AdamT wrote:
I'll say after you have good C-AF, it's hard to go back to Single AF.
I`m still pretty old school and trust what I`ve locked onto myself , been doing it for decades and can feather the shutter button well enough - as I say I don`t shoot sports for work or "bird" for leisure so have no need of all that stuff, as for ridiculous FPS, may as well shoot an 8K video and clip frames thesedays (easier than rifling through hundreds of images - especially hi-rez raws) quality won`t be the same of course for birding but in journalism etc who cares
I get it; old habits die hard and the trailblazers before us didn't have the technology and did fine. I shot single-AF for nearly 2 decades. It doesn't take long to adapt, but, it's sorta like having good video output out of a DSLR/MILC, once you get a camera capable of good video, than you become hooked. It'll get there for Nikon too outside of the Z9. With how well Nikon has been doing with the Z9 lately, they should be fine which was a chief concern of mine as a Canon shooter; should Nikon not make it for whatever reason, I'm completely at Canon's mercy, which they are, well, sluggards compared to Nikon when it comes to things like sensor or processor technology. Two most costly parts of the camera I might add.
DIGIC8 was "the answer" for Canon in this regard. Trust me, after you have real C-AF via the Z9 or another Z offering with Z9 capabilities, you might change your tune
Doubtful , I`d like better low light single AF in clubs, venues etc where flash is needed for work which is the achilles heel of mirrorless compared to DSLRs - the Z7 is on par with the current stuff here .. but for me , Mirrorless is all about weight saving , WYSIWYG EVF and more than anything - in C&N at least - the far better quality of the standard zooms compared to DSLRs .
Not trying to sway you to the Canon R, but even my lowly R handles things like clubs, with ease. So long as you have a f/2.8 or faster lens mounted as on-chip AF needs light to operate. The R5/6/3 does even better. But yes, traditionally DSLRs required for this sort of work. I gather the Z9 handles these situations well, but maybe not; I've read some patents to the effect of lens corrections and NR being baked into AF calculations. That's a lot of software to write if you think about it. That's Nikon's Achilles heel; software development. But clubs are a single use case, hardly a reason to swap platforms if you ask me. Nikon will get there... It's just a matter of software, but software too takes time and is a work of labor I can assure you for being a bunch of 1s and 0s, those 1s and 0s are hard stuff and just because a competitor did something, doesn't mean you can borrow it; you have to write your own version written to your environment as the devil is in those details...
. It is truly useful for candid shooting. Yes, I did without it for years, and am doing with it sorta, on the G5X II. It can do good C-AF, in single shot. Compromises...
I`m sure that colossal "Spot" point is pretty fast in C-AF but too big to track anything at distance, I still cant believe there isn`t a real spot or at least small point in there which even the RX10 series have (and sony aren`t known for small AF points) , Pans take it down to a real spot that can`t be much bigger than a cluster of pixels, they`ve had that about 10 or 12 years . not a deal killer as I managed with the G7X one but it seems bigger than the G1X Mk1 had and of course bigger than the M50 - more like the orig EOS-M or M100
I gather this is due to Contrast Detection usage. DIGIC8 is capable of 143 AF points natively with tracking at 14FPS. The implication that Canon can "fix it", probably isn't true. A new PDAF/DPAF sensor is required to "fix it". That in turn though becomes Canon's Achilles heel
Canon is different in that they protect market segments like DSLRs from mirrorless etc. Hence them being last here to deploy a pop-up EVF.
Canon have always been more focussed on not competing with themselves even if it means not competing with the competition - hence the infamous cripple hammer which hit the M6-II hard (no EFCS , no built in EVF ) and software cripples in other cameras .
The lack of EFCS on the M6 II I gather has more to do with it's 14FPS capability. But it's true, lacking true EFCS does hurt the M6 II in certain circumstances, and, not having another alternative to the M6 II with it, with the 90D sensor, hurts. Be curious to see where the M system goes, if anywhere. I'm not sure it's dead-dead as the M50 is still "the" best seller in many places. It may not be a margin mover, but it's certainly a volume mover.
This is a good segue for a G1X IV; Canon could do a leaf-shutter with a fixed lens, and, make that fixed lens more aggressive ala G1X II / G5X II at the same time. Solves all the problems in one shot. It wouldn't pocket though with a lens that aggressive on APS-C though. Probably never happen given the market right now but Canon makes their own 90D sensor which could be slapped in here so this is something do-able ironically vs the G5X II or III, is dependent upon Sony, who is trying to keep up and shutting down their own lines while they're at it.
doesn't make "strong" offerings in lower end platforms like the G5X II very often. I mean it's got uncropped 4K, high FPS, aggressive lens, and costs less than an EOS RP, with the lens built-in...
then they cripple the 4K with mushy output like the M6-II`s , don`t make use of the sensors ability to do PDAF, leave off the auto-pop-out part of the EVF (though that may have been sony not selling it) and worse of all cripple the JPGs of all the fine detail which Digic-8 pulled in the M50 etc ......
4K being mushy on the M6 II has more to do with pixel binning utilized to provide "4K" which is really 2.8K which is then containerized in 4K format. Better than 1080P, but not true 4K.
Now the 4K in the G5X II isn't binned, but, Canon's JPEG engine which comes into play with all their video, needs help. As we've discussed with shooting RAW, the same applies, things like smeared details at base ISO or overly aggressive NR at high ISOs applies in video, except we can't fix it. And it's CDAF, not DPAF/PDAF so sometimes it hunts. Doesn't hunt much for a CDAF implementation, but it's no match for PDAF/DPAF.
BUT as I say, its still the best compromise for me in a compact , the Pan LX100-II has a better quality lens but its too short, the cam is clumsy and large and the cropped M43 sensor gains nothing over 1" (the same sensor in M43 bodies does a lot better) - the RX100 series are too compromised in areas I can`t put up with and the glass on the TZ100/200 is dreadful ,. the LX10 has no Viewfinder and the glass isn`t great there either .. the G5X mk1 is ergonomically the best with the best EVF but has old circuitry which according to DXO is behind the G7X Mk1 even and its got the inferior 24-100 G7X series lens - the G3X shot itself in the foot by having no desperately needed onboard EVF and there never was a MK2/3 update to the later sensor or CPU ......... so G5X-II it is
That's what's interesting, comparatively my former G1X III with a larger sensor, or the LX100 also with a larger sensor and faster glass still, should blow the G5X II out of the water in low light, they don't. Is that due to DIGIC8 + that Sony RX100 IV sensor? I think that's plausible that the older sensors and processing are holding those implementations back as on paper, that 80D sensor or G9 sensor should lay waste to the RX100 IV sensor in low light, especially with a faster lens ala LX100.
.
