1DX II AF Points with F8 Lenses

[Silverman]

As a Wildlife Photographer I use the 2x Extenter on the 600 f4 regulary and then end up with an F8 Lens setup of course.

With the current 1DX the F8 Lens setup is usable in many situations for myself - eg for moving subjects like consitent flying birds in flight. However - when it comes comes to image composition it can be really a mess having to use the central AF point only.
For non moving subjects the back focus AF technique is a workaround of course - but if the subjects moves (eg head) I would strongly prefer to be able to use servo AF - especially when the subject may have come really close and DOF is super - narrow. Changing extenters is not an option for my style of shooting due to enviroment / fear of subject etc.

So speaking for myself the "number one killing feature of a new Canon 1D is implementation of (much) more usuable AF points with F8 lenses.

Anyone to agree?

 

[Deleted member 91053]

Personally I haven't found this to be much of an issue with my 800 F5.6 + 1.4 Mk3 extender, however I agree that it would be a useful feature and probably fairly cheap the implement so long as you are not looking for all the AF points to be like this.
They are going to have to pull something out of the (Canon) hat to make a worthwhile advance on the 1DX - let's hope this may be one of them.

 

[RGF]

Agree that more than just the central AF point should work at F8.

Not necessarily all the focus points, perhaps 12-15 points.

 

[wopbv4]

indeed, I have the same experience with a 400 +2X.
Very often I have a bird that hops on a branch moving left to right and back in the frame. It would be great to be able to focus away from the centre

 

[rs]

Agree that more than just the central AF point should work at F8.

Not necessarily all the focus points, perhaps 12-15 points.

F8 AF across the frame would make a huge difference. Without it, the 7D II makes a lot of sense for reach limited situations. Use a lens with 1.4x less TC on it so it's f5.6 for the crop camera AF system instead of f8 on FF, resulting in 65 cross type AF points across a large proportion of the frame.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Like many other camera features, its not a trivial thing. Even getting the f/8 center point was a chore for Canon, and it was added as a firmware upgrade. It still has marginal performance. We'd all like it to improve, of course.

 

[scottkinfw]

Could this be a firmware update, of does it mean a major update the the focusing points?

sek

Like many other camera features, its not a trivial thing. Even getting the f/8 center point was a chore for Canon, and it was added as a firmware upgrade. It still has marginal performance. We'd all like it to improve, of course.

 

[StudentOfLight]

Could this be a firmware update, of does it mean a major update the the focusing points?

sek

Like many other camera features, its not a trivial thing. Even getting the f/8 center point was a chore for Canon, and it was added as a firmware upgrade. It still has marginal performance. We'd all like it to improve, of course.

I'm pretty sure that if they could've done it then they would've done it. Autofocus is a critical feature of the top-of-the-line 1D-X and would have earned them bragging rights over Nikon. No doubt if it was doable then it would be available. I'm convinced that newer AF module would be needed to enable more f/8 points.

I don't plan of getting the 1D-Next but am interested in the 5D Mark-IV which will hopefully share the same AF system as the flagship model.
It would be nice to have three f/8 AF expansion clusters (centre, left and right) to give more compositional flexibility.

 

[scyrene]

I would get a fair amount of use from this, but I don't know if it can be done easily or at all. You can fool the camera with tape over the contacts, I believe, but the AF accuracy/speed on non-central AF points is said to be very much worse. It's a matter of the physics of how this kind of AF works, isn't it? So I don't know if they can improve it - certainly within their tolerances.