In my Fujifilm said What?! article, I stated that the number one thing Fujifilm could do to quiet the autofocus critics is to make the AF settings more intuitive, and have it programmed to work well for most straight-out-of-the-box. Fujifilm offers a lot of customization to maximize autofocus performance for each person’s specific use-case and preferences; however, a lot of people are unaware that not only can they do this, but they’re expected to. Even if they are aware, they’re unlikely to know what the settings should be for their photography or videography needs. If Fujifilm never improved the AF algorithm or the hardware, and only did this one thing—make it more intuitive—it would be seen an a major improvement by many.

My epiphany came from two places: 1) Camera Conspiracies, who was highly critical of Fujifilm’s AF until he found the right settings for him, and 2) the large number of people who have stated across the internet that they just want it to “work” straight-out-of-the-box. In other words, a lot of people want to power on their brand-new camera for the very first time, and, without making any adjustments to the camera settings, want it to perform perfectly for them. They want it to be much more simple and intuitive than it currently is. In my opinion and estimation, this is where the majority of the AF complaints actually come from, the root cause.

There’s nothing wrong with Fujifilm’s current approach. It works well for a lot of people. Just because the Canikony brands do something a certain way doesn’t mean that Fujifilm should, too. There are certainly pros and cons to the implementation of anything, including AF. Obviously, the cons are not appreciated by a very vocal subset of the community, and they have made this well-known. If Fujifilm is interested in addressing the issue (and I assume they are because they’ve said so), the simplest and most affective way is intuitiveness. Make it as simple as practical.

So how would it work? There are a number of ways that Fujifilm could tackle it, and I’m sure they’ve already made some steps towards this on whatever they’ve designed for the upcoming sixth-generation X-series cameras. But, if I were a Fujifilm employee (which I’m not), I would suggest this: at initial startup, when the camera is first powered on, after prompting the date and time, I would have a short questionnaire. Skip the questionnaire, and the default autofocus behavior is as it currently is. Answer the questions, and the camera (based on those answers) sets AF up in what should be more ideal settings for that person. The questions could be: Do you usually use AF-S, AF-C or M? Are you primarily a photographer, videographer, or both? Do you most often photograph fast moving subjects, slow moving subjects or stationary subjects? Do you most often photography people, animals/birds, cars/trains/bicycles, or other objects? Do you most often use wide angle lenses, telephoto lenses, or mid-range lenses? Do you typically use zooms or primes? I’m sure they could refine that into fewer questions. A total of three sets of questions would probably be sufficient.

Whatever someone answers, that would determine the default autofocus settings. The camera could still be custom set to whatever, but it would give those who choose the questionnaire a better starting point for their specific needs. The camera’s AF would work better for them straight-out-of-the-box. That simple change would likely make many people believe that Fujifilm has improved their AF without making any other improvements. Why? Because Fujifilm’s autofocus system isn’t nearly as bad as some would have you believe—in fact, it’s pretty darn good. Yes, the Canikony brands are better, but not being super awesomely amazing doesn’t make it bad, it only makes is awesomely amazing (instead of super awesomely amazing). The main issue is that people don’t want to set up their AF parameters, they’re largely unaware that they’re expected to, and they don’t really know what settings would work best for them, anyway. Fujifilm can and should do more to help educate their customers on this. But making the camera’s AF more intuitive with a simple questionnaire at initial startup would solve this issue for many.