Not OT: 2008 A Very Tough Year to Come

[telyt]

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... the point Canon intends to make is quite obvious:

 

 

What Canon refers to is the systematic error introduced by the focus-and-recompose technique which will lead to a noticable backfocus when the subject distance is short and the depth of field shallow. Either selecting an off-center focusing point or focusing manually on the off-center subject will prevent this – don’t recompose is key. Photographers have been using focus-and-recompose with manual focusing, too (so they could use the split-prism indicator in the center of the focusing screen), which created the same problems. The passage quoted is anti-focus-and-recompose (under certain circumstances), not specifically pro-manual-focusing. See page 12:

 

I believe you are misunderstanding my position. I agree that Focus-Lock-Recompose is the problem, I've never believed otherwise regardless of whether the focussing system is automatic or manual. Canon is reinforcing this position and reminding us that because the AF sensors don't cover the entire picture area there are situations where manual focus is important and that trying to use AF and then re-composing will result in focus errors. Simon's example photo was a perfect example of when to focus manually and to not use AF, because not one of the focus points coincided with the subject's eye. Unfortunately manual focus on a moving subject is very difficult to do with an AF-optimized viewscreen so this AF technology effectively limits the photographers compositional choices to those that are compatible with the AF system.

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[jrc]

Two things:

 

If I were trying to focus on a flying bird's eye, I couldn't do it -- not very often, anyway. If I took enough photos, I would get some. I guess the question I have, on these superbly sharp shots, is, what's the discard ratio? If the discard ratio is 500:1, then I understand. If the discard ratio is 3:1, I'll stay away from bird photography, because I couldn't do that. A sharp bird's eye highlight, on a moving target, that takes up 1/1000 of the viewfinder? Not me.

 

My workspace at home is a room ~22 feet/7 meters long, 16 feet/5 meters wide. Lit *only* by the light of my iMac screen, my Nikon D3 can focus on a dimly lighted book jacket (that doesn't include the iMac) in a fraction of a second. My guess is that for anybody (including Jamie) who shots low-light shots, that any handheld shot possible at all with a Leica Nocti from anyplace on the focusing ring, the Nikon would be faster and more precise 95 out of a hundred times -- and without training.

 

Which reminds me of a story. When guns first pushed archery off the battlefield, archers had better range, more accuracy, and a higher rate of fire. However, to achieve that, they had to be intensively trained on an on-going, life-long basis. (In England, each village was required to maintain archery butts.) With guns, any peasant could be trained to be dangerous in a manner of hours. Is this happening with photography? Is this sense of impending doom what is actually bothering Leica shooters? 8-)

 

JC

[carstenw]

This has already been happening for a long time now. In fact, you could with some amount of cynicism say that this is what digital is all about. Clearly pros benefit from digital too, but amateurs benefit much more, narrowing the gap, and making many previously dubious photographers "good". The combination of digital and AF and auto exposure, combined with Photoshop or some light-duty similar software (perhaps Picasa or iPhoto), makes almost anyone capable of once in a while getting a shot which is similar to what professionals get every day.

 

The trouble is exactly what Doug and Simon were discussing: the last little bit of image quality you still need to be well-trained to achieve, like manually focusing on the eye of a flying bird, compared to getting a reasonably well focused snapshot of a flying bird with some part of its anatomy in focus, by using a high-end Nikon or Canon autofocusing camera. The dedicated pro will always get better shots than the amateur (ignoring bad pros and great amateurs), because there is so much to learn. In the case of Simon's shot, not only is the eye not sharp, the background is not nice, and Doug's level of dedication in seeking out the birds in their natural habitat clearly comes through here. This is a level of dedication which very few amateurs are willing to apply.

 

I hope that the cameras will never get good enough to trim even more of the difference between a pro and an amateur, but with technology like that which enables cameras to find all faces and only shoot when someone smiles, perhaps perfectly focused eyes on flying birds will one day be within reach too. There is just that background to worry about then... But maybe that will be fixable too. The Canon S80 has a feature where you point the camera at one colour, and then at another, and then you take a photo and objects of the first colour will be replaced by the second colour. Why couldn't the camera also change backgrounds?

 

But this isn't real photography any more, but make-believe. The trouble is that the consumer of most photographs is an amateur, and he may not care.

 

It is a sad world for a pro. Even dedicated amateurs must feel sad from time to time at what has become of the elite photographers of old. The difference between pro and amateur is so small today, due to the great technology, that the creation of an agency like Magnum or similar would likely flop today. I am happy that photography is a hobby for me.

[adan]

I'll stay away from the focus-and-birds discussion - except to note that I'm intrigued by the breed in sdai's shot. With that red-white-and blue ring around its neck, is that the American Patriot subspecies of the Canadian Goose - or just a huge amount of chromatic aberration?

 

Back to the original question - yes, the 5D price is dropping primarily to clear shelves for the Mk II, or 7D or 3D or whatever ends up replacing it (Announcement at PMA in Feb., I bet).

 

And yes, the digital R is going to face stiff competition if one lumps all SLRs together. It will need "unique selling propositions".

 

Those will likely be (based on putting all the rumors in a bag, shaking briskly, and seeing what pops out):

 

1. Larger than 24x36 sensor, 20+Mpixel sensor, which puts it in a unique range between the D3/5D cameras and the MF Hassy/Mamiya backs. Comparable to a Canon 1DsMkIII and nothing else.

2. No AA filter, moving it closer yet to the MF backs in real resolution.

3. CCD colors, rather than CMOS (but with CCD noise rather than CMOS - a tradeoff)

4. A finder aggressively optimized for manual focus, even if AF is also incorporated (which would mean a split-image screen for me, a crisp plain screen for Telyt, and high magnification for both of us).

5. Certain Leica lenses - which cuts both ways. If you need an APO 280 to avoid those colored neck rings on birds, or a nice dreamy pre-APO 90 f/2 or 80 f/1.4, you go Leica. If you need a 24 that is TS or f/1.4, or an 85 f/1.2, you go Canon.

 

And at that point, price really is no longer a factor. If sports AF or squared-up architecture is your bag, even a $1000 20+ Mpixel R10 won't cut it. And if a big split-screen finder or an APO telephoto is your bag, a $1000 5D won't cut it, either.

 

---------------------------------------------------

An add-on @ John Camp's and Carsten's posts above: Two quotes, found in Beamont Newhall's History of Photography:

 

Henry Fox-Talbot, 1844: "Already sundry amateurs have laid down the pencil and armed themselves with chemical solutions and camera obscurae. These amateurs especially, and they are not a few, who find the rules of perspective difficult to learn and to apply - and who, moreover, have the misfortune to be lazy - prefer to use a method which dispenses with all trouble."

 

George Eastman, 1892: "The first are the true amateurs, who devote time enough to acquire skill in developing, printing, toning, &tc...The second class are those who, lacking some, or all of the requisites of the "true amateur", desire personal pictures or memoranda of their everyday lives...[but] who have not the facility...They bear a relation to the limited numbers of the true amateur of one thousand to one hundred."

 

Eastman then made a fortune selling "easy photography" to the masses - Eastman's 90% has just become sdai's 99.99%.

 

Plus ca change and all that....

[sdai]

Is this sense of impending doom what is actually bothering Leica shooters? 8-)

 

It won't be too long before most (if not all) Leica shooters get converted then we can stop criticizing the camera and talk about pilot errors instead.

 

Back on the "off-topic" discussion, I should blame myself for not choosing the example carefully ... just to clarify, the camera didn't focus on the wingtip, from the enlarged screen capture below, you can see the eye is (very close if not exactly) in the same focal plane as the focus point falling on its body.

 

By the way, I've just verified the location on google maps and the shot was taken from about 150 meters, which is about 500 ft. away.

 

[sdai]

... except to note that I'm intrigued by the breed in sdai's shot. With that red-white-and blue ring around its neck, is that the American Patriot subspecies of the Canadian Goose - or just a huge amount of chromatic aberration?

 

You've probably already known that most Canadians don't like American flags ... geese are no exceptions.

 

But seriously, I think what you referred to may be some weird color cast/fringing from quick nasty PS when I tried to bring out the dark eye from its dark head on purpose.

 

Cheers,

[Jamie Roberts]

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I raised the fact that MF was one reason I will stick with R (and M) in future. Well, I'm bleary-eyed from a late-night wedding, so forgive my rambling, but the venue was *extremely dark*

 

The only camera that I could focus and hold composition with was the M8 (I didn't have the DMR with me), and I could do it at f1.2 with a Noctilux

 

The 5d AF simply gave up long before the M8 did. Even with focus assist.

 

So there are other reasons than sheer focus accuracy to prefer a system optimised for manual focus: in adverse focussing conditions, like extremely dim light, IMO you stand a better chance of getting the shot with MF than with AF.

[sdai]

Eastman then made a fortune selling "easy photography" to the masses - Eastman's 90% has just become sdai's 99.99%.

 

Professional photographers are really a endangered specie these days ... because digital has made everything as simple as possible - basically amateurs are sharing the same (or even more) resources as the pros do nowadays.

 

Like John has pointed out, if I could spend less than one day and achieve a 80-90% hit rate while the manual focus shooters have worked their whole life time just to get less than 30% keepers ... then I call it a failure.

[sdai]

So there are other reasons than sheer focus accuracy to prefer a system optimised for manual focus: in adverse focussing conditions, like extremely dim light, IMO you stand a better chance of getting the shot with MF than with AF.

 

Jamie, I guess many folks just cut in the middle and never minded that I'm a manual focus guy as well ...

 

This particular thread/discussion is really a mess because few of us are really listening to each other.

 

Just to clarify, I'm not denying the usefulness of manual focusing but AF has its virtue too, now some folks are simply choosing the stand between two extremes ... you know me well, Jamie ... who keeps promoting manual focusing Leica lenses on a EOS body on this forum? LOL

 

Now let's face it ... Leica is going AF, ok? will you abandon ship? please answer my question before sending in your next post. (not you, Jamie. LOL)

[giordano]

By the way, I've just verified the location on google maps and the shot was taken from about 150 meters, which is about 500 ft. away.

 

Even with a 400mm lens, depth of field at 150m is a lot more than the wingspan of a goose.

 

According to the calculator at Online Depth of Field Calculator , at 400mm, f/4 and the inadequate standard 1/30mm circle of confusion, depth of field is a massive 34m. (other calculators produce similar results)

 

If we use 0.005mm CoC (i.e. capable of resolving 100 lines per millimetre) as a proxy for "really sharp", depth of field even at f/2.8 is still almost 4m.

 

This means that for this image, accurate focus at any point on that goose would have got the whole goose sharp. Which in turn means either that the AF wasn't spot on or that this is the best that lens can do (or maybe that there's a tiny bit of camera shake or motion blur).

 

It also means that the passage in the Canon manual warning about focus/recompose/shoot is entirely irrelevant here.

[telyt]

If I were trying to focus on a flying bird's eye, I couldn't do it -- not very often, anyway. If I took enough photos, I would get some. I guess the question I have, on these superbly sharp shots, is, what's the discard ratio?

 

In my experience the manual-focus discard-to-keeper ratio depends to a very large degree on the hardware, specifically the camera's viewfinder and the lens' focussing mechanism.

 

Assuming a well-trained photographer, the traditional rotating-ring focus mechanism of the vast majority of lenses gives me a discard-to-keeper ratio of something approaching infinity:1. With a sliding-focus f/6.8 Telyt or one of the better Novoflexes (400mm f/5.6 T-Noflexar or Novoflex focus grip with f/6.8 Telyt head) and an average viewfinder the ratio is more like 3:1. Same sliding-focus lens and Leicaflex SL or SL2 viewfinder and the ratio is 1:3. This is not a typo: one discard, three keepers.

 

I'd love to have a camera that combines the SL viewfinder with DMR image quality.

[sdai]

Which in turn means either that the AF wasn't spot on or that this is the best that lens can do (or maybe that there's a tiny bit of camera shake or motion blur).

 

It is really just pilot error, this wasn't a good example chosen due to my carelessness ... as I've mentioned in one previous post, the snap was shot at about 1/800, which is apparently not enough and the part you referred to is not due to DoF but sheer camera shake and motion blur.

 

Now, there is enough dof and if I show you the following goose then it looks a tad better.

 

[carstenw]

Simon, if you were right (and you aren't), then there should be more blur on the wingtip due to the additional motion (vertical, in the middle of wing travel, ie. highest speed, as well as the identical forward motion), not less. The shutter speed was sufficient to stop the motion of the wingtip, and therefore sufficient to stop the blur on the eye. The only remaining possibility is that the focus is too close, ie. on the wing, not on the eye.

 

If you had manually focused (with Doug's ability), this would not have happened. Granted, most people can't focus like Doug, so the AF is preferable for most people, but that just reinforces my point about AF being technology for giving amateurs better results. A sufficiently dilligent (and talented) pro can do better.

[sdai]

Carsten, let's see some of your bird pictures ... actually, one is enough.

[carstenw]

Simon, I would not have expected any other kind of answer from you. I would ask you why this would be relevant in any way or form, but I only fear that this would prolong the thread. I generally don't do bird photos, btw, which I am somehow sure you will use to make dubious conclusions.

[jaapv]

It is really just pilot error, this wasn't a good example chosen due to my carelessness ... as I've mentioned in one previous post, the snap was shot at about 1/800, which is apparently not enough and the part you referred to is not due to DoF but sheer camera shake and motion blur.

 

Now, there is enough dof and if I show you the following goose then it looks a tad better.

 

 

This shot is an excellent argument against using AF on bird pictures; one wants the eye in focus, not the wingtip. How can the poor little goblin inside the camera know? It takes the eye and mind of the photographer to decide. And I'll happily show a manually focussed bird shot, Simon;).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sdai]

Simon, I would not have expected any other kind of answer from you. I would ask you why this would be relevant in any way or form, but I only fear that this would prolong the thread. I generally don't do bird photos, btw, which I am somehow sure you will use to make dubious conclusions.

 

Carsten, I generally don't do bird shots either, this one was grabbed from my condo window at lakeshore ... I was only curious to see how you could freeze a bird's wing at 1/800 because you've made yourself sound so certain. I mostly used my long lenses for deers, wild life these kind of stuff.

 

Anyway, I put up a bird shot which I think is reasonably good enough to back up my comments that AF could make one's life a lot easier just to "grab the shot", and that was when I responded to Doug's post.

 

I was expecting to see a 1:1 crop of his geese shot which was shot under a quite similar situation as mine, I'm not sure why he chose to show me another one which was only 16 meters away (with a effective focal length of 745mm on a DMR) according to him ... the lack of detail in the cormorant rear head more resembles a coarsely scanned film shot.

 

Let's take a break on this and please allow me to show you two others I bought my long lenses for ... a tiger with a 400mm and a deer with a 600mm ... the deer was shot at sunset in near darkness from more than 200 meters away in a blind. Cheers!

 

 

[carstenw]

Nice light in that shot.

 

Wrt. Doug's shot, shooting up close is a lot harder than far, so I think he rather over-proved his point.

 

And finally, I didn't "make myself sound certain", I simply observed that the wingtip was sharper than the eye, in spite of travelling faster. The rest is simple deduction, my dear friend Watson.

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[k_g_wolf ✝]

Two really fine shots, but don ´t you think it´s time to end the discussion before we are in 2 0 0 8 ?

 

You can´t win, but it was an interesting discussion nevertheless.

 

Best wishes and a Happy New AF- Year for you, sdai

[thrid]

The one thing that really drives me nuts about the dominance of AF is that most manufacturers have removed the full DOF scales from their lenses.

 

The markings on Canon lenses end at 3m, which make them useless for certain work like streetphotography (which AF is really bad at). You can't just preset focus and bang off a shot, because you have no idea what distance the lens is focused at.

 

Nikon on the other hand tends to give you full DOF scales on their AF lenses. That way you can shut off the AF and happily scale focus to your hearts content.

 

To me this is such a big deal, that I will go Nikon, when I decide to buy a DSLR again. (unless I can afford the R10 and it's any good).

 

AF has been a mixed bag of goods for me. There certainly are times when it comes in handy, but there are others when it actually becomes an obstacle to making the shot. Having the choice to use either method is of course the best solution.