[Rover]

I know I would have one issue with the 6D: the number (or rather, the lack) of AF points. I know I don't wanna go to a camera having less than the 45 I have now with the 1D Mark IV, and even on that fabulous camera the coverage is barely adequate for what I do. I know that using a 5D Mark II was a chore when I had to. So whatever the successor of the 6D is, I hope they're going to fix that - I know I can't be the only one on the planet having issues with just 9 (11?) AF points.

 

YMMV.

[Brightcolours]

I know I would have one issue with the 6D: the number (or rather, the lack) of AF points. I know I don't wanna go to a camera having less than the 45 I have now with the 1D Mark IV, and even on that fabulous camera the coverage is barely adequate for what I do. I know that using a 5D Mark II was a chore when I had to. So whatever the successor of the 6D is, I hope they're going to fix that - I know I can't be the only one on the planet having issues with just 9 (11?) AF points.

 

YMMV.

JoJu and I were specifically talking about small mirrorless bodies and the ergonomic issues that brings. That has little to do with the number of AF points in any given model, does it? I can well understand that you would prefer a more advanced sports AF system, as you are used to that and most probably use it a lot.

 

The ergonomics on your !D mk IV are nicer than on small cramped mirrorless bodies as well, in many areas. You can even operate it when using gloves, and the menu structure is mostly very well thought out. 

[wim]

You have no basis for what you wrote there, to be frank. 

Again, annoying to have to repeat this, but the Eg-S screen does NOT need "calibration" by shims in a 6D, nor do other Eg screens. There are no shims in Canon DSLRs for that purpose, so the notion that new cameras would need the focus screen calibrated is a bit odd? The manufacturing tolerances are high enough to make sure that every screen has the same thickness, every screen sits the same optical distance from the mount.

 

The Eg-S in my 6D makes it much faster to judge focus with big aperture shallow DOF lenses with for instance  f1.2 on FF (that would be f0.6 on MFT) than with focus peaking. Depending on the state of one's eyes, of course  :wacko:

I haven't checked any bodies since the 50D, but certainly up to that time Canon dslrs did need shims for the correct positioning of focusing screens, whether that is to position the screens which are fixed or the frames which hold exchageable screens.


I actually had some fixed focusing screens replaced with 3rd party ones, for more accurate MF ....


Kind regards, Wim

[wim]

JoJu and I were specifically talking about small mirrorless bodies and the ergonomic issues that brings. That has little to do with the number of AF points in any given model, does it? I can well understand that you would prefer a more advanced sports AF system, as you are used to that and most probably use it a lot.

 

The ergonomics on your !D mk IV are nicer than on small cramped mirrorless bodies as well, in many areas. You can even operate it when using gloves, and the menu structure is mostly very well thought out.

As mentioned before, ergonomics are personal, you should not generalize. Some people prefer smaller cameras and lenses, other bigger ones. Do note that size and weight also influences ergonomic experience. There is not a single truth in this respect.


Kind regards, Wim

[obican]

Again, annoying to have to repeat this, but the Eg-S screen does NOT need "calibration" by shims in a 6D, nor do other Eg screens. There are no shims in Canon DSLRs for that purpose, 

 

 

Two things,

 

1) Pretty sure some Canon DSLR had shims, no idea on 6D though.

2) Even if your focusing screen plane is perfectly aligned to the image sensor, along with the mirror, if your particular lens suffers from back/front focus with your particular camera, you can't compensate for that electronically. Which means if your Eg-S screen shows that you nailed the focus, you actually haven't. That's why I said what I said.

 

I had a 5D like that and figured out it would be worthless getting an Eg-S type focusing scren for that camera, I simply learned to rely on the focus confirmation beep instead. The lens with the massive front focus was a m42 mount Carl Zeiss, so I got an adapter with the EMF chip which let me dial in the required front focus microadjustment setting so that the beep would be accurate.

[obican]

That is the most silly post of you in a while. With either silly or bullcrap points. Don't do that.  :blink:

 

Not walking into the trap of going point by point, or making a real list of ergonomics issues of whatever mirrorless thing, as by now I know your style. But again, just don't do that... 

 

If you had different expectations and nitpick like I do, you'd see all those points were quite valid. Still, I admit that I did a lot of nitpicking there but things like requiring left hand use for a lot of things and that extra button press for entering live view after power up makes me hate every single time I go out on an assignment with the 5DsR. 

 

In my opinion, the greatest ergonomical improvement Canon has done in the past 10 years is how they switched the order of functions for the top buttons on their 5D series so you can change ISO with the front dial instead of the rear dial. That was probably the most annoying thing 5D Classic had.

[toni-a]

This is simple logic, when you are using a device to capture the photo, another one to focus electronically and a third one for manual focusing you have to align/calibrate all three, when one device does everything all three you don't have to. Canon does a great job having all three factory aligned most of the time, when it's not the case, or when changing focus screen you do it manually, Canon did their best so that if you use their focusing screens it is already calibrated most of the time.

The thing I didn't understand, how by using an f1.4 lens I can see a DOF of 2.8 in the viewfinder while the lens aperture baldes are wide open?

[obican]

I don't know how exactly that works but you can try that by pushing DOF Preview button, nothing will change until f/2.5 or so. You can also shine a light through the viewfinder and look through the front of the lens, the bright area won't exceed the f/2.5 area.

 

This is done so that your viewfinder doesn't get dim with slow primes and zooms (f/4 is considered slow).

[toni-a]

I don't know how exactly that works but you can try that by pushing DOF Preview button, nothing will change until f/2.5 or so. You can also shine a light through the viewfinder and look through the front of the lens, the bright area won't exceed the f/2.5 area.


This is done so that your viewfinder doesn't get dim with slow primes and zooms (f/4 is considered slow).

I already noticed that, the DOF I have in pictures is shallower than what I see in the viewfinder when using my 50f1.4

[wim]

This is simple logic, when you are using a device to capture the photo, another one to focus electronically and a third one for manual focusing you have to align/calibrate all three, when one device does everything all three you don't have to. Canon does a great job having all three factory aligned most of the time, when it's not the case, or when changing focus screen you do it manually, Canon did their best so that if you use their focusing screens it is already calibrated most of the time.

The thing I didn't understand, how by using an f1.4 lens I can see a DOF of 2.8 in the viewfinder while the lens aperture baldes are wide open?

 

Here follows a simplified explantion:

 

This is caused by the coarseness of the surface of the focusing screen.

Focusing screens are also known as mattes, i.e. they are matted, otherwise they would not show an image. IOW, they are, in a way, transparant projection screens.

 

Obviously, matting a screen essentially makes the image dimmer. So they find a balance by not using a very fine matting, not on the standard focusing screen anyway. They do this by keepig the granulation of the surface fairly coarse. The disadvantage of this is that the image is projected over a failry large depth, in a way working liek a smaller aperture, causing a larger DoF than expected.

 

The laser precision mattes use a finer granulated surface (like the Eg-S, etc.), and therefore show less DoF, but the disadvantage is that the matting gets tighter in a way, and therefore the image darker.

 

Although you may see things changing from F/2.8, in reality with standard focusing screens the depth shown really is around F/5.6, with a precision matte it is around F/2.8. It depends also on the acuteness of your vision to a degree - DoF is after all related to how many lp/mm one can distinguish at a given distance and magnification. If your vision is more acute, you will see less DoF.

 

Kind regards, Wim