Low light Autofocus 10D vs D30

[Motorsports Photo]

Started my indoor motocross season. The last two were with my D30. Once I got clued in about the center sensor being bi-directional in the D30, my autofocus shots were much more reliable. This was the first time with the 10D. After 3 days of shooting I think the 10D is only marginally better that the D30 in low light. It does work MUCH better than the D30 in the sunshine.

Thought others might like to know about shooting in the dark.

-Pete

[mjordan]

Motorsports Photo wrote:
Started my indoor motocross season. The last two were with my D30. Once I got clued in about the center sensor being bi-directional in the D30, my autofocus shots were much more reliable. This was the first time with the 10D. After 3 days of shooting I think the 10D is only marginally better that the D30 in low light. It does work MUCH better than the D30 in the sunshine.

Thought others might like to know about shooting in the dark.

-Pete



I do a lot of indoor arena, barns and other poorly lighted shooting and I have found the 10D to be much better in low light focusing than my D30 was. I also have started shooting at 1600 where's I never would go above 800 with the D30 (usually never above 400). I might even try 3200 just for fun since I've seen some samples from other that used NeatImage on them and they came out pretty darn good.

Mike

[Jesper]

AF performance in low light also depends on the lens you are using. Before you take the shot, the lens is wide open; the faster the lens, the more light is available for AF. So AF will work much better with for example the 50 f/1.8 than with a slower zoom lens. Did you use the same lens on your D30 and 10D?

I haven't had the D30, but the EOS 30 (film camera, called Elan 7E in the USA). Although according to Canon the 10D has the same AF system as the EOS 30, the 10D's AF works much better in low light than that of the EOS 30 (in my experience at least...).