I found on the 60D with the 580EX II that my flash wasn't sitting exactly in the right place in my hot shoe. There was a little wiggle in the position, and that causes the AF assist beam to miss the AF point. Try focusing in a dark room on a white wall, see if your focus assist beam actually hits your selected AF point. Not sure if this is your issue, but it solved my problem.

stick was always rubbing up on my clothes and inadvertently setting my AF points weird as it bounced around during a shoot

Click to expand...

True. I've never had a camera with a joystick (hey, im 13) but when going over all the specs and looking at the images, I saw that canon had made some adjustments. They finally figured it out!

Yes but I'm unusual .

Click to expand...

I'll say. The only time I EVER turn IS off is when I'm shooting a long exposure at night (w/ the camera on a tripod of course). Plus, even if you have the steadiest monopod and an f/0.6 lens, IS will still help you.

Cory said:

My T1i along with its 135 f2 lens is remarkable for indoor sports regardless of conditions. Getting world-class results. If I could only figure out which zoom to get for outdoor sports.

Click to expand...

Try the 120-300mm f/2.8 OS. It is expensive though, and if you can afford that you probably would do well to look into a 7D as well. A cheaper zoom in that range is more likely; Canon 100-400mm could work, as could a 70-300mm.

I just want to say thank you to all that have replied, it has really helped. At this point I'm going Canon. Hope to interact with you guys in the future. Thanks again!

Nikon one has more horsepower with less carbon dioxide emission!

Sent my 5D II to California facility November 1, they received it 5th/Monday and by 7th had looked at it and sent me the estimate and bill deal which I paid that same day. Nothing since then, which is more than doubling the time my 10-22 just took. Finally called today as I'd have hoped to had this by Thanks Giving weekend. Was told they've had a back up there because of Sandy and they hope to get to it soon. For what it is worth, for anyone sending there or have recently sent there.

neuroanatomist said:

I don't believe Canon does 'stealth' updates.

Click to expand...

Not the hardware itself, but they might have ironed out some production variances (like more or less sharp corners) - the idea came to me when the discussion was if the 24-70 mk1 was sharp @f2.8 or not and some people said they couldn't be happier with recently produced samples.

But obviously nothing specific is known about the 17-40 so I'll just ignore the production date - thanks!

deeter said:

Can anyone explain to me why when I set my 5D II to TV mode, set a shutter speed of say 1/800 and take a picture it adjusts the shutter speed? Shouldn't it stay where I set it? I had an epic wildlife photo today but missed it because my camera adjusted my shutter speed. I was shooting in TV mode at 1/800 ISO 200 100-400 4.5-5.6 Lens and when I took the shot it adjusted to 1/20? ??? ? I am obviously missing something. Thanks for the advice in advance!!

Click to expand...

The image would be black at those settings. You would not have had anything at 1/800 sec but black.
You likely needed ISO 12800.
If you look thru the viewfinder or top lcd display, you will see the aperture flashing to tell you that you can't get the image at that setting.

SDsc0rch thank you for the reply great stuff!


Question, I know how to register an AF point (which will stay lit), I have the "joystick" so that when I press it, it goes to my center focus point...

How do you assign a 3rd AF point?

regards

Read the manual.

Well, if you want the most bang for your buck, a 5DII for a grand is an excellent deal: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/11/black-friday-sale-2?utm_source=LensRentals.com+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a3a9758161-Black_Friday_211_19_2012&utm_medium=email

My input is get both the Canon 17-40L and the Sigma 50mm 1.4 for about the same or less than your choices, then when you are ready/able to get your next lens, sell one of these, take maybe a $100 loss on the trade, and get the appropriate Canon upgrade for the one you sold. Then repeat for the second lens you aspire to. The key here is for all that time, you will have enjoyed about 90% of the benefit of having your cake and eating it too with both lenses, and at the end of it you basically get to the same place for about the same cost.

The Sigma lens is friggen awesome, btw. Truly stupendous. And it focuses faster than the 1.2. You may decide to suffer the indignity of not sporting the red ring and just own that sucker for good.

Also, I find that if you take reasonable care of your lenses, eBay is a great way to monetize what you don't need any more. People actually get silly with how much they will pay for used stuff, often paying more than the rebate prices for new lenses with warranties.

Hobby Shooter said:

Ah thanks, might try the DPP and download the lens correction profiles, but if I save it to the cr2 file in DPP, can I pick it up in LR and continue editing? Would you think it's worth the extra work as opposed to just do it all in LR?

@mirekti, wouldn't you just select all files in the Develop mode and there tick the Enable Profile Corrections box?

Click to expand...

No, LR won't be able to recognize the lens corrections done by DPP. You need to export it from DPP as JPEG or TIFF then edit it with LR if you want to further edit the picture.

littlepilotdude said:

I shoot portraits, but I also shoot just general subjects.

Click to expand...

The f/4 IS is much more practical for me. Great lens! Smaller, lighter and cheaper, and it has IS. With improved high ISO performance on newer cameras, the f/2.8 version is less of a necessity than it used to be. I would not buy the f/2.8 version without IS.

Some months ago, I noticed that Myer were having a 20% off sale in their camera department, so I went in and asked if they had a 5D MkIII in stock.
The guy checked up and said that they didn't have any of them in stock, but could order one in for me.
I asked if he ordered it, would I still get 20% off the RRP, and he said yes I would.
So, I ordered my 5D3 from him and 4 days later it arrived in and I ended up saving around $400 from the cheapest Aussie stock I could find at the time, and I even got a $75.00 gift card with it as an extra bonus.

Sometimes, you have to keep your nose to the ground to get the best deals, and sometimes, they come from the most unexpected places.

Thanks for the input guys. I think you are both correct. I'll probably buy one locally when I'm ready.

neuroanatomist said:

TexPhoto said:

I had an 85mm f1.2 for a while, and I don't think I ever got 1 sharp photo of a child. The kids just move too fast.

Click to expand...

You just have to catch them when they stop to smell the flowers...


EOS 7D, EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, 1/250 s, f/2.2, ISO 100


EOS 5D Mark II, EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM @ 1/60 s, f/1.8, ISO 400

Click to expand...

Beautiful pictures!

neuroanatomist said:

sanj said:

And if I had to put a filter on these lenses it would be almost certainly a grad and that would go in the front.

Click to expand...

You'd need a pretty big grad filter (minimum front element size is 100mm diameter, filter would need to be even bigger) to put in front of a supertele lens,

Click to expand...

http://www.cokin.co.uk/pages/cokinX.htm

neuroanatomist said:

and some jury-rigged way to hold it there since there are no filter threads in front.

Click to expand...

There is a lens hood mount.

Just looking to see if there were any good options. There are plenty for some of the older cameras and I've had zero problems with the ones I purchased for my 30D.

That said the LP-4EN does have great life but when I begin shooting with the 1Dx in 37 degree water for 2 hours on end it will drain much faster than I'd like.

And apologies that I'm a college graduate looking for a job who shoots surfing which sadly pays next to nothing. Busted my butt to save up for the 1Dx and am working hard to get enough for a housing.

I'm satisfied with the sharpness of my 100-400, I just wish I could send it in to Canon to swap the old IS system for the new one...

neuroanatomist said:

leolol said:

We all know that the AF is better than the 6D, just look at the specs.

Click to expand...

Which specs are those? Number of points, or EV sensitivity of the center point? How many high-precision f/2.8-sensitive AF points does the D600 have?

Click to expand...

based on: with nikon d600, you can clearly see that dust being captured in images while canon lacks of this ability. in short, nikon focusing system is awsome and tack sharp... dust can be seen on images too LOL

i am just kidding...

Now that you mention Cinestyle, I remember doing a long shoot and it looked like there was almost a yellow haze over the image, does that sound familiar? I dont know why, but for some reason when the white balance is off with Cinestyle it almost creates a yellow film over the image. Try using a 3-way color corrector and pulling some yellow out of the highlights and that should help.

And in the future, I'd stay away from Cinestyle, it just ended up being way more trouble than it was worth. Compressed DSLR footage gives you limited headroom to make color adjustments, so by the time you get the Cinestyle footage back to looking accurate you've almost passed the threshold for how much adjusting you can do (before aliasing and artifacts start to appear). Also, make absolutely sure your white balance is correct before shooting, as getting it back to the correct WB in post takes away from how much more adjusting you can do.

cayenne said:

How does this work? Does everything have to be line of sight? I'm curious how difficult it is to do this if say, you had a couple of 430's on stands higher up than the crowd, say near a DJ stand at a wedding, on either side of you with your camera (with the 90EX) in the middle, slightly forward of them all pointing at a dance floor...

Would the slave flashes be able to 'see' the master controller? I've not been able to find a good description of how the non-radio controlled flashes worked....?

Click to expand...

Yes, it's optical (infrared) and yes, it's line of sight only.

If the noise performance is better than the iphone, then I guess I won't be buying this