batta2 wrote:
A while ago, I posted here asking the members if I should upgrade from my 30D to a 50D or to the 1D Mark II. The unanimous opinion was that I should go with the 1D. I recently picked up a 1D Mark IIn and used it last week to shoot a high school basketball summer tournament.

I was absolutely stunned at the difference in the keeper rate between the two bodies. The images from the Mark IIn cleaned up nicely in PP. Thanks to all for some great advice.

Yes, my 1D II trounces my 40D in AI servo, in most situations. The AF spacing on the 20D/30D/40D/50D/5D is just too large for some types of shooting I do.

If the 1D IV is at least 12 months away, I think I'll chance a 1D III, unless they release a 60D with new AF system, which would tide me over for the 1D IV.

Most likely mk IV will be released next spring, you would need to wait another 4-6 month to get it in stores. According to obvious popularity of this body and bad Canon supply this days - it might be even longer wait. It is about one year more to wait and you don't know yet any details about body. I would say - if you are photographer and you need to shot today and everyday get any of these bodies, if you are gear collector than wait.

Looks like I'll probably be buying a used MkIII body this late summer early fall with the right deal or doing the no interest new one spread out over time. If I can't get the money together and the right MkIIn deal comes along, then I'll do that instead. Either way, I need to get this sorted out before the snow flies.

J.

Well if I had to go back in time I'd have never bought the MKIII as It's now back with Canon along with my 70-200mm IS lens as they think that might have issues with the camera. It was a so called blue dot 57xxx body but it had to go back (a recall) and have the latest fix 2 months ago. Was out last weekend again and as soon as you start using the other focus points other than the center one the focus is soft i.e. no part of the image is in focus. If you want my advice go find and buy a MKIIn as they are rock solid I'm so glad I sold my old MKII and bought one of these as It's focus is so much better than the MKII and image quality is better too.

JohnJ80 wrote:
I wouldn't buy a MkIV should that happen in Sept, but I'd hope for a more discounted MkIII. ......


I think those that jump on a Mark IV - unless there's extraordinary proof that it's a working camera, and I do mean EXTRAORDINARY - are either compulsive gamblers, didn't learn anything from the last two years, or have no choice but to buy.

The Mark III series provides great IQ for what it is (only 10MP) and if it's still working well with no more recalls when the 1D4 is released, I'd buy it again (or should I say for the third time) at approximately $2-2.5k. Anything over $3k is just wrong....

There seems to be a lot of MkIII's around for around $2200-$2700 right now.

J.

I do have both 5D and 1dmk3 now. I had 1dmk2 as well.
the quality of the 10mpeg file is the best I have seen. You loose out on the resolution but the colors are just far better on 1dmk3 vs 5D and 1dmk2.
Learning curve with how to customize your best approach with AF will give you far more consistant result than the 1dmk2.

Hey remember, Live now, get it now. You can forever speculate on new upcoming technology, while making absolutely no progress with your photography hobby, right? And if 1D4 starts at $4000 USD, are you going to shell out the cash to buy it? if no, there isnt really a good reason to wait.

phillipyan wrote:
if no, there isnt really a good reason to wait.

except if you don't need it now and waiting for when you do, it will be lower in price.

j.

Breitling65 wrote:
Most likely mk IV will be released next spring,

I am just speculating but I think Canon might release mk IV this year. With 2 of the biggest sport events in the world (Winter Games and World Cup) happens next year, it will be crazy not to release to the agency before the year end. Getting the new body to retail channel on the other hand, might take awhile.

I am thinking the same as OP, waiting for better 1DMk3 deal out there (< 2.5k), hopefuly Canon may announced new body by the end of August. One advantage I have is, my boss had a MkIIn for taking kids picture and I can borrow it any time I like.

mobilebucky wrote:
Breitling65 wrote:
Most likely mk IV will be released next spring,

I am just speculating but I think Canon might release mk IV this year. With 2 of the biggest sport events in the world (Winter Games and World Cup) happens next year, it will be crazy not to release to the agency before the year end. Getting the new body to retail channel on the other hand, might take awhile.


Alternatively, they could let the product cycle be determined by the production process not external marketing opportunities. In other words, they could learn from experience and not release a Mk IV until it's actually a refined, tested & proven, market-ready product. Of course, I'm just speculating too. I could be wrong.

JohnJ80 wrote:

except if you don't need it now and waiting for when you do, it will be lower in price.

j.

And then you gotta ask yourself honestly, if 1D4 has a much much nicer spec than 1D3 ( which I am certain it will), are you still gonna buy 1D3 or try to save up for 1D4?

Thanks to everyone - lots of valuable information in this thread.

one last question -

How would you compare the 40D to the MkIIN?

J.

JohnJ80 wrote:
How would you compare the 40D to the MkIIN?

J.

I have a 40D & 1DMKIIN. They are night & day in many respects. FPS they are close. AF, they are worlds apart. My N's lock on instantly, the 40D, OTOH, takes a few seconds. I can focus track, much easier with my N's, than I can the 40D. The 40D is a nice camera, and it does have a newer generation of Digic processors & live view, but that is it from the technical standpoint. I shot both today, focus tracking on Hydroplanes, I haven't dumped my images yet, but when I do, I will post some samples. I like the 40D, it works for many things. It does well for some sports, but there are times, where the 45 point ROF comes in very handy, when shooting in AI Servo.

I'd love to see those images.

I would guess that shooting alpine ski racing that the AF would make a huge difference. I can do ok with the 40D, especially if I prefocus and keep the aperture as small as possible, but it won't track as well as I would like.

J.

Yakim Peled wrote:
JohnJ80 wrote:
I need a new body for sports shooting [...] but money's tight. [...] What would you do in my situation?

I'd buy the 1D Mk II or 1D Mk II N.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.


+1 The 1D Mk II or 1D Mk II N would do the job admirably. I remain very pleased with the 1D Mk II for sports photography.

JohnJ80 wrote:
I'd love to see those images.

I would guess that shooting alpine ski racing that the AF would make a huge difference. I can do ok with the 40D, especially if I prefocus and keep the aperture as small as possible, but it won't track as well as I would like.

J.

40D is a very frustrating camera. Sometimes the AF does very well such as I found with surfing where I was getting 95% keeper rates, yet other times it is abysmal, especially with smaller subjects. It's a camera that's AF easily jumps off the subject to the fg or bg and the spacing of AF points is just too large. If they filled in that diamond with another 6 or so points it'd be a big help. Also I find this camera needs fast glass to be at it's best in AI servo. Supertele primes or a 400 f/5.6L work much better than zooms like a 100-400L or 70-200L.

Will 60D justbe a 50D + HD video, or will it give us a new AF system? If it doesn't and Nikon delivers a new 80-400 AF-S VR along with the D300s (no D400 this year) is looking better all the time. Too bad Nikon doesn't have a 400 f/5.6 AF-S.

The 60D won't improve much on AF, wait and see if you like. Everyone asked the same question about the 30D, 40D, and 50D, and every time the AF has been disappointing on purpose in order to promote sales of the 1 series cameras. Canon is the best in the business at crippling cameras to keep serious performance gaps in the lineup, that won't stop.

Have we learned nothing over the past few years on the D bodies, the 30D was not an improvement in AF over the 20, the 40 not over the 30, and the 50 not over the 40 at least not to any significant extent. In servo even the 50D is not much of a step up over the 20D and the 1dmk2 spanks any of them hands down not even in the same ballpark. Canon will NOT put a serious servo AF in a D body period. It would be cutting their own product throat, my old EOS 1 AF spanks any of the D series cameras and that's 15+ years old. Who would buy a 1dmk3 if the 60D if it was 50% more mp, did 6fps and had even close to the AF performance......not many.

Canon knows that if people get into photography and want sports level servo performance they have to go 1 series, or be continually frustrated by the performance of the D series AF. It's the single reason I sold my 30D and bought a 1 series. Other than it's AF I was totally happy with the camera for 3 years. I'm sure canon hears these complaints all the time, they know what they are doing, and it won't change.

It's the same reason canon will not make AF sensors that are cross active with anything greater than F2.8 aside the center point, for the guys that really need the absolute best AF you have to buy F2.8 lenses......you really think over the last two decades they don't have the technology to make all the cross sensors active at F4 or F8 of course they could. But then one of the huge advantages to buying super spendy 2.8 lenses, increased speed and accuracy of the AF would be lost.

It's hard to say what canon will do with the 1dmk3. You can bet though that the 1dmk4 if/when it comes out is going to be expensive, at least what the 1dmk3 was new. I'd also be willing to bet they make 150% sure it's good to go when it first hits the market, because if they release another camera that has anything bu stellar AF right out of the box of the first run out the door, it will cost them HUGE in market share. People will forgive one bad camera, but two in a row would be total disaster. If that delays the release of the 1dmk4 it would be well worth the delay in the end, even if that delay is a year or more. I'd also guess they are going to try and anticipate the economy and possibly increase the time before camera body releases. They know people and companies are not going to be buying new bodies every year for awhile in this economy.

Also frankly, while it's unfortunate so many are having issues with the 1dmk3's kudos to canon for handling it well. They are still covering any AF issue for original owners or not, whether it's the first trip or the fourth, outside of warranty or not, prepaid shipping both ways with fast turn around. The fact they are still willing to do this shows that canon is concerned and they are still trying to fix the issue for it's customers. Many companies would be telling buyers of used bodies or those out of warranty to go pound sand.

Canon is in a rock and a hard place now. The 1dmk3 has such a bad rep right now that I'd be willing to bet that a ton of guys are sending them in who are not even seeing problems. Also I'd be willing to bet a ton of cameras sent in with AF problems are testing out just fine no calibration needed in the lab. I'd also be willing to bet those guys that sent them in upset with their AF get the camera back with no changes and now love it.

The same is true of lenses, I'd love to know how many lenses are sent in for calibration that test out perfectly in the lab. I'd bet it's a lot, and only canon knows because they are smart enough to put "calibrated" on every lens instead of say sigma who will put "tested to be within specs" indicating the lens was not adjusted.

That said obviously there are guys who are having documented AF problems with the camera, and obviously canon is aware of the problem and it is real. We would not see them doing the things they are doing for customers unless it was a real problem. However, I think there are a LOT of guys shooting the 1dmk3 that it's working amazing for them and they have no issues. I wouldn't be weary of a 1dmk3 right now because canon has shown that they are dedicated to fixing the issue at no charge to the customer.

The price of the 1dmk3's is coming down, a refurbished basically brand new model is $3000 from adorma and you can bet as people start anticipating a possible release this fall they will be selling used for lots less, as they try to sell before the announcement is made knowing prices will drop even more if it is.

I agree that a significant AF upgrade in the 60D is very unlikely. The 1DIV will be a very important launch for Canon and I dont think they'll want to give anyone an excuse to go for a cheaper option by blurring the distinction in AF capabilities of the XD an XXD lines. In any case, the 50D AF system is fairly new by Canon standards and I'm sure the AF engineeers have had plenty of work on lately. If we see a sub 1D series camera with better AF IMO it'll be the next 5D or even a 3D (small body fully pro spec camera) but I don't think Canon's view of the market is yet ready for a 3D either.

In the past though Canon still had the lead in AF on xxD cameras compared to their Nikon equivalents and could get away with an inferior AF. Now though they have had a big challenge put out to them by Nikon and to an extent all the other manufacturers are lifting their game on AF too. Canon quite often drags it's feet on features, but as as the others have improved in the areas of Canon strenght on noise, IQ, their better feature set must add pressure to Canon. They cannot get away with the current poor layout and coverage of AF points as well as the overall poor AI servo performance for too much longer; the market is too competitive and people don't just see MP count as the be-all and end-all. I can't see them waiting another 3 years for a 5D II replacement to act either. Maybe they will offer further xD models that offer a new AF, but that immediately implies a much higher price point than an xxD model. If it's D300 (at launch) type money, I'm sure many will pay up if the AF is much better, but if they push the price out past $2K they may have troubles as that's another market segment. Also we are assuming Nikon is standing still. I don't think much will happen with the D300s, but a D400 would probably further improve the Multicam 3500 system.

I don't particularly want to wait another 2-3 years for Canon to act. You shouldn't have to spend $4K+ to get a good AF system (even that doesn't always work out), although I did and would again, but I also want a a more affordable option too and many others could not afford the 1 series at all.

Pixel Perfect wrote:
They cannot get away with the current poor layout and coverage of AF points as well as the overall poor AI servo performance for too much longer; the market is too competitive and people don't just see MP count as the be-all and end-all.

I am not so sure about that, Whayne.
The 5DII still seems a hot commodity, although its AF system is basically 20D + 6 "invisible" AF sensing points.

What makes it hot is FF, MP and video, none of which will aid your photo capture. Yeah, with 5DII one is able to do a more detailed crop of OoF cr*p.

A very large dSLR market segment places rather modest demands on their camera's AF.....for those folks, 40/50/5D are perfectly adequate. Diverse scenic and landscape photography hardly hinges on AF to start with. Portraits....similar thing.
It is mostly PJ, sports and wildlife photographers who need a more capable AF. Those consumers buy 1 series cameras anyways, and not for AF reasons alone.

Peter, I regard 5D II as a landscape, macro, portrait, architecture camera only and wouldn't use it for too much AI servo work, so to me, I can live that AF system, just as I do on the 5D. But for a cropper like the 50D, I expect it it to be able to do fast action wildlife and sports, after all why allow it to do 6fps? You should not need to pay for a 1 series to get a good AF system. I'm not saying the xxD should be as good as a 1 series, but it should be much better. It may be as simple as giving it a better coverage of smaller AF points and AF point expansion.

For years people have been complaining that the XXD's are not weather sealed, and they added a little more sealing but they are still a long ways from what the 1 series is. They kept the huge gap there, and they will do it with the AF. Ever since the 30D came out people have been saying X camera at a similar price point has better AF, yet 3 years later the 50D AF is still pathetic in servo.

Nikon and others have had an AF advantage for more than a few months, yet the 5dmk2 had no significant AF improvement over the 5D, all software at best.

Canon is not going to give near 1 series AF performance to a $1500 crop body, and I'd be willing to bet in this economy canon wants the 60D to come out at that price point or less. I also can't see canon doing a 3D....to what point? If you want a cheap crop body you buy a XXD, if you want a FF cheap body you buy the 5dmk2. If you want super performance you buy the 1 series. What would the 3D be A $5000 camera that's between the 5dmk2 and the 1dsmk3? or a $3000 camera between the XXD and the 1dmk3? Problem is if they do that and it's 90% of the performance of either no one will buy the 1 series. Worse yet if they pack that into it and it's only a few hundred dollars more than a XXD no one will buy the XXD or the 1series.

So what if people can't afford the best performance, do you think ferrari is going to make a $30K car with 90% of the performance of their F70 just so people can afford it? Of course not and canon is not going to give 95% of the AF performance of a $4000/8000 body in a $1500 camera.

No 3D will eve be dearer than a 1 series of any kind. It should by logic be dearer than a 5D II, but not a 1D III/IV. Any how it's clear Canon are too stupid to release a 3D, so it won't ever happen.

There's a ton of room for improvement of the xxD AF that doesn't mean 1 series AF. But heck Nikon did it for maybe an extra few hundred bucks or so. I'd pay an $500 for 1 series type AF performance in a 60D.

Pixel Perfect wrote:
There's a ton of room for improvement of the xxD AF that doesn't mean 1 series AF. But heck Nikon did it for maybe an extra few hundred bucks or so. I'd pay an $500 for 1 series type AF performance in a 60D.

I'd pay $500 for my truck to do 0-60 in 4 seconds and pull a 4 G corner too, never going to happen.

Of course you would, and so would I and everyone else, and that's why canon will won't do it. If they did that why would anyone buy a 1 series aside the top serious pros? AF would no longer be the reason to step up to a 1 series camera, and that's been canon's bread and butter to get people to upgrade for over 2 decades. Quality....yeah sure there is a gap but again for those that are not making a living on their images most would still be happy with 20D image quality. I still see 20D images every day that knock my socks off.

Lets call the AF ability of the 50D on a scale of 1 to 10 a four, and a 1series a 10, if canon brought a 60D up to 8 I and just about everyone I know with a 1 series would have never bought one and we'd all have 60D's. They might, bring it up to a 5, and if the new 1 series goes to 11 on improvements they might even go to a 6, but hey will always have a major gap.

Now if you want to play mythical 3D games. I can see a spot for the 3D, leave the 60D alone, it's AF is still going to be poor in servo. It gets more MP, HD video, etc. and stays at $1500. The 3D gets 1.6 crop, gets 5 fps tops has 75-80% of 1 series AF performance, and it's weather sealing, iso performance, etc. all fall in between the 60D line and the 1 series. It has less settable users options than the 1 series, and it's price is ~$3000. They could pull the nikon D700 trick and let users buy a battery grip that increases it to 8fps for another $300. That would be a good "gap" camera for them and I can actually see it selling. The birders and wildlife guys would love it.

Problem is even IF they did do that, for every post you see now whining about the XXD camera's AF sucks you'd see 10 whining about how the 3D is too expensive. People would still buy the 60D cause it's $1500 and whine that it's AF is not as good as the 3D and that they want the 3D series AF in the 70D for the same price. I understand wanting a pro level camera for $1500 but it ain't going to happen, it didn't happen 10 years ago, it isn't going to happen 10 years from now.

There are options, you can get a 4fps 1dsmk2 for $2000 and it's images will still rival whatever the 60D is, has weather sealing, super AF. It's not going to have HD video, or a built in flash, or a super huge LCD. If you need 8fps you can get a 1dmk2n for $1500. Hell right now you can get a refurbished 1dmk3 for under $3000 that's basically brand new, and will spank whatever the 60D is going to be. You can dump canon glass for 90% of it's value, and buy a D700 and the more expensive and IMO more limited glass.

But getting 90+% of a 1 series camera for $1500-2000 intro retail price.....good luck, keep living the pipe dream. The nikon D300 AF/iso is still a good gap from the D700 or D3/D3x AF and it's $1800 street price, the D700 is closer again but it's $2500 street price, and only 5fps and they all have different ISO performance. Canon may do a similar setup in the lineup but then everyone will just complain that they are too expensive and continue to whine that they can't get a new pro level body for $1500.

If canon is feeling the heat from nikon with the D300 and D700, and they probalby are, they are both great cameras, I don't think they will respond to it seriously in the 60D, they might do so with the 70D, and I would guess even if it delays the next 1 series generation release that it tops nikon. When the D700 is close to the performance of the D3/D3x it won't be that hard. The economy is another issue, if canon were to jump the price of the 60D up to $2000-2500 how many sales would they loose? I don't think the world economy is going to get any better in the next year or so and less people have $2000 to spend on a camera than probalby in the past 5 years. So canon would be smart to keep the price as low as possible. Due to that it also would not surprise me to see both nikon and canon focus more on their entry/low level cameras and pushing more features and marketing there in harder economic times.