A7RII with Canon 70-200F2.8 tracking a moving target ...

I am going to try and post a bunch of tests over the next week or so but here is the first one.

I was at a hockey arena (goalie school) with my son this am) and brought my daughter. Before we went into the dark cold arena, I had my daughter Lily walk like a bride towards me. Camera was placed in AFC with Drive Speed FAst and AF Tracking High. I have two sequences with her jogging towards me but this one is walking. 12 pictures - 9 are acceptable focus and 3 are misses - (3 of the last 4 were misses). I can only post 8 pictures so you can go to my flikr account and see them all. Used auto ISO. There are NO adjustments in LR except Lens Profile and Default sharpening.

First 4 (1,2,3,4)

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here is the jogging thread (this is a 6yr old girl - however it is a F2.8)

13 pictures again
- first 6 are good
- next few are just not tack but 'ok'
- last few are OOF

I'm using the Metabones IV with newest software.

I view these results as very good:
- a bride does not walk this quickly
- if a bride was that close to you, you would not be at 70mm
- the biggest issue is that I will have to repeat this in lower light conditions to gain confidence that it wouldn't hunt - one bad experience and there is no way it would be worth missing shots that you just have to have
- that said, I would view the 70-200II and 24-70II as 8.5+ out of 10
- honestly, I don't think I want to rely on a computer to track the eye - too risky - give me the control

The start (see flikr for all images)

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I have another 19 picture sequence with more of the same - starts good, transitions to ok, last 3rd are OOF.

As there are not too many times that you are trying to track something coming right at you from a very close distance, I would say that for 90% of the time, a 70-200II will be fine in AF Continuous with BB Autofocus, Drive Speed = Fast, and Tracking Sensitivity = High. If you are visiting your local race track (Watkins Glen type shooting), I would stick with a 1DX or 7D2 (don't think this is a suprise).


The other thing that jumps out at you the first time you do this (my first time was my daughter jogging not walking) is you very quickly become aware that you are getting behind the situation as the eye display is not keeping up with what is actually happening (and this is a 6yr old girl we are talking about) - if you were rink side at an NHL game I think you would be holding the wrong camera (not I think I know).

The more I think of it, it actually might make sense not to look the the eye view finder and just use your eyes (but that is going to bring up a bunch of new issues like framing / keeping focus on the target, etc).

As they say - horses for courses. The A7RII is looking like an absolutely great prime lens (IBIS) portrait camera, landscape camera and with a few more more native lenses, I think and excellent wedding camera - but a native 24-70 2.8 is a must (and I guess the rumours are that it is coming)

Here is another picture from today. Again, I shoot hockey a lot, these are not how I would process them or the shots I would take - but an issue came up that I think is worth highlighting. In most hockey arenas now, there is a webbing that you may have to shoot through. About 2 years ago this started to go up in every arena around Toronto. At the time I was using my 5D3 and a 70-200 and 95% of the time everything was good. I decided to buy the 1.4X extended and it was just not usable because the extender reduced the number of autofocus points and all of a sudden it started catching the webbing all the time - so I quickly took it off. There was a 5D3 software upgrade shortly after that that helped things a lot but I never went back to using the extender in arenas.

When I tried to use either the 70-200II or the 24-70II on the A7Rii today, I had to manually focus past the webbing and then it would be ok unless action got closer to the end of the webbing and then the AF would catch the netting again. So, it isn't a big issue but it is an issue for sure if anyone is going to be heading out to hockey arenas. I suspect it won't matter if you are using native lenses or not.

In the picture below, taken with the 24-70II (no edited etc etc) you can see the webbing - even though the focus is past the webbing.

And if you want to know why Canada is the top hockey country on earth, this is what we do all summer long (unfortunately). As a side note, if you have never seen a hockey goalie school in action it is basically like the movie fight club - 'what happens in fight club stays in fight club'. The boys, and a few girls, basically get absolutely pelted in the chest and head over and over and over until it doesn't faze them taking a 90mph shot between the eyes. Crazy - I was a D and would never go in net but my son loves it.

That is my son is the 2nd goalie on the right in net with the white and yellow pads. I hadn't noticed he was actually in the air but he jumped up after taking one in the teeth to shake it off. All the shooters have either been drafted to the NHL or our currently playing OHL -they come to practice their shots on fresh meat. My son just finished grade 8.

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thought this was worth posting as I have never seen this before and I have taken tens of thousands of hockey pictures- i'm not sure if it is some kind of reflection or the webbing somehow causing it, but if you look at my goalie son's stick, it has somehow doubled - this is with the 70-200 @200mm

ideas?

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Thanks for sharing Paul. Really useful stuff here. It looks like the 70-200 f2.8II would really benefit from lock-on AF. Probably would have a higher keeper rate when tracking, but I agree its pretty good considering that it limited to very basic tracking algorithms

That artifact around the hockey stick really is odd. Did you have EF-C on? This is known to cause issues with fast motion, and its recommend that you turn it off for action shots.

Haveyou tried at the 200mm end as i heard that it doesnt focus most of the time at all even with static objects at that focal length

jonneymendoza wrote in post #17666526
Haveyou tried at the 200mm end as i heard that it doesnt focus most of the time at all even with static objects at that focal length

both the F2.8 II IS and F4 IS seem to be basically in my very informal test ok at 200mm - i could be wrong however

wallstreetoneil wrote in post #17665060
thought this was worth posting as I have never seen this before and I have taken tens of thousands of hockey pictures- i'm not sure if it is some kind of reflection or the webbing somehow causing it, but if you look at my goalie son's stick, it has somehow doubled - this is with the 70-200 @200mm

ideas?

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xde8​T1 weird_effect by Paul O'Neil, on Flickr

My only experience with the fuzziness is when I used to shoot with my canon 100-400 v1. When I try to take a burst too quickly and not allow the IS to fully spool before exposing that first shot. Not sure if it's something similar at work here.

- back at the hockey arena again today so killing time I got my daughter to do a few more walking / jogging / running cat walks
- this time i brought my 70-200 F4 and the 2.8 to compare them
- shot in both shade (1/500, F2.8 & F4, iso 100) and facing the light (1/2000, F2.8 & F4, iso 100)
- i also experimented to with: (70mm, 135mm, 200mm) and focus (wide, flexible Large)

I have way too many pictures and sequences that I am not going to port them many because the vast, vast majority are Out Of Focus (OOF)

Summary

70-200 F4 with flat light (still ISO 100), F4 and Wide Area focus area is F'ing Awful!!!!!!!!!!!!
- doesn't matter 70, 135, 200 all shots missed (these are 12-15 shot sequences)
- same lens but Flexible Large (right on the face) you get a couple if you are lucky to work - basically bad better than awful
- once I discovered Flexible Large was better than Wide I never tested Wide again

70-200 F2.8 with flat light Wide Area focus - is not great - maybe 1/2 hit (maybe) and the closer the object to you the more the misses (just like yesterday)
- didn't seem to matter the Focal Length
- just like the F4, Wide Arena the misses are higher - better to use Flexible Large on the face

70-200 F4 sun Straight on face
- this time Flexible Large
- moves from completely awful (100% misses) to just bad (maybe 40% hits - but at some are now hitting)

70-200 F2.8 sun Straight on face
- similar to yesterday
- 1st half hit - middles are so so - last 1/3rd are misses


Decided to take another crack at a new location with the F4, in and out of sun, had my daughter jog - and distance was 3 times as long
- took the strategy of smaller mini 3 stop type bursts
- i'm using Back Button Focus so I just keep tracking and then another mini burst
- i had a lot more success with this but also the sun and then the in and out of shadows i think was helping
- got the F4 up to about 50% hits (but still just so many missed on a 6yr old jogging slowly straight at you from 40 yards away in good but patchy light


Summary
- use the Canon F4 for portraits or situations that do not have the subject coming at you
- Canon F 2.8 is OK in good light - not perfect but ok
- don't use Wide mode in AF-c (Flexible Large seems better)
- buy a Sony FE mount 70-200 F4 or wait for the FE 2.8 if you plan on doing sports
- don't sell your 1Dx or 7D2 because you will slit your wrists if tracking moving objects is your thing

heres my take on what the a7r2 is best used for.

static objects or movin objects in good light.

If you was to pair this camera with a canon 5d3,5ds,7d2 you be laughing.

Sounds better than I ever got with the 5D2.

As a landscape photographer, the AF sounds more than good enough for nonmoving portraits - on moving subjects, my 5D2 also never hit anything.

It's easy enough to keep a separate wildlife kit, since there's almost no overlap in gear between wildlife and landscape/general photography, regardless of whether you're using exclusively Nikon, exclusively Canon or a Sony/Canon mix of gear.

Keep a separate 5Ds/200-400L/600L kit for wildlife/action photography, and an A7rII/TS-E/Sigma Art/Zeiss Otus/11-24L or Nikon 14-24/Canon 70-200/Nikon 24-70/other lenses kit for landscape and other non-action uses. You end up with the best kit for both situations, and it costs you no more than if you'd just gone straight Canon or straight Nikon for both kits.

Did a little more testing today with the A7Rii and the 70-200 F2.8 II

This was on the street, tracking cars and a cyclist driving towards and away from me at car and bike speeds.

First of all the Good:
- with a car a bike coming right at me, Flexible Small in good light worked very well (no misses)
- this was not like my daughter who was running right towards me until she was under my feet but I was on the sidewalk, tagging cars starting 200 feet away until they were 50 feet away (so more like sports distances)
- Flexible Small worked perfectly whereas Flexible Large (like I used when my daughter was running at me) missed entirely during a white car coming at me (?)
- so Small, I was surprised, was the best option today

The Bad:
- the Flexible Large, that I thought was going to be the best AI Servo type tracking setup, so far my testing on my daughter showed me this, basically didn't work for some reason today - and I'm not sure why

The Ugly
- after about 6 or so 10 to shot tracking sequences, the camera stopped working
- basically didn't get a black screen but nothing was happening - couldn't see out of the camera
- it was 'frozen' hung like a computer
- tried removing the lens from the adapter, removing the adapter, turned camera on and off twice with nothing helping - thought it died
- took the battery out, waited 5 seconds, put battery back in and it was back - but previous setting that I was using: Manual Mode (1/1000, F2.8, iso 100) changed to (1/60, F11, auto ISO)
- not knowing this changed had happened, I then shot 3 more sequences to see if the camera was operating again (it was) so I assumed i had everything in focus
- got home looked at the pictures and saw everything was blurry because of the 1/60th Shutter Speed (this was a stupid mistake on my part but because I was just testing this new camera out and was leaving anyways I didn't take the time to check)
- funny thing is, I had taken 1 picture about 2yrs before in a cafe using those settings (was testing dynamic range) and it is weird how it defaulted back to those settings


Further thoughts
- on Sunday I went to an industry event put on by an event rental person with my fiance who is on officiant and my daughter
- we were there to meet fellow wedding industry people in Toronto
- I decided to take the A7Rii with the 40mm pancake (no strap, just held it in my hand - so small it was great)
- the event was in a restaurant with lots of her stuff set up that she rents, there was dark lighting with typical wedding colorful lighting
- i tested out the camera, shooting like a tourist using the fold out screen, BBF with Flexible Medium or Small, F2.8 & F3.2, shooting detail type shots or my daughter in and around the displays
- I was very happy with what I got when I returned home and looked at the pictures in LR - focus was spot on - even in the very low light
- i got a tiny bit of hunting if i was trying to find my daughter's face hiding behind flowers but it I was shooting from my belt level looking at a fold out screen trying to look like a tourist and just see what I could get
- the Pancake 40mm is a great value lens, it is not a 24-70 F2.8 in terms of sharpness, but it did very, very well
- i loved how light the camera was and it did fine in low light


So,

I had complete failure, lockup, not working, had to remove the battery with the 70-200 F2.8 II (even though if perfectly captured 4+ sequences of 10 AI Servo type shots tracking cars and bikes moments before, and I had a joy shooting a $150 40mm pancake lens in wedding type reception lighting acting like guest


It is a great camera but I would never use it as my only camera at a wedding with a non native lenses.

Was it waiting for the buffer to clear? I think the limit is around 24 frames shooting RAW.

digital_AM wrote in post #17672520
Was it waiting for the buffer to clear? I think the limit is around 24 frames shooting RAW.

Don't think so - can't say 100% however, lets call it 98%.

I get the entire buffer thing - I'm a 7D2 user and also now a 5DSR user so I'm 100% clear that you have to wait when it is writing - in fact I've seen it 2 or 3 times on the A7R2 - this was not that - this was complete DOA.

As I said, camera on and off - and twice, did not fix it. I seriously thought I was headed back to the store. But, as I already know that the MB4 has done some strange things with the 70-200 F4, I knew that at minimum I would have to turn camera on & off to reset it - but this required a battery pull.