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Does your MkIII have autofocus problems?
Yes, it absolutely has a focusing problem PollPollPoll 100 8%
No, it seems to work fine (similar to previous 1-Series bodies) PollPollPoll 64 5%
I'm not sure yet PollPollPoll 49 4%
[I just want to see the results...] PollPollPoll 1091 84%
Total Votes 1304 100%

Archive 2007 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?

  
 
hfillmore
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p.7 #1 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Perhaps a revelation here. Popular thinking says to either leave the MkIII focusing speed to either the default, or to slow it down. The following quote from LesZ on Naturescapes.net indicates this could be EXACTLY THE WRONG THING to do when using wxpanded focus points or the "ring of fire".


Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:22 am on Naturescapes.

QUOTE:

" I really didn't do a very good job, in my post above, of explaining what I'm seeing with CF III-2. I just ran another series of tests with different settings, and I'll try to do a better job of explaining. I was shooting a rapidly moving subject that filled a good part, not not nearly all of the viewfinder. The subject was moving toward me in an erratic fashion, and, to make the challenge more difficult, the background was quite busy. The camera was set to the selected center point with expansion to all surrounding points. I first tried several bursts of shots with CF III-2 set to the moderately fast position. Then, I shot several bursts with CF III-2 set to the moderately slow position. I looked at all of the pictures in ZoomBrowser, with the focus point visible. With CF III-2 set to the moderately fast setting, every picture that I took where the center focus point or one of surrounding points was on the subject (24 pictures) was sharply in focus, and every one of the 4 pictures that was not in focus was one where neither the center point or any of the surrounding points was on the subject. So, the camera seemed to be working the way I would want it to work. With the moderately slow position, however, the 14 pictures that were in focus were all ones where the center point or a surrounding point was on the subject (as you would expect). However, with the 12 pictures that were not in focus, 3 were ones where none of the active focus points were on the subject, but the other 9 were ones where the focus point or a surrounding point was, in fact, on the subject. So, what that tells me is that, with the slower setting, the camera was not switching from one of the active focus points to another quickly enough to keep the subject in focus. However, with the faster setting, it was switching from one active point to another fast enough to keep the subject in focus, which is, obviously what you would want.

Again, even though I was using the center point with focus point expansion, the same principle should apply to 45 point focus. Additionally, what is helping me significantly to figure out what is happening and why is happening is to make use of ZoomBrowser's ability to show the focus point, and, what I'm finding is that, with the faster focus tracking setting, even with a subject moving toward me and a busy background, the camera is switching from one focus point to another as it should. With the slower focus tracking speed, it is not. And, as I said above, the neutral position on the 1DIII seems to set to a similar speed as the slow or moderately slow speed on the 1DII, and that is consistent with what it said in the link to the dPreview thread.

Les "

END OF QUOTE ( From LesZ on Naturescapes.net )




Edited by hfillmore on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:58 AM GMT



Jun 23, 2007 at 10:54 AM
DavidP
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p.7 #2 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Hmmm, interesting observation.

I wonder if RobG tried the faster setting for CF III-2



Jun 23, 2007 at 11:32 AM
DavidP
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p.7 #3 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Of course, what we NEED is a setting that tells the camera to switch to a new focus SLOWLY when focus is already on the subject, but to switch QUICKLY if the focus is not currently on the subject.


Jun 23, 2007 at 11:34 AM
mark1958
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p.7 #4 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Perhaps this means that a firmware update could indeed tweak these settings. I guess if Les is write, the mechanism is ok. Mark


Jun 23, 2007 at 03:13 PM
rscheffler
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p.7 #5 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


hfillmore wrote:
Perhaps a revelation here. Popular thinking says to either leave the MkIII focusing speed to either the default, or to slow it down. The following quote from Les2 on Naturescapes.net indicates this could be EXACTLY THE WRONG THING to do when using wxpanded focus points or the "ring of fire".



Just a nitpick, but it's LesZ, not Les2...

Anyway, if you're photographing BIF or a situation were you are only ever concerned with the closest subject matter being in focus, and rarely deal with a closer obstruction to that subject (typical for BIF), then his suggestion makes a lot of sense. It's actually quite logical when you think about it. However, if you shoot stuff like field sports where there are often players running in front of the player you want to focus on, this will not help at all. Yesterday I photographed a football game and found I had to set CF III-2 to Slow and even then it was usually too fast to shift focus off of the desired subject and onto the closer obstruction. In such instances I'd like to see a Very Slow option. But this situation is the opposite to BIF. My desired subject is somewhere in the middle. It's not the background and it's also not often the closest to the camera.

A question I have though is whether Slow would be good enough if I wasn't using single point AF with AF point expansion. Because the obstructing players tend to be quite large, the entire AF point and expansion points are blocked for some time, forcing the AF to shift. If I switch to 45 point auto selection, even on the Slow setting, the system might ignore a large partial obstruction. It's just a matter of trying this out again. There is also the question of how CF III-4 might affect performance in such situations.

BTW, my results from the football game were generally very good. Definitely not worse than if I had only used a Mark II N. I shot with these settings: CF III-2 set to Moderately Slow but then later changed to Slow, CF III-8-2 active and used the center point exclusively during action primarily because I was using a 600mm f/4 while it was bright enough and wanted to get cross sensor sensitivity. AND, I switched to 8 fps motor drive rather than 10. After only one game I'm not totally convinced that 8 vs. 10 fps made a significant difference, but sequences were generally well focused, including many very strongly backlit situations. It was a 7pm start and the sun obviously was quite low on the horizon, often shining into the lens causing some flare issues.

When shooting with the sun behind me and a 1.4x TC on the 600, from a purely technical perspective, I managed to get some of the best focused sports results I've ever had with that combination. AF performance seemed to be very consistent frame to frame. Perhaps this is because a TC slows down the AF and thus mellows out the sometimes hyper Mark III AF behavior - but it's just a guess.

Because it was a 7 pm start there were no significant temperature related issues compared to the RG claim. It was around 22-23 Celsius, somewhat windy, and no issues at all with heat rising off the artificial turf surface interfering with AF accuracy. Shooting with the late evening sun produced some very nice results while the light lasted.

Edit:

After a much closer inspection of every frame, I am still seeing some focusing weirdness. I photographed the pregame warm-ups, which started around 6 pm and shot both with the sun and backlit. Shooting with the sun, many images were acceptably sharp (for newspaper repro) but not necessarily *critically* sharp. The acceptably sharp images look decent and considering that the 600 is not quite as sharp as the 400, (I used the 600 most of the time), I initially considered that to be the reason. But... about 20% of the images are very sharp, which leads me to believe there is something fishy going on. Either the lens is slightly off or it's the camera. The pregame photos were basically extended sequences of a single player catching or running with the ball at the camera, or standing around "portraits." Backlit was OK but still a fair number I consider to be off, primarily slightly back focused when players were moving.

As for game action results, I imagine some of what I have seen in the pregame images affected those as well, but considering the nature of game action vs. pregame, it's rare to get a long burst off without obstruction from other players on field, causing AF to shift, inaccurate AF point placement due to erratic player movement, camera/lens induced blurring due to improper panning with the subject, etc.., so I stand by my earlier statement that those results don't appear to be much different from the Mark II N.

Camera Ser. # is 505xxx.

Here are a couple 100% crops of what I mean by acceptably sharp vs. very sharp.
http://www.pbase.com/scheffler/iii_focus2

Edited by rscheffler on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:40 PM GMT

Edited by rscheffler on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:40 PM GMT



Jun 23, 2007 at 05:46 PM
Monique
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p.7 #6 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Reading all this makes me think to cancel my order and back to the 1DMKII N



Jun 24, 2007 at 04:16 PM
mark1958
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p.7 #7 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


I cancelled mine but i had sold my 1DsmkII.. Next time i need to hold my horses... as they say


Jun 24, 2007 at 04:22 PM
Desert_Watcher
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p.7 #8 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


http://www.warehouseexpress.com/?/arouse/reviews/Canon1DMkIII_First_Impressions.html

guys check andy rose review , i've noticed a statment , he is saying that u dont expect to shot magic from 1dmk iii directly from the box , you have to temper the setting for optimum results !! what do u think guys ?



Jun 24, 2007 at 06:00 PM
Jeff
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p.7 #9 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Desert_Watcher wrote:
guys check andy rose review , i've noticed a statment , he is saying that u dont expect to shot magic from 1dmk iii directly from the box , you have to temper the setting for optimum results !! what do u think guys ?



It's one data point, and he really doesn't go into much detail about AF, since it is apparently working for him (as it is for me). Too bad he didn't actually go into the settings that worked for him, since he made it a point to mention it.



Jun 24, 2007 at 06:09 PM
DavidP
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p.7 #10 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Read LesZ's comments in this thread:

http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=103425&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=580

It seems that setting CF-III 2 to a FASTER setting is helping keep the subject in focus . . somewhat counterintuitive to what he (and a lot of others?) was originally thinking.


Ummm, I'm repeating what was already pointed out the page before.



Jun 24, 2007 at 06:24 PM
mark1958
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p.7 #11 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


I have been following his posts and I agree with you that his logic and t esting as reporting is extremely int eresting. The one thing is that others seem to still have problems unrelated but it is unclear if it is a bad camera or other operator errors.

I also was wondering if anyone paid the 20 bucks or so to get Art Morris suggestions on shooting birds and wildlife in action to see what his experiences show.

Edited by mark1958 on Jun 24, 2007 at 04:32 PM GMT (Reason: Corrected name Art Morris)



Jun 24, 2007 at 06:40 PM
DavidP
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p.7 #12 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


mark1958 wrote:
I also was wondering if anyone paid the 20 bucks or so to get Art Wolfe's suggestions on shooting birds and wildlife in action to see what his experiences show.


You mean Art Morris?

Not sure I trust a guy who thinks that ISO3200 on the 1D-3 is as good as ISO400 on previous cameras.



Jun 24, 2007 at 06:51 PM
mark1958
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p.7 #13 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Yes that is what i meant.. edit corrected his name

Someone should pay the money and let us know if it is worth it or not



Jun 24, 2007 at 07:32 PM
kjetils
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p.7 #14 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Having experimented with all the custom settings for AF, it is obvious that the AF is not working properly. the MKII and even the 5D and 30D has a better tracking focus.It will be interesting to see what Canons response to this problem will be.

K



Jun 24, 2007 at 07:49 PM
JimGoshorn
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p.7 #15 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Have you seen this posting:

http://www.andybiggs.com/blog/canon-eos-1dmkiii-focusing-issues/



Jun 24, 2007 at 07:53 PM
rd4tile
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p.7 #16 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


mark1958 wrote:
I also was wondering if anyone paid the 20 bucks or so to get Art Morris suggestions on shooting birds and wildlife in action to see what his experiences show.



I did, my take is that the first version is pretty preliminary and that he doesn't have enough experience with it (which he freely admits) to really lock down his recommendations. He outlines a starting point he thinks everyone should start with. If his final settings can fix the problems I'm having it will be the best $20 I ever spent.



Jun 24, 2007 at 07:56 PM
BobnJake
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p.7 #17 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Regarding Art Morris & his MK III guide. I know for me (coming from a 20D), it was the best $20 I've spent in some time. He promises at least one more update, ( he is somewhere over seas now on a Bird shoot) & promises an update when he gets back. One thing I really liked about his recommendations, he goes into a fair amount of detail explaining why he chose that option, but also goes into enough discussions, where you can see if it would work for you in other circumstances.

I really don't think anyone would be disappointed.

Thanks, Bob



Jun 24, 2007 at 08:53 PM
mark1958
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p.7 #18 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Well that is not good either.. makes it more clear that I am glad i cancelled my order for now

JimGoshorn wrote:
Have you seen this posting:

http://www.andybiggs.com/blog/canon-eos-1dmkiii-focusing-issues/




Jun 24, 2007 at 09:12 PM
susi
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p.7 #19 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


I am having focus probs in al servo , but want to put the camera through more extensive testing before contributing to camera error. Have a horse show the end of the month and this will be a good chance.
Otherwise I LOVE this camera, wonderful image quality and the silent shutter mode is a great feature (sounds like the 10D)
battery life, high ISO..so much to love about this camera that the thought of returning it is a hard one!
Can someone post the best alservo focus settings ?



Jun 24, 2007 at 11:14 PM
rd4tile
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p.7 #20 · Does your MkIII have AF issues?


Here are 3 shots from one of my sequences today. It seems like it will jump focus at every chance. 2 images later it re-acquired the bird. CFNIII-4 was set to 1 BTW.

http://www.pbase.com/rd4tile/image/81110562/original.jpg



Jun 24, 2007 at 11:26 PM
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