1DX AF Point Illumination

Just got my first 1DX today and am working through setup. I had heard about the AF illumination issue but didn't understand it ... now I do. I want to use Spot-Meter-Linked-to-AF-point with Servo focusing. When the scene is mostly black I have a very hard time knowing where the focus point is. I had read about some workarounds where you can make the focus point at least blink red using the MF-n2 button(s) assigned to some function but I can't seem to set it up correctly. Can someone give me a clear step-by-step guide?

DwightMcCann wrote in post #14890070
Just got my first 1DX today and am working through setup. I had heard about the AF illumination issue but didn't understand it ... now I do. I want to use Spot-Meter-Linked-to-AF-point with Servo focusing. When the scene is mostly black I have a very hard time knowing where the focus point is. I had read about some workarounds where you can make the focus point at least blink red using the MF-n2 button(s) assigned to some function but I can't seem to set it up correctly. Can someone give me a clear step-by-step guide?

Dwight,

You mean you have already changed the focus points to red (instead of black) but they are not bright enough? And you have heard of a potential workaround that will at least get them to blink so they are more visible? I'll have to try this out and see what you mean.

JH

In AI Servo and manually selecting focus point with VF ON, the focus point shows as black. On a dark/black background it disappears and could be anywhere on the screen. I did just find that I can set the multi-controller to AF point select and by moving the focus point cause it to flash red once. Hardly the same thing but better than being totally blind.

In the manual on page 101, are you on vf display illumination auto, on, or off

petr321 wrote in post #14894128
In the manual on page 101, are you on vf display illumination auto, on, or off

I am "On" ... but this really isn't the issue at all. The issue is that the active AF point display is BLACK during that period when you're trying to obtain focus.

Which is also when metering is going on, and the metering system used in these cameras get fooled by the light illuminating the AF points. Which is why they are black then.

My 5dmk3 does same. Before getting the camera I thought no big deal, now it seems when shooting in dark.

apersson850 wrote in post #14894403
Which is also when metering is going on, and the metering system used in these cameras get fooled by the light illuminating the AF points. Which is why they are black then.

Give me red points in manual exposure. Disable the damn metering. All canon cameras did before so why this new requirement.

DwightMcCann wrote in post #14894050
...I did just find that I can set the multi-controller to AF point select and by moving the focus point cause it to flash red once. Hardly the same thing but better than being totally blind.

That is the workaround I use. It's not great, but once you get used to it, will handle most situations. Bumping the AF back and forth one position eventually becomes second nature and you don't think about it.

However the fact you can do it by hand means a firmware update could blink the current AF point without moving it. Canon has discussed doing this; don't know what the status is.

apersson850 wrote in post #14894403
Which is also when metering is going on, and the metering system used in these cameras get fooled by the light illuminating the AF points. Which is why they are black then.

It's all under firmware control. They could blink it for 50 milliseconds twice a second. The duty cycle would be fairly low; I doubt it would change metering very much.

I would like to see AF-On and metering disconnected. They could turn the point from red to black when I pressed the shutter release but leave it red when only AF-On was pressed. This is the way I would prefer the previous generation of bodies to work, too. It is as if they chose the very most difficult to use solution at every turn!

Makes you wonder sometimes if real photographers test these cameras at these camera mfg companies.

bobbyz wrote in post #14894670
Makes you wonder sometimes if real photographers test these cameras at these camera mfg companies.

When I was an operating systems computer programmer on IBM mainframes I went to a couple of meetings every year with the guys who designed and programmed the IBM operating systems. One year there were lots and lots of changes, most of them bad, to the operating system so at the meeting I asked them what happened. Well, they had gotten a lot of new guys straight out of college with their computer science degrees and fancy ideas of how things "should" work and had just started changing things willy-nilly to be the way they thought it should be. Lots of things broke but most of all nothing worked the way you expected it to! I think Canon got a bunch of new designers straight out of college whose only previous camera experience was their iPhones! I am also totally convinced that the entire delay in product delivery was the higher ups, after getting feedback on how awful their new design was from "real" photographers, were dancing around the board room wetting their panties trying to decide what to do ... I believe this is a common cultural phenomenon is that part of the world and it took them nine months to decide to release it to market. But they hadn't spent a millisecond of all that time thinking about how to correct the problem, so it'll be many months before it is addressed ... kinda like they did with the 1DMIII's that were "perfect" until every photographer in the world proved them wrong ... a problem that has never been properly fixed.

In fact, I'll bet they come out with a solution (or two) that just make things worse ... I have noticed that Canon never, ever does the straight forward obvious thing to fix a problem and most of their solutions have to be tuned and tuned and tuned. I think four firmware fixes and one (or sometimes two) hardware fix for every 1DMIII body but never really right.

Shot in darkness the other night with no issue... just simply pushed the AF select button before and like magic, illuminated AF points!

Don't get the big deal myself.

Invertalon wrote in post #14894744
Shot in darkness the other night with no issue... just simply pushed the AF select button before and like magic, illuminated AF points!

Don't get the big deal myself.

I take it you don't make your living shooting low light events like concerts. I'm always amazed that anyone suggests that the clear issues/problems that others bring up are non-issues just because they don't have them.