AF performance, comparing the 450D, 50D, and 5DII?

chris321

chris321

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Right, to give a bit of context, I'm currently planning to upgrade to a 5DII from my current 50D for a few reasons, mostly ISO performance, full frame goodness :)D), and to play a bit with video. I'm moving away from wildlife and towards people photography, portraits, stage productions etc. While I know the 5DII will suit these applications I'll also be doing a bit of sport for the uni paper.

I know that it's not the weapon of choice for the professionals, but my livelihood isn't going to depend on me being able to nail every shot, I just need to be able to get a few decent ones.

I never really struggled with the AF when doing sports stuff on my 450D, and to be honest didn't really notice much difference when I moved to the 50D (the upgrade was more for ergonomic reasons than for features). Which left me wondering how the 5DII measures up to the other two models I've used before in terms of autofocus performance? I know it's outclassed by the 7D and 1D in that department, but could anyone shed some light on how it measures up to the two models I've used?

Sorry for such a long-winded post, I'm pretty much dead set on upgrading, but just want to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot! Cheers,

Chris
 
compared to a 500D AF isn't any faster (wouldn't really expect it to be as it really will be mostly down to the lens and how fast the motor can shift the elements to the right place) but it is more accurate at wider apertures, imo.

i find AI servo nails it nearly every time.... i find myself using this mode when i'd normally have used one shot simply because it automatically compensates for the movement of me and/or the subject.

outer focus points are pretty accurate close up (and at wide apertures) but i notice sometimes they front focus occasionally when the subject is far away, but the centre point always nails it in those situations.
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
I moved from the 50D to 5D2 and haven't noticed any difference in focus speed.
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Awesome, thanks for that!


Shine On said:
Take a look at my Goodwood shots in the Transport section, I certainly wasn't having any AF problems with my 5d2 at the weekend.
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Goooooood, just what I want to hear :D


cuthbert said:
compared to a 500D AF isn't any faster (wouldn't really expect it to be as it really will be mostly down to the lens and how fast the motor can shift the elements to the right place) but it is more accurate at wider apertures, imo......
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Thanks! (y)

I know I shouldn't really have even worried, it's just the way some people talk about the 5D's AF you'd think it was incapable of focussing on anything that moves even a little bit!

Chris
 
Reports of poor AF on the 5D2 are nonsense. Compared to a 1D series, obviously not as fast, but then it doesn't run at 10fps. Compared to my old 40D I would say it's better. I've been surprised at just how good it is in all sorts of difficult situations.

Being full frame helps I think, as phase-detect AF has a dimensional element to it. A lot depends on the lens of course ;)
 
HoppyUK said:
Reports of poor AF on the 5D2 are nonsense. Compared to a 1D series, obviously not as fast, but then it doesn't run at 10fps. Compared to my old 40D I would say it's better. I've been surprised at just how good it is in all sorts of difficult situations.

Being full frame helps I think, as phase-detect AF has a dimensional element to it. A lot depends on the lens of course ;)
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Awesome, I thought that would be the case, but we seem to hear so much bad press about it that it starts to niggle away after a while! (y)

Now just to find the cash :D

Chris
 
chris321 said:
Awesome, I thought that would be the case, but we seem to hear so much bad press about it that it starts to niggle away after a while! (y)

Now just to find the cash :D

Chris
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TBH Chris it annoys me what you hear about the 5D2's AF. I was fully expecting it to be disappointing from what I'd read, but it's not.

What really impressed me was when I focus calibrated all my lenses (which they didn't need BTW!). Take the 24-105L, at 50mm and a distance of about 8ft to get a realistic range for real shooting. When set up carefully and using all my powers of detection, 100% blow ups etc (which is absolutely massive with 21mp) I reckoned I could just about detect focus within the depth of field to an accuracy of about 5-10mm. If you look very very very hard.

My 5D2, in normal room lighting and with only an f/4 lens, would nail it dead on every time. Turn the ring to min focus, it would nail it, turn it to infinity it and would nail it. There is no way on earth I could manually focus that accurately, not so long as I've got a hole in my aperture. Even on live view max magnification, the focusing ring just isn't fine enough to get it that good reliably. Majorly impressed.

Focus tracking in servo AF it might not be up to 1D standard, I guess that's to be expected, but I've done some motor sport with it (nothing very testing to be fair) and it was spot on.

So as far as I can see, accuracy is ace. Speed, I don't know but perfectly adequate for anything you're likely to use that camera for.

Rant over :D
 
I think that the 5D MKII can handle action photography very well, see some great rally shots with this camera, you just need to understand its limitations. If you're going to use the 5D as a machine gun using the fps then yes I think it might struggle to get each one of a series of images sharp, but then again its not a 1D. However if you're taking single shots or 2-3 shot burst for actions, then I see no problems at all.
 
chris321 said:
Right, to give a bit of context, I'm currently planning to upgrade to a 5DII from my current 50D for a few reasons, mostly ISO performance, full frame goodness :)D), and to play a bit with video. I'm moving away from wildlife and towards people photography, portraits, stage productions etc. While I know the 5DII will suit these applications I'll also be doing a bit of sport for the uni paper.

I know that it's not the weapon of choice for the professionals, but my livelihood isn't going to depend on me being able to nail every shot, I just need to be able to get a few decent ones.

I never really struggled with the AF when doing sports stuff on my 450D, and to be honest didn't really notice much difference when I moved to the 50D (the upgrade was more for ergonomic reasons than for features). Which left me wondering how the 5DII measures up to the other two models I've used before in terms of autofocus performance? I know it's outclassed by the 7D and 1D in that department, but could anyone shed some light on how it measures up to the two models I've used?

Sorry for such a long-winded post, I'm pretty much dead set on upgrading, but just want to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot! Cheers,

Chris
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I moved from the 50D to 7D I see you want to still do some sport I would have thought the 7D would suit you better good low light good fast focus good all round I have a friend who has the 7D and 5DmkII and he like the 7D best he did had the 5D before this as well. and remember for your sport the 7D has 8 FPS
 
Most of the complaints are just people bitching and moaning because canon insist on giving the 5d limited focus points to differentiate it from other models. In actual use most of us will not really notice.
 
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