I just sold my 1D Mark II and went out to shoot a softball game this afternoon with my new to me (ie. used) 1Ds Mark II. First off, the focus was a whole lot slower, that is until about the 5th inning when I changed to focus speed from standard to fast. Once set to fast it was about as quick as the 1D Mark II set to moderately slow, but good enough for me.
I did miss the 8.5 fps, but the increased resolution was wonderful! My longest lens is my 70-200 2.8IS and since that is not long enough, cropping is always required. This is where the 1Ds shines. For my type of shooting, which is mostly portrait and some product this is the perfect camera as it does pretty well with sports too!
Here are a few of my shots from this afternoon. Unfortunately my team (Kentwood) lost and is done for the season.
I like #6 , #4 would be better with the ball in the shot.
You must have missed your timing in the 3rd shot for the ball to get that far past the bat or glove to capture that one
All are nice work.
I have a 1DS and that focuses as fast as all my 1 series camera's , i have a 1d, 1dmk2,1dmk2n and all have been pretty much the same, The CF that controls the focus speed , is the speed of when it acquires a new target. I'm not sure while yours is different.
Do not confuse tracking speed with focus speed... otherwise, there would be no reason for anyone to set that function to anything other than "fast". Tracking speed has nothing to do with how fast your AF locks on and stays on. The setting is to tell the focusing system how you want it to handle other subjects that come into your frame while the main subject is locked in. If you set it to "slow" for instance, if a soccer ball or a leg of another subject comes into the frame, the focus will stay locked onto the main subject, or at least will ignore that extraneous subject for a few seconds. If set to "fast", the sensitivity of the AF system is amped up to react to anything that comes into your screen.
If you're locked onto the same subject with nothing other than subject and there are images in the burst that are soft, it's more of a factor of either technique and/or gear I'm afraid... not the way you set your tracking.
the 1ds mk 2 is my 'back-up' camera for sports. it works fine and the files are amazing, especially for the wide stadium shots. but the 4 fps is slow; but you seem to have your timing down and can get the job done. mine focuses pretty good, so not a problem.
May 10, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Roger Whitehead Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Nice work Tim. You captured the intensity that the girls were playing at very well. The shots involving the catcher are my favorites. ( that is the position I played many years ago) Just because your team is done does not mean you are done. There will be more games. Keep shooting.
yeah its nice to have the exta pixels when cropping, I never used a d, just a ds but I always thought the autofocus was the same from what I'd read. The shots came out pretty well, it is a really nice camera
P Alesse wrote:
Do not confuse tracking speed with focus speed... otherwise, there would be no reason for anyone to set that function to anything other than "fast". Tracking speed has nothing to do with how fast your AF locks on and stays on. The setting is to tell the focusing system how you want it to handle other subjects that come into your frame while the main subject is locked in. If you set it to "slow" for instance, if a soccer ball or a leg of another subject comes into the frame, the focus will stay locked onto the main subject, or at least will ignore that extraneous subject for a few seconds. If set to "fast", the sensitivity of the AF system is amped up to react to anything that comes into your screen.
If you're locked onto the same subject with nothing other than subject and there are images in the burst that are soft, it's more of a factor of either technique and/or gear I'm afraid... not the way you set your tracking....Show more →
That all makes sense, and now that I think about it, my technique was probably to blame on some of the out of focus shots. I was focusing on one thing, then quickly moved to another object and several times I did not release the focus button, so it probably was trying to stay on the other subject for a few moments. Switching to fast just helped mask my technique issue and made it less obvious.
Thanks for the reminder of what that custom function does.
