Nikon Z7 – I am a Bad Idea

Posted on October 3, 2018 by Andrew Astbury

Nikon Z7 – I am a Bad Idea and a waste of YOUR money!

Nikon Z7

And NO – this title isn’t meant as clickbait!

I love Nikon cameras for many reasons.

I HATE Nikon as a company.

I dislike Canon cameras for numerous technical and ergonomic reasons.

I LIKE Canon as a company.

The Nikon D5 was THE FIRST Nikon camera I’ve used that I dislike and thought was like the proverbial bag of spanners.

But now there’s a new Nikon that takes over the mantle of Nikon at its very worst – and I’ve not even clapped eyes on one yet let alone handled one. I don’t need to play with one to know just how much of a rip-off this pile of rubbish really is.

This camera is £4000 at Wex here in the UK – yes, that FOUR THOUSAND of your hard-earned spondoolicks (for our overseas friends that’s ‘slang’ for pounds sterling).

We’ve already harangued the Z7 for its single media slot – and Canon followed suit with the EOS R, is that a coincidence?

But here’s the kicker, and the MAIN reason why the Nikon Z7 is a crock, and the indicator lies at the foot of page 57 in the Nikon Z7 user manual:

Nikon Z7

And for those with bad eyesight:

Nikon Z7

You can see/download the manual here: NIKON Z7 USER MANUAL

I think the first to show the AF problems with the Nikon Z7 was the ‘afro haircut idiot know-nothing from Philedelphia’ – you know, the guy who never knew how to use Photoshop until the other month when Matt Kloskowski showed him how – live on YouTube.

Lot’s of people are jumping on the DISS THE NIKON Z7 AF bandwagon as I’m typing this, but none of the morons are pointing out WHY the NIKON Z7 auto focus is so crappy.

So I will tell you why!!!!

There is no way to have any control finesse over the AF functionality.

Nikon Z7

Above is the main control functionality for the D5/500/850 MultiCAM 20K AF system.

You will see controls for Blocked Shot Response and Subject Motion. These roughly equate to Tracking Sensitivity and Acceleration/Deceleration Tracking on the controls for the Canon 61 point Reticular system found on the likes of the 1DX Mk1 and Mk2 and 5DMk 3 and Mk4.

The two controls on both Nikon and Canon dictate the auto focus SOLUTION spat out by the PREDICTIVE AF ALGORITHMS contained in the cameras AF engine processors.

The subjects degree and type of motion RELATIVE to the camera position DEMAND different setups within this control panel. It’s all to do with the camera AF resistance to MINOR and MAJOR changes in subject position between one frame and the next.

If you want a definitive understanding of all this then go and purchase my Autofocus Guide to Nikon and Canon AF for Long Lenses and Birds in Flight by clicking this link.

So this is the problem with the Nikon Z7 – because it’s utilizing so-called ‘on chip phase detect’ – which isn’t phase detect at all in reality – you cannot get control of these variable functions because they don’t exist in the cameras menu/firmware.

As far as I’m aware these sorts of controls are not available on the Sony cameras either.

But there is still a form of predictive AF algorithm at work in all mirrorless cameras, and it would appear that the one inside the Nikon Z7 is really poor in the way it’s balanced out with regard to it coping with moving subjects – especially those that move somewhat erratically and towards the camera.

Understand this people, the Nikon Z7 is a glorified D5000 that is not worth half the price you’ll have to pay for it.

Mirrorless systems have certain advantages over traditional dSLR systems:

Reduction in Shutter Lag times
Removal of Mirror Slap vibrations
Reduction of Weight leading to Greater Portability

But on-chip phase detection isn’t real phase detection, and it will not (for the foreseeable future) be anywhere near as fast or accurate as CORRECTLY setup phase detect autofocus on a top flight dSLR.

A sequence of 77 raw files that are all tack sharp and cover around 12 seconds of time – no mirrorless system is capable of doing this to the same degree of consistency as a correctly set dSLR.

The dSLR is NOT DEAD!

Don’t believe me?

Licensed Formula 1 pit and circuit access photographers make a very good living, and they stand or fall by the reliability of their camera gear. But they are all business people at the end of the day.

If a Sony A9 and that fancy 400mm Sony lens was as reliable as the Sony fanboys claim it is, then why will we not see a plethora of Sony rigs at Suzuka on Sunday? Just a thought…

But for heavens sake folks, if you have a hankering for a Nikon Z7 then PLEASE think about it – make yourself aware of the FACTS before you blow your wodge of wonga!

It’s NOT a professional camera in any way shape or form, and Dirk Jasper of Nikon Europe even says that – watch the video below at 19mins 48sec:

NOTE TO NIKON: If you want to try and get me to change my mind then all you have to do is send me one guys!

I promise I won’t lick it or sniff it like that Jared Polin idiot!

Canon 5D Mk 4 Auto Focus Performance

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

Canon 5D Mk 4 Auto Focus

Canon 5D Mk 4

Like Nikon, Canon never do me any favors!

But I do feel that I must say to the world that it ought to give this camera a bit of a break. It’s had a good mauling in a lot of places, usually by idiots and no-nothings, who keep comparing it to its big brother the 1DX Mk2 – a camera not without its very own set of unique foibles!

The Canon 5D Mk 4 is NOT designed to be a “poor mans” 1DX Mk2.

It’s hardly what I’d call ‘cheap’ in the old purchase price department for starters, so ‘poor mans’ and ‘budget’ are not terms I can easily associate with it.

There are lot’s of things I need to delve into further on this camera to give you guys a fuller picture of the cameras overall performance – most of which is going to involve Calumet or Canon lending me more lenses.

But I can say that I’ve formulated a solid opinion on the Canon 5D Mk 4 Auto Focus performance, and it’s turned out to be a lot better than I’d first imagined.

These are the style of shot that really tells you if your auto focus is working and up to the job:

“Joey” 1/3200th, f7.1, ISO5000

“Joey” 1/3200th, f7.1, ISO4000

But before you can start producing the shots you have to go through the tedious bit of testing the AF first. It was while testing the overall sharpness and accuracy of the AF system that I came across a little problem.

When photographing the old ‘brick wall’ static target I found the system was front focusing by around 40 centimeters at 30 meters. If I added +4 on the AF micro adjustment (using the 500mm don’t forget) then everything was razor sharp.

This didn’t seem right in my eyes – I’ve never felt the need to use micro adjust on Canon gear to achieve sharp focus on a static target – perhaps I’ve just been lucky!

But after testing this body with another 500mm L IS II, and Calumets lens on 3 other bodies, all tests revealed the same necessary +4 adjustment.

The difference is quite marked!

Bare in mind that all these ‘static tests’ MUST be done with the aperture WIDE OPEN (in this case f4).
I always use the high ISO capabilities of a camera to the maximum, which allows me the luxury of shooting at between f6 and f8 to maximise DoF and use a high enough shutter speed to stop the action. Manual exposure with Auto-ISO is my usual method of shooting with long glass. A noisy image that is razor-sharp will ALWAYS out-sell a low noise image full of motion blur!
At f8 hardly any of the ‘poor sharpness’ (above left) is visible in the image because DoF is doubled from 40cms to over 80cms behind the plane of focus at this distance.
If I was to swap out to a shorter lens then the required amount of micro adjustment would be less, and with a longer lens MORE!

However, when we come to photograph the likes of ‘Joey’ we have a BIG problem!

Adding positive micro-adjustment values is basically like adding BACK FOCUS – you are telling the system to focus BEHIND where it perceives sharp focus to be – in other words ‘focus further away’.

So with a head on closing target/subject the resulting AI Servo sequence of frames will all be back focused. The camera will be focusing behind a subject that’s getting closer – it’ll never work!

What we need is the system to move the plane of focus AHEAD of the subject, so that when the shutter opens for the next frame, the subject and plane of focus are hopefully in the same place. This is how PREDICTIVE AF works, and cameras like the 1DX Mks 1 & 2/Nikon D4/4S truly excel at it.

Dialing in an opposite value of -4, and using AF Case 4 settings with Zone AF for the AI Servo sequences of little Joey yielded good results, but the level of consistency was still below what I thought was possible.

And it certainly got even less consistent when I changed to Point Expansion or Point Surround AF modes.

But now I’ve settled on a custom setup that is NOT obtainable on any of the fixed AF cases; TS & ADT both at +2 together with -3 AF micro adjustment:

‘Morgan’ 1/4000th f8 ISO4000 & -3 AF micro adjustment

I’ve just uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel where I discuss the performance of the Canon 5D Mk 4 Auto Focus system, and go through A LOT of full resolution images.

Note, some of you may get bored and think I examine too many images – shame on you! There are 4 sequences, and each one represents around 4 seconds in real time and are a ‘buffers worth’ of shots. So all those boring shots took less than 20 seconds to acquire – I have to show all the shots in a sequence to illustrate the level of consistency, and I show 4 sequences to prove none of them are a fluke – I DO THE JOB RIGHT – unlike some other reviewers!

You can view it at full size by clicking the YouTube icon bottom right once you press ‘play’, but be warned it’s 36 minutes long!

I’m not finished with this camera just yet I don’t think; I must admit that I do quite like it!

Is the Canon 5D Mk 4 Auto Focus capable of better performance than that of the venerable old 5D Mk3 ? Yes, it is.

Is the image quality better than the 5D Mk3 – oh you betcha it is, by a country mile and just like the 1DX Mk2 advantage over the 1DX.

Are the G/T algorithms (ISO), sensor and ADC output better – from what I can see that’s a ‘yes’ too; but then I’ve not done any dynamic range testing yet – kinda hard when the only lens you’ve got is a 500mm!

I’m getting used to the ‘touchy-feely’ screen now, but the fixed 7fps HS frame rate pisses me off a bit, I’d like to be able to drop it to 6 or 5 to the AF system even further.

Take my advice and don’t be impressed with the ‘Duel Pixel Raw’ feature – it’s CRAP. It does absolutely bugger-all apart from slow the camera down and produce massive files that are not worth the time or effort. And you can only ‘work’ them in that clunky DPP software which is a total abomination to try and use!

And old UHS1 SD card tech? The camera would be better with a CF slot in conjunction with a CFast2 slot ‘a la’ 1DX Mk2 – in my opinion of course.

Great Tit. Canon 5DMkIV, Canon 500mm f4 L IS II, ISO 10,000 +4 AF Micro adjustment

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Canon 5D Mk 4 – First Thoughts

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

The Canon 5D Mk 4

Looking at the Canon 5D Mk 4 for Wildlife & Bird Flight Photography.

Part 1 – First Thoughts.

Canon 5D Mk 4

The other day Calumet asked if I wanted to test the new Canon 5D Mk 4. I’d just done an autofocus workshop in Birmingham and had been asked about this camera, so I thought it would be a good idea to take up the offer.

I’ve deliberately stayed well clear of any reviews of this camera while waiting for its delivery – don’t want to unbox it with any preconceived ideas do we??!!

I picked the camera up yesterday from Calumet Manchester, replete with the stunning 500mm f4 LIS Mk 2 lens – “Leanne, where’s the other two spare batteries you promised you’d ordered for me?”

The only Canon DSLRs I’ve used over the past couple of years are the 1DX marks 1 & 2, with the occasional ‘smattering’ of 5DMk3 when I’ve been out with clients – so this new offering from Canon has something of a ‘clean slate’ to start with in my eyes.

So it’s a bit of a shame it got off to a bad start when I pulled it out of its case last night and found that Canon STILL haven’t added a viewfinder blind – a major fault with the 5DMk3 in my opinion.

Canon 5D Mk 4 What the heck are they thinking?

Canon 5D Mk 4 This camera is no 1DX Mk 2, and it’ll be bought by folk who want to shoot landscapes, seascapes, wide-field astro, a bit of studio work perhaps – it won’t be bought by folk like me who shoot big hairy-arsed beasties in zero light at ISO-stupid; yet the 1DX has one!

Come on Canon – think about the little things chaps.

Anyway, here’s the rig Calumet have supplied to me, just to see how far we can penetrate the domain of the 1DX Mk2/Nikon D5…

Canon 5D Mk 4 All those stupid straps can bugger off for starters – Jesus, they are a recipe for disaster. But WAIT – if I take the camera strap off I’ve not got my stupid rubber flappy thingy viewfinder blind….

Now imagine I’m using this Canon 5D Mk 4 camera with a wide-angle lens shooting a low light seascape with a 10 stop ND and a 2 minute exposure. That strap flapping in the wind and rattling on the tripod legs isn’t going to do much for image sharpness is it…it’s pathetic.

As a Nikon shooter the lack of a proper blind irks the heck out of me, but we’ll put it aside as I’m sure older 5D users are well used to the problem by now.

So moving on…

My two main interests in the Canon 5D Mk 4 are autofocus performance first, and ISO/low light performance a close second – being good at both is a prerequisite for wildlife photography, and in my mind this 5D Mk 4 is pitching its tent on the lawn belonging to the Nikon D810, so there’s a benchmark for it!

Setting the Canon 5D Mk 4 to my normal ‘Canon settings’ I nearly came a cropper before I started!

Not being used to the, shall we say ‘cheaper’ Canon DSLRs I pressed the DRIVE AF Mode button and flicked the front dial one click, assuming that this would shift the camera from the ONE SHOT mode the previous user had left it, to AI SERVO:

Canon 5D Mk 4

But NO…..WTF is this:

Canon 5D Mk 4 AI FOCUS…..what’s that all about then? So I did something that pained me greatly – picked up the manual – and wished I hadn’t.

So we hit the internet, and the the first hit in a Google search was:

Canon 5D Mk 4 That sounded so interestingly unreasonable that I tried it – and soon stopped!

Nahh… it’s not for me – unless I’m missing something major!

So just make sure you are in AI SERVO if you or your subject, or both, are moving.

It’s cloudy outside and about 1.5 hours before sunset, but let’s step outside and do my basic ‘car number plate’ AF test in CASE 1, just to see ‘the lay of the land’ with this Canon 5D Mk 4:

If you want to download the full resolution jpegs – 700Mb zip file – please click here. The file is at my Dropbox, so if this post goes a bit viral then it may take a while to download.

So there are 30 images, no processing done to them at all, and they are all either 5000 or 6500 ISO.

Shot hand held, 1/2000th, f6.3, manual exposure with auto ISO and back-button-only focus. Maximum frame rate was not quite 7fps (well it didn’t sound like it anyway), and I tried to shoot bursts of around 5 or 6 frames. It was only on the last of these that I was concious of shooting in buffer overflow.

Single Point AF was being used, in Case 1 – which isn’t best suited to this particular job. But it’s my standard test with any Canon, just to see how far off the ball the camera/lens combo is.

Shutter release priority was set to FOCUS for the first frame, and +1 focus priority for the second and subsequent frames.

And I have to say I’m pretty impressed. It’s done a heck of a sight better than I was expecting in Case 1.

Yes the shots have some noise and it certainly can’t hold a candle to its big brother 1DX Mk2 in that department, but then again its not been designed that way. Neither do I regard the noise as much of a problem either because it’s evenly distributed and not overly present in shadows.

But from an autofocus point of view the biggest percentage of those shots are on the money so to speak, and where it has gone wrong it’s only by a whisker; always slightly behind the target – that’s to be expected with an accelerating subject and Case 1 Accel/decel tracking of ‘0’, using a long telephoto.

A considerable improvement over the 5D Mk 3 in both noise and AF performance in my opinion, neither do I think the Mk 3 would have managed 30 frames in the same amount of time.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting more of my thoughts and findings about the Canon 5D Mk 4. Tomorrow I’ll do some ISO testing and a bit more on the autofocus if the weather and time permit, so expect another post shortly!

And yes, it’s official, Andy HATES the bloody touch-screen! Boy am I going to get myself in trouble with that – perhaps I’m too old to cope with such fangled gadgetry!

But that is balanced out by the pleasant surprise that the camera allows exposure compensation in manual mode – up to now a luxury presented to nearly all Nikon users, but only 1DX and 1DX Mk2 Canon owners (to my knowledge anyway) – nice one Canon, it’s about time!

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Workshop Report and Canon 1DX Mk2 first thoughts

Posted on September 24, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

Workshop Report and Canon 1DX Mk2 first thoughts

September 9th to 16th, Norway Musk Ox and Sea Eagles.

Left to Right: Mark Davies, Sigbjorn Frengen (our specialist Musk Ox guide for Dovrefjell), “Some Bearded Fat Git”, Mohamed Al Ashkar, Paul Atkins and Malcolm Clayton.

All four clients have been on numerous trips to Norway before, but for everyone, including myself, it was our first time in the Dovrefjell–Sunndalsfjella National Park and the magnificent Musk Ox that call the place home.

Firstly, I have to say a massive thank you to our specialist guide for the Musk Ox, Sigbjorn Frengen.

He’s a superb guide, the font of all ecological knowledge, has a driving passion for what he does, is as fit as the proverbial Butchers Dog, and is only in his mid 20’s. He took guiding a bunch of geriatric old farts like us well in his stride; totally oblivious to the fact that we were all mighty jealous of his youth and fitness and secretly wanted to kill him for it!

And yes, I immediately booked him for the Dovrefjell part of my September 2017 workshop!

Musk Ox are animals not to be trifled with – they may look very benign but they weigh in at between 400 and 600 kilograms and can outrun Usain Bolt with very little effort. They are quick to temper, but the signs of the oncoming rage are subtle and difficult to spot even at 60-70 metres. Subtle head-shaking and snorting are the main give-aways that you are causing some displeasure:

A lone female Musk Ox snorts her displeasure at the presence of the photographer. She wants to rejoin the herd but the camera is in her way, so she blows mucus out of nose as a sign of annoyance. Canon 1DX Mk2 + 200-400 @ 560mm 1/2500th sec @ f7.1 and 16,000ISO – YES SIXTEEN THOUSAND!

The above image shows brilliantly my other main task for the week – testing the Canon 1DX mark 2.

Most people know me as a Nikon shooter, and that I have a love-hate relationship with Canon – yes, I’m a troubled person!

I’ve waxed lyrical about the Canon 200-400 f4 many times on this blog and elsewhere, and the fact that I consider the Canon 61 point Reticular AF System to be the best on the planet.

You will also know that I loathe the sensor output of the original 1DX, and Canons daft refusal to give us the Uncompressed RAW Recording capability – spoilt see, Nikon user!!

I managed to get a couple of hours on the Canon 1DX Mk2 back in July and promptly set about testing the improved AF algorithms – by jingo was I impressed. I was getting 40% less dropped shots on the Canon 1DX Mk2 at 10 frames per second than I was used to at 6 frames per second on the Mk1.

And as for the sensor output in general, the shadows adjustment latitude and high ISO performance – well, it was a revelation.

The Musk Ox above (click the image to view the full rez) has virtually ZERO noise reduction on it – none in post, and LOW on the in-camera High ISO NR menu setting.

A baby Musk Ox lying by its mothers side on a soft bed of lichen, Erica and rare alpine plants. ISO 2500, 200-400 @ 560mm, 1/2500@f7.1

Why use such a high shutter speed Andy?

It’s brain-in-gear time folks – breezy conditions, lowish light levels, hair on the subject that’s over 1metre long, and wispy grass stems – all these move way faster than the bulky Musk Ox itself – under peaceful circumstances of course!. If these little tiny details suffer with motion blur it ruins the image – provided you have a sensor that can ‘deliver the goods’ at the resultant ISO-stupid.

I’m also shooting hand-held off the knee, with and effective 560mm angle of view on a 20Meg+ sensor, so I’ll need at least 1/1600th to combat the shakes, and I am indeed ‘testing’ a camera, so shooting at sub 1600ISO is not doing the job.

I’m using ‘spot AF’ and partial metering, and my AF point is bang in the middle of the point pattern.

This all neatly brings me to my first problem with the Canon 1DX Mk2 – or at least the one I was using – look at this image from a few frames before:

A baby Musk Ox lying by its mothers side on a soft bed of lichen, Ericas and rare alpine plants.

If you examine the two shots closely you see something odd.

At this distance, around 70 metres, the f7.1 aperture should be generating around 1 metre of DoF.

In the first shot the AF pont was pretty much on babys head, but the DoF run-out is a lot greater beyond that distance than it is closer to the camera. If the shot had been taken wide open at f5.6 then the subject would not be as sharp as it is. More of babys body should be sharp, and less foreground sharpness.

In the second shot I’ve wavered slightly right, so now the focus point is on mums ass. This SHOULD push the plain of focus further back – and thus that 1 metre DoF. And it does – a bit! There is still too much foreground DoF.

The point is this, the focus tends to ‘bounce a little’ rather like the fault with the Nikon D4. This was caused, in the D4, by ‘mirror bounce’. But in the Canon 1DX Mk2 I get the feeling that it’s due to a nano-second miss timing between the AF sensor and the mirror starting to move for the next frame.

Why do I think this? Because if I drop the frame rate from 10fps to 7fps the ‘AF bounce’ disappears completely.

I could put more images up to illustrate my point further but that would be pointless as it could be a fault unique to the camera I was using. Having said that, there was another Canon 1DX Mk2 with a 200-400 shooting right next to me, and that showed exactly the same characteristics!!

But there is ONE thing I truly loathe on the Canon 1DX Mk2 – and the D5 and D500 come to that – the rear screen resolutions.

They are all too high in resolution.

I understand WHY they have such high resolutions, but when you are shooting stills at long distance, where focus placement is super-critical, they CAN lull you into something of a ‘false sense of security’ when you use them to check fine focus tolerances at 1:1.

You check the images on the camera and they look sharp. You get back to base and offload the images to your storage drives then review them on a 13″ MacBook Pro with a damn 227 dpi Retina display and the still look sharp. You get home and view them on your 90-odd dpi 24″ Eizo – and some of them look a lot less perfect!

I suppose with use it’s something you’ll get used to, but if you are moving to a Canon 1DX Mk2 from an older Mk1 or 5DMk3 then bare it in mind and check your images VERY carefully if you’re using big glass under critical conditions.

Anyway, back to the stunning Musk Ox again:

A solitary bull Musk Ox stands watch over his harem of females under the gloomy light of late afternoon in the Dovrefjell National Park in Norway.

Stormy skies form a backdrop to a bull Musk Ox standing watch over two females in his harem, ready to chase away any other bull that he may consider a threat to his dominance.

“Bam-Bam does Lunch”

Lack of Lemmings meant the Arctic Foxes were still up in the high ground, so with that and a very wet forecast for Sunday we elected to leave Dovrefjell a day early and do the 7 hour drive to Lauvsnes in order to gain an extra day with the Eagles.

Monday morning saw us in the boat at just after 6.30am and myself an “Mad” Mark Davies had one shot weighing heavily on our minds – Backlit Eagle!

Over the remaining days I have to say that we were spoilt something rotten with opportunities for this most enigmatic eagle shot, here is a tiny fraction:

The Canon 1DX Mk2 performed perfectly on this job, no one could have asked it to do more. Shooting this at 10 frames per second was epic as it captures more of the ‘money shots’ with the spray trails.

Here is a continuous burst of 77 raw files at 10 frames per second, from when the eagle begins its approach to when I can’t basically be bothered any more:

And they are tack sharp from the first:

To the last:

I won’t say that by the end of the Thursday session it was getting boring, because I never cease to marvel at these awesome birds – but the hit-rate of the Canon 1DX Mk2 was getting a tad monotonous.

While a ‘crossing’ subject is not so taxing on the AF system as head-on subjects, the huge amounts of lens flare you encounter when shooting the style of image are notorious for playing havoc with auto focus. When you get to the point of maximum rim lighting neither you or the camera can see very much of anything at all, and most older systems will hunt focus for a frame or two if you are not careful with your settings.

I shot sequences like this using both AF Point Surround and 9 point Zone AF – both of which performed superbly.

I’ll have to add a caveat though – the camera only performs this well if your technique is SOLID. If you struggle to keep your AF group on target, or are just plain bone-idle, and try Large Zone AF or God forbid Auto, the cameras AF system goes into melt-down doing this sort of shot.

And yet AUTO on the Nikon D5 does a very good job at these sequences – weird!

So after a week of working the Canon 1DX Mk2 quite hard here’s what I think:

First, if you own a Mk1 1DX you NEED to upgrade, if only for the much superior IQ of the sensor.

Canon will probably hate me saying this, but the Canon 1DX Mk2 is ‘a bit of an animal’. You could ‘wobble around’ a bit on the AF tracking with the Mk1 and get away with it. But the Mk2 will bite you in the bum for doing the same thing – and when you least expect it.

With head-on targets the AF can both surprise and disappoint, methinks there will be a firmware upgrade at some point that will tidy the systems response to rapidly closing subjects at shortish distances. That’s what happened with the Mk1.

There some other settings I need to play with on this beast of a machine before I feel I can formulate a descent opinion, things that I never had a chance to try in Norway, and others that only occur to me when viewing images on a PROPER SCREEN!

There is more to this ‘box of tricks’ from Canon than meets the eye!

And has anyone noticed just how CRAP the manual is – Jesus, I don’t think I’ve seen such a ‘sketchy’ document since I perused the Nikon D5 manual….sometimes I get the impression that both Nikon and Canon are a little clueless as to how there own gear works!

Makes me smile – and that’s a good thing! But then again, it’s not my money being spent here – it’s yours.

A big thanks has to go to Paul Smith for supplying his camera and lens for this first evaluation – Cheers Matey!

And as always a big thank you to my clients, Mark, Malcolm, Mohamed & Paul for being such good sports, making a fun group dynamic, and for having a damn good laugh for week – usually at my expense! Cheers for your continued support guys.

And lastly, Ole Martin – thanks again for yet another great week. Only another 9 months and I’m back for two weeks solid – Christ, won’t that be fun!!!

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Nikon D5 Autofocus Test

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

Nikon D5 Autofocus Test

On Tuesday afternoon I had the opportunity to do a short Nikon D5 Autofocus test, courtesy of Paul Atkins.

Nikon D5 Autofocus

Using Paul’s newly acquired D5, his Nikon 400mm f2.8 lens and his two crackpot Golden retrievers ‘Enzo’ and ‘Raffa’, his large lawn and a couple of tennis balls, I gave the camera some hard work to do.

PLEASE NOTE: as you can see from the publication date, this is an early release test.

Bearing in mind that attentiveness, obedience and eagerness to please, are not traits that figure greatly in either dogs mental make-up; I was pleasantly surprised as to how instructive the exercise was – well done puppies!

On a good run at the camera the dogs cover something like 28 metres in 5 seconds, starting out at around 31 metres away and ending just outside the focus limiter at around 3 metres.

The camera was set to my MANUAL EXPOSURE + AUTO ISO, 1/4000th and f6.3.

I should also stress that there was NO AF FINE TUNE set for these shots.

That silliness has been taken to a whole new level of craziness now – sweet Jesus it makes me so angry!

I set the AF up very much how I’d set a Canon 1DX or 1DXMk2, and then went through the majority of the AF modes.

Dynamic 9, 25 and 72, group, 3D and ‘AUTO’ – and I was totally horrified at which mode gave the best results, and I mean BEST by a country mile!

In this video I go through the full resolution sequence of 27 shots individually so you can see how the Nikon D5 autofocus performs as the two dogs get closer to the camera with every frame. The images have only Lightroom default sharpening applied and have had nothing done to them except my standard contrast-lowering adjustments.

Don’t be silly – click the YouTube link in the bottom of the above frame and watch it at full resolution on my channel!

Please don’t take this as a definitive test of the Nikon D5 autofocus – I certainly don’t, and neither am I prepared to draw much of a conclusion from it. But it works!

I know I’m not alone in finding the Auto focus mode to be ‘better’ in terms of consistent focus, but to my mind this should NOT be the case, especially on such a target moving in such close proximity to a long telephoto – even if it is an f2.8.

At this point I’m not going to bother showing the sequences from the other modes, just take my word for it that I was shocked at the distinctly poorer performance using the other modes I tried – except for GROUP, which has never worked well in this sort of situation.

A couple of things to note:

I used the same settings at 12fps and the consistency level dropped by around 45%, so no change in that old chestnut. The Canon 1DX suffered from it too, but with the limited testing I’ve done on the 1DXMk2, Canons idea of crafting and honing the existing AF system, as opposed to Nikons ‘chucking the baby out with the bath water’, seems to have solved the problem to a greater degree.
The D5 raw files seem to have lost a little tractability in ‘lifting the blacks/shadows/exposure’ – something that I’ve always held typical .NEF files in high esteem for. This I found quite surprising seeing as the camera was heralded as the ‘Prince of Darkness’. It’s also the one thing above all else that I despise in Canon 1DX raw files. But Canon have upped their game considerably on this front with the 1DXMk2.

Seriously folks, it’s like some sort of demented see-saw or merry-go-round with these manufacturers…

The new Canon is coming to Norway with me in a couple of weeks, and Mr. Paul is bringing his D5, so there will be quite a bit of performance testing going on throughout September and October.

Hope these shots peek your interest folks!

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Canon 1DX Mark 2

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

Canon 1DX Mark 2 – a Game Changer?

A couple of weeks ago I posted on my Facebook page that I had been playing around with some RAW files shot with the new Canon 1DX Mark 2 – and my initial conclusion was that the new speed master from Canon was, in my opinion, something of a GAME CHANGER.

Canon 1DX Mark 2

Boy did I get a bit of a thrashing – from Nikon D5 users who have little to no experience of the pre-existing 1DX system, let alone the new one; in other words folk trying to justify the giant lump of cash they’ve just handed over………

What GAME is it that I think the Canon 1DX Mark 2 potentially changes?

For me it breaks down quite simply:

Auto Focus: The Canon 1DX Mk1 61 point Reticular AF system BEATS THE CRAP out of all variants of the Nikon Multi-Cam 3500 AF system when it comes to using long glass on fast-moving targets.

With the caveat that you need to know and understand how to set it up of course!

Image Quality: Any Nikon pro-body RAW file kicks a Canon 1DX Mark 1 .CR2 file into the middle of the last century.

The Nikon D4/4S sensors produce RAWs that are cleaner in respect of ISO/Noise, greater Dynamic Range (up to a point) and are just plain “more tractable” when it comes to post process; especially in shadow and highlight recovery.

And so “The Game” is quite simple – AF Performance v Sensor Output IQ – it’s simple and straight forward enough that anyone can understand where I’m coming from!

Let’s get something clear from the start – neither Canon or Nikon have seen fit to let Uncle Andy get his hands on either of the new cameras! The other week I went to a Canon day in Manchester and actually got my hands on a Canon 1DX Mark 2 – but when I went into my pocket and pulled out a 64 Gb CF card the guy from Canon had a hissy-fit and wouldn’t allow me to take any shots – “we can’t allow them to get into the public domain” was his excuse, and he wouldn’t budge.

But one of the speakers, Simeon Quarrie, was kind enough to let me have a play with some of his .CR2 from a project in Africa he’d just completed on the new Canon 1DX Mark 2 – and my chin hit the floor.

I could not believe what I was seeing – the amount of shadow and highlight recovery over-head was insane. Overall, the shadow and highlight RAW IQ is right up there with the Nikon D4/4S. Now let’s not get too carried away here; the Canon 1DX Mark 2 .CR2 file is still lossless compressed ( see blog article HERE) and so isn’t offering QUITE what it could do in respect of post-process, but it is A MASSIVE jump in IQ from the original Canon 1 DX.

FFS Canon, grow a pair will you – give the Canon users a firmware upgrade to allow them the option of keeping the uncompressed RAW will you! It’s not going to cost you anything…

Austin Thomas kindly sent me a couple of RAWs from his new Canon 1DX Mark 2 a couple of days after the Canon Open day in Manchester:

Screen grab of basic raw file adjustment from the new Canon 1DX Mk2 – shot taken by Austin Thomas.
Note Shadow Recovery slider position.

In this Kestrel image note the position of the Shadow slider in the Lightroom Basic panel – 100% to the right. The shot is 3200ISO so yes there is a bit of noise, but I’ve not made any attempt to remove it – the ONLY adjustment made is to the shadow recovery. Just look at the eye, there’s NO colour noise or pattern noise.

Screen grab of my processing of a raw file from the new Canon 1DX Mk2 taken by Austin Thomas. Note Highlight & Shadow Recovery slider positions.

Screen grab of basic raw file adjustment from the new Canon 1DX Mk2 – shot taken by Austin Thomas.
Note Highlight & Shadow Recovery slider positions.

In the Little Owl (L’owly!) shot I’ve pushed things further by putting the Highlight Recovery slider 100% to the left for maximum effect.

This extreme shadow and highlight recovery is almost impossible with Mark 1 RAWs without incurring massive penalties in the form of colour noise and sensor pattern noise, especially in the shadow areas:

1DX Mark 1 raw file with 100% shadow recovery – note the huge amounts of pattern noise and false green/magenta colour artefacting. This shot is mine BTW – Austin doesn’t get many of these up his way!

And now it appears that DPReview have done something useful – they’ve been shooting a head-to-head between Canon 1DX Mark 2 and a Nikon D5 (which in itself is NOT useful), but they’ve put some RAW files up that folk can download.

A couple of these files do a very good job of illustrating my point about the Canon 1DX Mark 2, and you can download them HERE and HERE.

Go and download these two files:

Canon 1DX Mark 2

Bring them into Lightroom and drag the Highlight Recovery all the way to the left, and the shadow Recovery all the way to the right:

Canon 1DX Mark 2

Now go and look at those tyre barriers – no colour noise or sensor pattern noise.

As a long-time Nikon shooter I find lots of thing that irritate me about Canon – the crackers menu system and the God-awful ergonomics. But then a lot of Canon users will say the same about Nikon – it’s what you are used to that makes the ‘stuff’ on the other side of the fence look crazy.

But all that is totally irrelevant really – all I’m ever concerned with is AF performance and sensor IQ. And sensor IQ was the Achilles Heel of the original 1DX in my opinion – simply because I’m used to Nikon sensor IQ.

I choose to use a Mk1 1DX – with its somewhat inferior IQ – over my D4 or 4S – with the better IQ but poorer AF performance – when “the chips are down”. The chips are down when I know I’m going to be in a situation where “THE shot” could come at any time, and is not going to be easily repeatable.

Seeing as adopting this course of action involves me begging, stealing, borrowing, or God forbid HIRING the gear, it’s a decision I never take lightly!

But the Canon 1DX Mark 2 has alleviated my IQ concerns, and so makes the option a little easier.

FOOT NOTE

The main fault with the Nikon Multi-Cam AF system is a missing user control – Canon call it Acceleration/Deceleration Tracking. It’s a mission-critical control, and Nikons steadfast refusal to give us access to it means that either THEY are stupid, or that they think their users are.

But the new D5 AF system gives Nikon users access to a control Nikon call Subject Motion – you guessed it, it’s Acceleration/Deceleration Tracking.

Does it work as effectively as Canons – who have been honing and developing it for years? Who knows….perhaps I would by now if it weren’t for the earthquake in Japan a few week ago.

I seriously hope that Nikon HAVE got it right; but at the end of the day it still doesn’t help me all that much because I can’t put a D5 on the back of a Canon 200-400 – the best all-round wildlife photography lens on the planet!

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Canon 1DX MkII

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Andrew Astbury

Canon 1DX MkII versus Nikon D5?

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Holy Smokes – I’m getting inundated with questions since yesterdays launch announcement regarding the Canon 1DX MkII.

Everything is hypothetical at the moment because I’m not expecting to see a D5 until mid-March, and the 1DX Mk II around mid-April to May.

Trying to compare, or do an ‘X versus Y’ is really something of a pointless excercise, even if the two bodies were ‘on the shelf’ right now, and I say this because:

Most potential purchasers of either body are already heavily invested in one system or the other.
A direct comparison is only of real use to someone who isn’t heavily invested in glass from one system or the other – in which case you shouldn’t be looking at either camera body because both of them will chew you up and spit you out in bubbles.

Remember, a good camera is only as good as the glass that feeds it AND the twat that’s doing the driving!

But the perenial Canon v Nikon question will always be there like the elephant in the room, so here are the general specs for the two camera bodies:

Sensor Format

Canon 1DX MkII: Full frame
Nikon D5: Full frame

Megapixels

Canon 1DX MkII: 21.5 megapixels (20.2MP effective)
Nikon D5: 21.33 megapixels (20.8MP effective)

Max Resolution

Canon 1DX MkII: 5472 x 3648
Nikon D5: 5568 x 3712

Aspect Ratios

Canon 1DX MkII: 3:2
Nikon D5: 3:2 and 4:5

File Formats

Canon 1DX MkII: JPEG, RAW for stills. MJPEG, MOV, MP4, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 for video.
Nikon D5: JPEG, RAW, TIFF for stills. MOV, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 for video.

Bit Depth

Canon 1DX MkII: 14-bit
Nikon D5: 14-bit

Memory Card

Canon 1DX MkII: 1 CFast and 1 CompactFlash
Nikon D5: 2 XQD or 2 CompactFlash

Autofocus Points

Canon 1DX MkII: 61 phase detection points, with 41 cross-type
Nikon D5: 153 phase detection points, with 99 cross-type

Viewfinder

Canon 1DX MkII: 100% coverage and ~0.76x magnification
Nikon D5: 100% coverage and ~0.72x magnification

Rear Display

Canon 1DX MkII: 3.2-inch touchscreen with 1.62 million dots
Nikon D5: 3.2-inch touchscreen with 2.359 million dots

ISO Range

Canon 1DX MkII: 100-51200 (50-409600 when extended)
Nikon D5: 100-102400 (50-3280000 when extended)

Metering Methods

Canon 1DX MkII: Evaluative metering, partial metering, spot metering
Nikon D5: 3D Color Matrix metering, center-weighted average metering, spot metering, highlight weighted

Continuous Shooting

Canon 1DX MkII: 14FPS at 20.2 MP for up to 170 RAW photos (16FPS with mirror lockup)
Nikon D5: 12FPS at 20.8 MP for up to 200 RAW photos (14FPS with mirror lockup)

4K Video Recording

Canon 1DX MkII: 4096 x 2160p at 59.94 fps, 50 fps, 29.97 fps, 25 fps, 24 fps, 23.98 fps
Nikon D5: 3840 x 2160p at 30 fps, 25 fps, 24 fps

4K Clip Length

Canon 1DX MkII: 30 minutes
Nikon D5: 3 minutes (though rumour has it this will be extended).*

Weight

Canon 1DX MkII: 3.37 lb (1530 g)
Nikon D5: 3.11 lb (1415 g)

Price

Canon 1DX MkII: £5199
Nikon D5: £5199

*Nikon have been denying this being down to weather-sealing and over-heat problems, but the D5 uses the power-hungry H.264 video codec – 30 minutes record time might result in an overheat problem similar to Chernobyl.

The Canon 1DX II uses the motion jpeg (MJPG) codec – easier on the camera but needing BIG transfer bandwidth, hence the need for those rather expensive C-Fast 2.0 memory cards!

But from a stills photography PoV there isn’t generally a lot between the two cameras in terms of image size and megapixel count.

Both cameras are more than capable of shooting long continuous burst of RAW files at very high frame rates – useful for the long-lens sports photographer where depth of field even wide open is measured in meters. Any marginal errors in the predictive autofocus calculations made by the camera become masked by the available DoF – even with wide open apertures. see HERE for more explanation!

But when it comes to wildlife photography, birds in flight, and birds flying directly at the camera in particular, one does need to ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts’….

As I have pointed out many times in the past, two of the biggest contributors to poor AF performance with fast moving, closing subjects at sub 25 metres are:

High Frame Rate
Too many active AF points

So unless I’m shooting a ‘manual focus trap’ like this:

wildlife photography, common Kestrel, photography technique

I’m not really interested in shooting at 3 trillion frames per second – buy my AF Guide for Nikon and Canon for further explanation!

The Canon 1DX II is described as having new predictive AF algorithms working with the new EOS Intelligent Tracking and Recognition AF – this might increase the effective ‘sharp capture’ frame rate in AI-Servo from the 1DX Mk1 sweet-spot of 5 or 6 fps with an f4 lens; then again it might not! The sooner someone lends me one then the sooner I’ll be able to find out and let you know…..

I’m also pleased to see an increase in frame coverage of the 61-point High Density Reticular AF II system – this seems to be up by 24% on the original 1DX.

The overall mark changes to the 1DX stills AF system are not quite as radical as those between the Nikon D4/4S and new D5 – I’m still trying to get my head around the idea of all those AF points.

So before we all get too excited I’ll just say this: 90 percent plus of people who take pictures using autofocus DON’T actually know how it works.

Predictive AF is exactly what it says on the tin – it ‘predicts’ where the subject WILL BE when the shutter opens for the NEXT frame; and while the mirror is DOWN the AF controller/motor MOVE the lens focus to THAT PREDICTED position.

For a closing subject, the lens focus is physically AHEAD of the subject prior to the shutter opening – that’s right, a bird flies into the plane of focus….and don’t confuse plane of focus with focal plane either!

So there’s a lot going on when we shoot in Canon AI-Servo or Nikon CF, and to get a sequence of sharp continuous frames….

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we have to regulate the amount of subject information that the camera tries to handle. And the commonest error people make is to supply TOO MUCH of that information by using too many AF points. That mistake is often further compounded by allowing the camera to ‘decide’ what it thinks it needs to focus on by using some form of auto-area focus mode.

This ‘overhead’ of information takes time to process. And the only time the camera has available to process this information AND move the lens focus is that split second when the mirror is down between frames and the shutter is closed. So the general and fairly fool-proof way of working is to use as few AF points as you need to cover the part of the subject you want sharp focus on; and then help the camera out further by giving it that extra bit of processing time/ more mirror down-time – lower frame rate!

So some of what these two cameras are offering isn’t exactly beneficial on the face of it.

But time will tell!

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Autofocus Guide for Long Lens Bird in Flight Photography

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

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My Autofocus Guide for Bird in Flight Photography is finished and available for download in my online store – here, priced £29.00

The download is in the no-frills .pdf format.

This is my ‘real world’ guide to Canon & Nikon Autofocus which is specifically aimed at photographers using long lenses for Bird in Flight photography.

I sell my full resolution wildlife and natural history images every day via the various global image libraries to which I am a contributor. The largest percentage of these sales are Birds in Flight.

Image libraries demand tack sharp, full resolution uploads from their contributors; even marginal sharpness will result in an image being rejected by Quality Control.

A large male White-tailed eagle, locally known as “Brutus”, carrying a very large Coalfish.

In this guide, I take you right back to the basics of subject speed and distance; and how this impacts on our choice of camera body and lens focal length and working aperture.

A Red Kite in a fast dive against a blue sky.

You’ll learn how phase detection autofocus works – only by really understanding how your autofocus system works, and what its control settings actually do, will you truly be able to control it in the way you need to for the particular task at hand.

I give you exposure and autofocus control settings for both Canon and Nikon, based on ‘real world’ full resolution images – settings that actually work, and do the job you expect them to do.

We also discover the various ‘tips ‘n tricks’ we need to know to help the autofocus system do the job we are asking it to do.

We also look at the short-comings of both the Nikon and Canon systems, and how to work around them in order to produce tack sharp images of birds in flight – HAND HELD – forget that tripod; you can’t move fast enough with one!

Photographers who have read this guide as it was being written have called it ‘the definitive guide’. I’m not going to be so big-headed as to promote it as such myself, but I will say that it’s taken a while to produce, is pretty darn thorough, and I have the shots to prove it!

Available for purchase in my online store right now.

Please Note: This document relates to LONG LENS continuous auto focus tracking in Nikon AFC and Canon AI Servo modes in conjunction with continuous shooting modes on Nikon D4/4S and Canon 1Dxbodies with v2 firmware or higher, and is primarily related to capturing Birds in Flight and other fast-paced wildlife action photography.
Canon 5DMk3/7DMk2 users will also find this guide very useful, as will non-wildlife shooters.

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