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EX1 – Weird Focus Issues
Twice now I’ve been on a shoot and the EX1 has suddenly experienced focal issues. I typically do head and shoulders interviews and I’ll be back about ten feet from the subject so I can zoom in and pull focus, getting a nice shallow depth of field for blurring the background. But on two separate occasions, the EX1 will drift to focus on the background. I’ll reset the focus on the subject and a second later the EX1 has once more set for the farthest point in the frame. Fortunately, I have an EX3 so I was able to pull that out and finish the shoots.
However, in between those two shoots, I used the EX1 without any issues at all. It seems that pulling the battery and making sure no power is hooked up, “clears” some temporary setting but I’m flummoxed as to what it is. I’ve never had this problem in six years prior but it’s happened twice in the last two weeks. It’s not auto focus as that would lock on the subject that’s ten feet away and filling my frame. All settings are on full manual (I double checked) and shot transition was disabled.
Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks! 🙂
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2 Replies
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[Scott Bruffey] “It seems that pulling the battery and making sure no power is hooked up, “clears” some temporary setting but I’m flummoxed as to what it is.”
You have to pull the memory battery as well to be sure the camera’s settings are entirely cleared. If you’ve never changed the memory battery in 6 years now might be a good time. You can also try using the RESET ALL function in the OTHERS menu and see if that helps.
Make sure the focus ring is pulled all the way back so that the auto focus motor is completely disconnected. To check back focus set everything to manual then zoom all the way in to an object, adjust focus, zoom all the way back wide then zoom all the way in once more. If the focus is still good then the back focus is fine. If not then you need to do a flange back adjustment. You can find the instructions here:
https://reeltimevideoworks.com/blog/sony-pmw-ex1-flangeback-adjust/
If I think of anything else I’ll add to this post.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Thanks for the suggestions, Don. I did a full back focus adjust about six months ago but I’ve never changed the back-up battery so I’ll give that a try (along with your other suggestions). 🙂
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