Leaf/Sinar Hy6 Autofocus

[pierods]

I own a Rollei 6008 AF, and I can say that the AF feature is honestly a gadget: 3 points only, takes ages to acquire focus, only a handful of points.
How is the Hy6 for autofocus?

 

[GG12]

Seem to recall the Hy6 AF was better, a step up in improvement, but not up to current FF standards. What was really superb tho was focus confirmation with manual focus lenses, opening up the entire Rollei lens lineup. I was particularly fond of the 60mm Curtagon and the the 150mm tele-Xenar.

 

[Pieter12]

Seem to recall the Hy6 AF was better, a step up in improvement, but not up to current FF standards. What was really superb tho was focus confirmation with manual focus lenses, opening up the entire Rollei lens lineup. I was particularly fond of the 60mm Curtagon and the the 150mm tele-Xenar.

The focus confirmation is nice to have. The Hy6 AF is improved over the 6008 AF, the Hy6 Mod 2 a bit better still. But none is as good or as fast as a modern autofocus camera. I treat AF as a convenience, a quick way to get within range of perfect focus, then fine tune or at least verify by eye. Those old autofocus systems just use the center of the frame as a target, unlike more modern systems where the target can be moved around or with multiple, smart targets like facial recognition.

The big advantage I see is a large optical viewfinder and some pretty fast, sharp lenses for the 6008 and Hy6 cameras.

 

[Pieter12]

I own a Rollei 6008 AF, and I can say that the AF feature is honestly a gadget: 3 points only, takes ages to acquire focus, only a handful of points.
How is the Hy6 for autofocus?

As far as I know the AF for all the Rolleiflex cameras is a single, central point. The Hy6 allows you to choose whether that is a large or small area, but it is dead center no matter.

 

[Jessxi]

I’ve owned two hy6’s, one at launch and one I purchased nostalgically a couple years ago and have since parted ways with.

I think the AF is good in bright light and reasonably fast for medium format at the time. But indoor the AF tended to hunt a bit when acquiring focus and around half the time would not acquire the subject and would need manual assistance to get 100% there. That said, the viewfinder was an absolute pleasure to use.

Jess