Your Canon EOS-1D X user tips

[Viggo]

Reikan Focal with 1d X support released (version 1.6)

Excellent, thanks for the update!! 

FWIW, just like the 5DIII you need to use the MSC mode, fully automatic calibration isn't available.

Did you get it to work at all?

Mine won't recognize the camera half the time, then not restore settings, then error trying to set it up, and when it finally managed to run a whole test, the distance to target was set at 3,5 meters,but FoCal said 6,9 meters, and the adjustment was WAY off, -5 while I had mine at +2. The Light was 10,4 EV outdoors. Evenly lit and all that.

[neuroanatomist]

Haven't tried it yet.  No real need, since I did almost all my lenses already with full manual.  The only calibrations I haven't done are the 70-200 II with the TCs (and actually, I just sold my 1.4x II and ordered a 1.4x III that hasn't shipped yet).  I'll probably give it a try within a couple of weeks. 

Question - once you got it to work, how long did a single run take you?  Taking the 83 shots I capture for a full manual set takes me about 10 min.

[Viggo]

Haven't tried it yet.  No real need, since I did almost all my lenses already with full manual.  The only calibrations I haven't done are the 70-200 II with the TCs (and actually, I just sold my 1.4x II and ordered a 1.4x III that hasn't shipped yet).  I'll probably give it a try within a couple of weeks. 

Question - once you got it to work, how long did a single run take you?  Taking the 83 shots I capture for a full manual set takes me about 10 min.

Yeah it took at least 10 minutes, but even then the results is useless, so I don't know when it works properly. I 've tried three computers with different windows now.

When I validate target it says Distance is 10,3 meters now, but I measured my self, and it's 3,2 meters!

[neuroanatomist]

Did you measure the line on the target and enter that value in the optimization setup? 

With the 7D and 5DII, the distance wasn't that accurate either, but the results were valid.

[Viggo]

Did you measure the line on the target and enter that value in the optimization setup? 

With the 7D and 5DII, the distance wasn't that accurate either, but the results were valid.

Yeah, no I didn't, well, actually I did, but I measured wrong, because I was dumb enough to begin with this before I had my first coffee.

I have printed a few different verisons today and got something that worked. I had to use a lamp eventually because the daylight never came above 7,5 ev today, I don't what's going on with this "summer".

But now all lenses are done, and I also checked AF consistency and it turns out the 50 L is 97,9 and everything else is 99,5. I 'm pretty shocked. BTW is "Quality of focus" the same as overall sharpness? Or how do I read that?

I'm also surprised that the 50 L is sharper at 1,8 than 2.0-2.2. I have always used it at 1,2 and 1,8 or at 5,6 for sharpness. The sharpest was f5.0.

It couldn't calibrate my 100 L IS for some reason, but only the misses uses it anyway 

[kaihp]

But now all lenses are done, and I also checked AF consistency and it turns out the 50 L is 97,9 and everything else is 99,5. I 'm pretty shocked. BTW is "Quality of focus" the same as overall sharpness? Or how do I read that?

If it's the quality measure of the AF consistency test, then it's 100*Qbest/Qmean (actually, manual says (Qbest/Qmean*100)-100.0, but that is obviously wrong). I did not find the "Quality of Focus" measure for an individual shot defined anywhere in the manuals.

[Aaron78]

Don't mean to butt in on this post, but does anyone that owns the 1dx have anything they don't like so far? I sold my 5dII to get one, and really loved the sharpness from it but wanted an updated system. Can you crop photos as well with the 1dx as, say, the 5dII and 5dIII and be still super sharp? How does everyone feel about the dynamic range? Thank you

[bdunbar79]

Don't mean to butt in on this post, but does anyone that owns the 1dx have anything they don't like so far? I sold my 5dII to get one, and really loved the sharpness from it but wanted an updated system. Can you crop photos as well with the 1dx as, say, the 5dII and 5dIII and be still super sharp? How does everyone feel about the dynamic range? Thank you

I can say that the exposure is more accurate and the colors are more accurate, on the 1DX vs either 5D's.  You cannot quite crop as far on the 1DX as you can on the 5D3.  It's not a huge difference, just be careful about lens choice vs. object you are shooting to ensure that you don't have to do a ton of cropping.  For most typical crops, the 1DX is just great.  The pictures from the 1DX tend to look a bit better than the 5D3. 

[bdunbar79]

This is an exposure out of cam.  As you can see, it is high sun overhead, but I couldn't control the time of the parade, so I went with the 1DX because I KNEW it would meter in auto ISO better than the 5D3.  I shot this at 70mm, with a 70-200L II IS lens, 1/500s, f/11, ISO 500 (auto ISO), with CWA metering.  The 5D3 probably would have pushed the histogram to the right more, but not with the 1DX.

[Viggo]

+1 the exposure doesn't seem like a big selling point, but my God it is!!! The 1d X is almost completely perfect and 100% consistent.

[Aaron78]

Don't mean to butt in on this post, but does anyone that owns the 1dx have anything they don't like so far? I sold my 5dII to get one, and really loved the sharpness from it but wanted an updated system. Can you crop photos as well with the 1dx as, say, the 5dII and 5dIII and be still super sharp? How does everyone feel about the dynamic range? Thank you

I can say that the exposure is more accurate and the colors are more accurate, on the 1DX vs either 5D's.  You cannot quite crop as far on the 1DX as you can on the 5D3.  It's not a huge difference, just be careful about lens choice vs. object you are shooting to ensure that you don't have to do a ton of cropping.  For most typical crops, the 1DX is just great.  The pictures from the 1DX tend to look a bit better than the 5D3.

I would never crop if i didn't need to, but small birds can be tough and i can't quite afford a 600mm f4 at the moment so it may be required from time to time. Thanks for the feedback.

[Viggo]

So I thought it was the Wakeboard finals today, but no, it was only wakesurf, yesterday was wakeBOARD. Wakesurf are for chilli'n and when you're hung over, so very little to watch and try camerawise.

Completely flat but bright (backlit) made it even worse.

I used Case 6 and bakced off the auto-switch one step, seemed to work great. What an AF system this is!

Here's an example. Had to use gradients to not end up with suuperfalt light like the raw was.

[Richard Lane]

Glad you're happy with the results.  It certainly looks like it nailed focus.

Now, we all need longer lenses again!

[Viggo]

Glad you're happy with the results.  It certainly looks like it nailed focus.

Now, we all need longer lenses again!

Yeah, every shot was pretty much as sharp as they come with the 135. I struggled a bit with the MA, my FoCal software said -9, but I had it at -7 before and went back and forth on those, ending up on the last shots at -8. Came home and calibrated again with way longer distance to target, and ended up with -8 

The diffcult thing was to keep the surfer focused when the waves came up between me and the surfer. I couldn't use Case 2 as this would lead to a lot of OOF pictures. I backed down the auto switch, as mentioned, and it helped a great deal.

Any other hints for both tracking erradic movement AND ignoring subjects that momentarely block my subject? I used 8 pt surrounding, and I must say, it worked way better than anything I have ever tried (I had a 5d3 and 1d4)

[bdunbar79]

Viggo,

I fire a 3-4 shot burst on every shot I take.  That way at least 1 or 2 will be spot on.  If you depend on one shot in any Canon DSLR's AI Servo mode, the hit rate with something this challenging will be less than 70%, in my experience.  So switch to AI Servo, "L" burst rate, which is 3 max.  Or you can select "H" and shoot say, 4 shot bursts.  I've found this to be superior to tracking cases and hit rates.