EOS R6 - AF not on target on few pictures

Chris_From_Holland wrote:

Karl_Guttag wrote:

Chris_From_Holland wrote:

I'm stunned.

I'll give a try with the trial version. It does bring a visible improvement.

Thanks!

DxO completely changed the way I shoot now and why I (and many others) highly recommend it. My default mode is Manual with Auto-ISO. I know any ISO up through 12,800 will look very good on the R5. In a pinch, I wouldn't mind going to 25,600 or even 51,200, and it should be better for you with the R6. In this way, I can control the depth of focus with aperture and the shutter speed based on subject motion and let the camera pick the ISO. Previously, it was a bad compromise to shoot aperture with as much ISO as I could tolerate, and I hope there was not too much subject motion blur.

Also, I have tried playing with the knobs in Adobe RAW to reduce noise, and invariably you play a bad game of losing saturation and resolution to reduces noise. You can't get the detail back with sharpening. With DxO, it is just a few button clicks, and it comes out with lower noise and much better detail than Adobe RAW.

A couple more suggestions to get a better focus in though lighting:

1. The AF system on the R5/R6 is tied to the exposure you see in the viewfinder. In the case of the photos you gave, the subject was a bit dark. Your exposure setting, I think, was evaluative, and so whatever is bright in the scene is going to tend to drive the exposure. You might want to set the exposure to about +1 EV IF the subject is darker than other things in the scene. You have about 2 stops of headroom when you shoot raw, so this will give up one stop of headroom, but you can't recover bad focus (yes, there is software, but it is not a great option).
2. Shoot a burst of photos (say 3 to 5) in a high-speed mode. This will give the AF system more changes to lock on. You also give yourself a chance to get a better pose if the subject is working or a chance to make a montage of the sequence. I'm trying to train myself to shoot in bursts more, even with moderately still subjects.

I'm bit over busy till this weekend, so i'll not be able to test Dxo yet, but I'll spend some time on it as soon as I have time free this week (and probably end up buying it :p).

So long as you shoot RAW, you can fix things later (I'm able to go back to pictures I shot 15 years ago and fix them, which I only shot RAW back then).

I shoot concert in full Manual mode :

- Aperture is set to control the DoF depending on the topic (often 2.8 though),

- Speed usually 1/250 (between 1/125 and 1/1000 dependng of the show)

- using the Exposure Simulation in the EVF, I control the ISO to get the proper exposure on the subject I want properly lit (on that matter, Mirrorless has fundamentaly changed my concert photography).

Knowing I have DxO, except for still subjects, I shot M with auto-ISO. I will check to make sure the ISO is not going too high or clamping. Only in that case would decide on Aperture or Shutter Speed. I find ISO 12,8000 is perfectly fine thanks to DxO DeepPrime, but I could not stand to look at the pictures processed by Adobe Camera RAW.

(I spot using the automation as I kinda miss a Spot mesure attached to the AF point)

Your point 1 is a very valuable info i didn't know (I was suspecting it though, but i didn't see it as a core function), I'll factor it in next time and make sure I have this +1 when I need it).

It is a subtle problem but important problem. You can easily prove this by setting the exposure compensation to -3EV and seeing how the focusing has problems versus set to 0EV.

It you were shooting stills or performers' position, and lighting didn't change, you could exposure lock on the subject or lock everything down (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO). But with Mirrorless, it seems easiest, quickest, and safest just to bump the EV compensation if you have some bright things in the scene that are not the subject that is causing the subject to be too dark.

If you use flash (at least with a Canon flash), you may also notice that the viewfinder automatically goes out of exposure simulation based on the ambient. This is necessary so that focus will work if the flash is providing much of the light.

I used to burst a lot and got overhelmed when loading the pics and I did work on reducing it. I guess I did push it too much the ohter way ;).
With this new knowledge, I'll use bursts when the lighting is on the dark side of things

Glad I ask the questions, very valuable info to handle my R6 (Which wll receive a twin soon to get the fullrange 24-200 avaialble at will)