Yeah, good question about SD card options. I'm waiting for Rob Galbraith to update his memory card database.
The thing about SD cards in the Mark III and II/IIN was that some actually wrote faster than the fastest CF cards, so there was a reason to use them instead of CF. Now that the IV supports UDMA mode 6, the better options seem to be CF cards. Another issue with SD/SDHC is card to computer transfer speeds. For UDMA cards there are firewire or expresscard (cardbus) memory card readers that allow very fast transfer speeds, which is even more relevant considering the IV's large file sizes. SDHC card readers all seem to be USB and slow in comparison. Perhaps this will change with USB 3 compatible readers...
For now I use a couple Transcend SDHC class 6 8GB cards as 'last resort' or for automatic spill over in case I'm unable to change out CF cards. But I am curious whether anyone has tried SDHC Class 10 cards and noticed much of a difference, or if they're even compatible?
Thanks John, I'm findind it to be a very capable camera and hands down better than my Mark III with regards to AF performance. The Mark III went through all the AF repairs and still didn't have the keeper rate the Mark IV is getting.
I shot an NCAA hoops game last night--second outing with my MKIV. I found focus acquisition to be extremely fast (no hesitation as far as I could tell), tracking and accuracy to be very good, ISO 3200 to be perfectly clean, and custom white balance to be the best I've ever managed in this arena.
Here's one shot, with the full post (and a bit more detail) here.
Mr Zoom wrote:
Thanks John, I'm findind it to be a very capable camera and hands down better than my Mark III with regards to AF performance. The Mark III went through all the AF repairs and still didn't have the keeper rate the Mark IV is getting.
Ken
Awesome, Ken--thank you for posting these!
I'm still trying to get one!
Breitling65
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p.6 #3 · Mark IV hands-on only thread
Eagles and Heron today, all with 300mm F2.8L IS + 1.4tc, AI Servo mode. I love 16mpx on mk IV, amazing crop abilities in compare to mk III.
+1 I've been using the same combo and finding much the same. Once focus locks on, it really sticks and background or foreground are ignored. First camera I have ever used where I could say that, just great
Chuck
Breitling65 wrote:
Eagles and Heron today, all with 300mm F2.8L IS + 1.4tc, AI Servo mode. I love 16mpx on mk IV, amazing crop abilities in compare to mk III.
Here are a bunch from a soccer camp yesterday. It was sunny, about 65. All the photos are screen captures on my MBP from DPP, raw files at defaults with no PP other than opening them in DPP and overlaying the focus points. I then cropped the image photoshop, again no further PP including no sharpening at any stage other than whatever default DPP give to the image in preview after opening a raw file. There are a few 100% crops. I say that to set up that these are no way optimal representations of the files; I tried to get as close to what the file looked like out of the camera without my tampering with it.
I shot for the most part with a single focus point, no expansion for almost all of these, which was my typical approach with the MkIII. Default on all other cf's. I did shoot some expanded points later; I'll reserve judgment on whether it was more effective. All shots are with the 300 2.8 IS L, all shot at f2.8, ISO 200. Without double checking the exif while typing this, I'd say shutter speeds ranged from 1/1600-1/3200. This was probable the first solid couple of hours shooting the body, so it's pretty fresh. The body came with the new firmware.
A little background, my action shooting is almost exclusively pro motocross and my son's club soccer. I don't shoot BIF, but admire you folks who do very much. In short, I am asking the body to catch larger objects. I am much better shooting MX than soccer.
I have to, say this camera is wonderful. As another, ahem, reviewer elsewhere mentioned, there a difference in viewing softness at 50% v 100% ~ when softness is there. In my case, there was softness only when I made a mistake (again, shot wide open), and maybe 10-20 out of almost 400 where soft to the point where it precluded what still might have been a really nice image for web output. The camera locked on and held focus really well IMO, and at full resolution are giving rise to a high degree of covetousness for a 30" monitor. In short, I have no problems whatsoever and am thrilled with it. I would post up sequences of my golden bolting toward me for food (top speed then), but it would be a bit embarassing; it would show (1) that I can't keep a selected point on a dog for the life of me (making birds even more daunting) and (2) that in a very narrow depth of field, whatever is under the selected point is pretty damn sharp, meaning the camera is doing its part while I'm failing mine.
After my initial tests with the MK IV were less than spectacular (probably mostly attributable to me not completely taking advantage of various settings, and being a little out of practice), I'm happy to report that now that I've had a bit more time to test and fine-tune, the results are starting to make me very happy.
Yesterday, I took 500 pictures or so at a young girl's birthday party, where they all rode horses. I primarily used the 70-200 f/2.8 IS. Some of the shots were better suited for One Shot mode (such as when they were standing around watching others ride), but because I was switching back and forth from action shots on the horses to static shots, I kept it in AI Servo mode.
The action shots were almost all very sharp and usable, despite using a pretty narrow depth of field. On the static shots, the shots were either tack sharp, or if they weren't, ever so slightly front-focused.
Today I decided I needed to test with the 600mm f/4 IS, as this is one of my most frequently used lenses while shooting motorcycle roadracing. I took a quick series of shots of some Canada Geese at a pond near our house, then took pictures of cars moving toward or away from me at 60 MPH, generally focusing on their license plate. I also did some panning on the cars with my 300mm f/2.8, at 1/400.
The car photos were consistently in very good focus, using an aperture of f/6.3, and just slightly less consistent at f/4.
Here is a sequence from the shots of the geese. I don't really have the time or patience for bird shots normally. Today I showed up, took the camera out of the car, walked over to the side of the pond, and the geese suddenly decided they didn't want to be there anymore, and flew to the pond across the street. I started firing when they took off, and this was the sequence. That's it. No other practice or setup. Very minimal cropping, all keepers as far as the AF goes. As you can see, there are shots included in the sequence with a tree between me and the geese, and others with trees in the background. AF worked extremely well!
No, sorry on the red jersey. No one so equipped. Flaming orange penny the best I can do. There were no issues with that, though. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be a fine soccer body. I'll go back through and see if there are any sequences that show anything in particular.
Back to battery power, I skipped the MKIII, so don't have any LP-E4's lying around. Has anyone had any bad experiences with the generic copy batteries? Any reason not to pay A$70 instead of A$240?
I've had mine only since Jan 29th. I got it and had time to charge the batteries. Change a couple of CF's and took it to shoot a Hockey game. I've still got to work on fine tuning some stuff and get used to Post processing the shots. Which seem to require a bit more then my 1DMKIII files as far as saturation and pop. But overall I haven't shot anything with my 1DMKIII but a few frames playing with my 300 for far court shots during a basketball game since getting it. Just a few samples. I still have some work to do on CF settings, and need to work on post as I said. But I am very happy with it so far.
Second shot after charging battery. Exif should be intact for all these shots.
Many thanks, Nill, for launching this thread and striving to keep it hands-on only. Thanks also to all of you who have honored Nill's request and posted so many stunning photos.
Given that RG conceded the camera's potential for brilliance, but knocked its consistency and reliability -- especially in strongly front-lit soccer action, special thanks to ftemoto for posting AF point overlays and demonstrating focus hold with single-point AF.
May I ask a favor of those of you who have found settings that work consistently? Could you share your choices on III-2, III-3, III-4 and III-8?
I haven't shot enough frames yet to say I'm fully dialed in, but I saw night-and-day improvement in focus-lock when I switched III-8 to 2 (Surrounding AF points), III-2 to 0 (Default tracking sensitivity), III-3 to 0 (AF priority/Tracking priority), and III-4 to 0 (Main focus point priority). Les Zigursky has posted that III-4-1 would seem a logical choice when subjects intervene, but in practice it's much more twitchy than III-4-O. Peter Read Miller uses III-4-0 for football. The Canon EOS Custom Guide suggests III-4-1 when subjects will intervene at regular intervals, as with slalom flags.
Could some of you who are posting these terrific images share your key AF settings?
