Autofocus.

Any camera or lens or camera-lens combination in which the correct focus is determined by electronics and motors.

The first commercial camera with autofocus was the 1978 Konica C35 AF compact camera. The first TTL autofocus SLR was the Pentax ME-F of 1980, but it only supported autofocus on a special AF zoom lens. These early attempts at AF were slow, inaccurate and unwieldy, and it wasn’t until the late 1980s that really workable autofocus cameras became commonly available.

Today Canon, Contax, Leica, Mamiya, Minolta, Nikon, Pentax and other major camera makers all sell complete camera systems with autofocus lenses.

cf. active autofocus, autofocus point, manual focus, passive autofocus.

Entry last updated 2002-04-03. Term 88 of 1487.

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