This picture was shot last Sunday. A few of the burst were in focus.
A few minutes before, on another stomp next to this one, where I had shot a Tri-colored Heron perching, a couple of the ducks landed, hovering, one after the other, taking their sweet time in front of me.
I pumped and pumped the focus and not ONCE was I able to shoot because it never acquired focus.
And the OOF pics on sky have happened to me too, at 2000 s/s, with a bird moer than 75% feeling the frame and being the only object the camera could focus on.
rd4tile wrote:
Sorry I didn't answer your last question. That one's off CP but I have quite a few that imagebrowser is showing the CP being right on the bird with same results.
What about the images right before the ones that are off?
Perhaps you're in focus, then the center AF point moves off the subject, and after that (even after you've put the AF point back on the subject), the camera can't seem to recover and find the right focus again?
Like you, I'm at a loss to explain it. However, I haven't seen it on my camera . . yet . . but I haven't shot in bright daylight conditions,either.
My camera has certainly mis-focused, but so far, I can always (at least potentially) blame it on the camera picking up something in the background.
JeanYves Ahern wrote:
woh!
as I've seen the poll results, it means that close to 55% experienced bad AF.
One question to those who had bad AF or some other bad issues:
any suggestions, advices?
I get a different reading from the poll. It looks like 83 have commented about the AF issue in one way or the other...discounting the "Not Sure" vote. (I don't even see why the "just results" counts in the poll.)
As 55 of the 83 responders have issues with the AF, that would be 66% or 2 out of every 3 1DIII owners that have responded. Far above what are actually hitting repair service.
Yet Canon Service in Irvine apparently appears to be unaware of the problem, but the national 800# for repair service does.
One of the first to return 2 defective 1DIIIs has a friend that just got a perfect one.
I guess it is very random and if you are lucky in Vegas...go for it.
JoeSesto wrote:
I get a different reading from the poll. It looks like 83 have commented about the AF issue in one way or the other...discounting the "Not Sure" vote. (I don't even see why the "just results" counts in the poll.)
As 55 of the 83 responders have issues with the AF, that would be 66% or 2 out of every 3 1DIII owners that have responded. Far above what are actually hitting repair service.
Yet Canon Service in Irvine apparently appears to be unaware of the problem, but the national 800# for repair service does.
One of the first to return 2 defective 1DIIIs has a friend that just got a perfect one.
I guess it is very random and if you are lucky in Vegas...go for it.
Could you elaborate on your friend's camera? Has he shot with the new one long enough to know for sure that it focuses the way it should? Does he shoot sports? Thanks
I reported my difficulties with AI Servo and Fast Frame rates and lack of consistant auto focus to Canon, Canon told me to send the body to a Canon Factory Service Center, it's at Canon in Honolulu, the Service Tech there said he wanted to check it out and then It will probably go to Irvine....
Man I just don’t know what to say. I have been keeping up with the focusing issues reported here and I have to say i have had no problems as of yet. I have shot indoor outdoor in one shot servo, 5 frames per second 10 frames per second and the camera has not missed a beat. I feel like now every time I shoot I expect something to go wrong. I hope it is just a small amount of cameras with this issue. I thank my lucky stars it has not happened to me yet.
ben_is_in wrote:
Could you elaborate on your friend's camera? Has he shot with the new one long enough to know for sure that it focuses the way it should? Does he shoot sports? Thanks
Sorry to confuse you Ben...it wasn't my 1DIIIs, but a wedding pro's over at DPR.
The pro got 2 - 1DIIIs with defective AF and rec'd authorization to return them to Canon.
The pro's friend received his own IDIII that he showed the pro and apparently the friend's 1DIII AF worked properly.
Sort of a tiny sampling that validates the roughly 2 out of 3 failure rate in the FM poll.
Do a search over there for billymokdad the subject will be obvious. I get the idea that FM doesn't like links to DPR as I posted one in a previous message and it disappeared.
Bruce Sawle wrote:
Man I just don’t know what to say. I have been keeping up with the focusing issues reported here and I have to say i have had no problems as of yet. I have shot indoor outdoor in one shot servo, 5 frames per second 10 frames per second and the camera has not missed a beat. I feel like now every time I shoot I expect something to go wrong. I hope it is just a small amount of cameras with this issue. I thank my lucky stars it has not happened to me yet.
I think I have finally come to grips with the "focus problems".
As far as I am concerned, focus problems do not exist for me.
I can duplicate most of the problems as illustrated by Rob Galbraith. However, since I almost never shoot multi-frame sequences, I virtually never need additional frames for the money shot. I always shoot show jumping, speed skating, rowing, motorcycle races as a single shot capture. I do this with the 1D-III, 1D-IIn and the 5D - no shooting style change is needed when switching cameras.
For example, I was shooting the show jumping events at Spruce Meadows - the others using the 1D-III were shooting in 3-5 frame bursts and noted focus issues (as Rob mentioned). I, on the other hand, did not notice any problems since I only shot one image - as Rob indicates, the first shot is virtually always "perfect".
To ensure I can get decent disaster shots, I leave the camera in AI-Servo mode, the drive is set to "L" and have the low frame rate set at 5fps. Although I only shoot one frame normally, this allows most falls to be properly recorded (although 10fps might be help here). So far, I only have one show jumping fall (in the rain). All of the 8 images were fine - although soft because of the rain.
I shoot a large amount of theatre, dance, and music. The 1D-III is much better in very low light focus than the 1D-IIn. The 1D-IIn gets progressively worse as light is lowered. The 1D-III easily matches the low light precision focus of my old Nikon system and is even better than the 5D which is also an amazing performer for what and how I shoot.
Thus - I can comfortably say "the focus problem with the 1D-III do not exist".
The only issue mentioned by Rob that I could not duplicate was the "back light focus". I will have to try harder to duplicate this.
As to other attributes of the 1D-III images, I do have a couple of images that are soft and I have no real explanation. If this is an issue with how the 1D-III controls IS, I will shoot tomorrow with IS off at see what happens.
Rate seems to be constant. Of all Mk III voters half are sure their body has problems, a quarter is sure their body does not have any problems and the last quarter is not sure.
I think it is very alarming and indicates a real problem. I'm holding off my purchase for a few months. My Mk I is still fine….
I just sent mine back to the dealer yesterday, I have another one on order which I am canceling! I shoot Birds in flight small ones that is first one would be sharp from a burst then after that everything was out of focus! when it was cloudy I had all to do to focus on the bird
If this test hadn't come up I wouldn't have thought twice about OOF frames in a burst, I get those all the time with my Mark IIs too. Partly I'm sure it's because I'm not a very good photographer, I tend to wave the focus point around a bit in my haste to take action pictures, and my hands aren't all that steady. Partly I'm sure no AF system can be 100% and not be fooled by various things like lack of contrast, bright objects etc. I get the feeling the Mark III is more sensitive and quick to react so maybe it takes more attention when using it, like driving a full on race car as opposed to a sports coupe.
My Mark III seems no worse than my Mark IIs - just a gut feeling, I've made no serious test - but there's indications at least some cameras do have problems and if there's a fix from Canon I'll of course install it. Until then it's a great camera and so far I've not really been able to blame my camera for any bad shots.
Tomorrow I'm shooting karting and I'll take a few sequences with both cameras just to see if I can spot any difference.
FretNoMore wrote:
If this test hadn't come up I wouldn't have thought twice about OOF frames in a burst, I get those all the time with my Mark IIs too. Partly I'm sure it's because I'm not a very good photographer, I tend to wave the focus point around a bit in my haste to take action pictures, and my hands aren't all that steady. Partly I'm sure no AF system can be 100% and not be fooled by various things like lack of contrast, bright objects etc. I get the feeling the Mark III is more sensitive and quick to react so maybe it takes more attention when using it, like driving a full on race car as opposed to a sports coupe.
My Mark III seems no worse than my Mark IIs - just a gut feeling, I've made no serious test - but there's indications at least some cameras do have problems and if there's a fix from Canon I'll of course install it. Until then it's a great camera and so far I've not really been able to blame my camera for any bad shots.
Tomorrow I'm shooting karting and I'll take a few sequences with both cameras just to see if I can spot any difference....Show more →
I think we're in the same boat . . that, plus the fact that I mainly shoot in LOW LIGHT, without taking bursts, means that I haven't really noticed an issue with the 1D-III at all.
