Here is an example video capture using the Panasonic Lumix GH2 camera with the Panasonic Leica Lumix DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens.
The camera was handheld, and I left the aperture at f/2.8, shutter speed around 1/100 second. I used the 720p mode, which, since I have the European camera model, gives me 50fps. It was downmixed to 25fps using Openshot video editing software.
I left the autofocus on, using the face detection focus mode. Initially, the camera chose to focus on the toy men on the train station platform, which suited me fine.
As the train enters the frame, the focus starts wandering off, which doesn't really help in this case. However, the focus returns to the toy figures afterwards, which is desirable. In this case, it would probably have been better to turn off autofocus during the video capture, since it doesn't help much at all.
Other lenses, like the Lumix G 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 would probably have focused faster. However, with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 at 42mm, it would not have given the nice blurred effect of items out of focus. On the other hand, a large part of the frame is in fact out of focus in this video. So perhaps f/5.6, giving more of the subject in focus, would have been a better choice here anyway.
Maybe it is not better to switch AF off completely. Maybe in such a scene it is good to have Continuous AF switched off during video, so after tap-AF on the face (or half-press the shutter button) the focus point doesn't change, or maybe using of AF tracking (mode where you can point the object to be tracked) will do fine. I wonder what the GH2 behavior be in these scenarios.
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