www.dpreview.com states as qouted below, that the AF is rather slow, you must push down the biult-in flash maunally (AF assist) before takeing the picture, if yoy don't want ti use flash light, and that the AF assist light may require more than one attempt before focus lock is achieved. Is this really the case? If so, not very flattering, is it?
www.dpreview.com testing *ist D; Low Light Auto Focus This test is designed to measure the minimum amount of light under which the camera can still focus. The focus target is our lens distortion test chart (shown here on the right), camera is positioned exactly 2 m (6.6 ft) away. Light levels are gradually dropped until the camera can no longer focus. Before the shutter release is half pressed the lens is manually focused to the closest subject distance (typically 0.5 m) to "throw the focus out". This test target is the optimum type of subject for most AF systems (as it has a vertical line at its center). AF assist via flash The *ist D implements an AF assist function using the built-in flash (this is much the same as Canon's EOS 10D). To use the AF assist feature you must first pop-up the built-in flash unit, upon half-press of the shutter release the camera will strobe the flash in order to illuminate the subject. In our tests the *ist D required two attempts to get a good lock and the entire process (from half press to locked) could take up to three seconds. The other disadvantage is that there appears to be no way to stop the flash from firing once up so you can't for instance use the flash for AF assist and then take a normal long exposure (without pushing the flash back down again manually). Results without AF assist ... As expected faster lenses performed better (because more light is getting through to the AF sensor). In low light situations the *ist D's AF system did seem to take a few spins of the AF motor to get the lock just right, thus the 2.5 - 3.5 seconds to focus. Jens Bladt mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hjem.get2net.dk/bladt
