400 f/2.8L II IS on sunny days and white jerseys

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bdunbar79

bdunbar79

May 16, 2012
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#1
Has anyone noticed a decrease in AF accuracy on bright sunny days where your team is wearing white jerseys. I am often disappointed in the keeper rate in these situations where the camera/lens seems to focus nowhere in particular even though it says you've locked on the player. I noticed it seems to be worse with the 400 than with the 300 I used to own. Does the bright white fool the AF system? Just wondering if anyone else had some of these troubles over time. Sunday the soccer game was at 1pm and it was particularly bad. I post an example: 1st frame shows the blurry jersey and face, 2nd is better. 3rd frame I can't figure out but the "brightness" made the AF jumpy I recall. I didn't keep any of these for submission obviously.

Thanks!
 

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#3
If you are focusing on a white jersey, and have spot AF set on the body, the lack of contrast will make AF struggle. A 300mm might be seeing more of the subject and give more detail to work with.


I might be way off here, since you provided little info about the settings or focus points.
 
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#4
I am guessing you are shooting with a 1DX, and I think that might be more the issue. It is certainly possible the AF sensor is just blown out and can't see the contrast. I shoot 1D4 and a 400 f2.8 IS I, but I have never had a chance to shoot in bright sunlight.

Maybe run some tests with an ND filter? Crumpled white T-shirt in the back yard.
 
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#6
I have noticed that somewhat on the 5DIII or 1D X, and I generally use all AF points with a pre-selected point in AI Servo for those kinds of shots. I have noticed that the AF has a bit more trouble locking on white, and staying locked on white (see missed focus (front focused) sample below during a tracking shot - this is frame 5 or 6 I think). It looks like there's very little contrast in the white shirt which might be throwing it off as the others said. Also, I wonder if the iTR color tracking is thrown off by the lack of color.

My solution has been to try to focus lock on the face and track from there. Orientation-linked spot metering works very well in combination with a lock on the face, too.

i-MZGWdMZ-XL.jpg
 
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#9
I've not had this problem, I don't tend to shoot sports, but I often use the expanded AF selection. Would this help maybe? It might just help if the problem is to little contrast on the white. Maybe a polarizing filter would help.
 
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#10
Skulker said:
I've not had this problem, I don't tend to shoot sports, but I often use the expanded AF selection. Would this help maybe? It might just help if the problem is to little contrast on the white. Maybe a polarizing filter would help.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not sure. Before when I was shooting sports I was using a 300 f/2.8L I IS and so therefore I was closer to the subject. This is worse as the distance from me to subject increases as well so it could just be the 300 had more contrast to detect. Either way, I missed a lot of shots and I'm at least going to have Canon check it out as I'm sending it in tomorrow.

We'll see. Thanks.
 
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#11
Yes! It's amazing the timeliness of your post! My shoot yesterday was a mess... 1DX & 400 2.8 II... white jerseys... I also have a local friend that's been complaining about the same thing. She sent her X into Canon, as always they are insanely vague as to what they've done and/or are doing and then send it back with more vagueness... :)

We tend to be having more of an issue with bursts not having all four or five images sharp. I have the newer 400, she has the older, we're both feeling like we're not getting good consistent focus. The team I shoot the most of is predominantly white at home for soccer but for football they wear royal and I don't seem to have as much issue at night under the crappy lights... yesterday during the day (11 am and 1 pm games) I had fits with the AF tracking and locking for an entire burst....

I'm planning on calling CPS but I'm gathering they're just going to tell me to adjust the 1st Image Priority and the 2nd Image Priority to focus instead of release... which is just "corporating up" to me... slow my camera down so it can keep up... that's not why I have as many X's as I do...

I've been shooting on the 4 additional assist points, I move the Cases around generally between 1 and 4 but have even tried 2 and 6 to try to get it to work "better"... it's very frustrating!

bdunbar79 said:
Has anyone noticed a decrease in AF accuracy on bright sunny days where your team is wearing white jerseys. I am often disappointed in the keeper rate in these situations where the camera/lens seems to focus nowhere in particular even though it says you've locked on the player. I noticed it seems to be worse with the 400 than with the 300 I used to own. Does the bright white fool the AF system? Just wondering if anyone else had some of these troubles over time. Sunday the soccer game was at 1pm and it was particularly bad. I post an example: 1st frame shows the blurry jersey and face, 2nd is better. 3rd frame I can't figure out but the "brightness" made the AF jumpy I recall. I didn't keep any of these for submission obviously.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
#12
Please post back here with what Canon comes up with.

I've also sent an email to a Canon fella I met at a Canon Workshop, I'm hoping he might be able to shed some light on things...

bdunbar79 said:
Skulker said:
I've not had this problem, I don't tend to shoot sports, but I often use the expanded AF selection. Would this help maybe? It might just help if the problem is to little contrast on the white. Maybe a polarizing filter would help.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not sure. Before when I was shooting sports I was using a 300 f/2.8L I IS and so therefore I was closer to the subject. This is worse as the distance from me to subject increases as well so it could just be the 300 had more contrast to detect. Either way, I missed a lot of shots and I'm at least going to have Canon check it out as I'm sending it in tomorrow.

We'll see. Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
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#13
I will let you know what happens!

Frustrated? Yes. It seems it front focuses but not that deep. I went from f/3.2 to f/5 and it was much less noticeable. My guess is the wide aperture and iTR metering of the 1Dx are both contributing because this is not a problem at night.
 
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#14
I would think the first couple shots have plenty of contrast for the AF. I can only guess the size of the AF point in those shots, but the girl in white has dark lettering, so that should be good, and if you had the AF sensor a little left it would see the white jersey against that black jersey and that could hardly get any better. those should have hit. The others are purple or that goalie shot, and i would think the camera sees those as very different than a the first two. You said that it's front focusing. maybe i've cocked up my terms but from my wife's laptop it looks like that ref is in focus and that he is further away than the girl in purple, so wouldn't that be back focusing? either way there isn't anyone anywhere near close enough to confuse the AF, and that looks like a problem. It would be interesting to see if a ND filter improved the situation. not that you should have to do something like that with the awesome gear you have. I hope someone is able to nail this down for you.
And most importantly, just drove past ODU this morning.
 
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#15
I always check the grass in such shots and use it as reference. First shots you posted seem front focused - grass in front of the ball and subject is in sharpest focus. In the examples w/ref on right side it seems they are back focused - grass behind the ball and subject is in sharpest focus. Right foot of ref is just about in plane with sharpest focus, his face is enough behind that plane that it is starting to get soft. Razor thin DOF isn't helping at all. Good luck getting resolution... let us know what you find out.
 
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#18
when i got my 300mm2.8 i used it with my 40d and 5d. I wasn't really that pleased with it. It never really seemed to be in focus, except under one condition. If i was using my 5d and shooting right up close to the minimum focusing distance even at 2.8 it was very good. I have no explanation for how that could be, i would think that would be very tough for the AF, but somehow it did very well. i took many photos of my kids this way and depending on the lighting i can see my reflection in their pupils. anyway, I sent it to canon for a checkup along with a cd with images as per their request. i got my lens back with a vague description of what they did and an invoice for something like 200$. If it was better i couldn't tell. fast forward to when i got my 5dmk3. that fixed it.
good luck man!
 
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