7D Mark II - Focus Discussions

dropmyload wrote in post #17788108
This is a scary thread! I've been thinking of upgrading my 60D to a 7D2 and I primarily shoot wildlife considering where I live.

Is this focus issue widespread, or only on a small number of bodies? Looks like I'll have to hold off on that upgrade until things are fixed (if ever).

I'm not up to the caliber of a lot of the people posting here so the best advise I can give is to be sure you have a big enough return window to allow you to really test the camera before you get stuck with it. A local brick and mortar store with a 30 day return policy - perfect. If things go sour you don't have to jump through hoops.

Rod

RodS57 wrote in post #17788527
I'm not up to the caliber of a lot of the people posting here so the best advise I can give is to be sure you have a big enough return window to allow you to really test the camera before you get stuck with it. A local brick and mortar store with a 30 day return policy - perfect. If things go sour you don't have to jump through hoops.

Rod

Yep, totally agree with this. And that's how I bought mine.

As I said before, I have had no problems at all with my 7D2, but definitely have had problems with other gear in the past, so I know how frustrating it can be. Give the body or lens a good test, be organized and logical. If it is not good, and you are pretty sure it is the gear and not yourself, then the best is probably return it, not to send it for service. That's just in case they can't fix it for whatever reason.

Pondrader wrote in post #17788521
And the truth is we all shoot for fun, yes its true we expect the very best in our camera's and in the images we make but in the end Nature Canada will pay you nothing to have your image in there Calendar and if your in the Dec issue of Canadian Geographic,....well it pay's the same !! trust me. So before you give more money to Canon for the thing you love to do most, maybe get them to fix that camera or replace it. I know just my two cent's but hey we didn't make the firmware, we trusted in them

The owner of a mom and pop camera store told me us amateurs are often more picky. Not that pros do not care about quality work but they are earning a living and don't spend as much time on this. I don't want to offend any pros out there. It was what this person told me.

Archibald wrote in post #17788536
Yep, totally agree with this. And that's how I bought mine.

As I said before, I have had no problems at all with my 7D2, but definitely have had problems with other gear in the past, so I know how frustrating it can be. Give the body or lens a good test, be organized and logical. If it is not good, and you are pretty sure it is the gear and not yourself, then the best is probably return it, not to send it for service. That's just in case they can't fix it for whatever reason.

I got mine at the Camera Store in Calgary. Great place and no issues with returns but I'm almost thinking it might be time to work with the local mom and pop places. You have to be careful and check to make sure if you return (not replace) that place does not have an in store credit only policy.

Hey Jeff,

Long time fan of your work here and I feel your current pain.

I've not read every thread in this post, but have picked up the last couple of weeks discussions, so apologies if I'm going over the same stuff but just a thought, have you tried live view focus? (auto or manual) does it show an improvement? Just wondering of it is something like the sensor moving (i.e. a problem with the cleaning system) or even the IS with the lens.

On more recent bodies if I have any doubts on the image quality/sharpness, I always double check that everything is satisfactory using live view, I've found nearly every time, live view contrast just beats the best phase detect can manage, I also check using x10 magnification and manual focus, mirror lockup, tripod, wired remote release to to show the setup is capable of producing sharp images.

I've also seen some pretty erratic phase detect results when the camera/lens combo is not properly MFA'd, once correctly dialled in the consistency and sharpness has returned. Having said that I've also seen one combo (50D and 300 f2.8LIS) that would just not work nicely together, it was my lens but not my body so that never got fixed.

One other thing that has caught me out wrt focus/sharpness and that's haze, caused by various circumstances, from hot sunny african days to shooting out of windows from a warm environment to a cooler environment, I've no doubt your experience would pick up on this but a couple of times I've had 100% "sharpness failure" on a series of shots and it's turned out to be haze - one such example is on a cold winters day (probably like summer to you!) shooting from a rear bedroom window of my house, at Redwings (European thrush) on a berry bush in my neighbours garden. Took me a while to work out that the cause of not one sharp shot was my neighbours hot tub, happily burbling away at ground level between my shooting point and the birds in the bush.

Cheers

Kev

Hey Kev, Interesting thought's, I think the one thing you missed is my camera was smokin good ....sent it down to service to have the rear wheel replaced and it came back with super poor IQ and focus so it went back down and came back a second time in much the same sharp. Tested against a second 7DII and a second 100-400L II swapping lenses and so on. So I was getting ready to ship it back down when Kim (Phoenixkh) came up with the idea of rolling back the firmware to 1.0.4 which I did and through setting up the camera again It seem's to shoot much better but its not very happy with the 1.4III or maybe I should say Im not very happy with the 1.4III the way I was.

EDIT:....I should say the 7DII I tested against has never had 1.0.5 installed

Im not sure if I will ever have the sniper rifle I once had but I'm sure it will shoot again. and you will never know it's not quite up to snuff because I can through in any of the 5 or 6 Terabyte of stuff I took with it back in the good old days. lol

Kev My nearest neighbours is on the other side of the 40 acre wood lol


Like this shot just before I sent it to canon

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/BekQ​kM

Hi,

Yeah I did realise you were very happy prior to the first service for the broken back wheel, that's why I was suggesting you check it can still take sharp pictures without the PDAF, they could have caused a problem with, say the sensor clean system, whilst they had it dis-assembled.

Interesting to read about the firmware, I upgraded mine to 1.0.5 as soon as it was out of the box, I've managed to find a copy of 1.0.4 online and have downloaded that for possible futures, I haven't noticed any issues with my 7DII and 100-400II yet but a combination of good ol' naff UK weather and personal circumstances means I've only shot with it a couple of times.

I can see what Canon are saying about spot focus - precise and (not)accurate - precise meaning it will attempt to focus on a more precise region, (not)accurate meaning the reduction of available AF array could affect the system's ability/accuracy, having said that, I use spot AF pretty much all the time in every EOS body I have that it is featured and is one of the features that makes me pick up the 5D3 instead of my 1D4 - that and silent shutter mode. Though I have had many instances where spot focus would struggle to lock on, then I live in the UK where we specialise in low contrast, low light

Nice bear by the way, always impressed by the amount of fine detail you manage to get on your subject's fur and feathers.

Kev

Interesting that you took it out of the box and updated the firmware lol they sure do have us brain washed thinking we are missing out if we don't have the latest lol. I need a day shooting fur to see just how it shoots right now, Im trying to convince myself its good , helps me sleep lol

Somewhat off topic, but I think I promised some low light shots showing Af accuracy and sharpness. Decided to not clutter this thread and start new one.

https://photography-on-the.net …wthread.php?t=1​446075FWIW
There were no issues rapidly AF ing, with high consistency and accuracy provoding expected sharpness (based on distance, FL and noise)

itw wrote in post #17788414
I'm beginning to think this is one big diabolical plot to get us to all upgrade to a1DX and help buy up an almost certain glut of $7K stock at a discount before the announcement of their latest and greatest.

hmmmm you know one has to wonder just a bit about that - so what do canon do when they release a under $2K camera with firmware 1.0.2 and it pulls wow shot out of the box like jeffs and others did - do they go oh crap we got it too good guys and its a real threat now to the 5 d 111 and the 1dx market at $7 k each - ok so maybe we could allegedly just dumb it down a bit hey - i have worked for big companies in my past life that have done some pretty stupid things believe me when they think there market share and profitability are potentially under threat

cheers rob


ps so anyone found a link to the previous 1.0.2 firmware's existence - i suspect all the cameras came with it and it was never put on the net

jeff from what i could see you had the 100 - 400 at 100 for the bear - and mate thats pretty close i suspect so i hope you were in a 4wd - because we would like to see more shots from you in the future

cheers rob

patrol50 wrote in post #17789416
hmmmm you know one has to wonder just a bit about that - so what do canon do when they release a under $2K camera with firmware 1.0.2 and it pulls wow shot out of the box like jeffs and others did - do they go oh crap we got it too good guys and its a real threat now to the 5 d 111 and the 1dx market at $7 k each - ok so maybe we could allegedly just dumb it down a bit hey - i have worked for big companies in my past life that have done some pretty stupid things believe me when they think there market share and profitability are potentially under threat

cheers rob

ps so anyone found a link to the previous 1.0.2 firmware's existence - i suspect all the cameras came with it and it was never put on the net

There are too many 1.0.5 users out there that are doing well. Canon would have to write a script that only crippled certain serial numbers or something like that.

One of the top birders around that gas no issues with 1.0.5. The interesting thing is he still does MFA at MFD.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/13983​78

This person, also a respected birder has sent it to Toronto 3 times without success and it doesn't matter what firmware the camera had.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/13983​46

digital paradise wrote in post #17789552
There are too many 1.0.5 users out there that are doing well. Canon would have to write a script that only crippled certain serial numbers or something like that.

One of the top birders around that gas no issues with 1.0.5. The interesting thing is he still does MFA at MFD.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/13983​78

This person, also a respected birder has sent it to Toronto 3 times without success and it doesn't matter what firmware the camera had.

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/13983​46

It is a very odd situation. I'm going to get my new to me 1D IV up and running. I won't get it until late tonight and I work weekends and Mondays so I won't get the initial learning curve done until next week. If I can get it to do what my 7D2 did for almost a year, I will be extremely happy. Then I can send my 7D2 back to Canon as many times as it takes to get it right again. I can't believe they won't be able to get it working properly eventually. I mean.... it worked so well for so long. I was getting such beautiful photographs..... perfect feather details even at long distances. My 1.4X even worked well with it.

I will say this. I have to refrain from posting in many new threads on POTN. There are new threads almost every day: should I buy a 70D or a 7D2, etc., etc., etc. I won't talk against the 7D2 because it was a brilliant camera for me for a long time. I really hope Canon can sort it out so I can rave about its performance once again.

Phoenixkh wrote in post #17789564
It is a very odd situation. I'm going to get my new to me 1D IV up and running. I won't get it until late tonight and I work weekends and Mondays so I won't get the initial learning curve done until next week. If I can get it to do what my 7D2 did for almost a year, I will be extremely happy. Then I can send my 7D2 back to Canon as many times as it takes to get it right again. I can't believe they won't be able to get it working properly eventually. I mean.... it worked so well for so long. I was getting such beautiful photographs..... perfect feather details even at long distances. My 1.4X even worked well with it.

I will say this. I have to refrain from posting in many new threads on POTN. There are new threads almost every day: should I buy a 70D or a 7D2, etc., etc., etc. I won't talk against the 7D2 because it was a brilliant camera for me for a long time. I really hope Canon can sort it out so I can rave about its performance once again.

I hope they can get it working for you as well.

Phoenixkh wrote in post #17789564
It is a very odd situation. I'm going to get my new to me 1D IV up and running. I won't get it until late tonight and I work weekends and Mondays so I won't get the initial learning curve done until next week. If I can get it to do what my 7D2 did for almost a year, I will be extremely happy. Then I can send my 7D2 back to Canon as many times as it takes to get it right again. I can't believe they won't be able to get it working properly eventually. I mean.... it worked so well for so long. I was getting such beautiful photographs..... perfect feather details even at long distances. My 1.4X even worked well with it.

I will say this. I have to refrain from posting in many new threads on POTN. There are new threads almost every day: should I buy a 70D or a 7D2, etc., etc., etc. I won't talk against the 7D2 because it was a brilliant camera for me for a long time. I really hope Canon can sort it out so I can rave about its performance once again.

Kim,
In terms of figuring things out, Have you tried shooting with IS off to rule out a firmware/IS issue from camera?

What about with Live View to rule out a potential mirror slap vibration issue? (but I don't believe it would rule out some quirky shutter vibration issue)

Lastly, what about shooting in normal pdaf, but turn AF to Off on the lens after acquiring focus to help rule out some weird firmware AF drive issue during shutter activation?