Nonsense, Pandemic. All we know (and I use that word advisely) is that RG couldn't get the camera(s) to AF (and - to be clear - the files he's provided indicate far less of a "problem" than the noise he's making would imply).
There's ample evidence on this thread to support a pretty confident opinion that he had the camera set up wrongly; and, based on his AF point placement in the MK IV files he's provided, that maybe the guy using the D3S was better at shooting sport than RG.
So - again, for the avoidance of any doubt about the point I'm making - there is no compelling evidence that what we're discussing here is a camera problem. Not saying it isn't, but I am saying very clearly that none of us "know" that it is. And there's actually plenty of evidence available that in fact the Mk IV AFs just fine.
FIVE different MKIV bodies from FIVE different sources were used.
ONE of the bodies was inspected by Canon and given to them afterwards.
SIX different lenses were used.
TWO different photographers took pictures.
TWO different photographers noticed the same focusing (ahem) issues.
He backs up his opinion with two very detailed pages of his experiences, citing specific examples and providing the RAW files for individual inspection.
Clearly, there is evidence that they had issues. Your opinion is that these two different photographers are both at fault and not the multiple copies of the same camera, provided by multiple sources. "
Again, this leads to my question once again. If 5 camera were used from 5 different sources, and one of them checked by Canon, why were not 5 different setting used for evaluations? To me and my thinking, all 5 camera worked consisitently and exactly the same becuase of the idenitcal settings used. I believe if there were any problems, why weren't CF's changed according to the shooting conditions?
Again, this all points to user error.
If 5 camera were used from 5 different sources, and one of them checked by Canon, why were not 5 different setting used for evaluations? To me and my thinking, all 5 camera worked consisitently and exactly the same becuase of the idenitcal settings used. I believe if there were any problems, why weren't CF's changed according to the shooting conditions?
Again, this all points to user error. 5 different setting
Agree! I cannot understand, why you keep on shooting with that settings, like the skating series.
I'd like to see this series, with only the centre point, without surrounding AF.
thedigitalbean wrote:
As for comparing the D3s to the 1D4, yes they are optimized for different types of shooters (the D3s for the low light nut, the 1D4 for the focal length limited shooter), however, IMO Canon invites comparison when these two cameras are so closely priced to each other and released at virtually the same time.
Where do you get this information? I see them as head to head competitors, and I suspect Nikon and Canon do too. You will see these cameras side by side in every condition you see either of them in. The qualities you mention are certainly true, but answer these questions.
What will a Nikon shooter use to shoot basketball?
What will a Canon shooter use to shoot basketball?
Gust wrote:
Agree! I cannot understand, why you keep on shooting with that settings, like the skating series.
I'd like to see this series, with only the centre point, without surrounding AF.
I don't understand this. Why does AF expansion not work on a single skater? The initial AF is probably acquired by the center AF point, and the surrounding points are only there to assist the AF, not mess it up. So, where is the error?
My theory is this: EVERY AF point needs to be calibrated exactly with each other. If some of the assist AF points are incorrectly calibrated out of the factory, then they can only mess things up. Does this make sense?
thw2 wrote:
My theory is this: EVERY AF point needs to be calibrated exactly with each other. If some of the assist AF points are incorrectly calibrated out of the factory, then they can only mess things up. Does this make sense?
That was one of the biggest flaws my 1D III had, so it certainly makes sense to me. All AF points acted differently. The fixes only made it worse.
thw2 wrote:
I don't understand this. Why does AF expansion not work on a single skater? The initial AF is probably acquired by the center AF point, and the surrounding points are only there to assist the AF, not mess it up. So, where is the error?
In my opinion takes it always more time for the cam, to figure out, with surrounding points.
especially in the skating series, where is not a high contrast atmosphere there, its some misty
, it looks.
I really had like to see a serie without the III 8,2 used.
I'm shooting motorbike sports and in my experience with all former cam's, the surrounding worked never well with speed sports.
I have shot some basketball unstrobed with my Mk IV using CFIII-8:2 with excellent results, easily surpassing the hit rate of the Mk II or Mk III. My point is, when shooting field sports such as soccer, the expansion points will frequently be on multiple players. In this case, expansion points are naturally a bad idea.
I understand and have absolutely no disagreement with your point regarding field sports.
Um, I notice a trend here; after 10-15 pages there seems to be "Topic Creep." No new (or useful?) information about the original topic thread. The topic shifts to the posters-their semantics (or lack of them) and personal motivations. Is this something like Group Therapy?
John V wrote:
(1) If 5 camera were used from 5 different sources, and one of them checked by Canon, why were not 5 different setting used for evaluations?
(2) To me and my thinking, all 5 camera worked consisitently and exactly the same becuase of the idenitcal settings used.
(3) I believe if there were any problems, why weren't CF's changed according to the shooting conditions?
(4) Again, this all points to user error.
I've numbered your statements above and replied accordingly below.
1. Why, because your suggestion makes for a lousy controlled experiment.
2. Correct, and that's what gives the experiment statistical significance from which reasonable (not necessarily correct, but reasonable) conclusions may be drawn.
3. Read the report!
4. AFAIC there is a much greater probability of denial by Canon users than user error on RG's part. Now, if OTOH your #4 statement above would have used the term "bias" instead of "user error" then you would have had a chance (but not necessarily a good chance) of being correct.
Honestly ... I don't know why there is so much turmoil over RG's review; from my perspective it was a fair and very positive review for the 1DmkIV. The only problem I have with the review is it's too application specific. IMO RG should start out with a repeatable target that isn't overly complex (e.g. the family coming towards him at 25 to 30 MPH). When your target is not repeatable and on top of that has moving arms and flapping jerseys all over the map it's very difficult to analyze OOF problem frames in a sequence (of course if you don't have some problem shots then it's a don't care).
keithreeder wrote:
There's ample evidence on this thread to support a pretty confident opinion that he had the camera set up wrongly; and, based on his AF point placement in the MK IV files he's provided, that maybe the guy using the D3S was better at shooting sport than RG.
Of the 171 Mark IV basketball shots posted, 145 were by Mike Sturk. That would indicate that the guy shooting the D3S was RG. There was also a mix of center point only and expansion enabled. There were misses on both settings.
"I've numbered your statements above and replied accordingly below.
1. Why, because your suggestion makes for a lousy controlled experiment.
2. Correct, and that's what gives the experiment statistical significance from which reasonable (not necessarily correct, but reasonable) conclusions may be drawn.
3. Read the report!
4. AFAIC there is a much greater probability of denial by Canon users than user error on RG's part. Now, if OTOH your #4 statement above would have used the term "bias" instead of "user error" then you would have had a chance (but not necessarily a good chance) of being correct.
Honestly ... I don't know why there is so much turmoil over RG's review; from my perspective it was a fair and very positive review for the 1DmkIV. The only problem I have with the review is it's too application specific. IMO RG should start out with a repeatable target that isn't overly complex (e.g. the family coming towards him at 25 to 30 MPH). When your target is not repeatable and on top of that has moving arms and flapping jerseys all over the map it's very difficult to analyze OOF problem frames in a sequence (of course if you don't have some problem shots then it's a don't care).
Regards,
Joe Kurkjian"
Joe,
This is all well and good for an experiement as you say, however,
1) It's not an experiement, it is a review. A review should not be limited to a a few select features of a camera.
2) See #1
3) read the report. Doesn't say anything about experiement.
4) And since it is a review, not an experiment, it Would be considered operator error for not taking advantage of more suitable CF settings that are offered.
John V wrote:
4) And since it is a review, not an experiment, it Would be considered operator error for not taking advantage of more suitable CF settings that are offered.
Technically, it's not a review; It's "An analysis of EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance"
ftemoto wrote:
I hope you'll take this in a spirit different from a lot of the posts in this thread, which is to say I'm trying to be constructive and not contentious, but I disagree. I think it's a mistake, proven out to my satisfaction by my own experience, that in a crowded, somewhat distant soccer shot you are much better off sticking with a single selected focus point and that using the expanded assist points is problematic.
With football games in good light that's also been my experience with the Mark III. The AF seems to see so many good targets that it's hard for me to make the camera pick the one I want. Expansion points make this even more difficult and unpredictable so I switch them off.
But football games in poor light like those at the end of Galbraith's soccer gallery, I've found that I have to use expansion points. The good focus targets dwindle and the camera struggles to find anything to focus on. 343 and 344 didn't appear to provide any targets good enough for the AF to lock onto even with expansion points.
So I think it's possible with the MkIV to set it to work for you, and to work against you, and I think RG's choices worked against him is some situations in his soccer shooting.
If his shots contained lots of things in focus other than his intended target I would agree that expansion points were working against him. However I see lots of shots where nothing is in focus and I can't see how the use of expansion point should cause that. If they do cause problems I would only describe that as an enormous flaw in the Mark IV's AF system.
I'm really excited about the new 45 point option in III-8. With the camera telling me what it's focusing on, I feel after ten years I finally have a chance of seeing what the AF system is thinking as it does its job.
Gust wrote:
In my opinion takes it always more time for the cam, to figure out, with surrounding points.
Experiment with the new 45 point system in III-8. You'll see in real time just how incredibly fast the AF system can scan surrounding points.
With the original 1D, turning on expansion points definitely slowed down the AF and I avoided them whenever possible. I feel this delay was practically eliminated with the faster Mark II AF system. Turning on expansion points with that camera never caused me to miss a shot due to an AF delay and in fact I couldn't even tell if they were on.
Ron Hole wrote:
Technically, it's not a review; It's "An analysis of EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance"
Ron,
I will agree with that since i went back and saw that it's in the title.
But an analysis is far from an experiment by definition, which once again, indicates that RG DID NOT use to the best of his ability all the features to best obtain his result(s)
It looks to me like the guy went out and took a bunch of pictures and then reported (analyzed) what he found. For my way of thinking this is the proper way to determine a camera's strengths and faults. Not taking pictures of dollar bills or charts.
The only problem with the whole thing is who the guy is. If it had of been me posting the exact same thing as he did it would not matter one iota.
Ron Hole wrote:
It looks to me like the guy went out and took a bunch of pictures and then reported (analyzed) what he found. For my way of thinking this is the proper way to determine a camera's strengths and faults. Not taking pictures of dollar bills or charts.
The only problem with the whole thing is who the guy is. If it had of been me posting the exact same thing as he did it would not matter one iota.
You're exactly right Ron. And this is why it's troubling. The time was not taken to set-up the camera properly, to utilize the proper features for the task at hand.
a⋅nal⋅y⋅sis /əˈnæləsɪs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [uh-nal-uh-sis] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ses /-ˌsiz/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [-seez] Show IPA . 1. the separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements (opposed to synthesis ).
2. this process as a method of studying the nature of something or of determining its essential features and their relations: the grammatical analysis of a sentence.
3. a presentation, usually in writing, of the results of this process: The paper published an analysis of the political situation.
4. a philosophical method of exhibiting complex concepts or propositions as compounds or functions of more basic ones.
jkurkjia wrote:
I know shooters that have experienced AF issues with their 1DmkIII bodies when AF expansion was enabled; they eventually migrated to AF expansion disabled for nearly everything.
I was one of those. I found that point expansion in good light often had a strange effect: nothing was ever in focus. It seemed like perhaps the AF was seeing so many good targets that it was switching between all of them constantly. And no, setting III-2 to slow made no difference. For whatever reason, turning off expansion points solved it.
Another theory was this was because the Mark III's (as well as the Mark IV's) focus points extend well beyond the red boxes. The Canon white paper on the Mark IV confirms just how large those focus points are on page 19 -- they actually cover as much area outside their boxes as inside them! Considering how close the focus points are, the focus points have to overlap each other which I suspect can cause expansion points to be used even when they're not needed, resulting in tracking problems.
It's a damn shame that they limited the Mark IV's new "Spot AF" to a handful of super expensive lenses when they didn't have to. Obviously all it does it clip off the beginning and end of the phase data in software before it does phase detection. The Mark III drove me nuts because even in One-Shot it regularly locked on things outside of the focus point because it liked them more than what was in the box. My Mark IIn always focuses on what's in the red box and nothing else. Is that too much to ask for with a lens that isn't a "super telephoto"?
