friends and families understand, that we should keep it charged at all times, and that we should have to haul it around? Or should our kids and grandchildren wonder what we looked like years ago yet marvel at the clarity with which the wood paneling in the background was focused and rendered where no human in the foreground is recognizable?
Dante
JRS11
Newbie
That is so true, but not just about fuji. On DPR fujitalk they are already talking about the X30, please?????? what are they thinking. I want a nice travel camera, that can be the X20, Then maybe an APS-c with a 35mm and 85 or so (in 35mm terms). I have my sites on Fuji as the company to deliver and yes, there will be issues and there will be those that make small issues large issues.
OlliL
Well-known
Once you miss "the shot", because your X100 preferred the background, instead of the faces makes you guys think differently, I guess. 
Since then, I have the distance scale always enabled in the VF...
Since then, I have the distance scale always enabled in the VF...
Lss
Well-known
I disagree. I have dozens of good shots of myself taken by strangers with my prefocused camera. I can't think of a single one that would have been improved by a different focus distance, even in low light. Handing over a camera need not mean handing over all control. However, creativity with framing or better timing could improve many of those shots. And that can be difficult or impossible to control.
Face detection with "eyes-open priority/smile detection" type of smart functions or continuous shooting is IMO something that can improve the timing or your chances; face detection AF I mostly find useful for subject tracking, quick shots with cameras that are otherwise difficult to handle/focus, and portraiture.
rbelyell
Well-known
yup. prefocusing vs complaining is what ive chosen to do with my x100, and for the last 18months ive got some nice pix of my lovely slim physique and full head of hair! hasnt really been a burden, but again, many seem to rather pursue perecting the art of complaining than perfecting the art of achieving ones goals.
FA Limited
missing in action
prefocusing only really works if you setup the whole shot in advance and tell someone to stand at the exact same point you are. and it gets worse in low light if you're going for large apertures. i've used the Multi AF but like Dante said not great. i've "solved" this problem by using MF and tripod for my most recent trip
imagine what the X100 would be if nobody ever complained
like V1.0 autofocusing or the loose EV comp dial. at least fuji is responsive to complaining Lss
Well-known
Yes, you need to visualize what you want. It's not a huge task, and you really need not be that exact at the kind of focal lengths, apertures, and focus distances that are common for environmental or group shots. It really works in great many situations. But anyone can think of an example where prefocusing is a difficult way to achieve the wanted result, just like any competent photographer can think of a way to arrange a group shot such that face detection fails to deliver. In any case it makes sense to work with what you have to get the result you want.
willie_901
Veteran
Prefocusing was used extensively and successfully for decades. AF made prefocusing less important. Like any method, it does not work well in some circumstances.
The Fuji APS-C cameras are completely suitable for prefocusing as are hundreds of other AF-based cameras.
The Fuji APS-C cameras are completely suitable for prefocusing as are hundreds of other AF-based cameras.
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Which type of photographer are you?
I shoot street, sports, portraits, landscapes... I'm most serious about documentary work. Most of my shooting is with an M6 or a Fuji X-E1. My most commonly used lens on both bodies is a 35 Summilux ASPH.
Hitting focus on a person's eye has something to do with the craft of photography (for which I have some affection) and almost nothing to do with the art of photography (about which I'm primarily concerned).
Since you asked.
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
I'd call you a traditionalist, or perhaps a hidebound conservative. Not a purist.
If you were a purist you'd be using a pinhole camera, or maybe a view camera, and contact printing.
Edward Weston was a purist.
Spyro
Well-known
awesome improvements by fuji, in my humble opinion most of them much more important for the system cameras rather than the wide/fixed lens x100.
This means I'm keeping my x100 which I zone focus anyway and eagerly waiting for the xPro1-s. That will be my upgrade.
This means I'm keeping my x100 which I zone focus anyway and eagerly waiting for the xPro1-s. That will be my upgrade.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
I reiterate the point about its mainly being a point about negotiating price. Are we really having a discussion where X100 enthusiasts are getting up in arms about having too many features?
Today's users of smartphones and consumer-grade point-and-shoot cameras manage to take really good pictures (meaning well-focused and well-exposed). This is due to the evolution of the equipment: fixed focus zone focus to autofocus to advanced AF. There are also synch-at-any speed leaf shutters, short FL and big-depth-of-field lenses, backlit sensors, and digital TTL flash. It has always been astonishing at how easy it is to get at least a very good picture with what people scoff at as toy cameras. The sad corollary, though, is that the users of these cameras are far less capable of operating so-called "real" cameras. Pre-focusing is ok as long as you are within a static setting, but occasionally other people might be driving this camera, which is very clearly set up to operate as a point-and-shoot when desired (just not one that lags in what today have become key capabilities). And as long as no one accidentally hits the AE/AF lock button and refocuses (not fun either... and this has happened).
That a camera might be over-featured is an argument for Leica users (actually, Leica zealots). The suggestion that the solution is to perfect "your" technique (rather than to wonder why Fuji left a mainstream feature out) is more than a little off: it's not your technique that's the problem; it's idiotproofing the technique of a bystander, a family member or someone else.
The X series, though having control rings and knobs and a hybrid glass viewfinder, is not a lot different under the hood from the Sony NEX, the Samsung NX, or the Micro 4/3 cameras, all of which have very similar and comprehensive feature sets (as well as face-detection AF when it's needed). My surmise - based on the incompetence of the face-detecting remove-redeye feature in the X-Pro - is that Fuji did not want to pay to license the technology or would have to license it from a competitor in the APS-C space.
The bottom line to this is that if it's a normal feature, it's consistent with the market segment the camera inhabits, it can be turned off, and in some circumstances it is helpful, what's the argument against it again? Some kind of uncontrollable urge to use it? They do make a $7,000 hair shirt to help keep that under control.
Dante
Today's users of smartphones and consumer-grade point-and-shoot cameras manage to take really good pictures (meaning well-focused and well-exposed). This is due to the evolution of the equipment: fixed focus zone focus to autofocus to advanced AF. There are also synch-at-any speed leaf shutters, short FL and big-depth-of-field lenses, backlit sensors, and digital TTL flash. It has always been astonishing at how easy it is to get at least a very good picture with what people scoff at as toy cameras. The sad corollary, though, is that the users of these cameras are far less capable of operating so-called "real" cameras. Pre-focusing is ok as long as you are within a static setting, but occasionally other people might be driving this camera, which is very clearly set up to operate as a point-and-shoot when desired (just not one that lags in what today have become key capabilities). And as long as no one accidentally hits the AE/AF lock button and refocuses (not fun either... and this has happened).
That a camera might be over-featured is an argument for Leica users (actually, Leica zealots). The suggestion that the solution is to perfect "your" technique (rather than to wonder why Fuji left a mainstream feature out) is more than a little off: it's not your technique that's the problem; it's idiotproofing the technique of a bystander, a family member or someone else.
The X series, though having control rings and knobs and a hybrid glass viewfinder, is not a lot different under the hood from the Sony NEX, the Samsung NX, or the Micro 4/3 cameras, all of which have very similar and comprehensive feature sets (as well as face-detection AF when it's needed). My surmise - based on the incompetence of the face-detecting remove-redeye feature in the X-Pro - is that Fuji did not want to pay to license the technology or would have to license it from a competitor in the APS-C space.
The bottom line to this is that if it's a normal feature, it's consistent with the market segment the camera inhabits, it can be turned off, and in some circumstances it is helpful, what's the argument against it again? Some kind of uncontrollable urge to use it? They do make a $7,000 hair shirt to help keep that under control.
Dante