I am consistently getting significantly sharper pictures of my resident eagles and hawks in flight with my 6D over my 60D. In all cases I am using the same 400mm f/5.6 lens. I usually shoot at f/8 and 1/1000 sec or faster. I use the center focus point with both bodies, and use apurture priority with a typical ISO of 400. I continue to be very pleased with the 6D in all respects, and have no complaints about its "crippled" AF capabilities. I have never shot a 5D III or a 1DX, so I cannot compare them to my 6D. Are my results what one would expect?
Auto focus BIF 6D vs. 60D
- Thread starter nc0b
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I would say the results you are reporting are normal. I have had my 400mm 5.6 since I bought my Rebel XTi, and with every camera I bought after the XTi (40D,50D,7D,5D Mk 3) The autofocus performance and keeper rate when up. I shoot mostly nature and wildlife and I am talking about BIFs here for my conclusion about autofocus performance.
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nc0b said:
"Crippling" won't affect you if you wouldn't use the expanded capabilities in the first place, and using 6d or 60d for bif indicates you have no need for difficult multi-point tracking. The 6d af will do single point center fine for smaller apertures like your f8, potential problems only occur with fast lenses when single-point won't suffice.
That's because for these f2.8 it's no double cross-point but only has non-cross precision. You might never notice if you're focusing high-contrast objects though, but on low-contrast you can get more micro misses - at least, that's my experience, and probably the reason why most other cameras have real double-cross points.
As for your 60d, it might be a afma problem - Canon removed (yes, crippled) this option from 50d-60d and re-introduced it on the 70d. If your shots are regularly off to one side (near or far), that would be it. Otherwise at least my 60d feels snappier than my 6d, ymmv.
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The golden eagle was back yesterday when we arrived at the house on the Pawnee Grassland in CO. I got some static shots of him perched that were sharp, but once he took flight there were no keepers. I grabbed the 60D this time since it was handy in the car, as my wife had used it the day before. Previous weeks I had always chosen the 6D, so it was a good test to try the 60D again, which I have owned longer. By the way, the raptors are usually perched 200 feet away on one of my ham radio towers. They weren't around this summer, as they must have migrated further north. I haven't noticed any front focus or back focus issues with either the 400mm f/5.6 or the 300mm f/4. Of course I am not shooting at f/2.8 with less room for error. Before I purchased these two longer lenses I used my 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II with a 2X TC III. That worked ok for static shots but was a disaster with the hawks or eagles in flight. The slow AF and getting totally lost in the blue sky didn't work with any of the four bodies I own. Maybe the 5D Mk III or 1DX would work with the zoom / TC combination. I sold the TC III since it wasn't getting any use anymore. I do use the 1.4X TC III on my three lenses that are compatible. I have not done well with the 300mm on a 5D classic or 40D for BIF, though antelope in my yard and waterfowl in a lake have been quite satisfactory.
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