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Autofocus poll

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you should send your lenses and bodies to Canon for calibration. Indeed I'm fortunate to have the AF on ALL my lenses and bodies working perfectly. For those no so fortunate the only option is to send the equipment to Canon. IMO ff the AF error in either the lens or body is bad then the entire camera system is worthless.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian, Pbase Supporter

http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT
 
In photographing Flowers up close, there is a delicate balance between getting the flower in focus and getting the background out of focus. This requires using small DoFs and at this point the AF system has no idea of where on the 3D flower you actually want the focus to lie. Remember, we are talking about the closest 12" or so of focusing here. AF is not particularly accurate, even if it were, there is a good chance you want to try several different focus points to see which one presents the flower best. Sort-of-like exposure bracketing or aperture bracketing; I end up doing a focus-point bracketing.
--
Mitch
 
J A K said:
you should send your lenses and bodies to Canon for calibration.
Indeed I'm fortunate to have the AF on ALL my lenses and bodies
working perfectly. For those no so fortunate the only option is to
send the equipment to Canon. IMO ff the AF error in either the
lens or body is bad then the entire camera system is worthless.

Regards,
Click to expand...
You are right, and my entire kit went to Canon, the 20D and 500f4 just went back again because of front focus after the first calibration. I expect to keep sending it back until it is right.

I don't think you need AF for landscape work however where I use hyperfocal distances at f16 and only need to hit it close.

I also agree that for extremally shallow DOF work like flowers, you probably need to use manual focus and bracket the shots.
J A K said:
Joe Kurkjian, Pbase Supporter

http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/roserus

Ben
 
I do some candid street work with my 90mm TS-E which is manual focus. Once you start working with a lens in manual mode you would be surprised how fast AF seems unnecessary.
 
the context of the poll was

"I was thinking to do a poll for those who feel that fast and accurate autofocus is critical to their photography, that is, not a luxuy, but an actual necessity."

My photography is not limited to my 1dsII. I also shoot BW with a 4x5. In this larger context, autofocus is not critical .
 
....those with all-aluminum helicoils. More expensive lenses used dissimilar metals, particularly brass, and had very lightweight lubricant.

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'
 
Hi, Joe. I've checked out your site and I like your style. They are similar to what I take pictures of. My question to you is regarding your take on 20D AF vs. 5D AF. I see that you've owned both cameras and like you, AF is critical to me as I take many close-up candid/portrait photos. I have a 20D that often focuses on the wrong object when it should be the eyes such as the background or the front shoulder...etc. Have you noticed this with your 20D? Is 5D considerably better in this regard? I only use the center focusing point like you.
 
hong197 said:
Hi, Joe. I've checked out your site and I like your style. They are
similar to what I take pictures of.
Click to expand...
What?! You're taking pics of my kid? : )
hong197 said:
My question to you is regarding your take on 20D AF vs. 5D AF. I see
that you've owned both cameras and like you, AF is critical to me as I
take many close-up candid/portrait photos. I have a 20D that often
focuses on the wrong object when it should be the eyes such as the
background or the front shoulder...etc. Have you noticed this with your
20D? Is 5D considerably better in this regard? I only use the center
focusing point like you.
Click to expand...
I was extremely happy with my 20D. My previous camera, the 300D, bit the big one in the same way as you descibe your 20D. The 5D seems more accurate to me, but it's not a night & day difference -- just a small incremental improvement, and even that might just be because I improved a little, rather than the camera being any better. Still, I think it's the camera, but, like I said, it's a small difference. Both were outstanding.

By the way, I use off-center AF points more than I use the center AF point.

--
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos. If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than editing in these forums, please ask.
 
...I have MF Focus cameras and WE WOULD NOT, repeat after me, WE WEOULD NOT be able to use them, because of having to "MF'ing", in our venue of work.

Now, as for those few PHYLOSOPHICAL and RETHORICAL auto-questions-and-responsed posted here, I will tell you one thing:

In the past, the world did not have airplanes, trains, cars, roads, telecommunication networks and satellites... Yeah, we surely had to go to pee-.and-poo back then like we have to do it, today, but guess what? That's why and how it took us 10,000 years (approx.) to get where we are, today, and most of what we have occured just on the last 100, when all these things began to appear.

Thankfully, photography today can be made a lot more enjoyable, practical and equally (or more) expressive with all these technological improvements. And NOTHING beats a truly dependable, accurate and FAST AF-subsytem, that CAN BE OPERATED EQUALLY WELL in MANUAL mode (can not say the same from Manual-only focusing).

Happy shooting!
 
RDKirk said:
....those with all-aluminum helicoils. More expensive lenses used
dissimilar metals, particularly brass, and had very lightweight
lubricant.
Click to expand...
I don't beleive any lenses use dissimilar metals in the helicoils, and I would be very wary of any that did - that is a corrosion problem waiting to happen and, in some cases, the voltaic cell so produced could cause other problems as well.

As for brass helicoils, they were used in older gear, but I haven't seen many post-war lenses with them, not even Leica.

Which Canon FD lenses do you think had brass helicoils?
 
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