I have had the MKIV for two weeks. I came from a MKII that I owned since it was new almost 6 years ago. I shoot mostly action sports (basketball, baseball, football, soccer). This is not for a living, I'm just an amateur with more money than brains. All my children are deep into prep sports so my "hobby" grew out of that. To date I have shot 4 basketball games including the Bulls / Magic game on the 10th with the MKIV. Man Howard is huge!
I Usually shoot with a 24-70 2.8 or 70-200 at these games. At the Bulls game I shot 549 images (AI servo, Tv mode, typ 3200 ISO) and counted about 520 keepers. I shot from courtside behind the basket (its nice to have friends with great seats) Sometimes the MKIV missed and Im not sure why as the focus point was dead on and the prior/successor frames were good I think the predictive movement algorithms are a little immature yet. I shot mostly with CF 3/8 set to 2 as I had found like RG this works the best for basketball. In any event I'm delighted with the keeper ratio. Its better than the MKII and the high ISO is fantastic. Im sure Canon will tweak the algorithms as time goes but even now it really quite good. YMMV
I'm fascinated that Scowl has been a member of these forums since March 2002; has a grand total of 32 posts in 8 years, and 21 of those posts are in this single thread.
Doug Goldberg wrote:
I have had the MKIV for two weeks. I came from a MKII that I owned since it was new almost 6 years ago. I shoot mostly action sports (basketball, baseball, football, soccer). This is not for a living, I'm just an amateur with more money than brains. All my children are deep into prep sports so my "hobby" grew out of that. To date I have shot 4 basketball games including the Bulls / Magic game on the 10th with the MKIV. Man Howard is huge!
I Usually shoot with a 24-70 2.8 or 70-200 at these games. At the Bulls game I shot 549 images (AI servo, Tv mode, typ 3200 ISO) and counted about 520 keepers. I shot from courtside behind the basket (its nice to have friends with great seats) Sometimes the MKIV missed and Im not sure why as the focus point was dead on and the prior/successor frames were good I think the predictive movement algorithms are a little immature yet. I shot mostly with CF 3/8 set to 2 as I had found like RG this works the best for basketball. In any event I'm delighted with the keeper ratio. Its better than the MKII and the high ISO is fantastic. Im sure Canon will tweak the algorithms as time goes but even now it really quite good. YMMV...Show more →
Good to hear Doug. I still have my 1D II and a 7D now, but hopefully in another 6 months the 1D IV prices may have eased some and firmware is mature and everyone is happy with the mk IV, as I'm itching to upgrade the 1D II, 6 years is a long time in the DSLR field. Better AF is but just one reason to upgrade.
I realize the Mark IV is a $5K camera, but I think our expectations may be a bit too high. When shooting 10 frames per second, I don't expect that all of the frames will be in focus all of the time. I haven't read anything that leads me to believe that technology is available yet. I think the issue is, given the available technology, does the Mark IV do a $5K job, and is there anything measurably better that would make you give up your Canon lenses? I shoot both Canon and Nikon, so I don't have an axe to grind, but a few OOF shots is not going to convince me to take my 800L off that Mark IV.
I have had no trouble getting into the UC with my camera bag in the past or this week. Plenty of folks with white lenses in the stands. They look inside at the gate but otherwise dont seem to mind the fans having Pro SLR's. The UC is actually very fan friendly with good parking, highway access and decent amenities.
I think one thing to keep in mind with MKIV, and any modern consumer electronics, is how dependent they are on firmware. Seems like all the stuff I own Im continuously updating firmware. This includes my Ipod, DVD players, AVR's and even my cars. Its maddening! I imagine that the Canon engineers would have loved another 90 days to tweak the servo algorithms but the senior leadership decreed it must be shipped in '09. Im sure they assumed they would tweak it upstream. The quick release of 1.06 shows that. The good news is that firmware updates will improve and evolve the operation as a result of the widespread use of the camera in the real world. One thing I learned developing software: is you have never found the last bug. Even in its "current" state though its very good`in IMHO.
Funny... your post just made me remember how when I got my first Mark II, right when it first came out, it couldn't do reds to save its life. They were just awful. But they got it sorted out, sure enough.
There's a familiar ring to all this. Haven't we done this for the Mk III already? Wasn't RG one of the first to expose AF problems in the Mk III when others were clueless? Wasn't the criticism very similar? RB couldn't be finding real problems because he had Nikon ads.
Is it possible that many people can't duplicate RG's results because they don't test or shoot as he does? He never said the Mk IV was no good he reported his test results (and before that was one of the first to post laudatory Mk IV results from others).
M Vers wrote:
You're kidding....right? You think because he asks for donations that he isn't linked to Nikon in any way? Have you been to his site?
Of course I am. The three dots in the end should be the giveaway. That said, I do not share your view that just because he has Nikon ads in his site he must be prejudice against Canon. If that would be the case, Canon would be very stupid not to advertise in his site as well and "buy him back". It would cost them very little money compared to the huge damage he is doing to them.
Ixania wrote:
aehm, i bought six 1DMk3s over the years and each and every one worked absolutely flawless. Shure, I'm shooting not as much as you and RG, only 10.000 frames a week. So I should know a little something about Canon's AF...
Ahem. Are you trying to say that because yours worked well it means that all 1D3 worked well?
Too bad RG strips off the EXIF from the pictures, it might be interesting, if nothing else just to see how many cameras were actually used for the published test images.
FretNoMore wrote:
Too bad RG strips off the EXIF from the pictures...
He did not, all pictures have full EXIF info in them, there must me something wrong on your side if you can not see them. Now I checked one of skating pictures - firmware 04.
He did not, all pictures have full EXIF info in them, there must me something wrong on your side if you can not see them. Now I checked one of skating pictures - firmware 04.
The Firmware version was missing in my viewers too, but using EXIFTOOL, I found it is all there, Firmware version, AF tracking method and AF expansion mode.
n0b0 wrote:
On the same token, I'd like to ask how many MkIV RG has tested and that if they all don't work well, does it mean that all 1D4 wouldn't work.
1. He shot with 5. It's in the first page: "That's what we set out to determine since our first EOS-1D Mark IV body - one of five production-level units we've shot with since then - arrived early in the new year."
2. In the case of the 1D3, Canon admitted it is not O.K. by issuing 2 hardware fixes. In the case of the 1D4, it is too new. We'll have to wait and see.
n0b0 wrote:
On the same token, I'd like to ask how many MkIV RG has tested and that if they all don't work well, does it mean that all 1D4 wouldn't work.
IF 10% of sold mkIVs had defective AF not working up to specs, what are the chances that you got all five cameras with defective AF? Not very high. 1:100000. If it was just 2%, it is almost impossible. If it was 40% defective rate, it is still only 1% probabillity.
