How does autofocus work? Is infrared light involved? Is autofocus similar throughout all camera types, still & video? If you have an answer please try to keep it in laymens terms. Thank you, Jo

-- Johnathan Blanchard (canon111@yahoo.com), March 28, 2000

Answers

Johnathan,

If you go to: http://photo.net/photo/ and then Photo.net's Original Q&A, you can do a search for "how does autofocus work" and you'll get an extensive discourse on the subject. With short answers and long ones. But...

Some cameras use IR (mostly point & shoots) and some use something like a contrast sensor that looks for sharp lines (SLR's and others). Both have their advantages, but check out the link.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), March 28, 2000.