What's the real world difference of the 60d/7d/5d(3)/1d af systems?

[Marsu42]

I've got a 60d and might upgrade to another body sooner or later. Having used the af system of the 60d - which is the same of the 40d/50d afaik - for over a year I am wondering what's the much praised af systems of the 7d or 5d(3)/1d are actually good for. Imho the 60d hasn't got a working af, but rather a "focus helper", but it works ok for static objects with a little recomposing. For moving objects, it does track them, but choose "servo af" is all you can customize.

Obviously, more expensive af systems have better low light capability, higher precision and higher speed. But apart from that...

* What features of the "pro" af systems really do make the difference for you? Can I tell the af to constantly backfocus so I have the eyes of a portrait in focus instead of the nose? Do these af systems remember which (part of a) moving object is tracked even if obscured from time to time?

[dunkers]

The 7D/5D/1D  AF systems can actually track lol.

The AF systems on those are much better for sports and moving objects. The AF points litter the screen and your camera can actually follow the subject without you having to rely only on center point.

Whenevr I shoot sports with my 60D I only use center point because the other focus points arte really worthless because theyre lften too far apart and the camera gets confusedand focuses on something else. Ive had some photos with the framing spot on, but thecamera focused on the background.

Whereas for the other bodies, your camera is able to trackmovements more precisely

[Viggo]

The 5d2 can't track...

The only lens I'm using now is the Zeiss 28mm to have any hope of getting any images in proper focus.

Calibrated lenses, but that's only for outside use. The 5d2 is so bad in lower indoor light with AF is not even funny. People keep saying the center point of the 5d is one of the best Canon has ever made, which is completely untrue. Outdoors the 5d is fantastic camera, IQ is waay above the mk4 in every term (at least under 1600 iso), but AF is limited to ONE point, and that doesn't work either in lower light. I have 1 meter frontfocus, even with one shot indoors. And the lenses work perfect outside.

People may argue with my post, but unless you have tried with these three lenses wide open, 24 L II, 50 L and 85 L II, don't bother. at 2,8 I'm sure the 5d is working okay to some extent, but not with larger apertures. The mk4 demolished it no matter what people may claim for center point abilities.

I'm waiting sooooo much for the 1d X to finally GET HERE!

[Viggo]

What's better with the 5d3, 7d and 1d is a much more flexible system, you have much more points to choose from, they're more sensitive to light (crosstype points) and they have software and are built around continous focus. You also have the option to tailor your AF to ignore subject that comes briefly in front of your subject, the proper use of expansion points and so on.

All of thismakes sure that even if you loose your subject for 0.5 seconds, the camera doesn't try to refocus elsewhere, but concentrating on your subject.

You'll find that choosing between 45 or more points makes your compositions waaay better also.

[loudpictures]

For me it's the automatically switching AF point when turning the camera from 'portrait' to 'landscape'.
On my 7D, it makes things really easy and fast.

I never had a "lower" camera (started off with a 500D, but thats too long ago to remember), but regularly I shoot mkIV and 1DsIII also. Love the AF of the 1D Series, even when I must say that I don't need an AF point every 3 mm. In that case you can just drop 2/3 of them to step from left to right more quickly.
Most important on 7D and bigger cameras: the outer AF-points are working flawlessly.
With the 5D, I never had fun (I mainly shoot concerts and in low light I had to use the AF-center-point, crop the pictures afterwards - gone were the 21MP).

So - I am really looking forward to my new 5D III. I had the opportunity to play around with it for a few hours last week, and its an absolutely perfect machine - so far. I will see what happens in real-life situations, but it seems that the AF System is way beyond everything I had in my hands until now.

(Just to make that clear: I have used D3s and D700 also)

 

[Marsu42]

You'll find that choosing between 45 or more points makes your compositions waaay better also.

@all: Thanks for your input so far... but @ viggo: I don't understand why I'd need 45 af points for, except for tracking moving objects. But for static objects, I'm fine selecting one of the 60d's outer af points and then recomposing a litte - worked fine so far for me, even with fast lenses (50/1.8 and 100/2.. Usually, I'm mapping the af point not to the shutter, so I only af once and shoot many.

[bycostello]

the big difference is camera construction.... 

[smirkypants]

It's not just for sports, but also portraits. "Focus and recompose" can mean lost shots when shooting a prime lens at less than f2 or so. If you like to shoot portraits with the lens wide open (say f1.4), the depth of field is tiny for objects that are close. The difference between sharp and slightly blurry can be measured in fractions of an inch. With the 5D2 you focus on the eye and recompose, but the problem is that the angle you shoot at and the distance to the eye changes with recomposition, so you may get blurry results. If the focus points are true outside of the center point, you can quickly put the focus point on the eye with the joystick, focus, not have to recompose and nail the shot.

Whether or not this is a "real world difference" depends upon whether or not you have a fast prime and you take portraits wide open with it. To me it's a real world difference, but to most it isn't.

[Viggo]

You'll find that choosing between 45 or more points makes your compositions waaay better also.

@all: Thanks for your input so far... but @ viggo: I don't understand why I'd need 45 af points for, except for tracking moving objects. But for static objects, I'm fine selecting one of the 60d's outer af points and then recomposing a litte - worked fine so far for me, even with fast lenses (50/1.8 and 100/2.. Usually, I'm mapping the af point not to the shutter, so I only af once and shoot many.

It's a lot of times where you can't recompose, aka, at any moving subject, or VERY shallow dof, I use only fast primes, and recompose is not an option. Plus on a 60d compared to a FF camera you have a wider spread of AF points and more dof.