Maxis Gamez said:
jrista said:
Maxis Gamez said:
People talk all the time about the AF of the 5D MKII not being so great and so on but with a good technique anything can be possible. Here are few images.
I love my 5D MKII that's for sure!
First off, great photos. Love the bald eagle, fantastic shot!
As for "anything can be possible", sure, but thats not the point. Every one of your shots is center focused, and thats one of the complaints I've heard from many bird photographers that the 5D II AF doesn't really offer much in the way if in-flight AF tracking without limiting composition options. Generally speaking, better, faster AF systems improve the amount of keepers as well, limiting how frequently you encounter out of focus shots and the like. Finally, the ability to AF track at a high framerate increases the chances of getting an awesome shot with intriguing pose or other characteristics in focus.
Sure, anything is possible...but its more the ease of getting that great shot than it simply being possible that having a nice AF system brings to the table.
You do understand that the 5D MKII was designed for landscapes, studio and pretty much anything that doesn't move fast. So why the argument over a slow AF if most people including myself uses the camera specifically for that. In fact, I often create landscapes in manual focus.
That's why we have the 7D and Mark IV.
PS: Some of the images I create with the 5D MKII were created using all 9 focusing points. Again, a good understanding of your camera availability and a good focusing including tracking, the camera will perform just fine.
I use it all the time with my Canon 800mm with great success. Check out my website to see more images created with this camera and 7D.
www.gvisions.org
Thanks!
Sure, we all understand that the 5D II AF was not designed for action on any level. The complaint I think most potential 5D III buyers have is that Canon has been extremely lax with the AF on the 5D line, in comparison to the competition. Most prosumer Nikon bodies have far more advanced AF than on any xxxD, xxD, and even the 5D II body. A lot of Canon users, including myself, ask the question:
How can Canon keep calling the 5D line a professional camera body when its been perpetually gimped by the most atrocious AF system Canon has to offer, outperformed by all cross-type 9-pt AF of the xxD line, the all cross-type 19-pt AF of the 7D, obviously all the 1D bodies (even those a couple generations old), as well as most Nikon bodies (which have anywhere from 30 to over 50 AF points these days!!)
I think most 5D II owners have used the camera for still scenes because it just wasn't readily capable for most action scenes, but thats a limitation imposed by Canon, not necessarily the owners of 5D II's. I can completely understand many people ditching the 5D line in favor of any one of Nikons prosumer or semi-pro bodies, simply because they are more capable in a general sense these days. For those of us who are heavily invested in Canon lenses, it can be rather frustrating to see the competition racing past Canon in terms of features (particularly AF), yet be stuck using something or having new options that is perceived as inferior.
Personally, I'm too heavily invested in Canon lenses to switch brands. I like a lot of things about Canon cameras, so I wouldn't likely switch even if I had the option. But it is still irksome to see Nikon significantly outperforming Canon in the ISO/read noise/DR department, putting advanced AF systems in almost ALL of their cameras, offering better full-color metering systems on most of their cameras (the 1D X is the FIRST Canon body to get such a thing, and here's to hoping the 5D III gets the new 100k pixel metering and AF assist system as well), etc.
Canon needs to compete. They have demonstrated they can with the 1D X...now they need to prove they WILL with all the rest of their cameras released from here on out. AF is just a talking point when it comes to the things Canon has dropped the ball on relative to the competition.
