manual focus on D60

hugo snip · Oct 18, 2002

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the 24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

SteveDude · Oct 18, 2002

What do you mean by "smaller viewfinder"?

I don't understand the question - the viewfinder is the same size and everying looks similar to my film ElanIIe.

hugo snip said:
Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

JohnM31499 · Oct 18, 2002

focusing screen of the D60 was virtually useless for MF. There is no MF assist(split image etc)& the screen is not changeable like the 1D.

-John

hugo snip · Oct 18, 2002

I thought that because the sensor is smaller the viewfinder would also be
smaller. Thats not so?

SteveDude said:
I don't understand the question - the viewfinder is the same size
and everying looks similar to my film ElanIIe.

hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

SteveDude · Oct 18, 2002

No. The sensor has nothing to do with the viewfinder. The viewfinder is identical to the film camera (at least it's identical to my ElanIIe). There must be a magnification lens in the viewfinder that makes the image match the DSLR.

hugo snip said:
SteveDude said:

I don't understand the question - the viewfinder is the same size
and everying looks similar to my film ElanIIe.

hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

Click to expand...

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

Jamie W · Oct 18, 2002

I manual focus on about 50% of my photos, and have not had nay problems at all. Viewfinder is great for me.

hugo snip said:
Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

--
Jamie W.
Canon D60
Film? What do you mean, film?

Troponin · Oct 18, 2002

JohnM said:
focusing screen of the D60 was virtually useless for MF. There is
no MF assist(split image etc)& the screen is not changeable like
the 1D.

-John

I would not call the D60 viewfinder screen a "true" focusing screen-- just can't.

MF with the D60 is a true example of trial and error to the extreme limit with my poor eye sight.

Trop

Troponin · Oct 18, 2002

Jamie W said:
hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
Jamie W.
Canon D60
Film? What do you mean, film?

Adam-T · Oct 18, 2002

I don't have any problems either, but after the dingy VF on the E10 it's a godsend - my EOS500N (Rebel-G) is a lot darker and harder to MF with despite the 35mm mirror box

..

--
Olympus C2100UZI +B300, Canon D60.

My Ugly mug and submitted Photos at -------->
http://www.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=27855

Dianne W · Oct 18, 2002

I recently took my D60 to my daughters soccer games. At one game, I used the AF and was not happy with the results of my pics. I know that this camera is probably not the best for fast action sports photography, so at her other game I decided to give the MF a shot. I thought that the MF resulted in pictures that were considerably more sharper focused than when I used the AF.

Of course this is just the opinion of a novice photographer

Dianne

Troponin said:
Jamie W said:

hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
Jamie W.
Canon D60
Film? What do you mean, film?

Click to expand...

Karl Guttag · Oct 18, 2002

The view screen's image is a little smaller than a typical 35mm. It is magnified but not by 1.6X (maybe something like 1.4x)

The view screen is not as bright as a good 35mm view screen and this makes focusing more difficult.

The bottom line is that most people will not be able to tell really critical focus with the D60's viewscreen. This will be particularly an issue with short DoFs.

The LCD on the back is also useless, even in the "zoom mode" to tell critical focus. Many a person has shot a bunch of shots in MF thinking they were doing great only to get home and find out that everything was a little out of focus.

There has been some success reported with the angle viewfinder that has magnification in it.

Karl

hugo snip said:
Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

--
Karl

Dave Deacon · Oct 18, 2002

I have no problem with MF on my D60. The vf looks as large and is brighter than on my son's EOS 300. However there is a fov crop. Looking through an EOS 300 at 50mm shows a much wider fov than on the D60. I have an Olympus E10 and MF oin the D60 is so much easier. Maybe having the smaller image (about half 35mm film size) fill the vf makes MF easier on the D60.

One of the really concerning things, however, is that the cheapo £200 EOS 300 focuses almost instantly in low light where the £2200 D60 spends some 3 or 4 seconds flashing its AF assist. The EOS 300 has seven focusing points and not three as on the D60. What sort of thinking went into those decisions at Canon - greed. Obviosuly they thought they had offered enough to get people to buy with these things screwed and sadly they were right.

Dave

JohnAC · Oct 18, 2002

Dave, I agree absolutely with your conclusions. Canon obviously didnt want to add too many nice features to the D60, even though extra manufacturing costs would have been insignificant, because they wanted to tier the D60 with the 1D and now 1Ds. Competition will eventually put a stop to this "greed" of course...

Dave Deacon said:
I have no problem with MF on my D60. The vf looks as large and is
brighter than on my son's EOS 300. However there is a fov crop.
Looking through an EOS 300 at 50mm shows a much wider fov than on
the D60. I have an Olympus E10 and MF oin the D60 is so much
easier. Maybe having the smaller image (about half 35mm film size)
fill the vf makes MF easier on the D60.

One of the really concerning things, however, is that the cheapo
£200 EOS 300 focuses almost instantly in low light where the £2200
D60 spends some 3 or 4 seconds flashing its AF assist. The EOS 300
has seven focusing points and not three as on the D60. What sort of
thinking went into those decisions at Canon - greed. Obviosuly they
thought they had offered enough to get people to buy with these
things screwed and sadly they were right.

Dave

John Davis · Oct 18, 2002

I do MF on a D60 without a problem. Then again, I'm used to focus manual focusing SLRs such as Pentax Spotmatic, Canon F1, Nikon F3, etc. But then again, I also think the D60 AF is fine if you understand how it works and what its (and others') inevitable limitations are.

John

Troponin said:
JohnM said:

focusing screen of the D60 was virtually useless for MF. There is
no MF assist(split image etc)& the screen is not changeable like
the 1D.

-John

Click to expand...

I would not call the D60 viewfinder screen a "true" focusing
screen-- just can't.

MF with the D60 is a true example of trial and error to the extreme
limit with my poor eye sight.

Trop

Adam-T · Oct 19, 2002

Your findings are much the same as mine, I had an E10 and have a 500N (also with a Dingey viewfinder), but I think the reason why they used the IX (APS) AF setup is because the 300s is designed for a 35mm mirror box rather than one of greed..

Oh and whiole you're on - I think I'm going to have to eat my words and thank you for this advice

"""Ironically, I bet if you'd bought a Sigma 28-70 f2.8 EX DF you'd be happiy!! I tried three Tokina 28-80s and above 50 they were pants and undies. Got a Soigma 28-70 EX DF and it's very good throughout- except wide open at 70mm - but they all have problems there.""""

My girlfriend bought a D60 and can't afford or heft a 28-70L so I've been testing lenses for her - Jessops' 30-day swap/refund policy has made things easier and after finding the 28-135IS (which she really wanted) soft at 28mm and the underexposure a pain thought i'd try a Sigma for her so took one and paid up front for a second (to improve the chances of getting a good copy and getting a refund on the other afterwards). a third one was mechanically faulty but the two I took perform identically, exactly as you describe - great at f2.8 until you approach 70mm where it needs stopping down to 3.5 or 4 (or a bit of US-Mask in PS if desperate and need 2.8 here) -- only the £1200 28-70L pulls off the 2.8 trick all the way through..

the upshot is that we're keeping BOTH.. YEAH Dave - I'm having the other one.. I may get a 24-70L later for work and keep the sigma for leisure use but really I don't think I'll need it, at 28-50mm wide open, the Sigma gets too close to the legendary "L" for comfort in sharpness and BOTH are PLASTIC, Manual focus is FAR better on the Sigma, it's as smooth as a Manual lens, it's lighter and comes with a case (£15 from canon) and a lens hood (£25 for the canon)..

£299 is a steal - we got lucky that they had 3 copies and two were good.

--
Olympus C2100UZI +B300, Canon D60.

My Ugly mug and submitted Photos at -------->
http://www.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=27855

Brian Ripley · Oct 19, 2002

Karl Guttag said:
The view screen's image is a little smaller than a typical 35mm.
It is magnified but not by 1.6X (maybe something like 1.4x)

The view screen is not as bright as a good 35mm view screen and
this makes focusing more difficult.

The bottom line is that most people will not be able to tell really
critical focus with the D60's viewscreen. This will be
particularly an issue with short DoFs.

The LCD on the back is also useless, even in the "zoom mode" to
tell critical focus. Many a person has shot a bunch of shots in
MF thinking they were doing great only to get home and find out
that everything was a little out of focus.

It's pretty hard to believe that
'everything was a little out of focus': normally the wrong thing is in
focus on a macro shot when I make a mistake. Or are we
talking about people who only shoot lens charts here?

I do pretty well
in macro work, indeed close to 100% when I am using a tripod
and have a static subject (not a flower waving in the wind or
a butterfly flapping its wings). Hand-holding with a moving subject I
get over 50% right. And as I took over 1000 images in the last month
of flowers and butterflies, those are real numbers (and you might
like to check my profession)

Karl Guttag said:
There has been some success reported with the angle viewfinder that
has magnification in it.

I own one, and it can help, but I do no better with it than without it.
As you have to refocus it to change magnification, this is only feasible
on a tripod with lots of time. And you also magnify the 'grain'
of the focussing screen.

Karl Guttag said:
hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?

Click to expand...

I did expect it to be a problem. It is not as bright as a good 35mm
viewfinder, but the 'laser matte' screen of the D60 is as good as
any I have used. I do no worse than I did with my Minolta film
SLRs, including topline models from the era of MF lenses.

--
D60. 20, 28-135 IS, 70-200/4L, 100 macro, Sigma 15-30, MR-14

Scott Larson · Oct 19, 2002

I just looked through my D30 viewfinder for the first time in a couple of months. I held it and the 1D over my eyes like binoculars to compare and I don't think the D30 viewfinder looks that different in good light. The main difference is that the D30 (and I assume the D60) has a range where the image is as sharp as it's going to get so focusing is just a matter of focusing in the middle of that range. The image never looks especially sharp but you know it has to be in focus somewhere in there.

The 1D viewfinder is more precise. When focusing manually, there's no doubt in my eyes it's in or out of focus. When I first got it, I would think it was focused on something since the image looked about as sharp as it would have in the D30 viewfinder. But in fact it wasn't focused -- a slight adjustment would make the image even sharper and then I knew it was focused correctly. This was one of my habits I had to break after using the D30 for two years.

I'm also amazed that the D30 battery is still at 100% after sitting around here unsed for two months.

Stuart Rider · Oct 19, 2002

Uh, you might want to check again, it's a lot smaller. Yes it makes MF quite tricky.

SteveDude said:
hugo snip said:

SteveDude said:

I don't understand the question - the viewfinder is the same size
and everying looks similar to my film ElanIIe.

hugo snip said:

Is the smaller viewfinder on the D60 a problem with manual focusing?
I am thinking about getting a D60 with 35/2.0 and 50/1.4 or the
24-70L.
Will the 24-70 offer enough resolution in the entire zoomrange for the
1Ds or future 11+MP DSLR?

Thanks

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

Click to expand...

--
Hugo Snip
Canon G1 NikonFM2 28/3.5 55/2.8 105/2.5

Click to expand...

--
D60, Canon ElanIIe, 28-135IS

--
Cheers,

Stuart Rider.

Dave Deacon · Oct 19, 2002

Hi Adam

Glad you come to see things my way! ;-) You need a very good excuse to spend so much money on L stuff - snobbery apart. Maybe when you look again the 24-70L will be on offer or the 28-70L will be very cheap.

None of us knows precisely why Canon decided to screw the AF on the D60. Many reasons seem possible. But at the core of whichever it is is greed. They like the rest are greed driven - not a fair return but 'screw you, Jimmy' (as Rab C would say).

That 30-day return from Jessops is very good. Sadly they accept back less than new stuff and then pass it on via the Net for full price. That has been done to me on a number of occasions. In that bad practice they are not alone.

I see Canon in this month's Practical Photography saying they are 'aiming' for a point where the D30/60 are priced as their film counterparts today. They could have started the ball rolling with an AF system that at least worked as well as their next-to cheapest 35mm! In my book, no excuse whatsoever for not doing so. £2200 is a LOT of money to pay for a low-class AF system.

That said, I am enjoying the camera very much.

Dave

Adam-T · Oct 19, 2002

Dave Deacon said:
Glad you come to see things my way! ;-) You need a very good excuse
to spend so much money on L stuff - snobbery apart. Maybe when you
look again the 24-70L will be on offer or the 28-70L will be very
cheap.

That was the idea, but the last thing I expected was the Sigma to perform the same as yours AND the other one I took.. on another thread two people are saying that the 24-70 is sharper but that is contrary to popular belief - Damn Sigma and their sample variations.. Well, We're keeping one each, the sharpness is approaching L class even if the contrast and colour aren't but what's what Photoshop is for

)) -

The idea was to try the Sigma while they were getting the Canon 24-85s in but I can't be bothered with that now although the option is still open as the 24-85 is F3.5-4.5 (not 2.8) and is reputed not to perform wide open which is no good to me. Nice to see that your copy is the same as these two regarding softness at 70mm F2.8 on long distances (it's fine close up) it looks like they're good copies..

Dave Deacon said:
That 30-day return from Jessops is very good. Sadly they accept
back less than new stuff and then pass it on via the Net for full
price. That has been done to me on a number of occasions. In that
bad practice they are not alone.

it's sad that people will return less than mint stuff, the advantage of Digital is that you can try stuff quickly and the returns look like they've never been out of the box.. What will also happen is that a bad copy of a lens (like the 28-135IS I tried) will end up getting passed around until some poor guy with an EOS 300 or the like who only prints 6x4s ends up with it and only later finds that it's a duffer when he goes Digital or wants a big print..

Dave Deacon said:
35mm! In my book, no excuse whatsoever for not doing so. £2200 is a
LOT of money to pay for a low-class AF system.
That said, I am enjoying the camera very much.

I agree totally - but there was no other option for me - I wanted the EOS lens system, the CMOS sensor, Image stabilization and cheap quality accessories (cheap compared to Olympus) the other option was the CCD based lower res 1D and that was a no go even without the price difference .. the 1DS is the D60 owner's dream camera - I wonder how much it will be over here in the ripped off UK

--
Olympus C2100UZI +B300, Canon D60.

My Ugly mug and submitted Photos at -------->
http://www.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=27855

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