Canon 1D Mark III- Full Review (Expanded and Updated)

Canon 1D Mark III- Full Review (Updated and Expanded)
drew strickland


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Does this connection to the shutter button also affect focusing on the EOS 1Ds MK II?

If so, how?

And can it be disconnected on that camera, too?

And if so, what exactly will change in my photo taking?

Thanks,

Mark B Anstendig

Yes, but slightly differently as they've changed all the Custom Functions on the III. On the 1Ds2 (and other Canon 1-series besides the III), you can move AF activation to the * button by setting CF4 to 1 or 3. The two settings work the same from an AF standpoint — basically you activate AF by pressing * and deactivate it by letting go — but work a little differently on AE. CF4-1 locks AE at the half shutter press, so you can effectively lock both focus and AE and recompose, and also so you will get the same exposure throughout a multi-frame burst. CF4-3 gives you a new AE reading for each frame regardless. I prefer the latter as I'm often tracking soccer players in and out of sun and shadow.

This takes a little getting used to (doesn't everything?), but has many advantages once you get the hang of it.

Nill

Sorry if I am dense, but I have been using my camera pretty much "out of the box", since I don't do complex shots anymore.

Where can I find detailed explanations of these actions and settings, how they work, and how to do/find them on my 1Ds MK II? I don't seem to find much in the manual by searching for it. But my eyes are 70n years old and the print is tiny (so is the manual).

Thanks,

Mark B Anstendig

I think I found it on P.147 of a downloaded PDF manual, of which I can enlarge the text as much as i want (I have 1n Apple 30" mnonitor).

For normal shooting, not fast, predictable action movement, these settings would seem just an extra annoyance.

Fot me, there is almost always enough time for the camera to follow-focus at its own rate. And I sometimes just move the camera away from and back to a subject point, just to be sure the focus locked.

But focusing is a thing of the lenses, too. And each one does it at its own speed.

I can see why, for the action shots mentioned here, nothing but the fastest, most expensive, top-of-the-line Canon lenses will do.

While I own such lenses, some el-cheapo zooms with small size and extreme focal length ranges are fun and will do well, if one can take time with them.

But ultimately, I am not comfortable for anything really important with any lens aperture smaller than f2.8 mated to these auto-focus devices. And even larger apertures (F2 and larger) do make a difference when pinpointing an exact point (distance from the camera) on a subject.

The smaller apertures, while they work mechanically, leave some leeway in finding the focal point. And having used a Messraster so many years, I am used to being right on the focal point. For example, right on the pupil of the nearest eye, and not just anywhere on the eye. It does make a difference, especially when one can see the actual prints, not internet JPEGs.

And, of course, color tones are only exact at the focal point (at the absolutely exactly focused distance from the camera). You can see that easily by the following: when you take a camera that is on manual-focus setting and focus back and forth over an imge point, the further in front or in back of the image you focus, the lighter and more diffuse the image becomes. So anywhere in front or in back of the absolute focused distance is always slightly lighter and more diffuse. And so are the color tones. And it all just gets worse the farther one gets from the focal point, depth of field or not.

Mark

The Canon manuals are notoriously cryptic when it comes to how one uses custom and personal functions. Why one might want to use them seems to be entirely beyond their scope.

This document is much more informative in these respects, not to mention much more readable. (Since we're in a Mark III thread, I should caveat that it's only indirectly applicable to that camera, given that all the custom functions are changed. It's directly applicable to all previous 1-series bodies.)

Nill

Thanks a lot.

Much better articles and really large and easy to read for me.

Mark

Thank you very much for this link.... great tips in optimizing the Mk3