benperrin said:
Jack Douglas said:
Why harp at poor Rishi when there is stuff like this out there. This guy is hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_FtiZB9DYQ
Jack
When I first started I used to be a sheep and would believe all the bs that reviewers like this would spew forth. I've found though that it's best to use the gear yourself and find out what you need in a camera. I don't need a high fps camera for 99% of my shooting so someone claiming that a camera is a turd because it doesn't have cfast doesn't translate for me. I love landscape photos and so the dr issues should be a bigger deal to me but they aren't. People turn the most minuscule issues into deal breakers. Even if a certain technology has never been available in the past people act like great photos can't be taken without said technology.
This will be a great camera. I'll probably buy one when the price goes down a bit.
Re: the 'bs that reviewers like this spew forth' and turning 'the most miniscule issues into deal breakers', allow me to quote the conclusion of the motocross piece being referred to throughout this thread as evidence of our incompetence, bias, overexertion on features, etc.:
"Obviously, both the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and Nikon D5 are in a league of their own when it comes to professional sports cameras...
In the end, we saw firsthand the advantages of a ridiculous burst rate and practically bottomless buffer while shooting objects that move very, very fast. We saw that the
1D X Mark II shoots at a noticeably higher burst rate than the D5, and that it is
able to track subjects noticeably better than other Canon cameras, including the EOS 7D Mark II and original 1D X. However, the Canon still can't match the Nikon's uncanny ability to track objects reliably and accurately as they progress across the frame while also coming toward or moving away from the camera. Regardless,
both are impressively capable photographic machines worthy of professional sports photographers."
This is what we actually write (is it unreasonable?). Then we get labeled as being biased/incompetent by people who dislike one aspect of the entire piece where their camera didn't win. Then that's the conversation spread on these forums, which then turns CR readers off from potentially useful info they could've benefitted from. Like unfocused, who wrote: "I am not thrilled with any of the Canon autofocus tracking for sports photography. I'd love to be able to focus on a single player and then have the autofocus continue to track that player as they move through the scene. Maybe there is a way to do that, but I sure can't find it in any of their manuals or online resources." He would've benefited from reading our piece, but was probably told not to, because DPR is a joke, after all, right? Another with the same sort of feeling despite knowing of the manual point selection for Auto area AF might, on the other hand, benefit from knowing that there are cameras that are more reliable in this regard (1D X II over 5D IV, for example, or, yes heaven forbid, D5 over 1D X II).
Yet readers are turned off from this very information because of erroneous claims of bias and incompetence. And that is sad. I know of people who, for example, really did care about DR, yet never knew about the superiority of some cameras in this regard, because was fed erroneous information right here on CR that (1) it doesn't matter, (2) DXO is paid off, and (3) that DPP solves all your DR problems. So he was led to believe there
actually weren't any differences, which is patently false. That's the kind of misinformation that was spread for years (probably still is), and it's particularly worrying when it comes from someone that otherwise appears knowledgeable and perfectly capable of logical reasoning. Because that sort of person earns trust, and yet then must be
willfully misleading people by disallowing any negative conversations about his favorite brand by balking at, and continually trying to discredit, any source of any negative discourse. I saw the crusades against jrista, with dilbert, etc. - all of whom are, I'm sure, trolls in everyone's book here, right? Is that the truth though? It's a similar story now for AF subject tracking.
What ends up happening is that posts and experiences like Sharlin, who said: "At least with my lowly 80D - and I fully admit I'm a newbie at using complex AF systems - with full 45pt mode the AF just often gets distracted and locks on contrasty background elements when it loses the actual subject for a moment. OTOH with enough subject separation it seems to work pretty well. The Live View Face&Tracking is definitely superior, though, as seems to be the case with the 5D4 as well."
... get buried amidst all the erroneous claims of bias and incompetence. He sees
exactly the behavior that we refer to and have been digging into the causes (relying too heavily on phase information vs. metering sensor for subject tracking, and the ramifications on which shooting scenarios this works vs. doesn't work well for). He sees this either because his shooting scenarios highlight these shortcomings, or because he doesn't have blind bias, or some combination thereof. But all he hears here is how he shouldn't listen to us (whether it's us telling readers how to more effectively use their system, or comparing it to other cameras/systems), and that's a missed opportunity for education.
And if you were to just step back and ask: 'who is more likely to be biased: the user of only 1 system, or the multiple users of multiple systems who are required to fundamentally understand principles of AF and then use
all camera systems'? As I've said before - we're certainly biased, but toward photography-accelerating technologies, not brands. It's our job to dissect which technologies are better at what use-cases/scenarios, so you can judge how suitable a particular camera/lens/system is to you for your needs. At some point we have to offer our opinions, sure, and we do when it comes to how good/bad performance along any one axis applies to certain use-cases. But we're transparent about why we think so, so you can decide whether to listen to or ignore our findings.
But what perplexes me is the anger with which data/opinion we present is vehemently attacked and ascribed to all sorts of malicious intent and incompetence in an effort to discredit. When further 'discussion' uncovers we actually knew what we were talking about all along, the other side can't publicly admit that, because then they'd look stupid, so they double down. And that's the vicious cycle (I, on the other hand, have very publicly admitted when there was an oversight:
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=30411.msg611230#msg611230. And, of course when there wasn't).
On Pentax Forums I'm an anti-Pentax Canon fanboy, after the Pentax K-1 review. On Sony forums after the a7 II review, I was labeled a 'hack' scientist for daring to suggest the a7/II's low light Raw noise performance fell to the level of the best APS-C sensors, despite all our controlled lighting/SNR tests proving it. And after the Nikon VR analysis, I was labeled an anti-Nikon Canon fanboy for daring to suggest there were vibration issues with Nikon because, if there were, how could knowledge of it not be more widespread (nevermind a lot of people felt safe 'coming out of the woods' and admitting they'd seen the same issues after we published the article - a reminder that tones of discussions in forums can be stifling to knowledge).
What neuro attributes to anti-Canon bias when I joined is actually us just revamping and modernizing our testing. We didn't actually analyze Raw files before (but when we did, it brought to light just as many issues with Sony files as it did Canon). AF analysis was often restricted to one paragraph; now, we study multiple aspects of it across multiple systems every day - because it is probably the most complex thing about a camera you can test (so I fully appreciate the concerns re: 'how can you test AF objectively?' -- we think about this
every day). And not all our tests show Canon to be bad - that would be ludicrous. The 1D X II scored an 89% Gold, Canons nail Z-axis refocusing for steadily approaching subjects almost all the time in our tests, Canon's DPAF *does* nail subject tracking, we have the highest regard and only positive things to say about all of Canon's newest lenses, as well as Canon colors, like the following quote from my 5DS review:
"JPEGs exhibit the pleasing Canon colors we've come to expect, particularly when it comes to skintones. I spend countless hours fiddling with Nikon and Sony Raw colors to get the skintones I desire; compare that to the mere minutes I spent on the model shots on this page."
The words of an anti-Canon Nikon/Sony fanboy? Or just the words of someone who tries very hard to be realistic about positives and shortcomings of every system, just trying to share our observations and test results?
What's particularly funny re: the meat of the discussion here in this thread is that: for all the claims of our
emphasis on Auto area selection (which as I understand none of you care about, and neither do we except as a fall-back method), the reality is there are only a
couple sentences about the actual auto selection not being very successful (or as successful as the D5) in the motocross shootout scenario, with the real information being that Canon users should probably switch to manual point selection in Auto area.
It wasn't even talked about in the conclusion of that piece. So I'd ask: who is it that's making a big deal of Auto area AF? Us? Or the critics?
For your reference, the piece being referred to:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/6990762465/motor-drive-and-motocross-with-the-nikon-d5-and-canon-1d-x-ii
