george malamis wrote:
Let's assume that the tests between the 40D and 1 series cameras were done the same, although flawed. While the number of oof shots for the 40D looks to be alarming, it is only 14% behind a 1 series body. I don't think that you can ask for much more.
Very good point George!
That alone is impressive and there is no telling how much better the comparison would have been if he had at least used the same BG.
Jim
Sep 19, 2007 at 02:30 PM
Allen Maestas Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
trenchmonkey wrote:
Alan, my sympathies re: all your problems with Canon gear. I know a guy that can't
wear watches. Maybe it's his magnetic personality, dunno but any watch he puts on fails!
Just wondering if you guys may have gone to the same school together?
I have never purchased anything from Canon that did not work perfectly? Maybe I'm just a lucky SOB don't know? In fact I can't think of a darn electronic item I've purchased in the last 10 years that has given me any trouble or not worked like it was advertised. So maybe old Monkey boy is on to something Maybe you are a giant magnet!
I've never had trouble with camera, lenses or hifi gear etc, but I have a friend like Alan that seems to get duds, no matter what he buys, he ends up replacing everything he owns. He exhibits the Wolfang Pauli effect. Pauli was one of the best theoretical physicsts ever, but every time he went near an experiment it stopped working or equipment failed; it is a legendary reputation.
Alan exudes the Pauli field. I'm afraid he's on the dark side of the force
Edited by Pixel Perfect on Sep 20, 2007 at 02:55 PM GMT
EltonTeng wrote:
Did the camera have something better to focus on during the last 4 frames compared to the few where it missed?
It looks like the camera is pointed in the dark brown sweatshirt in the frame you show. It probably decided to find something else to focus.
The first frame at least has the arm/sweatshirt combo to work with.
No, Elton. The AF sensor was on essentially the same part of the person in all of the photos. Had my aim been drifting all over the place I would not be upset with the AF, but the aim was pretty consistent.
I do not want to hijack this, but did you try it with one-shot, too?
No, I did not do that - or at least not with a view to testing AF consistency. I did take some shots of flowers in one-shot AF mode and I did find that it often didn't focus where I wanted it to, but I acknowledge that flowers can be complex things to focus on. That's why I like having USM and full-time manual focus on my lenses.
Ideally I would use a tripod for photographing flowers but that is not always practical. Then I prefer to use AI Servo mode because of the relatively great movement between me and the flower when I'm crouched down in an uncomfortable position trying not to squash the other flowers. In those situations the time delay between getting focus in one-shot and actually taking the photo can be enough for the focus to be lost.
I was expecting probs with my 1D MK III, where in one-shot I got different results on a tripod with remote etc. on a stationary object. One shot after the other the focus hunts a bit and results in different places.
Focus as shown in zoomBrowser is every-time center, whereas other areas are sharp. Seems that AF seems to be easily mislead if other "interesting" areas are covered by other f-points. If I aim at an edge, where no other areas are in front or beside, than AF is a win-win.
I generally avoid using multiple sensors in order to minimise the chance of the camera finding those other inetersting things to focus on. At least on a 1-series you can confine it to a small group of AF sensors that occupies little more image area than a single 40D sensor. That's an advantage of having 45 points closely packed instead of 9 loosely packed.
All of the AF sensors prefer to focus on high contrast, and that generally implies edges.
Will wait for firmware-update, before I will contact CANON. Sending expensive stuff is not my favourite
Thnx for your time and regards,
Oliver.
Unfortunately, I'm getting used to sending expensive stuff off to Canon
I'm beginning to think that if it wasn't expensive then it wouldn't bother failing on me
The 1D3 is a disaster for Canon in some ways - more so for their reputation than for their revenue. I was aware of the AI Servo issues and so I avoided it and bought a faulty 1Ds2 instead Only recently have I become aware of a relatively eratic One-shot AF performance. Perhaps within tolerance but still not as consistent (at least on some cameras) as most pro bodies have been in the past. Good luck with yours.
Jim Victory wrote:
I'm sorry Andrew that your relying on Drew's evaluation of the 40D's AI Servo performance because his test is questionable at best. The BG's are different and it doesn't even look like he ever had the subject in focus at the start of the test.
The AI Servo drift that is being proposed by the OP is another example of bad information based on a flawed test. Make sure you get good information before you make a decision about buying the 40D.
In addition if your expecting the perfromance of a 1 series camera then you will not be satisfied. It perfroms better then any xxD camera before it and is a good improvement in AI Servo performance. ...Show more →
Based on my last post, if it appeared I had already made my decision, that's simple not the case. It did have me concerend. Can you explain to me why different BG's matter and why not having the first frame in focus makes his test "flawed"?
"OP"? Original Poster? Alan? Again, can you tell me why you think his info is flawed?
And no I don't expect 1D type performance.
Any how, at this point, the 40D is still on my short list. Most 40D owners are happy and have no complaints. And the people that allege they are having problems are less than a handful. So.....
Peace!
Edited by Andrew Chase on Sep 20, 2007 at 02:10 PM GMT
Pixel Perfect wrote:
Was the focus confirmation light blinking or was it off. If it was blinking then it wasn't tracking. Anyway when I use AI servo I use the * button for AF so I can just release it it to lock focus if the subject stops moving; I would not keep the * button pressed for a static object as it's well known you can get misfocus.
I use a variation of that technique. I prefer to let the shutter button do the AF and let the * button temporarily stop the AF, so that my default forgot-to-press-the-button-in-all-the-excitement position is to have AF working Perhaps I have been spoiled by the 1-series AF over the years but I learned to reserve use of the * button for situation where I expected the focus to be lost because, for example, something got in the way or I realised that my aim was off. I cannot always notice how good the AF is in the viewfinder, especially in the smaller viewfinders and especially while I am concentrating on maintaining precise aim on a moving subject.
I don't know the status of the AF indicator during my test sequences. It was tracking successfully for some time before I began shooting. I do that to give the predictive AF a chance to be functioning properly from the first photo rather than begin figuring it out while its shooting. The fact that the first few shots were in focus indicates that it was still tracking after I started shooting.
However, once I was shooting I was concentrating more on holding my aim on the subject, so I admit that I lost track of the AF status indicator. Unfortunately it won't beep in AI Servo mode to indicate that it has lost focus or found focus or is tracking successfully.
I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that the camera only indicates which AF sensor was selected (the one that is subsequently shown in red on the software) if it was active at the time of shooting. If focus was lost then it shows black. Perhaps that only applies to One Shot mode - I'll have to check.
J.D. and EOS 20, the ZoomBrowser that came with my 40D works with the 40D raw files and other older files. It's the first zoombrowser to work successfully on my current computer, although saying that may have just broken the spell
For the images I posted I was using BreezeBrowser Pro (latest version). It was in HQ image enhance mode that does a good job of sharpening and so on but only works for the screen-size preview. It's useful for indicating what was in focus and what was not. BB Pro, like most programs except DPP, requires that you convert the raw files if you want to see full size with the enhancements. Unfortunately DPP won't show you the focus points - and how dumb is that ?!
Thank you. That was interesting and appropriate for this thread. At least most of their out of focus shots were not miles out of focus, but given that they were using one of the sharpest and fastest-focusing f/2.8 lenses available from Canon with one of the newest camera AF systems the results are not wonderful.
In many cases they had little to focus on except a white shirt that offers little contrast to the central AF sensor, but there are two central cross-type AF sensors available to the camera - the standard precision vertical + sensor and the high precision x sensor - and I would have expected better. I wonder if it actually uses one or both.
Using f/8 for added DOF would help disguise a lot of the focus errors but kind of misses the point of using large apertures on expensive lenses
Barry Pehlman wrote:
I don't think testing a third party tele-macro lens at close to or at the minimum focusing distance and hand-held (?) & on Al Servo (?) is a fair test. Macro lenses are really designed to be on a tripod, and manually focused. There is no margin of error. When a centimeter here or there determines critical focus and you don't intervene to override the camera's AF then something is wrong with your shooting technique as it applies here.
From the above link showing "running man" and the resulting 40D slightly deficient keeper rate compared to the 1 series... what do you expect? If a better keeper rate is needed use a movie camera.
3m is hardly at or near minimum focus distance for the macro lens, so that aspect of the test is not unreasonable.
That the lens can focus up close in its macro role does not discount it as a general purpose lens.
The fact that it is a macro lens is more likely to indicate that it is a sharp lens suitable for a focus test.
The focus error that I was complaining about on that static card series of shots was way more than a 1 cm. More like 5 to 10. That amount of error is excessive in my opinion - it wasn't just focuxsing at the edge of the card I was aiming at. It went well beyond that in both directions.
AI Servo may not be regarded as a fair test by all and I see merit in that argument. However, I've explained previously why sometimes it is useful to try AI Servo rather than One shot, and a key outcome of the results is that the new AF apparently does not improve on the ability to use AI Servo for static subjects. Surely that in itself is useful info.
Also, I still don't like its success rate on the moving subjects for which AI Servo was appropriate. Nor were those subject too small to focus on.
Before we write of the tests as flawed and perhaps discard everything we can learn from them, lets see what the result of having the camera serviced is. If it works better then I'll be happy and the tests will be vindicated. If it doesn't then I'll not be happy and we'll know something about the AF that wasn't being spelled out before.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
I've never had trouble with camera, lenses or hifi gear etc, but I have a friend like Alan that seems to get duds, no matter what he buys, he ends up replacing everything he owns. He exhibits the Wolfang Pauli effect. Pauli was one of the best theoretical physicst, but every time he went near an experiment it stopped working or equipment failed; it is legendary reputation.
Alan exudes the Pauli field. I'm afraid he's on the dark side of the force
Thanks Whayne.
It's more true than you might imagine - my computer history makes my camera gear gear look very reliable. At work I had more software and hradware computer problems than the next several people combined even though I was prevented from actually installing anything myself - so it was never my fault. I could ask what a group was looking at on their computer, only to have it crash on them at that moment. I don't work there any more
thnx for your reply. And yes, flowers are complex, so is a face. If you aim at the eye, one would _not_expect to have focus on the nose - OK, my one is complex, uhm big - and with a 85mm lens the focus point are small enough to cover - one-shot, center only - the eye and nothing else.
Well, just thinking about "futurama", there is ONE person, where hitting the nose could be VERY easy if you are aiming at _the_ eye
If new firmware arrives, at least I have a deterministic method to check it.
>AI Servo may not be regarded as a fair test by all and I see merit in that argument. However, I've explained previously why sometimes it is useful to try AI Servo rather than One shot, and a key outcome of the results is that the new AF apparently does not improve on the ability to use AI Servo for static subjects. Surely that in itself is useful info.
Thanks Alan for sharing this. I learned something: servo ONLY works for rapidly moving subjects. I had thought that a stationary object was just a special case of a moving one, i.e. moving very very slowly. Now I can see that I will have to keep switching focus modes every few shots, as well as white balance and iso. Considering how much these cameras cost, I really think we deserve servo focussing that also focusses on still things.
I think what you are observing is the fact that AF systems in digital cameras are not fully perfected yet. The 40D is just another step in design. Canon increased the gain of the focusing system on the 40D which in a servo system usually means creep, or jumpiness. Rob Galbraith speaks of this as happening on virtually all AF cameras, they just don't sit still but wander around a bit aimlessly and constantly correct. Some camera bodies are better than others.
Canon also suggests that when the going gets rough with AF switch to manual. If the focusng system were perfect, there would be no need to recommend this.
BTW, if you really want to drive yourself nuts, try checking your long lenses very carefully for front/back focus using Tim Jackson's focus test chart. If you do get through it in good shape, try your other bodies and see if they all agree to the first one. Good luck......
Alistair Watson wrote:
Is this only a xxD thing? I always found I could use my AI-Servo on my 1D2N on stationery objects very successfully.....
not to be rude, but DUH!
The wide range of opinions on the 40D's abilities needs to be put in perspective, which means including the commenter's own experience base. A vast majority of those with overwhelmingly positive views of the 40D seem to have a history that does not include the 1's, or even the 5D. Those more skeptical/critical of the 40D seem to come from the group that now have or are accustomed to 1's.
Anybody else see the pattern here? The 40D is by no means a baby 1, regardless of how some characterized it when it came out. This is absolutely intentional on Canon's part, so just accept it and move on. It's priced at $1300 because it gives $1300 worth of performance. If you want/need/are used to pro AF in a canon body you still have to buy a 1D/2/2n/3. period.
If you want to improve on your rebel/20D/30D, then the 40D makes good sense.
timbop wrote:
Anybody else see the pattern here? The 40D is by no means a baby 1, regardless of how some characterized it when it came out. This is absolutely intentional on Canon's part, so just accept it and move on. It's priced at $1300 because it gives $1300 worth of performance. If you want/need/are used to pro AF in a canon body you still have to buy a 1D/2/2n/3. period.
If you want to improve on your rebel/20D/30D, then the 40D makes good sense.
"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." - Mr. Spock.
kapytalyst wrote: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." - Mr. Spock.
"who knows, maybe in a hundred years the Iotians will want a piece of our action!" - James T Kirk
Alistair Watson wrote:
Is this only a xxD thing? I always found I could use my AI-Servo on my 1D2N on stationery objects very successfully.....
My 1D2 works well too, so maybe it's just the lesser AF systems that are affected so noticeably.
Our 1-series experience suggests that using AI Servo on a stationary subject need not necessarily be impossible or result in a high failure rate. Given that, then surely it is reasonable to expect new and enhanced xxD AF systems to improve on previous generations in this regard.
The 40D is supposed to be an enhancement with its better AF hardware and faster AF computing, and I reckon it should be closing the performance gap on the three-year-old 1D2 AF technology more than it has. Naturally, I don't expect it to do as well as the 1D3 AF is supposed to do because that system should also be improving on the previous generation.
Maybe you are a giant magnet! 
Only recently have I become aware of a relatively eratic One-shot AF performance. Perhaps within tolerance but still not as consistent (at least on some cameras) as most pro bodies have been in the past. Good luck with yours.