Malcolm Stewart
Well-known member
I'm getting one of those irrational spending urges - again!
Can anyone who's used the older Canon 500 f4.5L on a 5D or 1Ds (preferably both!!) advise regarding how well the AF works against waterfowl on water or land. (No problem against the sky.) On my 5D I'm using a mixture of OneShot and AIServo AF with the hidden AF points both enabled and disabled.
I bought a venerable EF300 f2.8L some time ago, and only recently have started to get to grips with it on my 5D. Some shots have been absolute crackers in the sharpness department. Rather too many others have been less than acceptable, and I'm wondering where I'm going wrong. I am now aware of how narrow the DoF is at around f5.6 and distances of around 10m, and am able to distinguish this from what appears to be front focusing. The lens appears to focus correctly based on what I can see in the viewfinder, but 100% checks on the monitor at home frequently show otherwise.
Too small an object to focus on? (Hence interest in EF500 f4.5L.)
Poor AF? So I ran a series using same lens and my EOS3 and the hit rate against similarly placed birds seemed somewhat better. But careful static tests (with my 5D camera mounted both horizontally and vertically, but haven't checked yet at 45°) also show the 5D's AF apparently to be spot on - with no hint of front focusing!
For some shots of birds hiding in undergrowth, I've used manual focusing and they've been OK.
Any ideas would be welcome - I'm using a sturdy tripod for many shots, and quite often hand-holding when shooting birds in flight.
Did some further tests today, and I'm wondering whether my old 300 f2.8L is occasionally (frequently?!) not getting to the correct focus position, and whether this might be subject to lens tilt? If I misfocus totally the lens has no problem in shooting from Inf to close-up and back again, so there don't appear to be any friction high spots in the USM, but something's not right.
Many thanks
Can anyone who's used the older Canon 500 f4.5L on a 5D or 1Ds (preferably both!!) advise regarding how well the AF works against waterfowl on water or land. (No problem against the sky.) On my 5D I'm using a mixture of OneShot and AIServo AF with the hidden AF points both enabled and disabled.
I bought a venerable EF300 f2.8L some time ago, and only recently have started to get to grips with it on my 5D. Some shots have been absolute crackers in the sharpness department. Rather too many others have been less than acceptable, and I'm wondering where I'm going wrong. I am now aware of how narrow the DoF is at around f5.6 and distances of around 10m, and am able to distinguish this from what appears to be front focusing. The lens appears to focus correctly based on what I can see in the viewfinder, but 100% checks on the monitor at home frequently show otherwise.
Too small an object to focus on? (Hence interest in EF500 f4.5L.)
Poor AF? So I ran a series using same lens and my EOS3 and the hit rate against similarly placed birds seemed somewhat better. But careful static tests (with my 5D camera mounted both horizontally and vertically, but haven't checked yet at 45°) also show the 5D's AF apparently to be spot on - with no hint of front focusing!
For some shots of birds hiding in undergrowth, I've used manual focusing and they've been OK.
Any ideas would be welcome - I'm using a sturdy tripod for many shots, and quite often hand-holding when shooting birds in flight.
Did some further tests today, and I'm wondering whether my old 300 f2.8L is occasionally (frequently?!) not getting to the correct focus position, and whether this might be subject to lens tilt? If I misfocus totally the lens has no problem in shooting from Inf to close-up and back again, so there don't appear to be any friction high spots in the USM, but something's not right.
Many thanks