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Fujifilm cameras have an AF+MF mode which autofocuses when the shutter button is half-depressed, then lets you correct it using the focus ring.

However, some Fuji focus rings have hard stops, so you can't turn the ring past a certain point. This creates a problem because the scale of the focus ring does not change after the AF stage. This means that depending on where the ring was before AF, you can't correct the focus past a certain distance.

This picture explains the problem better:

AF-S

Is there a setting or fix for this problem? I want to be able to use AF-S, then correct it if the camera gets it wrong, and this limits my ability to do so.

In theory it can definitely be altered, since Fuji lenses are focus-by-wire.

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  • This problem is avoided on Nikon bodies with lenses that have an AF+MF mode and no focus ring hard stops, like the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G.
    – Christian Chapman
    Jun 5, 2016 at 8:41
  • The problem is also avoided on Fujifilm lenses with no focus ring hard stops, like the 56mm f/1.2.
    – mattdm
    Jun 5, 2016 at 9:52

1 Answer 1

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In the manual for the X-T10 or X-Pro2 (and probably others), when describing the AF+MF feature, Fujifilm suggests:

Set the focus ring to the center of the focus distance indicator, as the camera may fail to focus if the ring is set to infinity or the minimum focus distance.

This seems entirely reasonable. Of course you can't then get to extremes far away from the distance autofocus found — but, that's not what the feature is for. It's for fine-tuning. If the result is far off, you can either reengage the autofocus — or simply focus manually.

In your example diagram, you're not completely at the extreme, so you have room for a little fine-tuning and a lot in the other direction; starting in the center will give you more flexibility.

Of course, you could just only use this feature with lenses which don't have a hard stop. That's not just a flippant suggestion — the feature is actually most useful in that case, because with a continuously-turnable focus ring, you can't really estimate in advance, whereas with the lenses which do stop, you can set the ring manually to something you guess to be close (either using the distance scale or by feel). You can think of the AF+MF as a shortcut meant for lenses where this isn't possible.

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