Aren’t there, uhm, lenses that autofocus? I get that are more choices for third party manual focus lenses, and that they’re generally cheaper, but the amount of stuff they’re buying / having to haul around to make this solution work seems to be pretty intense.
I guess this is most interesting for people who already use a gimbal, which is a tool that stabilises your camera for video, because until now you couldn’t use manual focus lenses, or at least not change focus during the shot, because operating the lens manually will interfere with the gimbal’s operation.
Most lenses that autofocus are all about reaching that focus point as fast as possible in order to take a still photo. When you are focusing for video, you're often "pulling focus" (i.e. adjusting the depth where you're focusing) very slowly, and sometimes back and forth between two or more set distances [1]. No autofocus lens is going to know what the director or cinematographer had in mind for the shot. At best you can have AI which will follow a moving object, or look for eyes, but that doesn't solve the general case at all.
I guess this is most interesting for people who already use a gimbal, which is a tool that stabilises your camera for video, because until now you couldn’t use manual focus lenses, or at least not change focus during the shot, because operating the lens manually will interfere with the gimbal’s operation.