I'm thinking of buying a Zacuto Z-finder pro to see how focus peaking (still photography) would work with alt glass. I'd be curious if anyone had tried this as well.
I can say for certain on the crop cameras the peaking works for stills *GREAT* when I have used it on the 50D i still have. I only have a 5D so haven't tried it on the MK2, but I don't see why it would be any different. Makes it really easy to get shots with MF lenses and live view.
I have the 60D, and incidentally just tried out Magic Lantern on it for the first time this weekend. I've known about ML for a long time, but never got around to playing with it myself.
I can confirm that the peaking works great, and it is customizable. There is also another great feature for MF. I think it was called "Magic zoom" or something. It brings up a smaller magnified box within the live view image, so it's still possible to compose the shot while getting accurate focus.
There are many other features, such as an intervalometer, customizable bracketing for HDR shots, automatic focus stacking for macro, etc. It's a very nice piece of kit, and will surely stay on my camera from now on.
ukkisavosta wrote:
I can confirm that the peaking works great, and it is customizable. There is also another great feature for MF. I think it was called "Magic zoom" or something. It brings up a smaller magnified box within the live view image, so it's still possible to compose the shot while getting accurate focus.
Good to hear. I was actually wondering about that extra feature as I've read about it. It sounds like a massive improvement over the focus peaking in e.g. the Sony NEX 5N where you lose the overview when magnifying.
wfrank wrote:
Good to hear. I was actually wondering about that extra feature as I've read about it. It sounds like a massive improvement over the focus peaking in e.g. the Sony NEX 5N where you lose the overview when magnifying.
It is a great feature, and it has some customization options as well: e.g. a split-screen view, whereupon the image lines up correctly upon reaching correct focus, or you can choose to have the edges of the box turn green when focused. It probably uses contrast-detect to determine the correct focus. If I remember correctly, peaking does not work when the magnified box is being used, but it's just as well, because you can use peaking to get the focus into the ball-park, and then hit the zoom + button to bring up the magnified box.
There are also some nice exposure features, such as "zebra stripes", which highlights the under- and overexposed parts of the image with stripes. I think it's a much better implementation than Canon's own highlight feature.
Oh, and you can set the playback zoom to jump instantly to 100% upon the first press of the zoom + button. Very handy.
I've used the focus peaking feature on my 550D for a while. It is indeed great for live view focusing.
I upgraded to a 5DII last week. The focus peaking feature is in the ML unified release which is still in closed beta testing stage currently. The main developer, Alex, only had a 550D to develop on until late last year when enough donations were raised for him to buy a 5DII - he ported the unified ML tree to 5DII. Currently access to the code is via a token paypal donation (I chose 5 EUR). Check the ML website.
ukkisavosta wrote:
I have the 60D, and incidentally just tried out Magic Lantern on it for the first time this weekend. I've known about ML for a long time, but never got around to playing with it myself.
I can confirm that the peaking works great, and it is customizable. There is also another great feature for MF. I think it was called "Magic zoom" or something. It brings up a smaller magnified box within the live view image, so it's still possible to compose the shot while getting accurate focus.
There are many other features, such as an intervalometer, customizable bracketing for HDR shots, automatic focus stacking for macro, etc. It's a very nice piece of kit, and will surely stay on my camera from now on....Show more →
Wonder how accurate the Zebra stripes would be with alts? I didn't find the exposure in LVon my 5DII to be that accurate with adapted MF lenses. That was a few firmware updates ago though. I think I remembered to take it out of evaluative metering mode.
The native Canon mount metering between modes improved though haven't retested the alts.
Mike
michael49 wrote:
So this allows focus peaking with stills for the 550d, not just with video? If only it had an EVF option, man I'd love that on my 5d.
Yes, it does - I've used most of my manual focus lenses for stills on the 550D exclusively in live view - either with focus peaking (which helps keeping the whole composition in view) or with live view magnification which is a bit more accurate when using very shallow depth of field (my 55mm 1.2 lens). I never found the optical viewfinder on my 550D accurate enough for manual focussing.
Still trying to get used to Magic Lantern on the 5D II. The beta release of the unified version is not quite a stable as the 550/600/60 version and has a few quirks - focus peaking for stills definitely works though.
