Spot AF adjustment with compact 35mm

[AgX]

I just bought two AF compacts (Espio 140 and Espio 135M). On playing around with them I realized that with both cameras spot AF is reaching quite far out of spot region at one side. (Different sides for both cameras.)

Is there a way to adjust this?

This may be an academic question seen the possible hassle with that and the alternative to just memorize the deviation.

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

May be there are adjustment screws inside , may be for prisms , sell them and buy yourself a real camera. May be paralax error is causing this. Are AF sensors are at the top of the cameras ? May be they made a statistics about the use of these cameras and put a artifical error. May be for vertical shots.

[AgX]

Concerning "real camera": with many cameras with coinincidence rangefinders I have difficulties focusing on structures not harshly outlined, at least more so than with manual focusing SLR's. (A sharply outlined and coloured finder patch seems a must for me.)

And these light compact zoom cameras might be fun. (My first ones...) But the selective focusing is one af the few controls one has with these. And for that it wold be beneficial if the spot focusing wold adhere to the finder markings, or at least be symmetrical to them.

[dehk]

You gotta look inside and see if there are any adjustments. Or just try to remember where the camera actually focus.

[Andrew K]

From memory this is actually a part of the af design and there isn't a adjustment as such.

Many of the compact cameras from that era had a af mark in the middle that was a little like [ ] ]

You had to use the extra right hand mark when used at one end of the zoom to get accurate autofocus - sorry I can't remember all the details as it's been nearly 10 years since I sold them..

I can accept that 1 of the cameras you have is not focussing correctly, but both have the same problem? I suspect it is actually part of the camera design as described above..

As for adjustment - yes you can align/re-align the af sensor on a camera - but in the old days this was done by plugging the camera into a computer, and adjusting the AF alignment based on a set of standard paramaters...

At Canon we also used to have a IRED sensor unit to check that the IR sensor was aligned correctly - you pointed the camera at a mark on the box, and the LEDS would light to tell you if the AF was aligned correctly.

You can also check he alignment using a digital camera with a IRED filter on it - IF the camera has a reasonably strong IRED system then a digital camera can pick up the af beam, and you can check the alignment by pointing the camera at a target, and using the digital to see if the AF beam and the mark are in alignment...

One other thing I've just remembered - some of the cameras from this era had multi beam focus - where they sent out 3 AF beams and used fuzzy logic to decide which one to use to focus on. You could also set the camera to single beam focus by putting the camera into a particular mode - time to download a instruction book..

Sorry for being so vague.hope this helps....