20D vs 1DMark II

[altfel]

i will be shooting for a sports magazine.
they said they will buy me a 1DMarkII. i will use the lenses from the old 10D (Sigma 70-200/2.8 and Canon 28-70/2.8).

i hate the Mark2 (excuse me boys, i am a nikon guy and i find the ergonomy of the Mark2 very poor) and i was thinking about 20D (much more ergonomic than the Mark2 and i really like it) and more lenses for the price difference. a 70-200/2.8 IS for example.

my question is: could 20D track a running player on the field as good as Mark2 ?!?!?
does it really worth the price difference between 20D and Mark2 ?!!?
the magazine could buy some good lenses for the 3500$ price difference.

so....i am only interested in AF performance of the 20D.

NOTE: i will apreciate if you will not post offtopic. i do not intend to start a Canon vs Nikon war. both make great cameras. .

[stv737]

I have a 20D but no experience with a Mark 2, but I have taken shots at football games and of cars on the track and my 20D seems to have no problems tracking them. The last practice sesion I went to for street legal cars on the road racing track when I looked at the pics full size I could read the license tab stickers on the front plate. I was on the back side of the track where some of the cars reach speeds in excess of 100mph. I have also shot some indoor motocross and you could literaly see the riders eyes in the pics. BTW Nikons suck! Just kidding played with a friends D70 today and they work pretty damn good too.

[HKFEVER]

I can start this:
- You will lose 3 frames in every second.
- You need to comp. the picture more carefully or get use to the difference between 1.3 and 1.6.

And the rest of the guy will fill in some more.

[blackviolet]

to answer your primary question - yes, the 20d will track a player pretty well. as good as the 1dmk2? - i'll let CDS, or one of the other guys who have both, comment. i do know there is a world of difference between the ai-servo in the 10d and the mk2. also, the custom functions help ensure you can focus *exactly* on the player you're tracking.

i love my mk2 and would be lost without it. but honestly, the 20d is a fine camera and i think it will be great for sport. here in australia, there are shooters working for news ltd. who use d30's and d60's and they take great shots because they know their sport well. it's experience over technology (spray and pray). heck, 8fps is too fast so i dial mine down to 5fps.

one thing i will say is there is a pretty good feeling in knowing it's almost bulletproof. just today when shooting some league trials games, i almost got taken out by several 100kg guys. the camera didn't hit the ground but it was a close one :oops:

congrats on your posting and that's cool they are buying you a body.

[gmen]

I only have experience of the MkII, but this thread might be of interest to you:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=313623&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

[Budley007]

Don't forget, the 1DmkII is also weather resistant. If you're inclined to cover outdoor sports on a regular basis, this fact alone should be pondered with careful consideration.

[Pekka]

i will be shooting for a sports magazine.
they said they will buy me a 1DMarkII.
i hate the Mark2 (excuse me boys, i am a nikon guy and i find the ergonomy of the Mark2 very poor)
Have you actually used 1D Mark II already? For me it took very short time to get used to the 1D layout and after that I have liked it better. 1D control layout is what you will get in future pro models as well (if you are a pro you will benefit from pro tools), so taking few hours to get used to it and adjust it to your liking is worth it.

could 20D track a running player on the field as good as Mark2
Mark II has 1D series 45 point AF with tons of ways to adjust it to your way of shooting. It has dual 32-bit RISC CPUs to operate the camera's autofocus separately with one dedicated to detecting focus while the second controls the lens drive. So even if I have not used 20D AI servo I will say no it won't be as good as 1D Mark II in tracking.

[altfel]

thank you so much.
so I won't tell the managers to buy the 20D instead.
:)
one more question.
i played very short time with 1D.
i don't know how the AF sensors work. how should i set the camera so that when a player moves from one part of my viewfinder to another, the AF sensor stick with the subject?!?

Note: please excuse my english. i hope you understood.

[defordphoto]

I have both cameras and shoot motorsports. The 20D is a fine camera, but it is NOT an MKII. The speed of the MKII overall is extremely superior to the 20D. Photo quality of the MKII will also be superior to the 20D, but the faster focusing and AI Servo tracking is quite remarkable. There is no camera like it in the world. The "ergo" does take a bit getting used to, but once you do get used to it, it's a non-issue.

[PacAce]

thank you so much.
so I won't tell the managers to buy the 20D instead.
:)
one more question.
i played very short time with 1D.
i don't know how the AF sensors work. how should i set the camera so that when a player moves from one part of my viewfinder to another, the AF sensor stick with the subject?!?

Note: please excuse my english. i hope you understood.
Most people would tell you to manually select the center AF point (it's the most sensitive AF point, BTW) in AI Servo mode and then follow the subject as he moves around, continuing to keep the center AF point on it.

However, if that's not practical or you don't want to do that, then next best thing would be to set to set the AF to automatic AF point selection. In this mode, with the camera in AI Servo mode (which is the mode you always want to be in when tracking subjects), the camera will start out by using the center AF point. Once the camera has locked in on the subject, it will be able to track the subject no matter where in the viewfinder he moves to as long as he in under one of the 45 AF points.

I actually have my camera set up to do either of these, depending on which focusing button I press (set by using the custom functions).

There are a number of other subject tracking options that are available by setting the custom functions. You can download a document from Canon which goes into these a little more in detai here:

http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/index.html

Click on "Tips & Techniques:" and the select "Cmera Handling & Max Image Quality".

[altfel]

ok. great link thank you.
i found other topics about tracking a player but those threads confused me.
here is my conclusion: the best method to track a soccer player is using automatic AF point selection and AI servo using all of the 45 AF points. is it right?
my mk2 will arrive on 20 march and untill then i want to know as much as i can.
i was thinking about making a survery about the best method to use AF points on different sport events.

[mbze430]

Personally, AI servo with Auto AF points is a bit slow. A fix point will track movie object much faster than having the system find a AF point. Most of the time, it gives you something you don't want.

If you need fast focus point, and want to be creative, set a point outside of the center and use that point to follow your subject. This will give you a more "creative" off center shot.

[Tom W]

Personally, AI servo with Auto AF points is a bit slow. A fix point will track movie object much faster than having the system find a AF point. Most of the time, it gives you something you don't want.

If you need fast focus point, and want to be creative, set a point outside of the center and use that point to follow your subject. This will give you a more "creative" off center shot.

The downside to using one point is that you have to track your subject very closely. This can be problematic when your panning a quick-moving subject, particularly if it is small in the field of view and subject to quick direction changes. While the 1D2 does a pretty good job of dealing with momentary interruptions to the main subject (passing poles, etc.), the odds of losing focus on your primary subject increase if you can't keep an active focus point on it most of the time. In those situations, multipoint AF would be an advantage.

[scottbergerphoto]

AF acquisition in AI Servo in Center Point only and 45 point automatic AF should be exactly the same. The reason for this is that in 45 point automatic AF point selection, in AI Servo, all of the 45 points except the center one are turned off by the camera until you get focus lock. Then all 45 points become active. So in both cases, initial focus aquisition is done by the Center AF point.
The only difference is that in AI Servo, Automatic AF point selection, you won't see the active focus point illuminate.
This is the ultimate reference on AI Servo:
http://photonotes.org/other/ai-servo.html
and this :
http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=174243&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

"What I wrote about the EOS D30 concerning this topic is equally applicable to other EOS cameras with multi-point AF systems, including the 10D and Digital Rebel. Here's a modified version:

When your EOS camera is set for automatic focusing point selection (all focusing points active), the camera selects a focusing point for you. This setting behaves differently depending on whether you've selected One-Shot AF or AI Servo AF. When One-Shot AF is combined with automatic focusing point selection, the EOS evaluates all focusing points simultaneously and usually picks the closest readable subject. When AI Servo AF is combined with automatic focusing point selection, the EOS wants you to tell it which subject you are interested in tracking, so *at first* it shuts off the outer sensors and waits until you point the center focusing point at a readable subject. Once the camera has 'acquired' the subject, all other focusing points are activated and the AF system will track subject movement not only towards or away from the camera but also left to right, right to left, and up, down or diagonally across the picture area covered by the focusing points.

Noel Carboni wrote:
>>One has to wonder just how well the camera could possibly track a moving subject from one focus point to another... <<

It might be easier to understand if you remember that the focusing data in AI Servo is being sampled very rapidly (on average 50 or 60 cycles per second), and this data is fed through an algorithm that calculates speed, direction and rates of acceleration or deceleration. With that much data available, the camera can decide with a reasonable degree of accuracy which focusing point(s) to use.

--------------------
Chuck Westfall
Director/Technical Marketing Dept.
Camera Division/Canon U.S.A., Inc. Scott

[CyberDyneSystems]

20D af performance is better than any other $1,500.00 Canon DSLR..

But it is not as good as the 1D.

[pcasciola]

Good to hear you got them to spring for the 1D Mk II, but you better hope they have more room in the budget for a lens. I think the 70-200mm on a 1.3x sensor is going to come up a bit short for soccer, unless you are willing to do a lot of running up and down the sidelines or a lot of cropping. I think you are going to want at least a 300mm, maybe even 400mm for a full size soccer field on a Mk II. I shot part of a football game last year with a 1D Mk II and 300/2.8L, and even following the line of scrimmage it felt a bit short to me. That's why I went 20D + 300/4L, because my total budget was only about $3000, and most pros I see shooting football are using a 1D Mk II + 400/2.8L, which works out to roughly the same FOV (within 10% anyway). I'm pretty happy with the setup for now.

[drisley]

Photo quality of the MKII will also be superior to the 20D
Virtually ever person who owns a 20D and 1DMKII has posted that the image quality is very, very, very close (atleast every post I've read has said that).

[pcasciola]

Virtually ever person who owns a 20D and 1DMKII has posted that the image quality is very, very, very close (atleast every post I've read has said that).Not to mention at ISO 3200 the 20D actually has the edge.

[defordphoto]

Good to know I have the best of both conceived worlds. :rolleyes:

[Persian-Rice]

Wait, every person with a 20D says its as good as a 1D, every person with a 10D says its as good as a 20D? which is it?

I know images between my 10D and 1D are very different. Now considering the 20D and 10D ultimately have identical images up to ISO 400......

[pcasciola]

Wait, every person with a 20D says its as good as a 1D, every person with a 10D says its as good as a 20D? which is it?

I know images between my 10D and 1D are very different. Now considering the 20D and 10D ultimately have identical images up to ISO 400......Who said the 20D is as good as a 1D Mk II? Let alone every person with a 20D. Overall, the 1D Mk II is a much better camera, I think most 20D owners will easily agree with that, but at least give credit where credit is due.

The 20D differs from the 10D by a wide margin in many aspects, especially where sheer speed is concerned. CF write speed, JPEG buffer size, high ISO noise, frame rate, startup time, to name a few. All those 20D specs are far closer to the 1D Mk II than they are to the 10D. Face it, it's a fact.

[Persian-Rice]

Werent we just talking about image quality??

If you want to get into speed, the 20D is fast, the 1D is perfect...........
But you can easily say, the 20D and 10D focus points are about the same, the differnce in focus speed is about right in the middle, so is tracking. 3x less focus points? the FPS actually is closer to the 10D then to the 1D. Image size is 1D, sensor size is 10D, DR is 10D, metering modes is 10D. ETTL is 1D. ISO 1D, startup 1D.

I would say it's right in the middle, not closer to either. Great camera for $1500......I think that the 1D is overpriced.........but still worth every penny.

[nosquare2003]

I think that the 1D is overpriced.........but still worth every penny.

What are you talking about?

[pcasciola]

I would say it's right in the middle, not closer to either. Great camera for $1500......I think that the 1D is overpriced.........but still worth every penny.I completely agree with you right there. The 1D Mk II is priced for professionals who can afford the high price tag. I wish I could afford one. The 20D is priced just low enough where it will appeal to hobbyists as well as semi-pros, and they can work with a lower profit margin than the 1D Mk II because they will sell a million 20Ds.

Spec for spec the 20D is probably right in the middle overall, but I still realize the 1D Mk II is far superior to it from an overall usage perspective, even more so for a sports photographer.

Not to nitpick, but the 20D is 66% faster frame rate than the 10D, but the 1D Mk II is only 60% faster than the 20D, so let's call that in the middle as well. :)

Back to the original purpose of this thread. If the budget is $3500 total, I can't see the 1D Mk II being the right choice with those two lenses, but if there's more room for a longer lens, by all means, get the 1D Mk II.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Virtually ever person who owns a 20D and 1DMKII has posted that the image quality is very, very, very close (at least every post I've read has said that).

I guess I;'m not virtual after all!

20D is close,. but 1D MkII has the edge,. color fidelity, and overall detail seem better to me with the MkII.

However,. I would agree that difference is not overwhelming...

[altfel]

we were talking about mk2 autofocus.
i will have a 400/2.8 and other L fast lenses.

[pcasciola]

we were talking about mk2 autofocus.
i will have a 400/2.8 and other L fast lenses.WOW. Mk II + 400/2.8L. That sounds perfect to me. In that case, great choice.

[drisley]

I guess I;'m not virtual after all!

20D is close,. but 1D MkII has the edge,. color fidelity, and overall detail seem better to me with the MkII.

However,. I would agree that difference is not overwhelming...
To each his own.
There is a review of both on the net written by a professional photographer who works with 1D's, 1DMKII's, 1DS' and 20D's all day long.
In his opinion the 20D has better colour accuracy than the 1DMKII, but the 1DMKII has a slight edge in dynamic range. Again, the image quality of these cameras is very close.
20D=good
1DMKII=good

[altfel]

how do i select automatic focus point selection?
it's found in personal custom functions, is set to off and i don't know to select ON.
anyone?

[RDKirk]

Wait, every person with a 20D says its as good as a 1D, every person with a 10D says its as good as a 20D? which is it?

I know images between my 10D and 1D are very different. Now considering the 20D and 10D ultimately have identical images up to ISO 400......

Round up.

[defordphoto]

Closed just because it's time...

These X vs. X threads rarely accomplish anything.