If I were making video, I suspect I'd be singing the same tune. DPAF is excellent.
While they've been a newer player in the Camera industry, they've been doing professional digital video for far longer (SW EP2 was shot on Panavision-modified Sony cameras.) That's on top of their long lineage in the pre-digital-recording TV Market.
On an unrelated note, I do believe that Canon has also pulled a patent on quad-pixel AF. Patents being awful aside, quad-pixel AF would be awesome: every pixel becomes a cross-type focus sensor.
(For the uninitiated, focus sensors are usually either horizontal or vertical, and cannot detect features that are perpendicular to them. Cross-type sensors are a combination of the two to increase the detection capability.)
However, in less optimal situations (e.g. low light, low contrast, and contrast perpendicular to the detection direction), it's my personal experience that current non-cross-type PDAF solutions fail, requiring 90 degree rotation to focus, which wouldn't be needed for cross-type. That, or use of an alternate focus subject if one is available.
It's more of an issue on smaller, less light sensitive sensors. The super high-end sensors are more likely to find something to focus on even when things are suboptimal.
But, alas, I'm a hobby photographer, and the 4500 USD an A9II costs is a bit more than I'm willing to spend.
Of course it does. PDAF needs to observe a feature (a phase difference) in the image, which requires light and contrast.
In strong light, there are usually plenty of features available, making PDAF seem borderline magic, especially for something like DPAF where almost every single pixel can be used as a focus point.
In lower light and contrast, fewer features are available. Subjects are rarely perfectly symmetric, so there are different features are available across the different sensor axis (e.g. a striped shirt).
As subjects are not symmetric, the chances of you running out of features to focus on due to reduced contrast along two axis is much lower than running out along just one. Cross-type allow both axis to be used simultaneously, while non-cross can only use one.
This means that, with the same sensitivity, cross-type is much more likely to be able to detect a feature in an area than non-cross, as there are more features available to it. As features turn to noise and AF becomes difficult, this leads to increased focus ability at lower light.
For non-cross, a 90 degree rotation of the camera is needed to reveal those features.
> For e.g. Outer focusing points on a poorly made "consumer" lenses, generally, are not very accurate when you're close to MFD, and the focusing system tends to hunt a lot.
I see what you're trying to say ("inner focus point is not just cross-type, it's also the sharpest point on the lens"), but that's not really relevant here. I'm making the observation on a camera without cross-type at all, dead-center or thereabout.
One can also use the zebra MF assist feature to highlight this, at least for DPAF cameras.
> I have the A9II and it has the best focusing system I've ever used. I thought the 1DX II was accurate, but this blows it away. Haven't tried the 1DXIII though.
This is the beauty of on-sensor focus - you measure exactly what you see, instead of measuring something else entirely and hoping that the calibration data is good enough...
(Dual-pixel AF doesn't just give way better AF, it also avoids artifacts from dedicated phase detect pixels that other cameras have.)