7D2, 1Dx, 5D3 Owners- How to make AF system work better for you

Please start posting findings and helpful videos for settings that worked well for you for this new body. And 1Dx owners, It would be helpful if you contributed as well because these systems are supposed to be identical in terms of use and setting up.

Would like this thread to offer fixes as to whats working v/s whats wrong or perceived wrong with the newer AF systems being introduced since original 7D introduction. Will probably be a lot easier to go through.

setting up videos would be extremely helpful for everyone so if you see them, post them to thread.

Mods- maybe a sticky so we can slow down the countless problems with my camera AF systems posts......Just a thought

http://www.techradar.c​om …7d-mark-ii-1264977/review


Example- now we wont have to go through countless threads to find stuff like this. Its right here

Review and how to use features towards the end

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=7THzK2fr4hU

Subscribed. I will use this as my primary body next year for wildlife and sports photography I attended a 2 hour intro class of this body and I am really really impressed. So I would like to know which AF works best with 7d2.

7D11? Wow we've really jumped ahead a few generations.

Uuuummm...

This is already a sticky:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=857871

Doesn't it do the job?

Keith R wrote in post #17277259
Uuuummm...

This is already a sticky:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=857871

Doesn't it do the job?

isnt' that one for focus problems,

Does it go into the different modes of the cameras and how to set up it best for different situations?

Keith R wrote in post #17277259
Uuuummm...

This is already a sticky:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=857871

Doesn't it do the job?

This is a very good resource, this should be refer to the other forum having focus issues. Nice find I did not this one exist.

I went ahead and posted it in AF issues.

Gaarryy wrote in post #17277401
isnt' that one for focus problems,

Does it go into the different modes of the cameras and how to set up it best for different situations?

Which is what part of this thread seems to be for....?

umphotography wrote in post #17277064
Would like this thread to offer fixes as to whats working v/s whats wrong or perceived wrong with the newer AF systems being introduced since original 7D introduction. Will probably be a lot easier to go through.

This guy is using fastone to open images and converting to Tiff v/s DPP

anyone doing this ??

http://www.fredmiranda​.com/forum/topic/13300​65

Might want to read this, it seems that the 2 products that pull the JPG out of the raw are either compressing the resulting JPG heavily, or the JPG in the raw is already very compressed. I wouldn't use this method for anything I wanted to keep or submit.

https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=17277629&po​stcount=20

For AF config, I changed the rear controls so the * lets me switch to new shooting settings, AF-ON turns the AF-OFF (I like confusion!), the multicontroller is direct AF point selection, the lever is direct area selection, the lock switch locks the multicontroller to lock the AF point, and on the front the DOF preview button now toggles AI servo/One Shot. And I also set up an orientation point/area to 1+8 exp in the upper zone (grip up) so I won't leave dead space above heads when in portrait.

Subscribed.

I put together a short primer because there are new features that are linked together that new users should know about and there is a lot of information to absorb. I’m not suggesting what anyone should use these settings. You should explore these further.

iTR – Intelligent Tracking and Recognition

It is new to the 7D2 and does affect AF area selection modes. See next section. The 1Dx has this feature as well. The 5D3 dos not have it.

ITR executes AF by recognizing faces and colors. This can be located on the AF4 (purple menus) screen and cab be enabled or disabled.

In AI Servo mode, the camera remembers the color at the position it is focused on first, then continues to track and focus the subject switching AF points to track that color.

In one-shot AF mode iTR basically looks for faces.

The manual states that when activated it will take longer to acquire focus. I’m not sure if a person could even tell as AF happens in milliseconds. It also states that if a face is too small in the frame it may have trouble finding it.

AF Area Selection Modes

1. First there the standard single point and spot focus point modes.

2. Followed by two expansion point modes to choose from.

- the first one enables 5 AF points

- the second one enables 9 AF points

NOTE: All above AF points are active at all times. They do not switch on and off while tracking.

3. The 3 zones.

- zone – enables 15 AF points.

- large zone – enables the entire centre or 2 outside clusters

- All 65 points

NOTE: All above AF points are not active at all times in the zone grouping and 65 point. They will switch on and off while tracking.

If iTR is enabled (on the AF4 menu screen) it will activate in "all 3" zones. So you may want to keep this in mind because if you go from expansion to zone, it not only activates iTR but the AF tracking characteristics change as well.

I was looking at this as well. I have not found any additional info on this but I'm curious about 2nd image priority and this is my interpretation (based on the manual) of how it works. Any input is welcome or Canon links to this would be great.

AI Servo 1st and 2nd image priority (located on the AF2 menu screen).

The factory default for both is set to Equal. It seems like many users set it both to Focus.

The 1st image priority choices are Equal, Focus and Release. If you want the first shot to be in focus (like most of us do) setting 1st image priority to focus seems to be the most logical choice.

The 2cnd image priority choices are Equal, Focus and Speed.

2nd release priority kicks in after the first shot has been taken. I find this one interesting. Once you lock on AI Servo is doing its job by tracking. If you are good at keeping that point on a bird or other moving objects then you don’ t have to waste system resources to continually re-check focus. If you set it to Speed then it will just continues to fire on focus lock you achieved in 1st image priority. If you select 10 FPS the system may not achieve it in Focus priority. Equal might be a good balance but the manual warns about shooting speeds slowing down using this setting.

I have yet to experiment with 2nd release priority. Starting out leaving both on equal may be best until you get to know your camera. I set both on my 5D3 to focus from day one but never tracked fast moving things like birds, mostly people walking.