This image is seriously in focus.

For the last few months I’ve been having a blast with the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens. I wrote about my first impressions of the lens soon after I got it in August last year. I won’t be repeating that here, so you may want to go back to read it. Back then I hadn’t yet used the lens for work, but now after a few months of using the lens on assignments I have a much better idea of how the lens performs. And in short, my conclusion is: it absolutely rocks.

Keep in mind that this isn’t supposed to be a review where I’ll discuss all the technical aspects and features of this lens. For that you’ll have to look elsewhere. I’m just going to give you my personal opinion of this lens after using it for a while.

First of all, the lens is expensive, but I can assure you that it’s worth the money Canon is asking for it. It has quickly become one of my favorite lenses to use. You can get really creative with it and it just never gets boring. I’ve used the lens for a variety of purposes so far, but mostly I’m using it to shoot architecture, panoramic images and aerial shots. I absolutely love the effect this lens gives to aerial shots; it really exaggerates the roundness of the earth. You can see what I mean in some of the sample images in the gallery below.

I think that especially photographers who shoot images for 360 degrees panoramas and virtual tours are going to really love this lens. The reason for this is that the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens allows a photographer to shoot both “low” resolution and high-resolution panoramas at the same time without having to change the camera or the lens. The nodal point of the lens is exactly the same at both 8mm and 15mm. Because of this, shooting at 8mm or 15mm doesn’t require you to recalibrate your setup to make sure that the nodal point is in the correct position. So at 8mm you can shoot a panorama consisting of about 4-6 images (approx. 65MP final resolution on a EOS 7D body), but at 15mm you can shoot a much higher resolution panorama of about 25 images (approx. 240MP final resolution on a EOS 7D body). This gives you the flexibility of shooting both resolutions on location at the same time very easily. You shoot first at 8mm, zoom to 15mm and then shoot again without changing anything else.

The panorama below was shot at 15mm and has a final resolution of approx. 240MP. You can zoom in all the way to view all the details.

The panorama below was shot at 8mm and has a final resolution of approx. 65MP. This was shot shortly after the one above, and all I had to do was move the camera and zoom the lens to 8mm.

When focusing this lens manually, you’ll have to look really carefully to make sure that your subject is in sharp focus. It is really difficult to see through the viewfinder if the lens is focused correctly. Everything pretty much looks in focus most of the time and it can be difficult to see slight changes in focus. I’ve found that using Live View on the camera in the greatest magnification possible to focus gives me the best and most reliable results. You’ll have to double-check your focus especially if you want to set the focus to infinity. Don’t rely on the infinity marker on the distance scale on top of the lens! Even Canon warn you to double-check your focus in the manual that comes with this lens. With autofocus this isn’t an issue.

The bottom line is that I am extremely satisfied with this lens and I can’t recommend it to you highly enough. I think this lens is a real gem in Canon’s assortment of lenses right now, and since it is so unique, it could influence a lot of people to choose a Canon DSLR just to be able to use this lens. When I had to choose which brand of DSLR I would buy 5 years ago, the wide assortment of Canon lenses (along with their lead in image quality at the time) was one of the important things that made me choose Canon. Traditionally Canon has always had the lead in the area of lenses, and this lens just strengthens their position even more. When the Canon EF 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x (another brilliant design) hits the market later this year it’ll become even more difficult for the competition to catch up.

Canon EOS 1DX

Could 2012 be the year where Canon makes a serious comeback in the professional photography industry? Well, from the looks of it, it’s going to get very exciting for photographers using Canon equipment.

For the last 4 years I’ve been bashing Canon here on my blog for their poor quality control, poor product releases (50D, 5D Mark II, 7D, 60D) and questionable business practices (5D Mark II, 50mm f/1.2L). I’ve also often mentioned how it seemed like Canon was out of touch with the market and didn’t listen to what professionals were asking for. But with the announcement last year of the EOS 1DX, I think I’m starting to see the long awaited change we’ve been asking for.

On paper, the 1DX is a dream camera. Just reading the specifications will get you high in seconds. The most important thing to note, in my opinion, is the sensor size. Canon actually went back from 21 megapixels on the 1Ds Mark III to “just” 18 megapixels on the 1DX. If you’ve been keeping in touch with the industry, you’ll know that this was one of the important things photographers were asking for around the world: less megapixels and better image quality, especially at higher ISO values. To be sure, the priority was more on better image quality. And reducing the amount of megapixels is an easy way to achieve that (because of the photosites becoming bigger). While Canon appeared very stubborn in the past with regards to this issue and kept pushing the megapixels up at the expense of image quality, now all of a sudden even Canon acknowledge the fact that “there’s more to image quality than just resolution”:

The biggest specification change to the 1D X is its new sensor – an 18MP full-frame CMOS chip capable of shooting at 12 frames per second. This represents a big change over the 1D Mk IV (it represents a move away from the smaller APS-H format that Canon has previously used in its sports cameras), and a decrease in pixel count compared to the 1DS series. However, as Rick Berk, Technical Specialist in Canon USA’s Pro Engineering and Solutions Division says: ‘there’s more to image quality than just resolution.’

For years I’ve been having heated discussions in some of the posts here on my blog with many people about megapixels and noise in images, and I have to say that I’m happy to see that even Canon admit this now. More resolution in images is pointless when there’s also more noise present. Using any kind of noise reduction on those images eliminates the extra resolution you had in them as well. So I would rather have less megapixels with cleaner images that also have better dynamic range and colors.

I’m happy to see that Canon has finally listened to all the professionals who were asking for this, and after so many years, has finally made a camera that I can honestly say that I seriously, seriously want. In fact, I think this may be my dream camera. I just like everything about this camera. The sensor that promises (at least from the specs) great image quality, the insanely high frame rate of 12-14 frames per second, the 61-point autofocus system which is able to focus in EV -2 (equivalent to shooting under the light of the full moon!!), ISO range of 50 – 204800, 7D style viewfinder upgrades, built-in Ethernet port etc. etc. For a detailed overview, check out the technical information on the Canon Europe website. Pay attention especially to the capabilities of the Dual Digic 5+ processors and the functionalities that they enable such as being able to stack multiple exposures and correction of chromatic aberration, color fringes and halos. Image quality is taken to new heights with the 1DX.

And what’s crazy about this is that Canon actually announced the 1DX on my birthday on October 18th, 2011. What a strange coincidence. I mean here I was consistently bashing Canon for more than 4 years, and I mean seriously bashing them, and then they go ahead and announce what I consider a dream camera on my birthday – almost 6 months before it will really be available. Perhaps this is the present they’re giving me after all the effort I put into providing them with all the valuable feedback in the last 4 years.

But seriously, Canon has me excited again to be using Canon equipment and I’m hoping that with the 5D Mark III (if that’ll be its name) they will surprise us all again. With the announcement of the new EOS Cinema line (the C300 camera and the EOS C DSLR) things are looking to get very, very exciting in the near future for Canon users. I love the fact that we can use our L lenses on the C300 camera, for example. And of course, I also love the fact that the image quality of the C300 is currently the best out there in low light situations. This is why I chose Canon 5 years ago; they were the king of image quality and it looks like they’re on their way again to reclaim that title. Because when it comes down to it, all the bells and whistles on these cameras are nice to have, but nothing is more important than image quality. Nothing. And closely related to image quality is of course a working autofocus system. Because a clean image that’s out of focus is also bad image quality (poor resolution). So it’s image quality and great autofocus (in terms of speed and especially accuracy) that really matter in the end. And Canon appears to have nailed that with the EOS 1DX. I hope that this will also be the case with the next 5D camera.

Let me also mention that at this point I haven’t yet seen sample images from a production 1DX, so my assessment of the image quality is solely based on the specifications of the sensor, which theoretically should provide exceptional image quality. I’m hoping that this will be the case once the camera is released. Let us also hope that this camera won’t be plagued by quality control issues like the 1D Mark III (autofocus issues) and 5D Mark II (noise and banding in images, autofocus issues).

The only negative thing I can say about this camera is that the price is a bit too high at $6800. Many people have complained about this. Nikon recently also announced their D4, which is at least as good as the 1DX, with a price of $6000. In my opinion the 1DX should cost around $5800. Considering that the 1D Mark IV was priced at $5000 when it launched, and that the 1DX is essentially a 1D Mark IV with a full frame sensor, a price of $5800 for the 1DX would have seemed more reasonable to me. And as you can see, Nikon is closer to that price point as well with their D4.  Even with the C300 camera Canon appears to have been overconfident with their pricing. Many people also complained that the price of the C300, though it is an excellent camera, isn’t worth the $16000 Canon wants for it.

However, I’ve read somewhere that the price of the 1DX at $6800 is not a final price, so here’s hoping that Canon will lower the price to something more affordable, especially now since Nikon is selling the D4 at $6000.

The bottom line is that I’m very impressed and very satisfied with the 1DX and I look forward to being equally as impressed with the next 5D. I hope Canon continues to listen to us and keeps impressing us from now on.

Rainclouds - Picture taken with a Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens (click for larger view)

Ever since Canon announced the EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye lens back in September 2010 I have been impatiently waiting for it. I knew that, at least in theory, it was going to be awesome and after having it for a few days now, I can say that it’ll blow you away. Whoever came up with the idea for this lens has to be a very brilliant designer. I know it may sound like I’m biased, but I’ve got plenty of negative posts here on my blog about Canon. The most famous are my posts on the EOS 5D Mark II autofocus issues. But with this lens, if I want to be honest, I have no choice but to praise Canon.

The lens is beautiful, extremely well built, feels very solid in your hands, focusing and zooming are very smooth and the image quality is simply awesome. The lens delivers very sharp images all the way to the edges. Even on an APS-C camera like the EOS 60D or EOS 7D you can now get a 180° view in your pictures with a full 180° circular fisheye view on full frame cameras such as the 5D Mark II. You can capture the entire sky with just one image on a full frame camera.

The picture above was taken two days ago just outside my house. I noticed some really scary looking rainclouds outside and grabbed my camera with the 8-15mm lens on it to capture them. The picture was shot at 8mm on an EOS 7D, and I did crop out the corners to remove the vignetting. But even then, just take a look at how much of the sky I was able to capture in just one shot!

The angle of view is so wide that it takes some getting used to because objects at the edges that you don’t want in the frame show up, such as tripod legs and even your own hands or feet.

Where dreams take me (click for larger view)

As you can see in the picture above, having a 180° field of view can give you interesting results. You can see my feet as I was standing outside while I took a picture of what was in front of me. I did crop out the corners again to remove the vignetting, but even then, it’s incredible how much you can get into a single frame.

The Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens attached to a Canon EOS 7D

I’m very satisfied so far with this lens. I have yet to do some real work with it, but so far I’m impressed. The only issue I had with this lens as soon as I started using it was the fact that the lens cap can easily come off. I’m not the only one complaining about it, you can find more info on this issue in the review at The Digital Picture. But next to the incredible awesomeness of the lens itself, the lens cap issue is a very minor problem.

Keep in mind that this post of mine is not meant to be a review of this lens. I’ve just used it for a few days and not yet on assignments. But my initial impressions are that you’ll be blown away by the results and the awesomeness of the lens itself. I’ll be posting more about this lens in the future once I have done more work with it.

With this lens Canon strengthens their lead in the area of lenses even more. All they need now is an update to the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L that can rival the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 G in sharpness, or a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens of their own. I hope that the 5D Mark III will be a significant upgrade to the 5D Mark II when it will be released soon and that everything we complained about will be addressed. If that happens I’m going to be a very happy Canon user.

Update January 31st, 2012: I’ve added another post about this lens after using it for a few months. You can read it here.

Destined Evolution My Ass!

By now you’re probably thinking I’m being too hard on this camera and I understand if that’s so. After almost 3 years my opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR hasn’t changed at all. In fact, from what I’ve seen I’m just more convinced that so far this has been the biggest piece of shit camera ever released by Canon (maybe even by anyone), with the Canon EOS 1D Mark III very close behind it. From the moment this camera was announced by Canon back in September 2008 I knew it had issues. In fact, I was one of the very few who didn’t buy into the hype and saw the rather serious shortcomings of this camera. A few days after it was announced by Canon, I wrote here on my blog about one of the biggest issues that would haunt this camera during its lifetime, namely the old and crappy autofocus system. Many rushed to attack me and tell me how I was being stupid and wrong. The comments to all my posts about the 5D Mark II are still there and it’s quite amusing to go back and read them. It turned out that there were many more issues that we’d have to deal with when using this camera, among which the rather poor image quality it produces under certain circumstances (banding and noise issues).

And although in the beginning it seemed like I was almost the only one who didn’t like the 5D Mark II or had issues with it, as time passed and reviews started appearing and people actually got to use the camera professionally, more and more professional photographers started to express their frustrations with the 5D Mark II autofocus system and other issues. I have documented a lot of those instances in previous posts and in the comments of those posts. Below is a listing of my posts so far on the 5D Mark II:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Not all it could have been
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II: NOT WORTH IT - Save your money!
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Camera from Hell

In the past I’ve covered well known photographers such as Zack Arias and Lloyd Chambers expressing their frustration with the 5D Mark II autofocus system and other issues, as well as comments from many other pros. More recently celebrity stock photographer Lise Gagne made a blog post where she expressed her frustration with the recent Canon cameras, among which the 5D Mark II, and explained how she had to switch to Nikon:

I’ve always been a Canon addict. I was in love with the 1ds Mark II. Then the 1ds Mark III arrived, Ive bought one and, I was on shock, I was not able to have a good sharp image. After 3 months, I sold it, I continued to use the MarkII. Then, I’ve tried the hassel. I was in love with the sharpeness, razor sharp details, etc.. I’ve bought one. This camera is amazing, but.. this camera has been built for studio and to work with lot of strobes. In natural light, in low light situation or to capture a real moment, this camera is too slow, it needs lot of light to focus properly, so very hard to capture THE moment.
I’ve started to try the 5dmarkII’s Louis, to at least, produce some natural images, unfortunately, don’t know what’s wrong with that camera, but I just cannot autofocus properly! The focus goes everywhere except on the target. It looks like that camera only focus on the brigher point.  I was quite disaapointed. So I’ve tried a couple cameras and, after those experiments, I’m now a Nikon’s user. The focus is where you want, the quality is awesome, it’s sharp, focus is real fast… It’s sad for Canon, I’ve always been loyal to them, but since the markIII and 5dmarkII, they’ve lost me. Hopefully they will come with a better one this year, I still keep all my lenses (anyway Louis uses them for video).  Nikon will probably announce a new one even if I’ve just got mine (3dx for those who are interested, the dx4 might be announced this spring and will be available in fall for us). Then I’ll choose between them but my trust is now for Nikon.

Lise Gagne makes some interesting remarks about the 1Ds Mark III and the 5D Mark II. She was unable to get sharp images with both. Many people complained about soft images being produced by the 5D Mark II, and since the 5D Mark II was said to use a similar sensor to the 1Ds Mark III, or slightly “improved” even, then it’s possible that they  both suffered from the same issues. It’s also possible that these issues are related to poor quality control. And in the case of the 5D Mark II, the softness produced by the 21MP sensor was compounded by the poor performance of the autofocus system. This would explain many of the comments I received about the 5D Mark II over the course of almost 3 years now. I sure am glad that I didn’t invest in the 1Ds Mark III myself. In fact, I almost did so but couldn’t get one in the beginning due to the low stock levels in the first few months, and then the autofocus issues with the 1D Mark III received publicity thanks to photographer Rob Galbraith and I decided to wait and not buy the 1Ds Mark III until the issues were solved (and they never were really solved).

If you think Lise Gagne is alone here, think again. Top stock photographer Yuri Arcurs expressed similar frustrations with the 1Ds Mark III in his comparison with the Nikon D3x. Arcurs was using the 1Ds Mark III when he later switched to the Nikon D3x because it has a better  autofocus system, or to be more precise, it delivers sharper images compared to the 1Ds Mark III:

The Canon has lower noise levels and the lenses perform generally better, but what does this matter if your images are more out of focus, if the camera is much harder to work with on a daily basis and if you can get the same results form a Nikon by just choosing the right lenses and get another 3 mega pixel on top?

…

If Canon is to stay competitive then they have to start listening to their photographer’s needs and they also have to come up with a new top model within the next six months or so.

So issues with soft images may be related to the sensor being used in the 1Ds Mark III (and the 5D Mark II) and/or the autofocus systems on both cameras. I know for a fact that the autofocus system on the 5D Mark II is simply inadequate to do the job. But the sensor itself may also just be producing soft images making the problem much worse.

Wedding photographer Ryan Brenizer made the following remark on Twitter recently:

Always an adventure shooting a wedding with the 5D and its faith-based autofocus. The D3s in my other hand kept snickering.

Even award winning photographer and Canon Explorer of Light, Vincent Laforet, recently mentioned the old autofocus system on the 5D Mark II as one of its disadvantages:

Lastly – the autofocus system (for still photographers) is the same system that was found in the original 5D – therefore it is close to 5 years old relative to newer systems.

You have to keep in mind that Laforet often closely works with Canon and he can’t openly come out and be too critical of Canon and put his relationship with them at risk. Under normal circumstances this shouldn’t have to be an issue, but a lot of photographers seem to be afraid of Canon. And if I look at Canon’s recent behavior towards photographers, then I can certainly understand those fears. In the last 3 years I’ve received emails from professional photographers who agreed with me on many of the issues I was blogging about but weren’t willing to openly come out and say certain things about Canon in public. But I think that it’s exactly this behavior that has now caused Nikon to gain ground and be ahead of Canon. Nikon photographers were very critical of Nikon in the past and Nikon listened and fixed many issues (among which the noise issues) and came back stronger than ever. Now the latest Nikon bodies (consumer and pro) produce image quality that far exceed anything Canon can currently offer according to benchmark data from DxOMark. Even professional photographers, like Lise Gagne and Yuri Arcurs, have made similar comments. In fact, quite a lot of professional photographers have switched from Canon to Nikon in the last 3 years. I’ve written about some of those cases here on my blog, but Fake Chuck Westfall has also documented a lot of them on his blog.

Here’s what photographer Laurence Kim had to say recently:

That’s one of the frustrating things about Canon. The 5D produces gorgeous image files. In fact, I prefer the files from the 5D to any other dslr. But it’s saddled with a crappy focus system. So they come out 3 years later with the 5DmkII – more megapixels, better high ISO, video mode………..but still the same crappy focus system!

It’s not hard to understand what’s going on. Clearly, Canon wants to protect their flagship 1-series by deliberately crippling all of their “lesser” camera bodies. By contrast, look what Nikon is doing. They put their best professional focusing system in the D700 (their equivalent to the 5dMkII). Hell, they even put nearly as good a focusing system into their D7000 – a body that matches up against Canon’s 60D! To quote Thom Hogan, it’s as if Canon missed a memo somewhere.

If you want a great focusing Canon, you are forced to pay $5k for their (crop sensor) 1DmkIV. So in other words, there is no such thing as a full-frame camera with a top-notch focusing system from Canon!

And let’s not forget Thom Hogan:

Canon missed a memo somewhere. The camera market is changing, but they seem stuck on executing on the old memo. Basically: more pixels, more video, same camera. Some things (autofocus comes to mind) are getting a little stale in the Canon world, while other companies seem to be pushing lots of new tech into their equipment (pellicle mirrors, new focus systems, new metering systems, etc.). This needs to change or the overall trend of Canon being nibbled to death will continue. I don’t see any evidence yet that Canon is going to change, though. 2010 was more of the same. Everyone will be looking to see if 2011 is more of more of the same.

Although it took some time, many in the industry have come to agree with what I said right from the start. But this post is not to tell everyone that I told you so, although, yes, I told you so (even before the 5D Mark II was actually available):

So now you have a high resolution sensor, 21 megapixels, but guess what? You can’t easily take pictures that are in focus, eliminating the entire point of having that much resolution available! So now you have a sensor that is extremely capable for low light, high ISO photography, but guess what, you can’t quickly and accurately focus in low light conditions. But hey, you can shoot HD quality video!

The reason why I’m writing this post is that I hope that I and many others have done enough to make it clear to Canon exactly what it is that we want to see in future cameras. And since the successor to the 5D Mark II is probably going to be released this year, I hope that we’ll finally get the full-frame camera we’ve all wanted. Like Thom Hogan said, everyone will be looking to see if 2011 is going to be more of the same for Canon, and I’m very much hoping that it won’t be. Nikon has had a 51-point professional autofocus system (same from the D3s!) on the D700 for almost 3 years now and it can only get better for the D800. Canon needs to seriously step up their game with the 5D Mark III and in my opinion can’t afford to include anything less than the autofocus system from the 1D Mark IV in it. Because Nikon, aggressive as they are right now, are going to be throwing everything they’ve got into the D800, and then some (just look at what happened with the Nikon D7000 and the Canon EOS 60D). It will be interesting to see what happens in a few months.

Update June 12, 2011:

Photographer John Edgar, a Canon shooter, recently decided to try the Nikon system for a day and although he went in expecting not to like it, you’ll be surprised by his remarks about the difference between the Canon and Nikon systems. Just like many others are saying, and like I wrote above, Canon has a serious problem with autofocus. Here’s some of what Edgar said:

Generally, a pretty high proportion of my images shot with my Canon system are out of focus, mostly because it just can’t seem to focus on the right thing. This has been a frustration for a while and definitely my main friction point with the Canon system.

…

I realized that in less than 30 minutes of using the camera, it felt second nature to me. Believe it or not, after 10 years of shooting on the Canon system I still sometimes get lost and turn things the wrong way or forget where a setting is. I was very, very impressed with how quickly I was able to adapt and learn the Nikon layout, and found it extremely natural and ergonomic. Hours in I said to a guest who asked me about the camera, “it really is a joy to shoot with.”

…

This was the perfect time to test the higher ISO ranges. I sent a quick message to my friend Ryan Brenizer to confirm that the files are pretty clean around 6400 ISO before I went trigger-happy. He gave me the nod and with a smile I set the camera there and went to town. I shot for a bit and then zoomed in to 100% and checked the shadows. Just as Ryan had mentioned: very, very clean.

…

The AF focus system is, at worst, much better than anything I’ve experienced with Canon. In continuous focus mode, while a lot of the AF lag is gone, so is a lot of the accuracy. That being said, I still found more of the images to be in than out or at least acceptability soft. During the photo session, shooting with good light in AF-S, the focusing was almost always spot on.

The only thing Edgar didn’t like about the Nikon system was the way it renders bokeh, though he admitted that was more his personal taste. But if I have to choose between different bokeh and to have a working system with reliable autofocus, then the choice is very easy for me. And I don’t think I have to tell you what it is.

A car belonging to a frustrated Korean photographer. The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3”

Canon has been seriously disappointing everyone since the release of the EOS 1D Mark III camera. The 5D Mark II sucked, the 7D sucked a little, the 50D seriously sucked, the 60D sucked, and the recently released 600D and 1100D also suck. Professional photographers using Canon equipment are in desperate need of a working DSLR body that will make them competitive again compared to other photographers using Nikon gear and these days even Sony gear. The only good option Canon has right now is the 1D Mark IV, but even that can’t deliver image quality as good as the Nikon D3s for example, and costs close to $4500 while being a lot bigger and heavier (not something most photographers appreciate).

Fake Chuck Westfall has put up a petition online for feature requests for the next update to the 5D Mark II, which may be a 5D Mark III but could also be a new model like a 3D or 6D if we are to believe some of the rumors. If you are a Canon user that needs a good body now or in the future, take the time to sign this petition and let’s hope Canon Inc. will actually deliver something close to what is being requested demanded.

Cactus V5 Transceiver Review. Model credit: Carol Chen Poun Joe (more test images with this model in the gallery below)

In the second week of November 2010 I was contacted by Harvest One Limited as part of a small group of photographers around the world about testing a new version of their Cactus wireless flash triggers. At that time their latest model was the Cactus V4 Wireless Flash Trigger which I had been using for a few months already. So when the opportunity was presented to me to be able to have an early look at the next generation of these triggers I accepted it immediately. Harvest One would ship all participating photographers a couple of pre-production versions of the new units and the only requirement was that we would give suggestions for improvements and other feedback during the testing period and in the end write about our experiences with the new units on our websites and/or blogs.

As a user of the Cactus V4 triggers I have overall been very happy with the value I got for my money. The V4 triggers have proven to be very capable and reliable and I have done some serious work with them including using them during my photoshoot for the president of Suriname. There were some things that could have been better with the V4 system. For example, the battery compartment door could easily get detached and this was an issue many people complained about. Occasionally you could also get some reliability issues with flashes not firing when taking a picture, though this didn’t happen very often. In my post about the photoshoot for the president of Suriname, I mentioned how the Cactus V4 trigger was a lot more practical and reliable when in use than Canon’s wireless trigger (the ST-E2, which I also own), while also being a lot cheaper. And I still think this is the case. So the Cactus V4 already offered some good value for the money you’d spend on them. But with the new Cactus V5 transceiver the value you get for your money is taken to a much higher level.

The Cactus V5 Transceiver compared to the Cactus V4 Trigger

Improvements

The Cactus V5 system represents a significant improvement over the older V4 system. Let’s look at some of the new features:

- New Transceiver Design

The Cactus V5 has a new transceiver design. This means that each V5 unit can function both as a trigger and a receiver (controlled through the Mode Switch on the unit). It is also much bigger compared to the V4 unit so you’ll have to keep this in mind when using it with other gear.

The Cactus V5 mounted as a trigger on the Canon EOS 40D

With the V4 system you had a dedicated trigger unit and a dedicated receiver unit. You’d then use a V4 trigger to trigger a number of V4 receivers. If the trigger unit became defective then you’d have to have a backup trigger unit to be able to continue to work. But with the V5 system any of the units can function as a trigger, so you can just take one of the receivers and use that as a trigger in such a case. This is one of the advantages of the transceiver design. You can always walk around with an extra V5 unit and that can be used both as a backup trigger and backup receiver. In comparison, with the V4 system I had to walk around with an extra V4 trigger unit and an extra V4 receiver unit.

Cactus V5

The specifications are as follows:

- Working radio frequency: 2.4 Ghz.
- 16 selectable channels
- Sync speeds of up to 1/1000s supported
- Maximum effective distance of 100 meters
- Operating temperature of -20 °C to +50 °C
- Dimensions: 82mm (L) x 70mm (W) x 37mm (H)
- Weight: 58g
- Power input: 2 x AAA 1.5V batteries
- Flash voltage handling up to 300v
- Camera voltage handling up to 6v

- Better Reliability

The Cactus V5 transceiver is a lot more reliable than the V4 system. I have yet to experience reliability issues with these units. They’re practically 100% reliable within 50 meters. During tests, as long as my flashes were able to recycle fast enough, these units kept firing them every time.

- Frequency Self-Tune (FST)

The Cactus V5 transceiver has a unique new Frequency Self-Tune (FST) feature that automatically adjusts for frequency shifts in extreme weather conditions to increase reliability. According to Harvest One this feature will minimize no-fires in extreme conditions. I live in a tropical part of the world, but some of the other photographers in our testing group have tested the V5 in very cold weather conditions and they have proven to be practically 100% reliable. Check out the list of other reviews further down for more information on this.

- Improved Battery Compartment

The new battery compartment on the V5 is a big improvement compared to the V4 and according to Harvest One it is highly durable and has been tested to continue to function even after 3000 clicks. The door to the battery compartment on the Cactus V4 could detach all by itself if you merely gave it the wrong look. In comparison this new design on the V5 is just great.

The Cactus V5 Battery Compartment

- Maximum Range of 100 Meters!

The Cactus V5 transceiver can work reliably over a maximum distance of 100 meters. Some testers have reported even greater distances, as far as 240 meters (with decreased reliability), where they were still able to use the V5 with some no-fires in between. At least one tester reported reliable results at 200 meters (check links to other reviews below). But it is important to note that Harvest One themselves only advertise a reliable working distance of 100 meters. How much further you can take this also depends on the environment that you’re working in.

- Multi-Channel Triggering

With the Cactus V5 transceiver you can have up to 4 groups of receivers each with their own channel (Channel 2 – 5) and with any number of receivers in each group. You can then control on the trigger which one of these groups you want to trigger when taking a picture. Channel 1 on the trigger fires all groups. If you want to trigger only a certain group of receivers, all you have to do is set the trigger to the group’s channel and only that group of flashes will fire.

- Camera Shutter Release Functionality

The Cactus V5 transceiver can also be used as a wireless shutter release. To be able to use this functionality you’ll have to buy a shutter release cable that is being sold separately by Harvest One. When using this functionality, half pressing the test button on the trigger activates the autofocus system of the camera and fully pressing the test button takes a picture. Using this feature you can reliably trigger your camera wirelessly from up to 100 meters away.

The Cactus V5 mounted on a Canon EOS 40D and being used as a wireless shutter release (shutter release cable is sold separately)

- Extra Hot Shoe

There is now an extra hot shoe on top of the V5 unit that functions as the trigger. This enables you to mount a flash on top of the trigger on your camera and use it as an on-axis fill light. TTL information will not be passed through to the flash mounted on top of the trigger so you’ll have to work in manual mode.

The Cactus V5 mounted on a Canon EOS 40D with a Canon 580 EX II Flash on top

- Improved Status Led

The status led on the V5 indicates when the receivers are being triggered by the shutter release on the camera (green light), when they are being tested by half-pressing the test button on the trigger (orange light) and when the batteries are low (blinking red light). The battery low indication is a very welcome new feature because on important shoots you can get an early warning if the batteries need to be replaced. According to Harvest One, after the low battery indicator flashes at room temperature, it’s possible to get an average of 7-8 hours of “standby” time until the batteries completely die out.

- Maximum Sync Speed of 1/1000s

The Cactus V5 supports a maximum sync speed of 1/1000s. I used the V5 on Canon EOS 40D bodies and was able to work at the maximum supported (by the camera) sync speed of 1/250s without banding issues. On some Nikon bodies for example you’ll be able to work at sync speeds up to 1/1000s.

- Better Flash Stands

The Cactus V5 transceivers come with a much better flash stand compared to the older V4 system. The flash stand can be used on the V5 unit itself or on the flash.

A Canon 580 EX II Flash mounted on the Cactus V5 Transceiver

No Support for TTL

The Cactus V5 does not support TTL. So if you plan on using these triggers, prepare to work in manual mode all the time. It also does not support TTL pass-through for the flash mounted on top of the V5 trigger on the camera. Depending on how you like to work, this may or may not be an issue for you. When using off-camera lighting I want to have precise control over my lights, so the fact that TTL is not supported is not a big deal for me personally. If TTL is important to you then you’ll have to look at the more expensive Radio Popper or Pocket Wizard.

Compatibility with the Cactus V4

As far as compatibility with the older V4 system goes, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is that you will not be able to trigger the V4 receivers with the V5 trigger, and you will not be able to trigger the V5 receivers with a V4 trigger. The V5 is not compatible with the V4 in that way. However, the good news is that if you already have invested in the V4 system, it won’t be useless if you want to get a couple of the V5 units. You can use the V4 system together with the V5 by mounting the V4 trigger on top of the V5 trigger on the camera as shown in the image below.

Using the Cactus V5 with the Cactus V4

This way you can trigger both V5 and V4 receivers when you take a picture. It is not an ideal way of working, but it does the job. There’s also the possibility of having a V5 receiver trigger the V4 trigger using the supplied sync cable, but then you’ll get banding at the maximum sync speed. So the best way to use the V5 and V4 together is by mounting the V4 trigger on top of the V5 trigger on the camera. I’ve actually used this setup during two test photoshoots that I have done (read about them below) and it worked very well. But you’ll have to keep in mind that using the V5 and the V4 together is not recommended and not supported by Harvest One, and any damages resulting from using these units this way will not be covered by the warranty.

Test Photoshoots

While testing the Cactus V5 I thought of doing some test photoshoots to see how it would perform if I were to use it for actual work. Based on my experiences during these test photoshoots I would know if the V5 would be worth upgrading to in the future.

I like macro photography so one of the first things I tried out was to see if I could use the V5 for off camera lighting during macro photography. I went out with a lightstand, a Canon 580 EX II flash on a V5 receiver and a shoot through umbrella and made shots of insects, flowers and other small objects. In most cases the flash was positioned to my left at about 45 degrees from the subject, about 50cm to 1 meter away. Sometimes I would stand at equal distance from the subject to the light and sometimes even slightly in front and to the side of the light. This is a scenario that wouldn’t work with the Canon wireless trigger, the ST-E2 since you’d always have to place your lights in front of the trigger within a specific range and distance. But with the Cactus V5, I just placed my light where I wanted and was free to walk around to try all kinds of angles on my subject. I had 100% reliability here. A couple of images I took during this outdoor macro session can be seen in the gallery below, all were taken with the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5 L Macro lens.

I also tried a portrait shoot to see how the Cactus V5 would do in a studio setting. I invited my friend Navin Poeran, a SEO specialist, to have some photos taken which he could later use on his blog and social networking websites. For this shoot I wanted to end up with a specific kind of tech-look, which was achieved in part with the lighting and in part with post processing. I used 4 Canon 580 EX II flashes, 2 of them triggered by Cactus V5 units and 2 of them triggered by Cactus V4 units. There was one background light, 2 lights (small shoot through umbrellas) on each side and slightly to the back of the subject and one light in front and slightly to the side in a 90cm x 90cm softbox. I wanted to experiment with shallow depth of field so I shot mainly at f/2 (Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L lens), which meant that the power on the flashes was dialed down all the way to about 1/64th. The lights were placed close to the subject. Here I had 100% reliability for the V5 units and some no-fires for the V4 units. All shots were taken at 1/250s (max sync on the EOS 40D) and I had no banding issues.

And finally I did yet another studio shoot with a very talented painter and make-up artist named Carol Chen Poun Joe. You can find her and see some of her work on her facebook page. I wanted to do a photoshoot with extreme eye make-up and Carol was prepared to not only do the make-up but to also be the model for this photoshoot. This means that she had to do the make-up on herself. I told her what I wanted to do for the eye make-up and she came up with two very nice make-up styles all by herself: A zebra eye make-up look and a fantasy look. The fact that she also did this make-up on herself (especially the more complex looking zebra eye make-up) is a testament to her skills. You can see her doing her own make-up in the gallery below. Apart from being very talented she’s also very beautiful and can sometimes be mistaken for Megan Fox.

Carol Chen Poun Joe or Megan Fox?

Now if you’ll stop staring for a moment, I want to explain the lighting I used for this photoshoot. The lighting here was very similar to the previous photoshoot with Navin, but the difference here was that I placed the lights much further away from the model and used higher power settings. So it was 4 Canon 580 EX II flashes, 2 of them triggered by Cactus V5 units and 2 of them triggered by Cactus V4 units. There was one background light, 2 lights (small shoot through umbrellas) on each side and slightly to the back of the subject and one light in front in a 90cm x 90cm softbox. During the photoshoot I sometimes moved the softbox to the left or right of my position depending on the orientation of the model. Here I also experimented with some shallow depth of field shots using the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L lens. I also used the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4 L lens for some of the shots. During this photoshoot I had 100% reliability for the V5 units and some no-fires for the V4 units. All shots were taken at 1/250s (max sync on the EOS 40D) and I had no banding issues.

Gallery

Below is a gallery of pictures I made during my test photoshoots. Click on the “Full Screen” button in the lower-right corner to see larger images.

Conclusion

Based on my experiences with testing the Cactus V5 transceiver, I can tell you that I am going to be buying them as soon as they are available and will be replacing my Cactus V4 system entirely. They are a lot better than the Cactus V4 and certainly a lot more reliable. And if you look at the costs (two V5 units for a mere $60), I think it’s an incredible deal. Radio Popper and Pocket Wizard have some serious competition now with their (lots) more expensive products. For the price of a single Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 unit ($229) you can get 7 Cactus V5 units. And reliability is just as good and perhaps even better if you look at the comparison another reviewer made (check reviews below). The only thing the Cactus V5 doesn’t have that’s really worth having for some users is the TTL functionality.

Another thing is that the Cactus V4 already put the Canon ST-E2 to shame and now the Cactus V5 is doing it all over again. Canon is still trying to sell us a fucking piece of plastic junk for almost $250 with a maximum working range of 15 meters (10 meters out-doors) that needs line of sight to be able to work well. For that price you can get 8 Cactus V5 units that work a lot better and give you a lot more freedom. I keep wondering when Canon is finally going to bring us some fucking innovation after all the mediocrity they’ve been releasing recently. If a small company like Harvest One Limited with limited resources is able to design such a relatively kick-ass product in about 18 months, why can’t the big and mighty Canon do it? Okay let me stop now, I’m beginning to sound like someone else.

Availability

The Cactus V5 will be available for sale on Gadget Infinity starting on Monday, January 24, 2011 at 00:00 (PST) and first shipments are expected to begin on January 26th. It will be available in two packages:

• Wireless Flash Transceiver V5 Duo - Price: $59,95
  A box containing two Cactus V5 transceiver units.
• Wireless Flash Transceiver V5 Single – Price: $34,95
  A box containing a single Cactus V5 transceiver unit.

Other Reviews

There’s much more to say about the new Cactus V5 system and many more tests were done by others. Below is a list of reviews done by other photographers in our test group where you can find additional information:

• Review by Brian Hursey
  General information, maximum range reliability tests up to about 180 meters and videos.
• Review by Nicolas B Photo (French)
  General information, maximum range reliability tests in cold weather, wireless shutter release information.
• Review by Eric Duminil
  General information, maximum range reliability tests comparing the V5 with the Pocket Wizard Plus II. According to this test the V5 is a lot more reliable than the Pocket Wizard Plus II, even as far as 240 meters. Very impressive.
• Review on Steelevisions
  General information.
• Review on Pentaxforums
  General information, maximum range reliability tests, comparisons with other wireless flash triggers.
• Review on Rudy’s Rants
  General information, maximum range reliability tests up to 200 meters in cold weather, maximum frame rate tests with an impressive 39 fps result!
• Review on Lighting Rumours
  General information, max sync speed tests on Nikon D40 (1/1000s) and D700 and comparison with other wireless flash triggers on the market.

Updates

Update January 25, 2011: There appears to be an extremely high demand for the new Cactus V5 transceivers and initial stock has been completely sold out within 15 hours. Gadget Infinity seems to be caught by surprise with the high demand, but in my opinion they had to have seen this coming because the V5 is a killer product. So if you go on their website and find the Cactus V5 out of stock, try again the next day. Here’s part of a message from Gadget Infinity:

As many of you are aware, the Cactus Wireless Flash Transceiver V5 (V5) was released yesterday, and after less than 15 hours, the V5 Duo was all sold out while a limited number of V5 Single is still available.

We are extremely excited about the high demand for V5. However, given that each V5 unit is inspected one-by-one to ensure quality and reliability, our supply level is insufficient to meet this unexpected high demand. In light of this, we are making efforts to increase our production supply, and hope to achieve this within the shortest timeframe possible.

For the time being, we will make a limited supply of V5 (Duo and Single) available on Gadget Infinity every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 00:00 PST.

Please accept our sincere apologies if this supply shortage has caused any inconvenience for you. Lastly, we’d like to thank you for your support of Cactus Image and Gadget Infinity, and we look forward to serving you soon.

Canon EOS 60D

I’m going to be very short with my review of the Canon EOS 60D: IT SUCKS.

On second thought, let me elaborate on that.

The Canon EOS 60D is a step backwards in the xxD series on almost all levels. If you own a 20D, 30D, 40D or, heaven forbid, a 50D, then by getting a 60D you won’t really be upgrading. Well, maybe if you own a 20D and 30D you could consider it an upgrade but only because those cameras are now very old and outdated. But in the case of the 40D it is definitely a downgrade, and in the case of the 50D everything is a downgrade except for the image quality, which will be better on the 60D (but keep in mind that the image quality on the 50D was terrible compared to the 40D).

Why am I saying this? First because the imaging sensor used in the 60D is the same sensor that is used in the 7D. I have said a lot about the inferior image quality that the sensor in the 7D produces compared to the 40D. For details on this, please read my review of the EOS 7D. The same things I said there about image quality on the 7D apply to the 60D as well because both use the same 18MP sensor. Basically the images from the 60D will also contain more noise compared to images taken on the 40D at ISO values lower than ISO 3200. So if image quality is important to you, then the 60D is not the best choice right now, especially not when you also consider the competition, namely the Nikon D7000. A comparison between the EOS 7D, 60D and 40D models can be seen on DXOMark if you follow this link.

In the graph above taken from a comparison on DXOMark you can clearly see how the performance of the 7D and 60D are very similar, and how they both perform worse than the 40D with regards to noise levels on screen.

If you compare the 60D and 40D to the Nikon D7000 on DXOMark (follow this link) you get the results below:

In the graph above taken from a comparison on DXOMark you can see that the image quality on the Nikon D7000 comes close to the Canon EOS 40D as far as on screen noise is concerned. This is a great achievement for Nikon, as the D7000 has a 16MP sensor while the 40D has a 10MP sensor. The 60D performs worse than the new Nikon D7000 and worse than even the 3 year old 40D. This is a shame for Canon.

Apart from the inferior image quality, the 60D is also a step backwards in the xxD series when you consider build quality. Older models like the 40D and 50D had a strong magnesium-alloy body whereas the 60D has a body that is made up of aluminum and plastic, putting it more in the entry level Digital Rebel (xxxD) category. Essentially the 60D became a Digital Rebel that’s a little more advanced than the EOS 550D. Perhaps Canon didn’t want the 60D to compete too much with the 7D, and I’m sure that in true Canon style they also wanted to save a couple of bucks on build quality so they could make even more money off of us. But the result is not worth the money they are asking for it in my opinion ($1100), and especially not when Nikon came out with a body in the same category that DOES have a magnesium-alloy body, namely the Nikon D7000 costing $1200. Canon is now slowly building up a history of wanting to sell products with inferior specs for a lot more than they are worth. In a similar way they priced the 5D Mark II at $2700 with a ridiculously underperforming autofocus system, while Nikon had their D700 also priced around $2700 with an advanced pro-level autofocus system. This time Nikon is one-upping Canon again with their D7000, as they have consistently done since the release of the D3.

As if scaling back the build quality on the 60D wasn’t enough Canon also removed some features such as autofocus micro-adjustment for lenses, an essential feature that was missing on the 40D, introduced with the 50D, and now taken away again with the 60D. When you’re familiar with all the autofocus issues with Canon cameras and lenses, you realize even more how important such a feature is on a camera. You only have to do a simple search on Google to find thousands of cases where people are complaining about their (often even brand new) lenses having front or back focus issues. In such a case the autofocus micro-adjustment feature is very handy to try and correct the issues yourself, or to fine-tune autofocus on your camera in combination with the lenses you own. But somehow Canon had to remove this from the 60D, I suspect to make it even more inferior to the 7D. But guess what? Nikon put this feature in their D7000, again one-upping Canon’s 60D.

And so it appears again that engineers and marketing people at Nikon have a much, much, MUCH better understanding of what photographers really want in a camera, and what combination of features make sense. While Nikon went a couple of steps forward with their D7000 compared to the D90, Canon actually went backwards on exactly the same steps from the 40D to the 60D. Nikon even equipped the $1200 costing D7000 with an advanced 39-point autofocus system. It may not be as good as the 51-point AF system in the D300s, for example, but it won’t surprise me one bit when it turns out to be A LOT better than the old 9-point AF system in the 60D that Canon has now been using ever since the 40D (!!!). It seems that Canon purposely holds back every time while Nikon is constantly innovating and pushing the envelope with each new DSLR model they release. It is incredible what Nikon has achieved with the D7000. The D7000 is so good that it can easily compete with the Canon EOS 7D ($1800 price range). Even the image quality of the D7000 is better compared to the EOS 60D and EOS 7D. If you look at the features of the D7000 and the 60D side by side, it becomes very clear that the D7000 is vastly more superior than the 60D while costing just $100 more. Some of the features on the D7000 include dual memory card slots, autofocus micro-adjustments, continuous AF in movie mode, magnesium-alloy body with weather sealing, 39-point autofocus system with 3D matrix metering and of course better image quality – all for almost the same price as the 60D.

So as far as I’m concerned, the 60D is another disappointment in the line of very disappointing camera bodies Canon has released in the last 4 years. Clearly Canon is trying to sell us inferior technology at a premium price, while the competition has a lot more to offer at the same price levels. If you’re looking for a DSLR in the $1000-$1200 price range, the Nikon D7000 is currently the best there is on the market. The D7000 is a better choice compared to the Canon 7D, 60D, 50D, 40D, the Nikon D90 and the Nikon D300(s). Depending on your needs, the D7000 is also a better choice compared to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (only if you really need 21MP and full-frame) and the Nikon D700 (only if you need full-frame).

Ever since I wrote some posts about the Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR on my blog last year, I’ve continued to get comments from many users around the world who’ve used the camera and had issues with it. Most of the time these users went online after experiencing issues to search for a solution and then found my blog only to wish they had read it before they bought their 5D Mark II. Just yesterday I got the following two comments from two different people:

From Troy:

Being a Canon user makes me feel cheated. The autofocus is terrible, owning a $3000 camera and having so many shots out of focus is unacceptable. Shooting landscapes is most of the time fine (even there AF hunts at times) but anything moving and easy to lose over 75% of your shots. Slow frame rate and many out of focus shots, bad news. I have tried every AF combination and get the same results. I have some great photos but have lost too many. I hate to switch but selling my Canon gear and moving to Nikon. I would love to stay with Canon but AF issues are too much, and they don’t seem wanting to fix it anytime soon.

From Mark H:

Hi Karel,

I haven’t read all the responses but I can’t believe some of the assessments of the camera based on limited shooting situations. I’m a wedding photographer, shoot 2000-3000 images per wedding in all kinds of lighting and all situations, and yes, low light shooting with the MK2 sucks compared to even prosumer cameras like the 40D. IMO it’s the outer autofocus points….focus dead-on with the center point (to hell with the rule of thirds or any sort of off center composition) and you’ll do ok in low light (in most situations), but try “getting ready” shots with a window behind the bride’s head (bright backlight), or low light church shots and good luck getting 30% of them in focus with the off-center focus points. I shoot a lot wide open at 1.4, so I know when it’s on and when it’s off. It’ll focus fine in bright light (so it’s not needing microadjustments or a lens problem), it’ll focus fine with off center points in bright light most of the time, but go indoors and be careful. Get trigger happy if you want some images to choose from. I love the resolution, love most of everything about the camera, can live with the speed of the autofocus, but a “low-light” camera that only has 1 “usable” autofocus point in low light is kinda disappointing.

And there’s a lot more where those came from.

If you’ve read my previous posts about the 5D Mark II, you know that the issues these users are describing are exactly the issues I mentioned in my posts. From the moment the 5D Mark II was announced I saw based on the specifications alone that Canon had seriously crippled the camera with an old autofocus system that wouldn’t be able to let people really take advantage of the other features the camera had to offer. Many users who’ve bought the camera for professional use have had no choice but to sell it again and move to something that worked much better and offered A LOT more, such as the Nikon D700. Here are just two cases:

Case 1: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

Canon was good to me, especially back in the day when I rocked a cropped sensor and a 35mm lens for 90% of my shoots. It was simple, reliable and dependable.  Then I got a 5d.  The 5d offered great high ISO features, a full frame, a nice big LCD and the worst focusing system money could buy.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I am a hard-core stickler for sharp images; “A little soft,” or “a little back-focused” is not ok by me.  It’s tack sharp or it get’s the hose. So, as you can imagine, the 5d became quite a handicap for me.  But, nonetheless, I figured out that if I only shot on One Shot and kept my aperture up, I could make in-focus photos.

Despite my near-constant frustration with Canon, I held out for the mythical 5d Mark II – a camera that promised even better ISO, an even bigger sensor, an even fancier LCD and (you guessed it), the same crappy focusing system. At that point, Canon had me by the you-know-whats (I don’t actually have you-know-whats… it’s a euphemism, silly) – I had *thousands* invested in lenses (see below). So I shot my 5d Mark II for the entire 2009 wedding season…. on One-Shot…. using a high aperture… constantly cussing under my breath.

Case 2: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

So, my 5DII came back from Canon’s repair center AGAIN on Tuesday. I took it out for a 45 minute stroll and took pictures of cats, leaves, berries, trees, the water.. etc. I used both the center focal point and the outer focal points. I spent the entire 45 minutes cursing after each shot as it became more and more apparent that it was just the same (if not worse) as it had been when I sent it in.

…

So, I sniffled a little, I paced back and forth, I thought. Then I typed up all the Canon gear I own on a forum and titled it ‘For sale’. I sniffled some more and grit my teeth and clicked the ‘post’ button. There. I said it. It’s for sale. I’ve been a Canon girl for eight years. I busted my ass to buy that 5D, and I love it. If I could afford to keep it and the 50mm lens that’s been with me for four years, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I’m done. I’m switching to Nikon.

In both these cases the users were let down by the bad autofocus performance of the 5D Mark II and had no choice but to switch to the Nikon D700. Even the image quality offered by the 5D Mark II isn’t what you would expect from a $2700 camera with noise and banding issues even at the low ISO settings.

The reason why the 5D Mark II still appears to be selling well is because of the HD video features that are also built into the camera. But as a tool for photography, the 5D Mark II has some serious issues and shortcomings that I hope will be addressed sufficiently by Canon in the next version.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV

With the release of the EOS 1D Mark IV, Canon has once again demonstrated that they don’t fully understand what photographers are really looking for these days. Somehow Canon can’t seem to let go of the megapixel race and seems to think that what we’re all really looking for is more megapixels on our cameras and even larger images, even if that has to happen at the expense of image quality. This while a constantly growing number of photographers worldwide, who’re using Canon equipment daily, are complaining and asking for less megapixels and a full-frame sports / journalistic camera. Nikon clearly appears to understand this with the release of the Nikon D3s.

Once the king of image quality, for the last 3 years Canon seems to have lost touch with the market. As far as image quality is concerned it started going downhill with the EOS 50D, which came with a sensor that produced more noise and banding than anything else. Then came the EOS 5D Mark II, which also suffers from noise and banding issues even at ISO 100. Other image quality issues on the 5D Mark II such as the black dot problem were ‘fixed’ in a firmware update. Then came the EOS 7D which produces images that contain more noise compared to a 2 year older camera, namely the EOS 40D, while it also appears to suffer too much from diffraction issues when using high f-stops due to the high pixel density on the sensor. The same can be said about the Rebel line of cameras and for example the G10. The G10 got equipped with a 15MP sensor that, similar to the EOS 50D, produced more noise than anything else. It was so bad Canon went back and released a newer model, the G11, which has a smaller 10MP sensor capable of delivering much better image quality.

In the case of the 1D Mark IV (1D4 in short), the image quality is comparable to that of the 2 year old 40D. This is not surprising considering that the pixel density on the sensors in both cameras is 5.7µm. So the noise levels are practically the same. However the sensor in the 1D4 benefits from advances in sensor development in recent years and, among other things, does not suffer from the banding issues that can sometimes be seen on images taken with a 40D at high ISO values. Some reviewers, such as Lloyd Chambers, have argued that the 1D4 produces the best image quality to date compared to previous Canon camera models, and I agree with this. But this isn’t such an achievement when you consider that the last 3 (semi) professional DSLR models released by Canon all suffer(ed) from various image quality issues. It’s like a kid in school who has been receiving D’s constantly and gets praise when he finally receives a B.

Because when you look at it, Canon has given us image quality that, currently, isn’t worth much more than a B. The A goes to Nikon for their image quality on the D3s. If you look at reviews of the 1D4 around the Internet, you’ll find reviewers (who by the way are all Canon users) who are wishing Canon had given us the image quality produced by the D3s. One example is this review done by a Danish photographer, here’s what he had to say (translated from Danish):

It would have been better if Canon had made the files smaller and improved high ISO as such 12,800 were usable.

In another 1D4 review, the reviewer looks at the noise in files produced by the 1D4, and says that it almost looks “D3s like,” but not quite:

As stated previously, regardless of ISO (even 102,500!) there is no banding (even when heavily processed), and the pleasantness of the grain is particularly distinguishable from 12,800 ISO and higher as compared to all other cameras tested. One might say, the grain is almost… “Nikon D3s like” (…gasp! I know!)

If Canon had kept the 1D4 at 10MP or 12MP at most, the 1D4′s image quality could have matched the D3s. But as it is right now, the D3s is the clear winner. Juza Nature Photography has done an excellent comparison of image quality between the 1D4 and the Nikon D3s. You can clearly see there just how good the Nikon D3s actually is. It is really quite unbelievable. I’ve written about such image quality before in my EOS 7D review, and I’ve said there that I am quite sure that Canon today is capable of delivering this kind of image quality, but simply refuses to do so, choosing to compete with megapixels instead. And the old stupid argument about the resolution advantage even though there’s more noise clearly doesn’t apply here. Yes the 1D4 (16MP) has more resolution compared to the D3s (12MP), but clearly the resolution advantage doesn’t matter when you view the images from these two cameras side by side, and in fact, the 1D4 images become so noisy at higher ISO values that you’d have to use noise reduction software on them which will also remove detail from your images. So in the end, you’re actually better off using the D3s.

1D Mark IV and D3s Image Quality

The image crops above are much smaller crops taken from the review by Juza Nature Photography. Head over to their review to see the larger crops and be able to judge things like detail and see the quality at other ISO values. In the small crops above, it’s clear that the D3s beats the 1D4 when it comes to image quality. Even at ISO 100 the 1D4 shows some color noise while the D3s image looks as smooth as you can ever expect to get an image from a DSLR. The colors also look a lot better on the D3s. The D3s is so good that the ISO 1600 image on the D3s comes close to the ISO 100 image on the 1D4!!! Who the fuck would care about more noisy megapixels if you can get smooth and creamy looking images like this?? And if you look at ISO 102400, the 1D4 simply produces unusable garbage. I’ve said it many times before, but apparently Canon thinks we’re all stupid. They did it before when they said they couldn’t include better autofocus technology in the 5D Mark II because the body was too small. Including ISO 102400 the way it is on the 1D4 quite frankly is an insult to our intelligence. In the same way, Canon could have included ISO values up to 819200 and have that on the box as a feature. The images would be absolute crap, but hey, you can make them! Looking at the ISO 102400 sample from the 1D4, I can’t help but think that what happened is that Canon saw after the D3s announcement that the D3s was capable of taking images at ISO 102400, and at the last minute they added that feature on the 1D4 as the H3 setting just so the 1D4 and the D3s features would look more comparable on paper and the D3s wouldn’t have the edge. Stupid marketing at its best. This might also explain why Canon ordered everyone to take down their sample images taken with the 1D4 shortly after they announced the 1D4, because they probably weren’t quite finished with tweaking the higher ISO output.

The good news is that so far Canon appears to have addressed the autofocus shortcomings from the 1D Mark III, and all reviews I’ve seen up till now are very very positive about the autofocus capabilities of the 1D4. Photographer Brad Mangin wrote about his experiences with the 1D4 autofocus system and was quite pleased. Photographer Justin Gryba while also quite pleased with the tracking capabilities of the 1D4 autofocus system discovered some inconsistencies and bad performance in low light conditions. Apparently Canon crippled the Spot AF feature on the 1D4 when compared to the EOS 7D. On the 1D4 the Spot AF feature can only be used with the very expensive long lenses with an AF Stop button, while on the 7D you can configure the camera to use Spot AF with all lenses. Because of this, the accuracy of the AF system on the 1D4 in low light is not as good as it could be, and as Justin shows in his review, is even worse than the 5D Mark II. This is a serious issue if you expect to use the 1D4 for events in low light conditions, such as weddings, where you simply can’t use lenses with an AF Stop button. For the details on this head on over to Justin’s website to read his review. Fortunately Canon should be able to address this issue with a firmware update. The functionality we want is already included on the 7D, it’s just a matter of enabling it on the 1D4. After reading Justin’s review, please contact your local Canon representative to request this feature to be added. This is a very important find by Justin and he deserves the credit. Let’s hope Canon listens.

The 1D4 will be a good camera overall for Canon users. After the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco, Canon users worldwide were desperate for a working professional DSLR and the 1D4 will be able to keep them reasonably satisfied for a while. It won’t help Canon to win back those users who have already switched to Nikon, because Nikon has the better bodies right now and they’re working hard on the lenses. It probably also won’t convince many users to stay with Canon who have already decided to switch to Nikon. But it will convince many Canon users who already have a lot invested in Canon to stick with Canon gear for the coming 3 years. It’s the easier path to take. But deep down inside, at any event, they’ll all know that the Nikon photographers with the big black lenses and a D3s logo on their bodies will have the edge.

The future currently doesn’t look very good for Canon. They appear to be struggling to keep up with Nikon, and mostly because of their own shortsightedness and stupidity because they have the potential to blow Nikon away. But because of their fooling around they are giving Nikon a lot of room to catch up. Nikon has already surpassed Canon when DSLR bodies are concerned, and they are now working hard to close the gap with their lenses. They’ve released an updated 70-200mm f/2.8 lens that appears to match the new Canon version and just yesterday, Nikon announced the long anticipated 24mm f/1.4 professional lens along with a new 16-35 f/4 lens (read more here). According to recent information, they also have their new professional 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 primes in the works (patents have been filed) and these should be released soon. In 2011 Nikon will probably not only have closed the gaps in their lens lineup, but will also have the better quality optics. Add this to the already better Nikon DSLR bodies and flash system, and you can start to see that the future doesn’t look very good for Canon. For the short term, the release of an updated D700 body with the sensor from the D3s will be like a knife through Canon’s heart. They know it’s coming, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

As a Canon user, I hope I won’t have to make the difficult decision of having to switch to Nikon in 2011. The only thing keeping me back right now is the huge investment I currently have in Canon gear. Otherwise, I’d have been a Nikon user already.

Update February 11, 2010: Rob Galbraith has just published his findings on the autofocus system of the 1D Mark IV, and it doesn’t look very good. As you may know, Galbraith, a sports photographer from Canada, was the first who pointed out that the 1D Mark III had autofocus issues back in 2007. He has now done some tests with both the 1D Mark IV and the 1D Mark III, and also tested the D3s along with the 1D Mark IV, and although it does appear that the 1D Mark IV is an improvement compared to the older model (which isn’t saying much because the 1D3 had tons of issues), it still has some issues making the autofocus system from the D3s a better choice. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Add it all up and the conclusion is inescapable: the EOS-1D Mark IV has an AF system that is capable of greatness but is also so bewilderingly variable that there’s no way to trust it, especially for outdoor sports. Indoors, EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance has been less variable, but our results from speedskating and basketball are simply not up to par. If this is the best the company could muster, after the autofocus debacle of the EOS-1D Mark III, then it’s official: Canon has lost their autofocus mojo.

…

To sum up, our experience with the D3S’ AF system is that it’s trustworthy and dependable enough for us to be confident using it for peak action sports. Not perfect: it needs to be a bit faster off the line, in addition to the other quibbles we’ve mentioned. But it does work as needed most of the time, which is in stark contrast to the experience of the EOS-1D Mark IV in the last month.

Go over to read his full analysis and to check out the tons of sample pictures.

So I guess this makes things a lot worse for Canon than I initially thought and explained above. The 1D4 appears to be an improvement compared to the 1D3, but will it be enough to keep Canon users happy and loyal to the brand? We know that when the image quality is concerned, the Nikon D3s is the clear winner. And now it looks like even for the autofocus performance, you’re better off using a Nikon D3s. It really is quite a sad situation, and as Galbraith briefly shows in his article, the competition using Nikon gear is going to have a real advantage over you if you’re using Canon gear.

Update February 12, 2010: Photographer Lloyd Chambers posted some remarks about the D3s image quality and it’s worth taking a look. Here’s some of what he had to say:

The Nikon D3s handles ISO 3200 superbly. The flag shot at right was also pushed by 2/3 stop = ISO 5000 equivalent. Yet the noise is minimal, and the color true. I also shot at ISO 12800, and I’ll be pitiqualated if I wasn’t even more impressed than I expected. The Nikon D3s is truly a breakthrough camera.

The Nikon D3s is a low light dream camera. Couple that with some good low light lenses and you’re in low light photography heaven! As I mentioned before, Nikon is currently working hard to update their lenses for low light photography (this means lenses with small aperture values). They’ve already announced the 24mm f/1.4 and they’ll be releasing their new 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 lenses in the future. The fact that these lenses were not yet available is what made a lot of Canon users hesitate to switch to Nikon. Canon users have long enjoyed the ability to use the 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2, 85mm f/1.2 and 135mm f/2 lenses. The results you can get using those lenses are simply amazing. But now that Nikon will also have them very soon, especially in combination with an excellent body as the D3s, I think many will make the switch as soon as they can afford to.

My recent post about the Canon EOS 7D caused a bit of controversy on the Internet and it is not surprising considering that in that post I’m essentially showing that the EOS 7D, Canon’s supposedly latest and greatest APS-C sensor camera body, is offering worse image quality compared to the two year older model, the EOS 40D. This was my conclusion based on my discussion of dpreview’s review of the EOS 7D and some of their test data.

After posting my article about the EOS 7D, I notified people of the post and one of those people was Philip Askey, the guy who started dpreview before Amazon bought them some time ago. Shortly after sending my email to Askey, he replied demanding that I take down the sample images from dpreview which I included in my post about the 7D. You can see the email conversation that followed below:

From: Philip Askey
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 7:47 PM
To: Karel Donk

Please remove the copyright image quality crops from your blog post, you did not seek permission to reproduce these.

—-

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:55 PM
To: ‘Philip Askey’

Hi Philip,

Thank you for reading. I was hoping you guys would mention how the noise in 7D images was still worse compared to the 40D, like you did when you reviewed the 50D.

Also I use some of the crops to discuss the result of your published reviews and show how from your own reviews and samples, the 7D performs worse than the 40D, while also mentioning how you guys failed to mention in your own review that the 7D performs worse at low ISO compared to the D300s, as you can clearly see.
My use falls under fair use and that’s why i did not ask permission. But let me know if you think otherwise.

Regards,

—-

From: Philip Askey
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:59 PM
To: Karel Donk

Karel,

You clearly have an axe to grind against Canon and I’m not hear to have a conversation, we would compare the 7D to the 40D if it were the clear predecessor.

Your use of our numerous images does not fall under fair use.  Please remove all these images immediately.

—-

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 9:03 PM
To: ‘Philip Askey’

Philip,

Can you explain to me why you think this is not fair use?

Thanks,

After my last email to Askey above, I didn’t hear from him again. However, after this email exchange I started contacting a few people to ask them for their opinion about my use of the images in my post. I was sure my use of the images fell under “fair use” but I still wanted to hear the opinion of others just to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t infringing on dpreview’s rights. As a photographer myself, I too would love to be able to protect my work, so I take such matters very serious. One of the people I contacted was Dan Heller, well known in the photography business community online, he has written about many similar topics in the past. We started a very insightful email discussion on the subject, and Dan basically confirmed my “fair use” argument.

In case you’re not familiar with “fair use” of content, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has the following to say about it:

The public’s right to make fair use of copyrighted works is a long-established and integral part of US copyright law. Courts have used fair use as the means of balancing the competing principles underlying copyright law since 1841. Fair use also reconciles a tension that would otherwise exist between copyright law and the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression. The Supreme Court has described fair use as “the guarantee of breathing space for new expression within the confines of Copyright law”.

3. How Do You Know If It’s Fair Use?
There are no clear-cut rules for deciding what’s fair use and there are no “automatic” classes of fair uses. Fair use is decided by a judge, on a case by case basis, after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright statute. The factors to be considered include:

a. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes — Courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.
b. The nature of the copyrighted work — A particular use is more likely to be fair where the copied work is factual rather than creative.
c. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole — A court will balance this factor toward a finding of fair use where the amount taken is small or insignificant in proportion to the overall work.
d. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — If the court finds the newly created work is not a substitute product for the copyrighted work, it will be more likely to weigh this factor in favor of fair use.

4. What’s been recognized as fair use?
Courts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.

Based on the criteria in point 3 above, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my use of some of dpreview’s images as I did in my post about the EOS 7D. Especially considering the fact that I was mainly criticizing dpreview’s review of the 7D (they worded the review in such a way to make the 7D look positive at times) and using their own data to show what I feel that they failed to mention about the  7D (that it offers worse image quality compared to the Nikon D300s from ISO 100 – 1600 and worse compared to the EOS 40D at all ISOs).

But the next day, after I sent my last reply to Askey, I get the following email from a lawyer at Amazon:

From: Radliff, Lynn
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 8:36 PM
To: Karel Donk
Cc: Sheehan, Kathryn
Subject: Cease & Desist

Dear Karel Donk:

I am Associate General Counsel for Litigation and Regulatory Matters for Amazon.com, which owns dpreview.com.  It has recently come to our attention that you are using dpreview.com’s copyrighted material in your blog posts, specifically http://blog.kareldonk.com/canon-eos-7d-review-noisier-than-40d/, in connection with Karel Donk In My Opinion.  Your use of this content is unauthorized by dpreview.com and infringes dpreview.com’s intellectual property rights. The purpose of this e-mail is to demand that you immediately cease using or otherwise infringing dpreview.com’s copyrighted content and related rights.  dpreview.com would prefer to resolve this matter amicably with your cooperation. However, dpreview.com needs your written assurance that you are willing to immediately cease and desist from any and all use of dpreview.com’s intellectual property, including any images and content from the dpreview.com web site.
We look forward to hearing from you, and ask for your written response by Friday, November 13, 2009 to indicate your position on this matter. If we do not hear from you by this date, we will take those further steps that we believe are necessary to protect our rights.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Kathryn Sheehan

As you can see, they wanted me to assure ”that you are willing to immediately cease and desist from any and all use of dpreview.com’s intellectual property, including any images and content from the dpreview.com web site.” This would mean that I could not even quote some of their review text so that I could comment on it or criticize it. And of course this would severely limit me in exercising my right to free speech, so I couldn’t possibly agree with this. In addition, there was nothing wrong with my use of the dpreview images in the first place. So I replied as follows:

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 9:03 PM
To: ‘Radliff, Lynn’
Subject: RE: Cease & Desist

Hi Kathryn,

In my blog post, which you mention in your email, I am discussing, among other things, the review done by DPReview of the EOS 7D. I quote part of their findings from the review, and offer my own comments and criticism on their review. I have included browser screenshots of their review images (not the original images) from the review which were relevant to my comments, to support my comments and criticism to show that THEIR OWN images show things that I feel they failed to mention in their review.

I believe that this is “fair use” of the material. I would not be able to discuss their review and make my points if I could not quote some of their text and show SCREENSHOTS of SOME of their images, and my comments and criticism would not be possible.

If you think this is not fair use, please let me know and also let me know why you think it is not, so I can consider taking the images down if I see that I am in fact infringing on dpreview.com’s rights.

Regards,

I have yet to receive a response from them on my last email above. Dan Heller later told me that he thought I used way too many words in my reply, and that an email asking the following would have been enough:

Explain to me why you feel my use of the images doesn’t meet the four criteria established by the courts in fair use assessments.

And I couldn’t agree more. Short, powerful and to the point.

I thought this information might be useful to many people out there, as the use of copyrighted images on blogs is an often discussed topic on the Internet, and I think it’s going to be discussed a lot more often in the future as more people discover the Internet and start blogging. Certain use of copyrighted images on your blog is certainly permitted as long as you keep the “fair use” guidelines in mind. But I’ll leave it to experts like Dan Heller to talk about this subject more in-dept.

Update January 23, 2010:

There’s a nice article at Black Star Rising about understanding fair use. Check it out.

Canon EOS 7D

Shortly after the announcement of the EOS 7D camera by Canon, I wrote a post here on my blog where I mentioned that the 7D looked like a very promising camera. Before I continue with my review of the 7D, let me take a moment to discuss some of the things I said in that previous post.

I mentioned right from the start that the noise in 7D images was a concern for me, this is what I wrote:

The only thing that I’m not so sure about right now is the image quality. Canon has included a new 18MP sensor in the 7D which, from the sample images I have seen so far, appears to deliver much better image quality compared to the EOS 50D even while having a higher pixel count, and comes close to the EOS 5D Mark II. I could see no pattern noise and banding issues so far, like I mentioned before, and this is a very good thing. However, looking at RAW files, I still think that the images produced by the 7D contain a little too much noise, even at lower ISO values, and the images at high ISO contain way too much noise. JPEG images coming out of the camera look better because of the noise reduction being done inside the camera, at the expense of lost detail, but RAW images look terrible so far.

As you will soon see, this is exactly the case. Another thing I mentioned was the following:

Looking at Canon’s recent DSLR releases and all the quality control issues they’ve had, it would be wise to wait at least 4 months after general availability before you actually buy a 7D, just to make sure that there aren’t any issues with it. You really do not want to spend money to become Canon’s beta tester. Wait for the reviews, read the experiences from those who were brave enough to buy one early and then decide.

And many of the people that couldn’t wait to buy the 7D are now experiencing exactly what I meant when I warned not to become Canon’s beta tester. Canon has so far had to release TWO firmware updates for the 7D in the very short time period of just one month that the 7D has been available. The first update (version 1.0.9) was to correct autofocus problems in Live View mode, and the second update (version 1.1.0) which was released a few days ago, was to correct a ghosting problem in images (Fake Chuck Westfall has more on this here). In addition to this, many people are experiencing autofocus problems with their 7D cameras. It appears that Canon’s quality control is still pretty bad and at this point in time, one has to wonder if it will ever get better. If you want some examples of people experiencing these autofocus issues on the EOS 7D, check out the following links:

1. Discussion at DPReview Forum

Unfortunately it looks like I’ve got a 7D that has the much-talked about Autofocus problem. I came back from the cottage last week with about 5 good images out of 600, all of the others were just blurry enough at 50% to make the image unusable, but still look fine when fit to the LCD. There was little consistency between back and front focusing, or the amount of error: AF is all over the place.

2. 7D Autofocus Problem Test with sample images

I ran series of pictures tonight on my camera in 19 point AF, zone AF, and spot AF. I’ll summarize the data and include all the photo’s below. I also took some with my Sony F800, it’s a bit above the point and shoot, but not a DSLR.

…

Most of the badly out of focus results ended up front focusing on the near floor which is supposedly out of the AF range. 19 point and zone auto focus seemed to almost be working randomly.

3. More 7D Autofocus Issues

The first day shooting was dismal and the light not the best so I didn’t pay much attention to the results. However, most images were soft. I was shooting on Sydney Harbour so conditions were not ideal in the late afternoon. I can tell you that distant foliage looked like an impressionist painting. I was very disappointed because I often shoot landscapes. The Jacaranda blossoms are out now in Sydney and I really love capturing the colours. Not sharp and not quite an accurate colour compared to the 5DII which is quite close to being right. I used my 200 f/2.8 lens which I knew was sharp on the 5DII but this was soft on the 7D for some reason.

The next day was bright and sunny so I returned with tripod and 500mm lens. I also tried a 70-200 f/4is lens but nothing was sharp. I used the 500 with the 1.4 extender to capture people on top of the Harbour Bridge and did the same with my 5DII as a comparison. I have shot climbers heaps of times so used a cable release as well. Most of the results were soft. Earlier in the day I used the 24-105 with the 7D and the results were good. The distant shots were a bit soft but maybe it was my fault. When I got home and examined my tele photos I found that the mode dial must have been shifted because my telephoto shots were all at 1/125 sec. That setting made the apertures over f/20 so I blamed that for the unsatisfactory shots. For some reason the letters on signs weren’t captured properly and were somewhat faded or invisible compared to the 5DII.

Day three found me setting up my tripod again and having another go with the 500 plus 1.4 extender. I took a couple photos with the 500 by itself and the two were sharp. When I added the extender none of the shots were sharp. Letters on signs were smeared. I tried several subjects at different distances but all were quite soft. Some looked fine at 25% but none at 100%. I then took a dozen photos with the 70-200 f4 and expected good results. It was sunny and bright but all were soft.

…

There was a lot of noise in many of my photos so I don’t think I will venture to buy another camera with a 1.6 crop factor. The 5DII in my opinion is a professional quality camera compared to the 7D. I certainly don’t want a camera that can’t focus or that has issues. Let us hope Canon sorts these problems out.

These are just 3 examples, but reading those threads and doing a simple search will reveal many more people experiencing the same issues. I see more people complaining about this almost daily. There are also people who are satisfied with the 7D autofocus system, so at this point it looks like these autofocus issues could be related to a quality control problem at Canon and are not a defect / shortcoming of the autofocus system itself (like was the case with the 1D Mark III and 5D Mark II). At least I hope so for those of you who bought the camera. So should you choose to buy this camera, be prepared to give it a lot of testing as soon as you get it to make sure your copy does not suffer from these issues. I’ve also seen reports from people who have sent their bad focusing 7D cameras to Canon for repairs and received it back working much better. Certain stores don’t even question you when you return the 7D mentioning bad autofocus, leading me to believe that most of them are aware of these issues.

These issues with the 7D add to what is already becoming a long list of quality control problems that Canon has had with recent DSLRs and lenses. If you want some more background information on Canon quality control problems, check the following links:

• Canon Quality Control Sucks Part 1 and Part 2
• Canon has Lost It
• Issues with 5D Mark II Autofocus
• EF 50mm f/1.2 L lens backfocus issues
• Interview with Fake Chuck Westfall at Black Star Rising
• Fake Chuck post discussing some Canon issues

Not too long ago, photographer Lloyd Chambers wrote about his experiences with the autofocus of the Canon EOS 1D Mark III and said the following:

This latest AF issue follows on the heels of a Live View exposure problem with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think it’s fair so say that with 3 professional camera models with issues, this firmly establishes Canon as having a track record of not testing products adequately. And at the cost of customer time, hassle, and perhaps money.

And you can now add the EOS 7D to that list of Canon professional camera models with issues.

All of this is rather disappointing because like I said in my first post about the 7D, the 7D looked like a very exciting camera. Canon added a lot of exciting new features to it that were long overdue:

The 7D seems to be Canon’s answer to the Nikon D300s, and it looks like it will give the D300s some good competition. There’s a lot that I like about the EOS 7D, such as the new 19 point AF system, 8 fps shooting speed, the new metering system, the intelligent viewfinder with 100% field of view, 1.0 magnification, and overlaid LCD display. Also the fact that you can now finally use the built-in flash to trigger external Canon flashes wirelessly (without an ST-E2).

Those are, in my opinion, the most important features that were added tot he 7D compared to other camera models like the 50D. And those features alone would make the 7D a perfect upgrade for users of the EOS 40D, 50D, 500D and lower camera models.

However, like I mentioned before, there’s the problem that the noise in images taken with the 7D is still too much. The 7D is supposed to be a better performer in low light situations, but as it appears this is not the case. It certainly is an improvement compared to the 50D (which was absolute crap as far as image quality is concerned), but it performs worse than the Nikon D300s at lower ISO values, and worse than even the old EOS 40D. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at some sample images below. I took those sample images from some reviews over at DPReview. I did ask Canon for a sample 7D body so I could do my own tests, but never got a response back from them. The images below are taken from the following review pages at DPReview: EOS 7D review, EOS 40D review, EOS 50D review, Nikon D300 review. So if you don’t believe what you see in the images below, feel free to go take a look at them at the source.

One thing I have to mention about the review of the 7D at DPReview, is that it seems to me like the reviewers at DPReview tried to remain positive about the 7D and ignored some of its issues. For one thing, they don’t test autofocus on cameras, and in the case of the 7D, they clearly fail to mention that the noise in the 7D images is worse than the noise in images taken with a 40D and even with the Nikon D300s. Here’s an example:

Again, the graphs below confirm what we can see in the sample crops. The 50D produces more chroma noise than the EOS 7D at higher ISOs. The Pentax K-7 is still slightly worse than the Nikon and EOS 7D at very high ISOs but the gap is smaller in RAW. At high ISOs the the 7D and its closest rival, the Nikon D300S, are more or less level in terms of chroma noise.

While discussing the test results, the commentary is worded in such a way that it makes the 7D look positive every time. When reading this, most readers would think the 7D is the best. What they failed to mention in this particular case, is that by looking at the graph and sample images, it is very clear that the 7D performs worse than the D300s at lower ISOs. I’m including some of their own test images together below and you can clearly see this in those images. This means that the 7D is even worse than the 40D, since the 40D is better than the D300 with regards to noise performance. And comparing the 7D with the 50D is like comparing a healthy human being with a disabled person, to be honest.

Let’s look at some of DPReview’s own sample images and see if the 7D is as good as they claim:

Here you can see that at ISO 100, the 40D clearly has less noise, even while noise reduction on the 40D was OFF (!!!) and it was ON on the 7D!! Just check the amount of noise in the 7D RAW file at ISO 100. When has it become acceptable to have this much noise present at ISO 100? I placed the red circles around some dust or marks, I discuss this further below.

As you can see, even at ISO 100, the 2 year old 40D beats the 7D with regards to noise performance. In fact, the 7D doesn’t beat the 40D even with noise reduction on! At higher ISO values, the problem only gets worse. Let’s look at another sample image. I labeled the images below from 1 to 4, 1 being the best and 4 being the worst, as far as noise performance is concerned to make it easier to compare.

Here you can see JPEG comparisons between the 40D and 7D. As you can clearly see, the noise in the 7D images with noise reduction turned ON (!!!) is still much worse than the noise in 40D images with noise reduction turned OFF. So think of how much worse the 7D images would look, compared to the 40D, if the 7D images also had noise reduction turned off!

And now, let us look at the noise performance in RAW images:

Click on the image to view the bigger version. In this RAW comparison, you can clearly see that the noise in 7D images is worse than the D300s at ISO 1600 and lower. DPReview did not mention this in their review where they discussed these same images. The 7D is much worse than the 40D. Only the 50D is worse than the 7D, but the 50D really is a piece of shit camera to begin with.

As you can see, one can come to “slightly different” conclusions by viewing the exact same test images that DPReview used in their reviews.

Image test results over at CameraLabs also support my conclusions above about the DPReview 7D review. Just look at the image comparisons at these links: RAW Comparison, JPEG Comparison. Notice how the 7D images look so much noisier compared to the D300s images.

This proves that my initial fears about noise in 7D images were certainly grounded. I’ve said it before, but Canon really doesn’t seem to care about what photographers are really asking for. With the 7D they did take care of a lot of things, but image quality is very important. We do NOT want more noise in larger images! This is not an improvement. Now the 2 year old 40D costing round $800 delivers better image quality than the ‘state of the art’ 7D which costs $1700. Does this make sense to you? Not to me!

Canon should have equipped the 7D with a 10MP or 12MP sensor featuring the same improvements in sensor design in the 7D. That would have guaranteed better image quality compared to the 40D. Yes, the 18MP 7D images have more resolution compared to the 10MP 40D images, but really, this is not of much use when the images are also noisier, and especially not at high ISO. It just gives photographers a lot more work to clean up noise in post production. In addition, more dynamic range and other benefits would also have been welcome on the smaller improved sensor.

Since noise in images can be seen more clearly in the out of focus areas, it really makes images that should have nice bokeh effects look uglier. Instead of images with nice creamy looking out of focus backgrounds, you get images with out of focus backgrounds that have kind of a rough and grainy feel to them, even at ISO 100. This can often be cleaned up in post production, but depending on the images, this can add a significant amount of extra time to your workflow. This is why I also always wondered why reviews everywhere on the Internet feature noise tests with images that are in focus. The best way to test the noise performance of a camera, is to take out of focus shots so you can see the noise much better. Take the sample images from DPReview above, for example. The noise test on the gray background should have been done by focusing on a large gray area, and putting the lens totally out of focus. That way you don’t get the dust, patterns and other texture of the background together with the noise – something you can often see in the DPreview noise test images (check the red circles in the test images above). You could even confuse the texture on the background as being noise if you don’t look carefully.

If you’re wondering why Canon isn’t giving us what we want, check out this article:

Canon engineers are being held back from developing new sensor technology by marketing departments in a “race for megapixels”, claims an employee of the Japanese photography company.

The employee told Tech Digest that Canon have the technology to “blow the competition away” in terms of image sensors, but are instead being asked to focus on headline figures like the number of megapixels a camera has. When asked for his opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which we covered this morning, the employee said:

“I am hugely disappointed because once again Canon engineers are dictated by their marketing department and had to keep up with the megapixel race. They have the technology to blow the competition away by adapting the new 50D sensor tech in a full frame format and just easing off a little on the megapixels. Although no formal testing has been done on the new model yet, judging by the spec and technology used, it just seems to be as good or as bad as the competition – not beating them by a mile (which we used to).”

The employee was keen to point out though that he wasn’t wholly disappointed by the new model though:

“The image quality on the 5d1 was so good that it’s still as good as the new NikonD700 even though the Nikon is 3 years younger. I was hoping (…) for two new cameras. One would be a ‘reheated’ 5D1 with a same megapixel count but a slight redesign in sensor combined with new processor and all the gadgets like micro autofocus adjustments, vignetting control, dust reduction, better weather seals and an upgrade to the autofocus.”
“The other one would be a ‘revolution’ 5d, with a completely new sensor design (so it can actually take a lot more megapixels), dual processor for faster frames per second and the gadgets above with a ‘near’ professional grade autofocus for the sake of protecting the 1D series and model segregation”.
“To be honest I was hoping for a bigger upgrade, but they can’t please everyone with one model. (…) On the whole though, I think Canon have done pretty well in fending off competition on all sides – providing a viable upgrade to the 5d1 and worthy competition (on spec at least) to the competitors”
It’s true that megapixels are often used as a benchmark to compare cameras on, but until the media change their reporting style, the pressure from the marketing department will remain on the engineers.

As we know today, the 5D Mark II also suffers from a lot of noise and banding in images even at lower ISO values, as low as ISO 100. This is just unacceptable. It is very sad to see that Canon, while they clearly have the technology to deliver better image quality, choose to compete in the megapixel race instead and are delivering bad image quality. This while Nikon has just released their new D3s camera with an improved sensor that is “just” 12MP, and fullframe at that, capable of delivering results at extremely high ISO values. Nikon clearly appears to understand much better what photographers really need. Meanwhile Canon is giving us 18MP on a 1.6x crop sensor with a lot of noise at ISO 100, and a 21MP fullframe sensor with noise and banding at ISO 100.

When will we see an EOS 3D camera, with same or better specs than the 7D and a 12MP fullframe sensor using the latest sensor technology, that is capable of delivering smooth, creamy looking images not only at low ISO but even at the higher ISO settings? There’s a reason why people loved the image quality from the old 5D so much. Just realize that today Canon has the technology to improve on that, but simply refuses to.

So to conclude, as far as the 7D is concerned, I’m afraid I can’t really recommend it. It is certainly not a waste of money, like was the case with the 50D and 5D Mark II, as it does offer some nice upgrades compared to previous models. But if you require good image quality, then it is not the best choice. Clearly the Nikon D300s and certainly the Nikon D700 offer more here. If you are a 40D user, you don’t have to upgrade. If you are a 50D user, I feel very sorry for you and upgrading to the 7D is a good option, but downgrading to the 40D is perhaps better and more affordable. If you are a 5D Mark II user, I would consider upgrading, yes upgrading,  to the 7D because images that are in focus most of the time win over images with a little more noise in them. Personally I will NOT be buying the 7D as long as the 40D remains available. I will be looking at the 1D Mark IV, hopefully Canon won’t screw up with that model.

Update November 11, 2009:

It is also important to take note of the fact that Canon themselves do seem to know about the benefits of lower megapixel sensors to achieve lower noise and as a result cleaner looking images. When Canon introduced the G11 compact camera, it featured a 10MP sensor, which was actually a step backwards compared to the older G10 camera, which had a 15MP sensor. Why would Canon introduce a newer G11 model which has less megapixels compared to the G10? Here is what Canon themselves say:

The PowerShot G11 employs a newly-developed, 10.0 Megapixel High Sensitivity System by combining a powerful CCD sensor and Canon’s DIGIC 4 Image Processor. Thanks to this technological advancement, the G11 is dramatically more sensitive than cameras with identical megapixel counts, and delivers spectacular images with minimal noise.

If you go over to that page, you will even see the following comparison made by Canon themselves:

Here Canon themselves show us the benefits of a lower megapixel high sensitivity sensor - cleaner looking images. And yet, they release an EOS 50D camera which had TONS more noise compared to an older model, the 40D. Now they release the EOS 7D, which still features more noise compared to the two year old 40D model. Does this make sense to you?

Now ask yourself, why would Canon equip the G11 with a better sensor with LESS megapixels, that produces better looking images compared to the G10, and still release the EOS 7D, which is supposed to be more advanced than the 40D, with image quality that is clearly featuring more noise compared to the 2 year older 40D? Shouldn’t we expect newer camera models to feature less noise in images?

Update November 12, 2009:

Another review of the 7D has been published showing, and you’re not going to want to believe this, that the 7D performs worse than the entry level Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi). Here’s what they had to say:

Again to our eye the 7D files look soft and mushy compared to the snap in the other two files. Of course we expected the flagship Mark III to outperform the mid-priced 7D but we did not expect the entry level Rebel to better the 7D especially when the Rebel’s 12MP files were interpolated to 18MP!

Go over to their site and check the sample images for yourself. Remember that the 450D is now also almost 2 years old.

Update December 2nd, 2009:

A photographer ‘upgraded’ from the 40D to the 7D recently and wasn’t so happy about it:

After a week of playing with my 7D, I noticed the images on my 7D felt a bit soft, especially when comparing it to my 40D.  Went online and found some reviews concluding the same thing:

…

Doing my own quick tests, I came to similar conclusions.  Using DPP, the 7D produces images that are softer than my 40D at low ISO.  I even think the 40D produces less noise at low ISO. 

You have been warned.

Update December 13, 2009:

DXOMark have posted their test data for the 7D and you can actually compare the 7D, the 40D and the D300s side by side on their website if you follow this link. The DXOMark test data basically confirms my findings above about the noise in 7D images being worse than the 40D, and that the 40D offers much better image quality compared to the 7D.

In the graph above you can see that the 7D scores less than the 40D and D300s with regards to noise in images (in the Screen comparison), meaning the 7D has more noise in images compared to the other two cameras. Like I also said, the 40D performs slightly better than the D300s with regards to noise.

Not only does the 40D outperform the 7D with regards to noise in images, but according to DXOMark, the 40D also outperforms the 7D with regards to Tonal Range and Color Sensitivity. This means that the overall image quality is much better on the 40D if the two cameras are compared. Click here to see for yourself on DXOMark.

Imagine what would have happened if Canon had instead improved the sensor in the 40D with the technology used in the 7D. Instead of being behind Nikon, as they are right now, they would have been far ahead.

Canon USA has asked photographer Vincent Laforet to take down his video titled ‘Nocturne‘ based on orders coming from their headquarters at Canon Inc. in Japan. Laforet used Canon’s recently announced 1D Mark IV camera body to shoot the video. The video did an excellent job showing the technical capabilities of the 1D4 in low light situations, so I was surprised to find out that Canon would want to take it down.

And when I found out about what the reasons were, I wasn’t surprised at all. I’ve written numerous posts here on this blog about various issues at Canon and especially their arrogant attitude towards customers. This time Canon Inc. is taking it a step further by bullying one of their own subsidiaries. Photographer John Harrington has some of the details on his blog:

Instead of Canon Inc saying “hey, good job Canon USA for making Canon look good”, Canon Inc is mired in the antiquated notion of that by Canon USA doing so good, Canon Japan looks bad because either that don’t have the talent to make the same type of content, or people in Japan are now looking bad because it looks like they’re not doing their job.

Fake Chuck Westfall has also written about this on his blog, and there’s an interesting update in one of the comments in that post:

@Brad, I have it under good authority that Fake Chuck Westfall’s blog is spot on, and this is held up by internal politics and a power struggle between Canon USA and Canon Japan…and the video’s being pulled has nothing to do with the quality of video from the camera or the content of the video. Japan is embarrassed that Canon USA has shown them up once again (after the same thing happened with Reverie), and bruised egos are causing orders to be handed to Canon USA preventing this video from being distributed.

Northlight Images is now reporting that sample images taken with the 1D4 are also being pulled from the web:

It seems that Canon have taken exception to unauthorised sample images – all the ones we found have been pulled from sites.

It becomes really easy to understand all the issues Canon has had in recent years when you see things like this happening. Like Fake Chuck said on his blog, having clueless, conservative and arrogant management running the company will cause issues. And this seems like a worldwide problem for Canon.

Just recently I was talking to a friend of mine, a professional photographer from the Netherlands, and he mentioned how difficult it was dealing with Canon Netherlands, and how in comparison, things were so much easier with Nikon even though he is currently primarily using Canon equipment. Just look at what another photographer from the Netherlands, who was having issues with the EOS 7D, recently had to say about Canon on his blog:

My good friend and journalist Bill Hewlett contacted Canon (Netherlands) on friday on my behalf. Their exotic response: “we are not in the position to comment on this”. Huh?! Are we politicians here?! I am a customer with a problem!

I think Canon has to change it’s attitude (at least Canon Netherlands) and come up with a solution QUICK.

This arrogant attitude of not caring about customers is very familiar to me, as I have been dealing with it for a long time now too. I’ve written about it numerous times here on my blog, just check out my Canon posts in the archives. It’s a worldwide issue with Canon. These days I don’t even get any replies when I send email to Canon USA or Canon Europe. Noud van den Boer from Canon Netherlands even deletes my emails without reading them as a standard procedure (I know because I’m tracking it). At least I know Canon USA’s Chuck Westfall reads my emails, but after seeing what kind of issues they’re dealing with at Canon USA, I’m getting a different perspective on why he may not be able to comment on certain things. Take the issues with the EF 50mm f/1.2L lens for example, of which Canon, up to this day, has failed to comment on (Fake Chuck has more on this here).

I recommend reading at least the first part of this interview with Fake Chuck Westfall, as it highlights some of the important issues with Canon.

Canon EOS 7D

Canon has announced the EOS 7D DSLR last week and so far it is looking very promising. It includes some new features and upgrades that have been long overdue. You may already know that I have been very critical of Canon in the last 2 years when it comes to their DSLRs and lenses. I have written numerous posts about apparent quality control issues at Canon (just search for them on my blog), and I have written some very negative posts about the EOS 50D (here) and EOS 5D Mark II (here) cameras. In the case of the EOS 50D, from the day of its announcement, I could see that it would not be a very successful camera, and it turns out that this is now exactly the case because of all the issues I pointed out right from the start. In the case of the EOS 5D Mark II, from the day of its announcement, I could see that it would be severely handicapped by the very old autofocus system Canon included with it. And if you just look at the comments at my post here, or search the Internet for 5D Mark II autofocus issues, you will find that I was again right. If you read the posts about the 5D Mark II here on my blog, you’ll find that there are even more issues with it, such as noise and banding even at low ISO values resulting in poor image quality.

If you look at my first post about the 50D, you’ll see the following:

I predict that the price of the 50D is going to drop very fast after its availability in October especially when Nikon will lower the price of the D300 soon. I also predict that Canon will release the real successor for the 40D, the EOS 60D in the second half of 2009 finally containing some significant technological improvements. As a result of the DEFCON 1 declaration at Canon’s DSLR division, the refresh cycle for the 1D series camera’s has also been shortened from 3 years, and new 1D models are going to appear in 2009 instead of 2010 and likely very early in 2009.

It looks like the upgrade to the 40D hasn’t come in the form of the 60D, but instead as the EOS 7D, right on time in the second half of 2009 indeed containing some very significant improvements. There will still be a 60D coming, and it will be close to the 7D with regards to features. And by the way, the next 1D is getting close to being announced.

With the EOS 7D, it seems that Canon has finally listened to what photographers have been saying, looked at what they needed, and designed a camera with the right combination of features. Canon appears to be back in the game, and any future DSLR announcements are going to be very exciting. It is a pity that it has taken them so long to deliver what we needed. The EOS 50D should have been what the 7D is today. It was about time Canon got up from their lazy asses and actually delivered something new and exciting. Many people who bought the EOS 5D Mark II are now very disappointed, some even mad, because the EOS 7D is in almost all aspects way more advanced than the EOS 5D Mark II, while costing an incredible $1000 less. Think about that for a moment.

I said that the EOS 5D Mark II was not worth its price when it was announced, and what we’re seeing today is just more proof of that. The only thing the EOS 5D Mark II has that could be seen as being better than the 7D is its full frame 21MP sensor. If you don’t need full frame, the 7D has an arguably better and more advanced sensor. From the sample images I’ve seen so far, the 7D images don’t suffer from the pattern noise and banding that can often be found in the images taken with a 50D or a 5D Mark II. Taking into account that the 7D costs $1700, and that it has features that are way more advanced compared to the same features on the 5D Mark II, the 5D Mark II should realistically cost around $1800 right now. People have paid way too much for way too little. The 5D Mark II costing $2700 should have been a 7D body with the 21MP full frame sensor in it. Having seen the 7D, I’m hopeful that in the near future the 5D Mark III will contain at least all the features of the 7D with a fullframe sensor in it.

The 7D seems to be Canon’s answer to the Nikon D300s, and it looks like it will give the D300s some good competition. There’s a lot that I like about the EOS 7D, such as the new 19 point AF system, 8 fps shooting speed, the new metering system, the intelligent viewfinder with 100% field of view, 1.0 magnification, and overlaid LCD display. Also the fact that you can now finally use the built-in flash to trigger external Canon flashes wirelessly (without an ST-E2).

The only thing that I’m not so sure about right now is the image quality. Canon has included a new 18MP sensor in the 7D which, from the sample images I have seen so far, appears to deliver much better image quality compared to the EOS 50D even while having a higher pixel count, and comes close to the EOS 5D Mark II. I could see no pattern noise and banding issues so far, like I mentioned before, and this is a very good thing. However, looking at RAW files, I still think that the images produced by the 7D contain a little too much noise, even at lower ISO values, and the images at high ISO contain way too much noise. JPEG images coming out of the camera look better because of the noise reduction being done inside the camera, at the expense of lost detail, but RAW images look terrible so far. An example can be seen on Rob Galbraith’s website:

Noise in 7D image at ISO 3200

You can see white specs in darker parts of the image, and this can be very difficult to clean up in post production. Apparently Canon is advertising the 3200 and 6400 ISO values on the 7D as usable, so I have to wonder if this is the image quality that Canon considers to be acceptable. It seems Canon and many other DSLR manufacturers still don’t get what photographers are really asking for. We do not want more megapixels containing even more noise. Most photographers would prefer a 10 or 12MP sensor that could deliver virtually clean ISO 800, instead of a 18MP sensor that delivers a lot of noise at ISO 800 and makes ISO 3200 barely usable.

At this point however I haven’t seen enough good sample images to really say if this is going to be an issue on the 7D, so we’ll have to wait for the reviews and experiences from people who have used the camera. But right now, the 7D does look like a camera that I will want to buy at least two of in the very near future. Looking at Canon’s recent DSLR releases and all the quality control issues they’ve had, it would be wise to wait at least 4 months after general availability before you actually buy a 7D, just to make sure that there aren’t any issues with it. You really do not want to spend money to become Canon’s beta tester. Wait for the reviews, read the experiences from those who were brave enough to buy one early and then decide.

I’ll try to get a loaner 7D body from Canon to do some of my own tests and will be updating my blog in the mean time as more information becomes available and to let you know if I’ll be ordering the 7D. By the way, Canon also announced 3 new lenses together with the 7D, and I can tell you that I’m going to buy the new EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS lens as soon as it becomes available.

Update November 8th, 2009: I have posted my review of the 7D. Check it out.

Note: This post has been updated below. Last update on 04/08/2010.

After having written two posts about why the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is barely worth it (see the last one here), I have to take it a step up now and go ahead and say that the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is absolutely NOT worth it. Save your money for something better. Go get a Nikon D700 or something.

Seriously, do the research before you spend close to $3000 on a camera body that is seriously underperforming and has a lot of issues. You can start by reading this post of mine, which I have updated today as well. I am including the update to that post below. When you spend $3000 on a camera body, especially in the time we live in right now, quite frankly you should NOT have to worry about it working well or not while using it. We live in a time when $900 cameras can focus without issues, so why should you spend $3000 on a  camera that has focus issues? Yes, FOCUS issues. One of the most critical functionalities in any camera, and it’s not working properly.

Here’s the update (read the full post and any links in it completely before you buy, you have been warned!):

Update 02/09/2009: In the mean time some more examples have been posted of the 5D Mark II focus issues. The fashion shooter I mentioned above, who had trouble getting his 5D Mark II to focus properly got another 5D Mark II body, and apparently he had the same issues with that one. Now he has decided to NOT use the 5D Mark II AT ALL. Here’s what he had to say:

There are a few issues with this camera which I can not live with. The AF is still pretty bad on this, my second 5D2 body in anything but the brightest of light. (the first one was returned with abysmal focusing and weird image quality issues.)
People right and left are reporting failures in damp conditions/light rain. There were a bunch of 5D2 failures on Michael Reichmann’s Antarctic trip.

…

I cringe every time I remember this scenario: I was shooting advertising with the 5D2 with models, hair, makeup, stylists, etc waiting on me. As I was shooting tethered, the art director was standing next to me looking at the monitor and saying “they are soft!”, and I was there thinking, yeah, I can see that, but I don’t know what the f*ck to do about it. This is after hours or working with the AF microadjustments, etc., etc.

I cringe when I think about something like that happening to me as well.

And that’s not all. Another photographer compared the old 5D to the new 5D Mark II, doing some tests with both cameras in the same conditions, and noticed that the 5D Mark II did not focus consistently, and that shots from the 5D Mark II were in fact slightly out of focus often:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the 5Deux has A.D.D. Sometimes it focuses very well. Other times, it’s slightly disappointing compared to results from the old 5D. I know the 5Deux can focus well, because I’ve got proof, it just doesn’t focus well ALL of the time, which is annoying.

…

I’ve seen other photographers say that they’ve had similar results, so I guess this is pretty common among 5Deux owners.

…

In conclusion, the 5Deux did not walk away with a clear decisive victory because of the focus issue.

So again, I have to ask, what the FUCK is the use of 21 megapixels when you can’t focus properly?!?! Take a good look at the sample pictures posted in the above mentioned review, and notice how the 5D Mark II images are out of focus compared to the old 5D. All the extra resolution you expect from the 5D Mark II can’t be achieved because of the very poor autofocus system.

And here’s what PDN had to say about the 5D Mark II autofocus capabilities in their review:

A bigger issue is the annoyingly slow speed of the 5D Mark II’s autofocusing in low contrast, low light situations. These are the sorts of situations where the 5D II should really shine especially since the High ISO/low light capabilities of its 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor are so impressive.

Though we didn’t experience problems with the focus while shooting inside the dimly lit subway station and in Grand Central Terminal, when I later went to photograph the park at night, I found that the 5D II would often hunt for focus, racking in and out until it would finally lock in. On occasion, the camera couldn’t find focus at all.

The problem really lies with Canon’s resistance to updating the 5D II to a new autofocus system. The camera uses the same 9-point selectable AF with 6 assist points around the center as its predecessor, a system which clearly is getting a little long in the tooth. While Canon’s resistance might be understandable—after it upgraded its Mark III series pro cameras to a new 19-point/16-assist point autofocus system it faced many complaints from photographers about autofocus misfires—it still doesn’t solve the problem of putting a creaky old autofocus system in a brand new camera.

Yep, I saw this coming way in advance.

Update 04/18/2009: Some more people talking about the issues with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Photographer Zack Arias said the following:

• The AF system sucks in low light situations. Every Nikon I have ever owned from the D100 to the D3 can lock focus faster and more accurately than the 5d does in low light levels.
• Nikon still pwns Canon at ISO 3200 and up.
• It’s slow as Christmas compared to the shooting speed and buffer of the D3.
• The ergonomics. The 5d feels like a brick in my hands even with the grip. The D3 feels like a glove.

He later also says:

I will tell you this though… when it comes time to shoot the reception tomorrow night I bet you the 5d goes back in the bag because the auto focus is useless in low light. You’d think they could do something about that. The D3 can focus in just about any dark environment I find myself in. The 5d requires you to be standing on the surface of the sun to have enough light to focus. Ok, maybe not right on the surface but pretty close. The AF system on the Canon can not even be compared to the Nikon. In this area Canon sucks and Nikon rocks. The rest seems to be up for debate.

Photographer Lloyd Chambers had the following to say:

This latest AF issue follows on the heels of a Live View exposure problem with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think it’s fair so say that with 3 professional camera models with issues, this firmly establishes Canon as having a track record of not testing products adequately. And at the cost of customer time, hassle, and perhaps money.

I couldn’t agree more. I have written a couple of posts about Canon quality control problems. Just search my blog for them.

Update 04/08/2010: Many users who’ve bought the camera for professional use have had no choice but to sell it again and move to something that worked much better and offered A LOT more, such as the Nikon D700. Here are just two cases:

Case 1: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

Canon was good to me, especially back in the day when I rocked a cropped sensor and a 35mm lens for 90% of my shoots. It was simple, reliable and dependable.  Then I got a 5d.  The 5d offered great high ISO features, a full frame, a nice big LCD and the worst focusing system money could buy.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I am a hard-core stickler for sharp images; “A little soft,” or “a little back-focused” is not ok by me.  It’s tack sharp or it get’s the hose. So, as you can imagine, the 5d became quite a handicap for me.  But, nonetheless, I figured out that if I only shot on One Shot and kept my aperture up, I could make in-focus photos.

Despite my near-constant frustration with Canon, I held out for the mythical 5d Mark II – a camera that promised even better ISO, an even bigger sensor, an even fancier LCD and (you guessed it), the same crappy focusing system. At that point, Canon had me by the you-know-whats (I don’t actually have you-know-whats… it’s a euphemism, silly) – I had *thousands* invested in lenses (see below). So I shot my 5d Mark II for the entire 2009 wedding season…. on One-Shot…. using a high aperture… constantly cussing under my breath.

Case 2: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

So, my 5DII came back from Canon’s repair center AGAIN on Tuesday. I took it out for a 45 minute stroll and took pictures of cats, leaves, berries, trees, the water.. etc. I used both the center focal point and the outer focal points. I spent the entire 45 minutes cursing after each shot as it became more and more apparent that it was just the same (if not worse) as it had been when I sent it in.

…

So, I sniffled a little, I paced back and forth, I thought. Then I typed up all the Canon gear I own on a forum and titled it ‘For sale’. I sniffled some more and grit my teeth and clicked the ‘post’ button. There. I said it. It’s for sale. I’ve been a Canon girl for eight years. I busted my ass to buy that 5D, and I love it. If I could afford to keep it and the 50mm lens that’s been with me for four years, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I’m done. I’m switching to Nikon.

Update 01/02/2009: After exchanging some emails with Bryan Carnathan, I was able to explain to him the purpose of my “anti-Canon” posts and he has agreed to restore my original post back on the forum. Basically I told him I am a Canon user and that the purpose of all this is not just to bash Canon, but to make it absolutely clear we’re not very satisfied with how things are going right now and to stimulate Canon to improve in the future. If that happens, it will benefit all of us. It is important to be critical of Canon, otherwise those of us who have invested in Canon gear will be forced to look for alternatives in the future.

Original post:

Some of you might remember that I got banned a while ago from the DPReview forums because of discussing Canon quality control issues. I wrote about that here. The Digital Picture launched their forums today and as a frequent visitor, I registered and posted a link to my blog post titled “Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!“, requesting feedback from people. I was already getting some responses when a few hours later I get an email from the webmaster, Bryan Carnathan, that he deleted my post:

Your post was deleted by Bryan Carnathan.

Subject: Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!

Reason: Karel,

I welcome you to the community, but would rather you not bring your anti-canon posts here.

Regards,

Bryan

Thank you,
Photography Community team

So it looks like only pro-Canon posts are allowed there. This is plain censorship, and nothing more. If there is one thing I don’t like on the Internet, and anywhere else for that matter, it’s censorship. If you take a look at the comments at the bottom of my “Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!” blogpost, you’ll see that I allow everyone to post their opinions on my site. Whether they agree with me or not, some of the comments are very harsh sometimes. But even that is tolerated. So I have to wonder why these websites, like DPReview and The Digital Picture feel the need to censor my opinion on Canon. Perhaps the reasons are what I discussed in a previous post about the DPReview case.

Canon has really lost it. It wasn’t so long that I wrote why they have lost it, and it seems that they continue to take hit after hit, not only from the competition, but from their own mistakes as well. It’s one thing to be given a hard time by the competition, but it’s completely different to be screwing up your own products. It appears that Canon simply do not learn from their mistakes.

Take the EOS 50D for example. From the moment they announced that camera, I could immediately see that it would not be succesful. I wrote a lot about it, and you can read the older articles and judge for yourself. How could I have seen all of that coming, and Canon not see it? I would assume Canon’s marketing department knows a lot more about the DSLR market than I do. So howcome I was able to see that the 50D was a mediocre product at best and would barely sell, and they didn’t? Just check out what Canon Rumors had to say about the 50D recently:

The disappointing thing for Canon? The 50D hasn’t been very well received. It’s not moving the units Canon wants. This could partially be because of the economy, but as we’ve seen from the 5D2, people are willing to spend. The xxD line reached its peak with the release of the 20D. It was basically the first truly affordable prosumer camera. Then came the 30D, which was lamented pretty hard for its very conservative improvements over the 20D. The 40D saw a bit of a comeback in the line, the camera was a bargain when it launched and is a super bargain today. I can’t with any honesty recommend the 50D over the 40D based on their current pricing.

Nobody wants the 50D because it’s a worthless upgrade compared to the 40D and too expensive for what you get (although the price has dropped from an absurd $1400 to around $1050 now). It has nothing to do with the economy. Like Fake Chuck Westfall said, Canon simply does not have the products right now to excite users into buying:

I’m not going to deny that the global economic crisis is going to influence our business at Canon, but at a time when we really need to have exceptionally good products to drive sales, we’re here releasing a load of crap on the market. We’re in a period right now when people are going to think twice as much, if not more, before they decide to spend their money. You’re going to have to really have a good product on your hands if you expect people to lay down the cash in this economic situation. And it looks like the market just doesn’t think we have those products at this time. And this is going to hurt us more than the economic crisis itself.

The 50D even has worse image quality compared to the 40D! No wonder the 40D is selling a lot better right now. As an alternative, the Nikon D300 offers A LOT more and it is no surprise that a lot of people are buying the D300 instead, and that Nikon has been taking over the market as a result. The D300 is a more modern camera body, offering a wealth of features that photographers expect today. You’d think that Canon would have noticed and respond with the 50D, but none of that happened.

And then, the 5D Mark II. From the moment it was announced, I immediately pointed out its weaknesses. Now after the fact, it will make me look like some kind of prophet, but the fact is, you don’t have to be a prophet to see these things. Even some basic knowledge about photography and the DSLR market today would have allowed anyone to see that the 5D Mark II would have a hard time competing with other brands. The question is, again, how could Canon think that they would even stand a chance with such a product, at that price, compared to the competition? Reviews of the 5D Mark II are starting to get published, and the same weaknesses I pointed out months ago now, are being discovered by others. For example, check this review by Pop Photo:

The partial metering mode uses the center 8 percent of the viewfinder, and the spot, 3.5 percent, which is larger than the Nikon’s impressive 1.5 percent.

The 5D-era AF, however, is no longer competitive with the blazing speeds we see in most DSLRs these days. At the brightest light level in our tests, the 5D Mark II focused in 0.51 sec, while the Nikon D700 zipped along at 0.35 sec, and the Sony A900 roared to the head of the pack with 0.29 sec.

In low light, the Canon is downright sluggish, and in extremely low light (EV -1 and -2), it’s inconsistent and sometimes fails to focus. But Canon rates the AF system to be effective down to only EV -0.5, about the same as a very poorly lit living room. This limits the utility of the high ISOs. Granted, you can focus manually, but in such low light, that’s no mean feat.

Oddly, some older and newer Canon models have faster AF systems. Just as Nikon trickled down the D3′s AF to the D700, we think Canon should have done this with the 1Ds Mark III and 5D Mark II.

Even with regards to image quality, it appears the 5D Mark II isn’t the best. The Sony A900 beats the 5D Mark II with regards to resolving power, and the Nikon D700 beats the 5D Mark II with regards to low noise performance. In addition, similar to the 50D, Canon has been overhyping the low noise performance of the 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark II noise performance seems to be about the same as the original 5D or worse in some cases when comparing RAW images. The JPEG images from the 5D Mark II are being processed with noise reduction inside the camera and look less noisy, but similar to the 50D, these images look less detailed and blurry too because of the noise reduction.

5D Mark II Noise Reduction causing a blurry and less detailed image. Images taken from the review at The Digital Picture.

In a review on The Digital Picture, you can clearly see the difference when comparing sample images from the 5D Mark II with and without in camera noise reduction. The pictures with in camera noise reduction look blurry and less detailed. And it appears that even as low as ISO 100, the camera still applies a bit of noise reduction, which can’t be turned off apparently (*) (I have yet to confirm this). This is what happens ofcourse, when you try to cram megapixels onto a small sensor instead of giving priority to image quality. Most people would have preferred the same 12MP sensor from the original 5D, with the improvements from the new 21MP sensor (gapless microlenses, etc.), resulting in MUCH better image quality and high ISO performance. But apparently Canon is completely out of touch with the market (no surprise here).

A review at the Online Photographer points out the following:

And here’s where we come to the Canon 5D Mark II. No, the Canon does not have the A900′s ungodly resolving power; but it comes reasonably close. And no, sorry, no matter what you’ve heard here, there, and everywhere, the Canon does not match the Nikon’s (D700) high-ISO performance.

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I have to admit I have some mild reservations about the 5D Mark II’s image quality. It’s very good, no question: Canon has hit the “what consumers want” targets on the nose: More Megapixels! Less Noise! (Great Taste, Less Filling). But there’s at least a partial price to pay for all that tasty goodness. It shows up in the form of what I’d group under the heading “artifacts.”

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Then there’s the quality of the Canon’s noise. It’s a bit tilted towards the chroma type, and it has a weird, blotchy character. (I don’t read the forums—is the consensus that Canon is applying noise reduction to the raw file?)

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Then there’s an entirely new artifact that, as far as I know, is unique to the 5D Mark II: sometimes you’ll see black fringing next to blown highlights, but only on the right-hand side. Weird. This shows up fairly often in the shooting I’ve been doing at night that includes Christmas lights.

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Finally, there’s highlight clipping. This is probably my most serious reservation about the Canon because it really does affect the look of pictures. Here I have to go back to the Sony A900, which is particularly good in this respect.

With regards to the black fringing in images from the 5D Mark II, there currently is an even bigger problem refered to as the black dot issue.

5D Mark II Black Dots Issue

The black dots can appear next to highlights in images taken with a 5D Mark II, and even in videos recorded with it, which can result in a post processing nightmare. Just check out this post at Fake Chuck Westfall for more details and sample images. And as if all of this isn’t enough, the 5D Mark II also suffers from banding issues that look ugly in pictures that are affected by this problem.

5D Mark II Banding Issue

Again, check out this post at Fake Chuck Westfall for details and samples. These are very serious image quality problems, and Canon has announced that they are looking into it and are going to try and fix these issues, but there’s no word on when this will happen and what the fixes will be. Hopefully people won’t have to send their cameras back to Canon like happened during the recent 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco. You would think that Canon would have learned from all the quality control issues they have had the last few years with camera bodies and lenses. But that sure didn’t happen.

And the 5D Mark II would already have a hard time competing with the D700 and A900 if it worked well because of all its shortcomings, but these issues make it a lot worse. So it’s no surprise that there have been reports everywhere of people cancelling their 5D Mark II pre-orders and of demand slowing down:

Hi, I’m currently in Hong Kong and there seems to be quite an abundance of 5Dmk2 in the shops – especially the kit with the 24-105 lens.
It seems with the economic uncertainty, coupled with the blackdot scare, a lot of people have dropped their names from the waiting list. Prices however are still high and most of the reputable stores like Man Shing, Wing Shing and Citi are charging around $20800 HKD ($2683 USD) for the body only and $28000 HDK ($3612 USD) for the kit.

Unfortunately, the same faith of the 50D awaits the 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark II is too little too late. The price of the 5D Mark II will go down as early as next month if Canon wants to be able to continue selling. With the competition offering better options, even at lower prices (the D700), the 5D Mark II can’t possibly sell for $2700 very long. Right now Canon is probably trying to get the money from early buyers, who by the way are discovering they spent their money on a product that has issues. And just think about it, the 5D Mark II is a body similar to the 50D. About the only thing that is different, is that the 5D Mark II has a fullframe sensor inside and has video capabilities. Essentially, compared to the 50D, Canon expects users to pay $1600 more for a fullframe 21MP sensor (5D Mark II price of $2700 minus 50D price of $1100). And the 50D even has a better AF system! I don’t think the $1600 price for the sensor and video capability alone is justified. The 5D Mark II should cost around $1800, especially taking into account that the Nikon D700 currently sells for $2400 and is a fully featured pro body with a 51 point AF system that completely blows away anything Canon has to offer, even in their expensive 1D series bodies. At $1800, I think the price of the 5D Mark II would have been competitive. But not at $2700, so expect the price to significantly drop in the coming months.

Right now the Nikon D700 and the Sony A900 are making short work of the 5D Mark II. The Nikon D700 is currently the world’s best DSLR body on the market, and it even costs cheaper than a 5D Mark II (current price: D700 $2400, 5D Mark II $2700). I expect the D700 to remain the best DSLR on the market for well until early 2010, or when Nikon releases the D700x (or D800). Canon simply won’t be able to respond until October 2009, and even then, we’ll have to see what they come up with. What is certain is that the 5D Mark II will have a short life, as short as one year, and certainly not the 3 years that the 5D had.

(*) What I mean by this, is that even if you turn off the noise reduction on the camera completely, the camera still applies a bit of noise reduction even at lower ISO values which you can’t turn off. I have yet to confirm if this is really the case.

Update 12/28/2008: In a previous post, I had already discussed the poor AF system of the 5D Mark II. In that post, I had warned about its performance, about it being slow and not very accurate. At the end of that post, I discussed how it seemed like even a wedding pro had difficulty getting his POSED shots in focus. And recently, a fashion photographer got a chance to experience first hand just how bad the AF system of the 5D Mark II really is. Check out the post on his website. Here’s a quote:

So this week I got a change to use the 5D2 for a real shoot, using daylight which is my favorite way to shoot. Unfortunately, for full body shots, I got many frames where the model is out of focus. I counted 50% of the shots out-of-focus using the outer AF points and my 85 1.2 on a tripod! A few were due to movement of the model, but mostly just due to misfocus with the outer AF points which were positioned over her face. Fortunately I noticed this fairly early on and switched to the center AF point, which worked fine.

A week prior I found that these outer AF points work like a charm with the 85 1.2 lens in fairly bright light outdoors, but they apparently are not stellar performers when it’s dim. This is very disappointing in a $3000 camera. You will definitely do better with the 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 if you are shooting dim available light as I often do.  However if you are in a situation where you can use the center point 100% of the time the 5D2 AF should work fine.

I saw these issues coming way in advance. Right now forums around the Internet all have similar stories from users who are complaining about the autofocus system of the 5D Mark II. The Pop Photo review which I mentioned above warned about these issues too.

Also, I’m not the only one who thinks Canon is in trouble. Check out this post.

With regards to the color blotches problem which I mentioned in some comments below, check this post on DPReview. Happens even as low as ISO 100.

Update 12/30/2008: The Online Photographer made the 5D Mark II their camera of the year. And that, my friends,  is the joke of the year. Keep in mind that the same people at the Online Photographer were mentioning all the image quality problems with the 5D Mark II. I quoted them above. At PDN, they seem to understand better what a camera of the year is (the Nikon D700).

Some of you might remember that I got banned a while ago from the DPReview forums because of discussing Canon quality control issues. I wrote about that here. The Digital Picture launched their forums today and as a frequent visitor, I registered and posted a link to this post on my blog, requesting feedback from people. I was already getting some responses when a few hours later I get an email from the webmaster, Bryan Carnathan, that he deleted my post:

Your post was deleted by Bryan Carnathan.

Subject: Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!

Reason: Karel,

I welcome you to the community, but would rather you not bring your anti-canon posts here.

Regards,

Bryan

Thank you,
Photography Community team

So it looks like only pro-canon posts are allowed there. This is plain censorship, and nothing more. If there is one thing I don’t like on the Internet, and anywhere else for that matter, it’s censorship. If you take a look at the comments below, you’ll see that I allow everyone to post their opinions on my site. Whether they agree with me or not, some of the comments are very harsh sometimes. But even that is tolerated. So I have to wonder why these websites, like DPReview and The Digital Picture feel the need to censor my opinion on Canon. Perhaps the reasons are what I discussed in a previous post about the DPReview case.

Update 01/02/2009: After exchanging some emails with Bryan Carnathan, I was able to explain to him the purpose of my “anti-Canon” posts and he has agreed to restore my original post back on the forum. Basically I told him I am a Canon user and that the purpose of all this is not just to bash Canon, but to make it absolutely clear we’re not very satisfied with how things are going right now and to stimulate Canon to improve in the future. If that happens, it will benefit all of us. It is important to be critical of Canon, otherwise those of us who have invested in Canon gear will be forced to look for alternatives in the future.

Update 01/03/2009: I mentioned already that Canon has been overhyping the high ISO and low noise capability of the 5D Mark II, just like they did with the 50D. And already people are beginning to discover this around the Internet. When comparing RAW files of the 5D Mark II with the older 5D and cameras like the 40D, there’s little improvement with regards to noise. In fact, the 5D Mark II images even contain a good amount of noise as low as ISO 100!!! This can be seen especially in the darker parts of images and out of focus areas (bokeh). I mentioned a while ago in the comments below that I could have seen this in the noise review at Luminous Landscapes. There you can clearly see the noise in the ISO 100 shots of the 5D Mark II. Image quality has sunken to a new low with this. Check this thread on DPReview, here are some quotes:

Despite the hype about the 5DII, it looks like it’s only marginally better, if at all, than the Canon 450D. I did a test against my 40D and it was at most 2/3 of a stop better than my 40D at high ISO, and the 40D is very similar to the 450D

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I agree—I’m absolutely in love with the 5D2, but I have to say that it’s low-light performance isn’t mind-blowingly great.

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I hope I’m not insane.

cropped this picture, no resize and max quality in DPP

2 problems with it.

1. The dittering in the background. I like taking pictures with blurry background. ISO 100 gives me nice blur… ISO 400 and up.. gives me dithering…. It reminds me of those 8 bit GIF’s from the old days

2. Sharpness no more. My F2.8 lens usually manages to make the subject I take pictures of stand out from the background.. but here is is just flat…. I always get this when I shoot high ISO… ISO 100.. sharp, almost 3D look alike… high ISO.. just a pixel blur.

I certainly don’t need to zoom the picture in anyway to see this “issues”

I don’t deny that in good sun light and you want to shoot 1/4000 of a second.. High ISO is good. But in poor sunlight and 1/40 second.. high ISO doesn’t work for me quality vise.

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Sorry I meant noiseless ISO 400 5D2 shot, but now that I think about it, even ISO 100 shots seem to have shadow noise in the shots I’ve seen for the 5D2

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Is there grain? Yes, of course. But .. so? DPP does a really nice job of removing enough chroma noise so that the image looks good (I rarely go over 10 in the chroma reduction level, more like 5-10).

I don’t see why some people are so afraid of some grain, I personally find it kind of pleasing to look at. (Ed: Yeah, tell that to the stock agencies).

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ISO 100 shadows are the 5D2′s weak spot. Canon took no care to avoid banding in this camera, especially vertical banding, which is the predominant banding at ISO 100.

Please  note that when comparing it’s important that you compare RAW images. The 5D Mark II JPEG images look cleaner and contain less noise, but that’s because they are being processed in the camera with noise reduction. But as a result of this, these images also look blurry and less detailed, as I discussed above with sample images from The Digital Picture. That’s unacceptable.

Update 01/07/2009: I came across another review of the 5D Mark II. Here are some quotes:

Sample images have shown that the DIGIC IV is doing some skillful noise reduction in-camera. JPEG shooters should seriously rejoice. The RAW files may be somewhat of a disappointment to concert photographers as Canon’s Chuck Westfall was reported to say that the RAW performance of the 5DmarkII sensor as being similar to that of the 1DSmarkIII, which is only spec’d to ISO1600.

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Honestly, the focusing specs of the 5D Mark II are the most personally disappointing part of the camera. With only 9 selectable AF points clustered at the center of the viewfinder, the photographer is forced to focus and recompose the image more often than not.

While not horrible on its own, focus and recompose is horrible for tracking a moving subject while maintaining a specific composition. I know a lot of concert photographers who make due with Canon’s 9 point system, but coming from the 1D Mark III, which has 19 selectable points, I have little interest in anything less.

Furthermore, I believe only the center point of the 9 AF sensors present on the 5D Mark II is cross-type and sensitive to f/2.8. This is particularly important to concert photographers who are regularly forced to shoot at f/2.8 or faster. Without getting into the details, the outer 8 AF points on the 5DmkII are several stops less accurate under normal concert conditions than the center point.

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My biggest fear is that Canon has put too much energy into the megapixel race and very little energy into improving other features of the camera that really affect the feature set and user experience.

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I personally had a lot of hopes for this camera as a smaller FF backup to my 1D Mark III. The specifications of this camera were a significant factor in my recent decision to switch to Nikon.

Especially pay attention to the last sentence above. “Switch to Nikon.” Unfortunately, many are doing so right now, and many are looking to make the switch soon because of the disappointing products from Canon lately.

Update 02/09/2009: In the mean time some more examples have been posted of the 5D Mark II focus issues. The fashion shooter I mentioned above, who had trouble getting his 5D Mark II to focus properly got another 5D Mark II body, and apparently he had the same issues with that one. Now he has decided to NOT use the 5D Mark II AT ALL. Here’s what he had to say:

There are a few issues with this camera which I can not live with. The AF is still pretty bad on this, my second 5D2 body in anything but the brightest of light. (the first one was returned with abysmal focusing and weird image quality issues.)
People right and left are reporting failures in damp conditions/light rain. There were a bunch of 5D2 failures on Michael Reichmann’s Antarctic trip.

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I cringe every time I remember this scenario: I was shooting advertising with the 5D2 with models, hair, makeup, stylists, etc waiting on me. As I was shooting tethered, the art director was standing next to me looking at the monitor and saying “they are soft!”, and I was there thinking, yeah, I can see that, but I don’t know what the f*ck to do about it. This is after hours or working with the AF microadjustments, etc., etc.

I cringe when I think about something like that happening to me as well.

And that’s not all. Another photographer compared the old 5D to the new 5D Mark II, doing some tests with both camera’s in the same conditions, and noticed that the 5D Mark II did not focus consistently, and that shots from the 5D Mark II were in fact slightly out of focus often:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the 5Deux has A.D.D. Sometimes it focuses very well. Other times, it’s slightly disappointing compared to results from the old 5D. I know the 5Deux can focus well, because I’ve got proof, it just doesn’t focus well ALL of the time, which is annoying.

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I’ve seen other photographers say that they’ve had similar results, so I guess this is pretty common among 5Deux owners.

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In conclusion, the 5Deux did not walk away with a clear decisive victory because of the focus issue.

So again, I have to ask, what the FUCK is the use of 21 megapixels when you can’t focus properly?!?! Take a good look at the sample pictures posted in the above mentioned review, and notice how the 5D Mark II images are out of focus compared to the old 5D. All the extra resolution you expect from the 5D Mark II can’t be achieved because of the very poor autofocus system.

And here’s what PDN had to say about the 5D Mark II autofocus capabilities in their review:

A bigger issue is the annoyingly slow speed of the 5D Mark II’s autofocusing in low contrast, low light situations. These are the sorts of situations where the 5D II should really shine especially since the High ISO/low light capabilities of its 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor are so impressive.

Though we didn’t experience problems with the focus while shooting inside the dimly lit subway station and in Grand Central Terminal, when I later went to photograph the park at night, I found that the 5D II would often hunt for focus, racking in and out until it would finally lock in. On occasion, the camera couldn’t find focus at all.

The problem really lies with Canon’s resistance to updating the 5D II to a new autofocus system. The camera uses the same 9-point selectable AF with 6 assist points around the center as its predecessor, a system which clearly is getting a little long in the tooth. While Canon’s resistance might be understandable—after it upgraded its Mark III series pro cameras to a new 19-point/16-assist point autofocus system it faced many complaints from photographers about autofocus misfires—it still doesn’t solve the problem of putting a creaky old autofocus system in a brand new camera.

Yep, I saw this coming way in advance.

Update 04/18/2009: Some more people talking about the issues with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Photographer Zack Arias said the following:

• The AF system sucks in low light situations. Every Nikon I have ever owned from the D100 to the D3 can lock focus faster and more accurately than the 5d does in low light levels.
• Nikon still pwns Canon at ISO 3200 and up.
• It’s slow as Christmas compared to the shooting speed and buffer of the D3.
• The ergonomics. The 5d feels like a brick in my hands even with the grip. The D3 feels like a glove.

He later also says:

I will tell you this though… when it comes time to shoot the reception tomorrow night I bet you the 5d goes back in the bag because the auto focus is useless in low light. You’d think they could do something about that. The D3 can focus in just about any dark environment I find myself in. The 5d requires you to be standing on the surface of the sun to have enough light to focus. Ok, maybe not right on the surface but pretty close. The AF system on the Canon can not even be compared to the Nikon. In this area Canon sucks and Nikon rocks. The rest seems to be up for debate.

Photographer Lloyd Chambers had the following to say:

This latest AF issue follows on the heels of a Live View exposure problem with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think it’s fair so say that with 3 professional camera models with issues, this firmly establishes Canon as having a track record of not testing products adequately. And at the cost of customer time, hassle, and perhaps money.

I couldn’t agree more. I have written a couple of posts about Canon quality control problems. Just search my blog for them.

Canon has just lost the number one position in the DSLR market to Nikon. Here’s from the article:

Nikon has announced that it is now the UK’s leading manufacturer of DSLRs.

Speaking at the UK launch of the company’s flagship D3X camera, the company boasted of a prosperous year, which has seen Nikon’s DSLR sales growth expand by 333 per cent, compared 2004/05 figures.

The official announcement is that Nikon is “number one for share by volume in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan.”

The impressive figure of 333 per cent is mainly due to Nikon in recent years getting aggressive in the DSLR market, making sure that everyone from first-time DSLR buyers to high-end professionals have the option to buy a Nikon-branded camera. This includes the recently announced D3X.

Nikon beating Canon

The fight in the DSLR market between Canon and Nikon has always been a close one, with last year’s figures suggesting that Canon won the camera war by just one per cent – taking a 41 per cent market share to Nikon’s 40 per cent.

Predicted DSLR sales for Nikon for this year are around 3.3 million. Compare this to just 2 million in 2004, and the company’s fortunes are definitely going in the right direction.

This came as no surprise to anyone who has been following what’s been going on with Canon and Nikon the last few months. Certainly if you’ve been reading my blog, this was something that you could have expected. I wrote about Canon’s DSLR division being in trouble a few months ago. It’s only the logical outcome.

Canon has been having a lot of issues lately, most of them the result of bad upper management. Here’s a listing of the stuff I wrote about:

• Bad and lying management at Canon.
• Bad quality control resulting in many defective products. (Part 1, Part 2)
• Bad products and mediocre product releases (EF 50mm f/1.2 | EOS 50D Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 | 5D Mark II).

With regards to the mediocre product releases, the G10 also got a bad review on DPReview recently mostly because of the bad image quality. It seems the G10 suffers from the same problem the EOS 50D has: Too many megapixels on a small sensor. Canon just can’t seem to understand that they can’t keep putting more pixels onto small sensors. Canon’s latest high-end cameras all had issues or have all been mediocre releases. The 1D Mark III has focus issues, the 50D has bad image quality and is a worthless upgrade compared to the 40D and both have a AI-Servo focusing mode that doesn’t work well, the G10 has worse image quality compared to the G9, the 5D Mark II got equipped with a 3 year old autofocus system and a slow shutter mechanism etc. etc.

Meanwhile, Nikon has been consistently coming with some very solid product releases, from the D90, D300, D700 and D3 to recently the D3x. So it’s absolutely no surprise that they now managed to get to the top of the DSLR market. They’ve been doing quite well and Canon has been screwing up.

And you’d think that by now, they would have gotten a clue at Canon. But apparently that’s not the case.

After Mr. Maeda blatantly lying about the autofocus system of the 5D Mark II, we now have Chuck Westfall trying to fool users into thinking the EOS 50D has better image quality compared to the EOS 40D. First, here’s part of an answer from Westfall to a question from a user:

Thanks for your message. I agree with you that the improvement of image quality is a top priority for any new EOS Digital SLR. My statement of an approximate 1 to 1.5 stop improvement in noise levels for EOS 50D vs. 40D was made on the basis of the default settings for image quality with both cameras, in other words Large/Fine JPEGs. As I stated in my answer to question 70 above:

“At default camera settings for in-camera JPEGs, and assuming equalized output sizes in order to gain the benefit of the EOS 50D’s increased resolution, there is approximately a 1 stop improvement in noise reduction for the 50D compared to the 40D. Run the comparisons and see for yourself. For RAW images, the difference in image quality between the two cameras is almost entirely dependent on the user’s choice of processing techniques.”

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To summarize, the EOS 50D’s improvement in image quality compared to the EOS 40D at ISO 3200 is clear and demonstrable at each camera’s default settings for in-camera JPEGs when output size is equalized. That was the basis of my original statement when the 50D was announced, and I believe the results speak for themselves.

Westfall ofcourse doesn’t tell people that the 50D applies a lot of noise reduction to JPEG images. This makes the JPEG images from the 50D appear to have less noise compared to the 40D, but because of the heavy noise reduction, the 50D JPEG images also look washed out and less detailed compared to the 40D images. Many reviews on the Internet, including the one from DPreview have mentioned this. The 50D has a higher resolution, and you’d expect more detail in images from the 50D, but you actually get less detail, with images from the 40D looking sharper. What Westfall is doing here is very misleading.

In addition, Westfall knows that when RAW images are compared from the 50D and 40D, it will be very clear that the 50D images have a lot more noise in them. So he mentions: “For RAW images, the difference in image quality between the two cameras is almost entirely dependent on the user’s choice of processing techniques.” What he is essentially saying here is that it is up to the user to apply enough noise reduction to RAW images to make them look good enough. In other words, you can make the 50D images look like the 40D images with regards to noise, if you just process the 50D images enough. But ofcourse, this is bullshit, because one shouldn’t have to process images to make them look comparable to eachother. If the 50D had image quality as good as the 40D, then the RAW images would look about the same without ANY kind of processing required. Very misleading statements from Westfall.

Westfall also mentions that when image quality is concerned, we have to resize the 50D images which are larger, to the size of the 40D images for a fair comparison. This, again, is bullshit. Why should we make the 50D images smaller to be able to get the quality of the 40D images???? The whole fucking point of getting a 50D is because of the increased 15MP resolution, right? So why do you expect people to resize the images to something smaller, in order to get acceptable image quality? Why did you increase the resolution to 15MP on the 50D then? People can then just get a 40D instead since the extra resolution of the 50D is pointless if you have to make the images smaller to get better quality. Westfall and the rest of Canon’s management seem to think they’re talking to idiots. This is nothing more than a serious insult to our intelligence.

And then we have Canon President, Mr. Uchida, who was recently interviewed by Reuters, mentioning that the global digital camera market might shrink in 2009. Uchida was probably saying this because the knows that Canon is currently not doing very well and likely won’t be doing very well in 2009 as well. But this is not because of the economic crisis alone, but more because of all the issues I mentioned above. Canon simply does not have the products right now to excite people into buying. All of their latest products are mediocre and/or have issues. Just look at the price of the 50D. In just a month, the price went from $1400 to $1099 now and continues to drop. This is a clear indication that sales aren’t going well. But that’s no surprise, and I predicted from the moment the 50D was launched that it wouldn’t sell well and to expect major price drops. I did the same for the 5D Mark II.

Nikon certainly doesn’t seem to be having problems selling their products, even reporting a 333% increase in sales! Uchida is just trying to fool everyone into thinking that the bad results at Canon are due to the economic crisis. I hope Canon shareholders will be smart enough to see what’s really going on. The entire upper management at Canon should be fired for their incompetence.

Finally, you might also like to read Fake Chuck Westfall’s take on these issues here and here.

This is going to be the final nail in the coffin of the Canon EOS 50D. This is my third post in this series, and you can find the first one here, and the second one here. Read them before you continue, including the comments, to get up to date.

Since my first and second posts, some time has gone by, and now there are more reviews available of the Canon EOS 50D. Needless to say, these reviews all show exactly what I have been saying ever since my first post about this camera.

First, check this review by Camera Labs. Especially check their verdict:

But Canon’s bold claims of matching the noise levels of the earlier EOS 40D were confirmed in our High ISO tests. From 100 to 1600 ISO, the EOS 50D’s output really is very similar to that from the EOS 40D when viewed at 100% on a pixel level. At 3200 ISO, the 50D applies greater noise reduction, but tone it down a notch and again it looks similar to the 40D. Admittedly the 50D’s 6400 and 12800 ISO modes are a step too far,

…

The addition of contrast-based autofocus in Live View was inevitable, but it’s relatively slow and best-used for static subjects and a tripod-based camera. This effectively renders the new face detection mode redundant, as while subjects are recognised instantly, it’s several seconds before the camera locks focus on them – by which time they’ll inevitably have moved.

…

Some early adopters have also reported a higher than average occurrence of Error-99 lens communication issues with the 50D. We tested our 50D with a variety of lenses and only experienced the Error-99 with a well-worn press sample of the EF-S 17-85mm IS, and then only at certain focal lengths. When we switched to a newer private sample of this lens, we had no issues. This is something we will monitor though and report back with any updates.

…

So the EOS 50D essentially takes the 40D body and adds 5 extra Megapixels, a VGA screen, HDMI output, four times the sensitivity and a number of processing and interface enhancements. If you value these improvements, then it’s worth spending the extra or for existing owners to upgrade, but remember the body, viewfinder and AF are the same, so if you want a tough and quick semi-pro DSLR at a bargain price, the 40D remains a superb choice.

…

By sharing a number of core specs with the 40D though, the 50D remains behind certain key aspects of the D300. Nikon’s body boasts a viewfinder with 100% coverage to the 50D’s 95% and an AF system with a whopping 51-points to the 50D’s nine; Canon also continues to look old fashioned by forcing you to buy and fit an optional focusing screen to see a grid in the viewfinder, while Nikon offers on-demand LCD markings which can simply be switched on and off. The D300 additionally offers more professional features like 9-frame bracketing, a built-in intervalometer and a shutter block rated for 50% more shots (150k compared to 100k on the 50D).

Like I said from the very beginning, the image quality of the 50D is comparable and often worse compared to that of the 40D. Canon’s claims that the 50D offered a stop to a stop and a half better noise performance compared to the 40D were quite frankly very misleading. In addition, the 9 point autofocus is prehistoric by today’s standards and is absolutely worthless in AI Servo mode. Just like Camera Labs says, a lot of technology in these Canon cameras are very old fashioned, and one has to wonder when Canon is finally going to update them. In the same way, they also released a 5D Mark II camera, which contains the exact same old AF system as the 3 year old 5D camera. In 3 years, how can it be that Canon was unable to include a much better AF system in the 5D Mark II, when Nikon has a camera on the market for a year now at a much lower price level containing a 51-point AF system?

But let’s get on with another 50D review, namely the one from DPreview. When you read that review, you’re going to see that the 50D offers more noise, less detail (despite the resolution increase to 15MP!!), and less dynamic range compared to the 40D. If you look at the noise in RAW images from the 50D and 40D, you can clearly see the 50D images have a lot more noise and look worse compared to the 40D:

Despite the fact that the 50D is the newer camera it shows visibly more chroma and luminance noise than the 40D. Considering the 50D’s much more tightly packed sensor (4.5 MP/cm² vs 3.1 MP/cm² on the 40D) this comes hardly as a surprise. It would have been unreasonable to expect Canon’s engineers to overcome the laws of physics.

At Hi1 and Hi2 (ISO 6400 and 12800 respectively) the 50D produces significant amounts of noise. Both settings should be striclty reserved for emergency use. If you compare these crops to the ‘NR OFF JPG’ crops from above it also becomes clear how much noise reduction the 50D’s JPG engine still applies even with noise reduction set to ‘Off’.

So much for ISO 6400 and 12800 on the 50D. Canon could have left these ISO modes out of the camera. As it is now, they are only included for marketing reasons and to fool people. These modes are unusable. And pay special attention to the comments about noise reduction. The EOS 50D applies a lot of noise reduction to JPEG images, also removing detail in the process. This no doubt causes the 50D images to look less detailed compared to images from the 40D.

If you look at the RAW image quality comparison, you can clearly see that the 40D images have more detail compared to the 50D:

Switching to our benchmark RAW converter, Adobe Camera RAW equalizes image processing between the two cameras and allows us to get a much better idea of the level of detail actually captured. As you can see both cameras images look crisper and exhibit better detail but the 40D stills beats the newer model in terms of per pixel detail. Despite of a 22% increase in vertical and horizontal resolution the extra detail captured by the 50D is marginal. Unsurprisingly color and contrast are near identical though.

And from here, when comparing the 50D to the Nikon D300:

Both cameras gain from the use of ACR with images looking considerably sharper and better detailed than their JPEG equivalents but the improvement is more significant on the Nikon which now has a pretty obvious per pixel detail advantage over the 50D. Having said that color response is very similar indeed and you would need to be outputting at a very large size for the differences to be noticeable.

And from DPReview’s conclusion:

We’re by no means saying the 50Ds image quality is bad but it’s simply not significantly better than the ten megapixel 40D. In some areas such as dynamic range and high ISO performance it’s actually worse and that simply makes you wonder if the EOS 50D could have been an (even) better camera if its sensor had a slightly more moderate resolution.

The EOS 50D has to stand its ground in a highly competitive bracket of the DSLR market. It is currently almost $500 more expensive than the 40D, almost $500 more expensive than the Nikon D90 and for an extra $100 you can bag yourself a Nikon D300. Looking at the specification differences between the EOS 40D and our test candidate it appears you pay quite a premium for the 50D’s extra megapixels and as we’ve found out during this review you don’t get an awful lot of extra image quality for your money. The Canon EOS 50D still earns itself our highest reward but considering its price point and our slight concerns about its pixel-packed sensor, it only does so by a whisker.

The 50D offers worse noise performance, worse dynamic range and less detailed images compared to the EOS 40D and compared to the Nikon D300. I said before since my first post about the 50D, that the Nikon D300 was a much better alternative, and as you can see, this is really the case. The Nikon D300 even offers a lot more advanced features and right now is only $100 more expensive compared to the 50D.

Live View on the 50D also is a complete joke. A little more useful compared to the 40D, but contrast detect AF is painfully slow and you can’t even focus where you want on the screen. The Sony DSC-R1 released in 2005, had much faster contrast detect AF and had the option of moving the focus point on the screen to wherever you want and focus at that location. Today, Canon wants to sell us a slow and limited Live View feature that looks prehistoric compared to 3 year old cameras that are now discontinued. What a shame.

The EOS 40D currently gives you the best value for your money. Expect the price of the 50D to fall like a brick in the next few months. I hope Canon will do much better with the 60D next year.

According to Photography Bay, Nikon has announced a major event for November 20th. They even rented the MGM Grand Arena for this, so it looks like it’s going to be really BIG, just like they claim. Could it be the launch of their 20+ megapixel D3x camera? Because if it is, Canon is going to be in more trouble than they currently are.

A while ago, I wrote about the EOS 50D camera from Canon, and it wasn’t very positive. At that time, the camera wasn’t yet available but now that people are starting to get their 50Ds and are able to test it and see the images it produces, we can get more information on its performance. And from what I have seen so far, it has no improvements over the 40D and I was right in my previous post. For example, I wrote:

With regards to the 15 megapixel sensor, Canon still doesn’t seem to understand what photographers want now. Nobody wants a high resolution sensor that can’t deliver clean images at low ISO values, and especially higher values. Nikon demonstrated that they understood this when they released cameras with only 12 megapixel sensors that are capable of delivering great image quality at higher ISO values. But not Canon. Instead of releasing an improved 10 megapixel sensor with a much improved high ISO performance, they went ahead and released a 15 megapixel sensor with no visible improvement with regards to noise, compared to the 40D. It might even be worse than the 40D. If you look at this sample image in this gallery, the noise in the out of focus areas seems comparable to the 40D at ISO 400. So apart from the higher pixelcount, there’s no gain in image quality. It’s just more pixels containing crap. A useless upgrade.

And this is exactly how it turned out to be. Just check this post on DPReview:

On the not so bright side: Judged by the out of camera raw images, I can’t see any improvement with regards to noise at pixel level (at some point I even felt the 50d was slightly more noisy han the 40d). The ISO3200 images are not usable, banding is disappointingly an issue here too.

And this one taken from here. There are samples posted from both the 40D and 50D. There is absolutely no visible difference in noise, even though Canon USA’s Chuck Westfall said that the 50D would have a 1 stop to 1.5 stop advantage over the 40D. If you looked at the samples Canon posted on their own website and you are familiar with the 40D image quality, you would have seen yourself that that’s bullshit. Now others are confirming this as well.

It is totally not worth it to upgrade to the 50D if you have a 40D or even a 30D. Nikon’s D90, which is also about $400 cheaper, would be a better alternative. Or the D300. Canon has really disappointed with this one. Even the autofocus in the 50D is the same as the 40D, and we all know that the 40D AI Servo performance is absolutely crap.

Hopefully, Canon will improve significantly when they release the 60D next year. And with the recent release of the new 5D Mark II, Canon has demonstrated that they’ve totally lost it this year.

Update 9/27/2008: Here is another post on DPReview mentioning how the 50D noise is worse in certain cases or at the very best as bad as the 40D:

From the early tests it looks like the 50d is a little bit worse than the 40d when it comes to noise, as could be expected with the extra MP. Granted, the out-of-camera-jpgs are a bit smoother, but that’s because of the more aggressive noise-reduction, which ofcourse removes some more detail as well.

So – It’s as one might have guessed – Extra cool features, better LCD and so on, a pile of Megapixels, et voilá – the new camera model.

I’m starting to get a bit grumpy about this development. I want low noise far far more than I want more resolution. And I know I’m not the only one.

Hopefully Canon will listen when they work on the 60D. From what I’ve seen they’re losing customers now at a fast pace.

Update 9/28/2008: Here’s another post where you can see samples taken with the 50D, and see some user comments. Canon had better pay attention. Here’s from one of the posts:

FWIW I’m starting to get really discouraged. Early on, when only 50D in-camera JPEGs were shown worldwide and then compared to “my” JPEGs straight out of “my” 40D I was a believer in Canon’s claim of a 1.5 stop improvement in noise; now, if the converted RAW files are gong to look like what I’ve seen so far … well, I beginning to feel like the victim of a REALLY BIG lie on Canon’s part.

And from another in that thread:

I’ve had that feeling since early on..They did a fair job with noise considering the MP increase but I see little if any decrease compared to the 40D..Not a put down,just physics…I’m going back to keeping my 40D and getting an “old” new 5D like I had before..The 50D will be a good cam,I can’t justify it for my needs however,Bob

And more:

I too am getting pretty discouraged. I had hoped the 50D would be a long crop high ISO companion to my 1D Mark IIN. I am seeing no way forward now. I would like a second body I could shoot higher ISO with. I don’t trust I will get a good 1D Mark III, the 5D Mark II is too slow and probably just as dubious in noise (we’ll see), and the 50D doesn’t appear to be great shakes on high ISO now. My 1D Mark IIN does better at ISO 1600 than these albeit at lower resolution.

Sigh. I may turn to the dark side even if it costs me my long (500mm) lens. I’ll just shoot something else other than wildlife (thanks Canon).

Even more:

Seriously i don’t think 50D (from what ive seen so far) will be a justified upgrade IQ wise. Surely i love the AF Micro-adjustment and the high res LCD but it’s not enough for an upgrade IMHO. Mpix wise i couldn’t care less as i firmly believe the sweetspot for many of us are around 10-12 mpix.

I’m getting a bit fed up with the small incremental upgrades in the XXD series they are giving us. The impression i get from Canon regarding their XXD series upgrades is that if you think of the body in a shape of a pyramid, then they decide to release it every time with the top chopped off. As if they always try to hold back on the icing. This was the right time for Canon to put the 50D just a little closer to their 1 series. Instead it looks like they try to milk us yet again for a minor upgrade. If the step 30D to 40D was minor i honestly think this step is even smaller.

And lots more:

Somewhere along the way, Canon got lost in its technology lead and has never recovered to date: poor focusing, poor features implementation (e.g., limited bracketing, limited auto ISO functionality, lacks wireless flash support, limited spot metering functionality), poor flash reliability and now bad high ISO performance.

And here’s a post talking about the poor AI Servo focus performance of the 50D. It seems that the Nikon D300 is MUCH better:

Without any TC, the 300 F4 had a hard time locking on to the birds at the Raptor Arena area because there are so many leaves, people etc.. I think bird against the sky its very good. Its a hard place to focus. However under the same situation the D300 AF works!

However in contrast my D300 can track on coming birds the 50D, so far
it has failed to do that under the same conditions.

—

So at the same place under the same conditions.. here are the D300 – with a OLD LOUSY SLOW screw drive AF 80-400 hand held.

The 50 D AF completely gave up .. So its the Same old Software as the 40D-

Ofcourse, we already knew the 50D AI Servo focus mode would suck, since it is identical to the 40D, and we knew the 40D sucked in that regard. Just check out my previous post on this topic.

IMPORTANT Update 12/22/2008: Read the third part of this post here. Read my latest post on the 5D Mark II, especially before you buy!

With the release of the EOS 5D Mark II camera by Canon recently, I have begun to wonder if the people in charge at Canon’s DSLR division know anything about photography at all. This camera had the potential of becoming a great hit for many different types of photography. But as it is now, it will only be really useful for studio and landscape photography, unless you can put up with its shortcomings.

One of the biggest problems with this camera is its old and outdated autofocus system. It appears Canon just took the 3 year old autofocus system from the old 5D, made some minor changes and put it into the 5D Mark II. The autofocus system has 9 autofocus points, of which ONLY ONE (the center one) is a crosstype point, sensitive at f/2.8. The other 8 surrounding points are less sensitive, being only horizontal-line sensitive at f/5.6.

This is a huge problem for event photographers and journalists who are looking to use this camera, but even studio photographers who want to use autofocus. In low light situations, it’s going to be a real problem using the 8 outer autofocus points to focus on a subject. Many people have complained in the past about the slow autofocus using the outer points on the old 5D, and you would have expected that Canon would have listened and made improvements.

Apparently Canon hasn’t the slightest clue as to what’s going on in the real world. What’s even more puzzling, is that the EOS 40D and 50D have a similar autofocus system with 9 points, where ALL 9 points are crosstype. Why didn’t Canon at least include the autofocus system from the 50D in the 5D Mark II? The least they could have done was make all 9 points crosstype. It is very disappointing for a lot of people and is a serious handicap for what would otherwise have been an excellent product.

Apart from that, the autofocus points are too concentrated towards the center of the frame. Again, this is evidence of the fact that the people in charge at Canon know absolutely zero about what photographers want and need. With the current layout, Canon seems to expect all photographers to take pictures with the subject in the center of the frame, at least, when using autofocus. What happened to the rule of thirds, Canon? Have you heard of it??

Here’s the layout of the autofocus points on the 5D Mark II as it is now:

Here’s the Rule of Thirds grid on the viewfinder, notice how all autofocus points are concentrated in the middle:

Here is how the autofocus points should have been spaced out:

And here the above picture again but with the Rule of Thirds grid on it. Notice how the autofocus points cover the intersections and every area nicely:

I can’t believe that nobody at Canon thought of this, and that nobody at Canon has gotten any feedback on this way in advance to be able to incorporate it in the 5D Mark II. Are they even making cameras for photographers at Canon these days? Instead of including a useful autofocus system so people can actually use the camera to take good pictures that are in focus, they have instead concentrated on putting HD video recording functionality in the 5D Mark II, a feature that has absolutely nothing to do with helping people to take better pictures. Don’t get me wrong, the video recording feature is a nice feature to have, but I would expect the priorities to have been totally different. Get the core photography features in order first, and then add the extra features like video recording later. And you simply cannot cut back on a core feature like autofocus as badly as Canon seems to have done here.

What makes me really angry, is when I read the following on the Canon website about the 5D Mark II autofocus system:

Three AF modes let you choose the right focus strategy depending on your shooting requirements, and a manual AF point selection mode allows you to activate each of the nine autofocus points manually — a nice touch when your subject is off-center.

I’ve just shown that virtually all autofocus points are concentrated in the center when you use the rule of thirds. I guess they should also have stated how far off-center.

You might say that the fact that the autofocus points are concentrated in the center is not such a big deal since you can use the center autofocus point and then crop later for a good composition, but what is the use of having 21 megapixels on the camera, when you are forced to crop out a large portion of it to have a good composition?? Why have the loss of resolution due to cropping? It would have been totally unnecessary to significantly crop for composition if Canon had allowed you to be able to have a better composition using autofocus points at the time of taking the picture.

You might also say that you could use the center autofocus point to focus, and then recompose the shot. This might work if you are using a small aperture, but if you want to shoot at large apertures, especially when using fast lenses in low light, focus and recompose is not an option due to the extremely shallow dept of field. Recomposing after focusing will give you a soft or out of focus image and that’s not acceptable. In addition, when you have a slow autofocus system like the old 5D, and the 5D Mark II probably as well, focusing and then recomposing gives you an even bigger chance of out of focus images.

So now you have a high resolution sensor, 21 megapixels, but guess what? You can’t easily take pictures that are in focus, eliminating the entire point of having that much resolution available! So now you have a sensor that is extremely capable for low light, high ISO photography, but guess what, you can’t quickly and accurately focus in low light conditions. But hey, you can shoot HD quality video!

I wonder who the people are that decide on the functionality combinations going into a camera at Canon. Seriously, I want to know. Because without a doubt they have to be some of the most stupid people on this planet. Even Fake Chuck Westfall looks smarter compared to them.

In the 3 years that have gone by since the release of the first 5D camera, has Canon not been capable of making a better autofocus system? Why did they include the same old autofocus system in the 5D Mark II?

Here’s an interesting article about the problems at Canon, where it seems that at least now people inside the company are waking up:

Canon engineers are being held back from developing new sensor technology by marketing departments in a “race for megapixels”, claims an employee of the Japanese photography company.

The employee told Tech Digest that Canon have the technology to “blow the competition away” in terms of image sensors, but are instead being asked to focus on headline figures like the number of megapixels a camera has. When asked for his opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which we covered this morning, the employee said:

“I am hugely disappointed because once again Canon engineers are dictated by their marketing department and had to keep up with the megapixel race. They have the technology to blow the competition away by adapting the new 50D sensor tech in a full frame format and just easing off a little on the megapixels. Although no formal testing has been done on the new model yet, judging by the spec and technology used, it just seems to be as good or as bad as the competition – not beating them by a mile (which we used to).”

Hey guys, apart from megapixels and sensor quality, how about also looking at other features like a good autofocus system, good weathersealing like the D700, a better viewfinder and mirror/shutter mechanism and higher framerate etc. etc. Things that actually matter to taking a good picture. Not video recording and other crap like that.

As of right now, the Nikon D700 is still overall the best camera to own. The 5D Mark II is only useful as a studio/landscape camera and only if you need 21 megapixels.

I don’t think Canon will be able to afford to leave the 5D Mark II on the market for another 3 years. I think they will have to update it as early as next year, or perhaps introduce a new model, maybe a 3D, that will be better than the 5D Mark II. Expect the price of both the 5D Mark II and 50D to significantly drop early next year when the (hopefully) fixed 1D succesor will be announced.

Canon better hope that the release of these cameras will be flawless. The products are already mediocre at best, and any quality control issues are going to significantly hurt them this time.

And finally, if they get really serious at improving autofocus at Canon, the configuration of autofocus points in the picture below would be very welcome (all crosstype sensitive). Ofcourse, Nikon and Sony are also welcome to do this:

Update: It looks like even a wedding pro had trouble getting the focus right using the 5D Mark II. After all the complaints about the soft images he posted on his site, here is the update that he had to make to his post:

Update: Please remember these shots were taken with a beta release camera on launch day.  I took them on-the-fly whilst demonstrating the camera to press and distributors so yes the focus might be slightly out on one or two.  I’m happy with the look of these images which are consistent with my style.  I am not looking for absolute sharpness and so applied no additional sharpening to the images in production.  Please accept these images for what they are which is a demonstration of the new camera’s amazing high ISO performance and don’t try to read too much into pixel-level sharpness.  We all want to see what the camera can do with our normal RAW-based workflow but that will have to wait.

Hilarious! You’re not looking for absolute sharpness?? We shouldn’t read too much into pixel-level sharpness? What??? Why do we have 21 megapixels then???? Aren’t you a pro? According to Dirck in the comments below, you should be able to manually focus precisely! Now more than half of your pics are soft. What would you do if this was a paid shoot? Take special note of the fact that the images that look soft and out of focus, are especially those where the subject is off-center. Also read this thread on DPReview. Now, if a pro photographer can’t seem to get his focus right with the 5D Mark II with POSED shots, then how do you think you’ll focus when you’re doing event photography, sports, documentary or other types of action shots?

IMPORTANT Update 12/22/2008: Read my latest post on the 5D Mark II, especially before you buy!

Update 12/28/2008: Apart from the wedding pro which I mentioned above, recently a fashion photographer got a chance to experience first hand just how bad the AF system of the 5D Mark II really is. Check out the post on his website. Here’s a quote:

So this week I got a change to use the 5D2 for a real shoot, using daylight which is my favorite way to shoot. Unfortunately, for full body shots, I got many frames where the model is out of focus. I counted 50% of the shots out-of-focus using the outer AF points and my 85 1.2 on a tripod! A few were due to movement of the model, but mostly just due to misfocus with the outer AF points which were positioned over her face. Fortunately I noticed this fairly early on and switched to the center AF point, which worked fine.

A week prior I found that these outer AF points work like a charm with the 85 1.2 lens in fairly bright light outdoors, but they apparently are not stellar performers when it’s dim. This is very disappointing in a $3000 camera. You will definitely do better with the 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 if you are shooting dim available light as I often do.  However if you are in a situation where you can use the center point 100% of the time the 5D2 AF should work fine.

I saw these issues coming way in advance.

Update 01/07/2009: I came across another review of the 5D Mark II. Here are some quotes:

Sample images have shown that the DIGIC IV is doing some skillful noise reduction in-camera. JPEG shooters should seriously rejoice. The RAW files may be somewhat of a disappointment to concert photographers as Canon’s Chuck Westfall was reported to say that the RAW performance of the 5DmarkII sensor as being similar to that of the 1DSmarkIII, which is only spec’d to ISO1600.

…

Honestly, the focusing specs of the 5D Mark II are the most personally disappointing part of the camera. With only 9 selectable AF points clustered at the center of the viewfinder, the photographer is forced to focus and recompose the image more often than not.

While not horrible on its own, focus and recompose is horrible for tracking a moving subject while maintaining a specific composition. I know a lot of concert photographers who make due with Canon’s 9 point system, but coming from the 1D Mark III, which has 19 selectable points, I have little interest in anything less.

Furthermore, I believe only the center point of the 9 AF sensors present on the 5D Mark II is cross-type and sensitive to f/2.8. This is particularly important to concert photographers who are regularly forced to shoot at f/2.8 or faster. Without getting into the details, the outer 8 AF points on the 5DmkII are several stops less accurate under normal concert conditions than the center point.

…

My biggest fear is that Canon has put too much energy into the megapixel race and very little energy into improving other features of the camera that really affect the feature set and user experience.

…

I personally had a lot of hopes for this camera as a smaller FF backup to my 1D Mark III. The specifications of this camera were a significant factor in my recent decision to switch to Nikon.

Especially pay attention to the last sentence above. “Switch to Nikon.” Unfortunately, many are doing so right now, and many are looking to make the switch soon because of the disappointing products from Canon lately.

When it works, the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L USM lens can produce some really excellent images. Why do I say “when it works”? Because this lens seems to have a problem with autofocus consistency, making it backfocus quite often. I have written about this problem before.

But I still find myself using it quite often because of the results I can get using it. The way I try to work around the focus inconsistency, is autofocusing two or three times on the subject before I take the picture. This doesn’t guarantee a sharp in focus image all the time, but I can live with it so far.

Below are some images I took using a Canon EOS 40D body with the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens. The images are of a very special model, namely my daughter Sarah. What I love about this lens is the nice bokeh and dept of field effects that you can get with it.

50mm, f1.2, 1/250s, ISO 100
Sarah, six months later.

50mm, f1.2, 1/160s, ISO 400
This is how she looks when she just woke up. When I turn around I see her staring quietly at me like this, rolling over the pillows, trying to get to me.

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
Here Sarah was explaining to me why she likes chocolate chip ice cream.

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
I love this lens.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Playing with curtains on my bed.

50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Did I mention that I love this lens?

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
“You’re taking pictures of me *again* ??”.

50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 400
Walking outside playing with plants.

50mm, f1.2, 1/50s, ISO 100
Sooooo cute.

50mm, f1.2, 1/60s, ISO 100
This is how she looks when she’s just rolled around on my bed a few times pulling the sheets and throwing her toys around.

50mm, f1.2, 1/100s, ISO 100

50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 100

50mm, f1.2, 1/200s, ISO 100
Doesn’t she look so cute and innocent here?

I have about 20GB of pictures of Sarah right now, and she’s only 7 months old. Ofcourse, I’m nowhere to be found on most of those pictures. The only place where I see myself in the pictures is in the reflection in Sarah’s eyes.

These pictures were all taken with available light only (so no flash), giving the pictures a more natural look. Once you start doing available light photography, you won’t go back to using a flash easily. This lens is very good for photography using available light only. Along with this lens, you should also check out the Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L, EF 35mm f1.4 L, EF 85mm f1.2 L and EF 135mm f2 L lenses. Expensive, but worth it.

Canon has recently announced their new DSLR body, the EOS 50D (official site). From the information that has become available up till now, I can already conclude that it’s not going to be a very popular camera. In fact, I won’t be surprised if it sells less copies than the EOS 40D.

Why?

Well, for starters, this is a very half-assed (technical term) attempt by Canon to try to compete with the Nikon D300. If I look at the specifications of the 50D, I can’t help but think that some Canon engineers sat down one afternoon, took the 40D, slapped in a new sensor, put in a new processor, tweaked the firmware to enable some features (which they deliberately disabled for the 40D, like autofocus microadjust), put in the higher resolution LCD which they meant to release with the 40D, but didn’t to save a couple of bucks, called it a day, packed and went to a Karaoke bar to have some fun.

Compared to the 40D, the 50D is not worth the extra money Canon wants to charge us. It is essentially just a 40D with minor worthless upgrades. It is not worth the upgrade for 40D users, and it is no match for the Nikon D300.

A while ago, I wrote the following:

And after the release of the Nikon D3/300 and recently D700, I have it on good authority that the entire DSLR division at Canon was taken to their equivalent of DEFCON 1. Various Canon managers and engineers were hand delivered messages by actual ninja’s, threatening with “serious consequences” if things don’t get better in the near future. So I have to say, I’m very interested to see what Canon releases later this year.

Canon’s prosumer DSLR bodies have been on an 18 month refresh cycle. The 50D has been introduced only about 12 months after the 40D, so about 6 months too early. The reason for this is easy to guess. Canon couldn’t just leave the 40D on the market while it is taking a serious beating from the Nikon D300, and now even the Nikon D90. They probably thought that releasing a refreshed 40D, the 50D, would be better compared to doing nothing. And from their perspective, this could be true on various levels, but even the 50D is no match for the Nikon D300, and not even for the Nikon D90, which can only be viewed as a tragedy for Canon. The only people who are now likely to consider the 50D are people who are in the market for a significant upgrade (so no 40D users) and those who are looking to buy their first DSLR. And in both cases, Nikon has the better alternatives (D300 and D90).

I predict that the price of the 50D is going to drop very fast after its availability in October especially when Nikon will lower the price of the D300 soon. I also predict that Canon will release the real successor for the 40D, the EOS 60D in the second half of 2009 finally containing some significant technological improvements. As a result of the DEFCON 1 declaration at Canon’s DSLR division, the refresh cycle for the 1D series camera’s has also been shortened from 3 years, and new 1D models are going to appear in 2009 instead of 2010 and likely very early in 2009.

It is hilarious that Canon left the outdated 9 point autofocus system of the 40D in the 50D and still mentions how great they think it is. Here’s what Canon wants you to believe:

Configured in a diamond-shaped array for superior vertical and horizontal coverage, nine cross-type autofocus (AF) points — eight with f/5.6 sensitivity and one in the center with f/2.8 sensitivity — provide highly precise focus even when shooting fast moving subjects.

Ofcourse, we know better now. This is the same autofocus system the 40D has, and it’s been proven to be crap especially for shooting fast moving subjects. What is even more hilarious, is that they even include a picture in the samples on the official website, that is very soft, likely due to the subject not being completely in focus. Talk about precise focus.

With regards to the 15 megapixel sensor, Canon still doesn’t seem to understand what photographers want now. Nobody wants a high resolution sensor that can’t deliver clean images at low ISO values, and especially higher values. Nikon demonstrated that they understood this when they released cameras with only 12 megapixel sensors that are capable of delivering great image quality at higher ISO values. But not Canon. Instead of releasing an improved 10 megapixel sensor with a much improved high ISO performance, they went ahead and released a 15 megapixel sensor with no visible improvement with regards to noise, compared to the 40D. It might even be worse than the 40D. If you look at this sample image in this gallery, the noise in the out of focus areas seems comparable to the 40D at ISO 400. So apart from the higher pixelcount, there’s no gain in image quality. It’s just more pixels containing crap. A useless upgrade.

Canon finally included contrast detect auto focus in their Live View implementation on the 50D as well, something that should have been present from the beginning in the 40D. The Live View implementation in the 40D was essentially useless, and I got the feeling that Canon just wanted to include it for marketing at the time. It’s just like Nikon including HD video recording capability in the recently introduced D90 camera, when they don’t also include the ability to autofocus while recording HD movie. Can you imagine that? Seriously, just stop and think about it. So here you have a D90, you can record high resolution HD video on it, but you are stuck having to focus manually while recording. Answer this: What is the use of recording HD quality video, when you will get soft focused video most of the time due to having to focus manually while recording?? So now you have HD video, but it’s reduced to 320×240 sized video because you can’t focus manually that fast. Thanks, Nikon, but no thanks. I keep wondering what the deal is with these companies, releasing half-assed implementations of functionality in products. Why can’t they take the time and release functionality that is complete? We don’t actually need a new camera every year you know? Take the time and work on a good product, for fuck’s sake! Even my cheap cellphone can autofocus while recording video at crappy resolutions.

Anyway, Canon’s one and only hope this year remains with the successor to the EOS 5D which will be announced this month, and which, according to various sources, is going to be equipped with a 21 megapixel sensor. It remains to be seen what the quality of images taken with this sensor is going to be and if it will be an improvement over the 5D. If this body doesn’t have some advanced features like full weather sealing and a pro autofocus system, it’s not going to do very well compared to the Nikon D700. Especially if it’s going to deliver 21 megapixels of noise. In addition, Nikon might one-up them again, like they did by releasing the D90 after the 50D, and lower the price for the D700 and D3 when they introduce the D3x.

And, finally, even if the new 5D is theoretically good, it could still be plagued by the bad quality control at Canon. Let’s see what happens.

Update: Check out the second part of this post here.

In the picture above you can see a car belonging to a Korean photographer, with banners attached containing a message about Canon’s EOS 1D Mark III camera. The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3.” Apparently, the problems with this camera drove the photographer so insane, he printed these banners and put them on his car to let the world know about it. Full picture and article can be found here. I can’t help but think that this guy spent his savings on this camera only to find out what a bad investment it turned out to be. Even the $8000 EOS 1Ds Mark III camera suffers from the same issues the 1D Mark III has. Imagine spending $8000 on that camera, and finding out you can’t use it for serious work.

And yet, this is the situation many photographers around the world have found themselves in, thanks to Canon. If you are new to this, I have written about all the quality control issues at Canon a few times already, just start looking here. Not only Canon camera bodies have problems, but even their lenses often contain issues right out of the box.

So after the release of the Nikon D3 and more recently D700, it’s no surprise that photographers everywhere seem to be switching to these camera’s. And it shows at major events. It showed at the Tour de France, and right now at the Olympics:

Photographer Michael Reichmann has made similar comments here:

In addition to being a fun perspective on a group of pros at work it’s also a sign of the times to note the number of Nikons (black) vs. the number of Canons (white) in the shot. For the past 10 years or so at almost any major sporting event the number of white lenses would almost always outnumber the number of black lenses by a huge margin. So much so that Canon has run magazine ads showing this disparity.

But that was then, and this is 2008. At this year’s Olympics the number of Nikons in use by pros seems to equal if not surpass the number of Canons. A definite sign of the times.

Photographer John Harrington comments on this here:

This year’s Olympics should well be the turning point where the sidelines of sporting events are – to pay homage to AC/DC – Back in Black. Nikon’s flagship D3 – even with a smaller chip than it’s competition the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III (and even it’s predecessor the 1Ds Mark II) has painted the sidelines at the Olympics (and so too, the news event press pens in DC) more and more black. (Click the photo to see it larger). This is substantially due to Nikon’s high ISO – insane at 25,600 ISO, and amazingly useful at 3200 and 6400 ISO without having to even think about it much. To add to this huge lead, consider Canon’s faltering with the autofocus mis-steps as highlighted by Rob Galbraith (repeatedly).

In a few days, I’m headed overseas on assignment for two weeks, and I’ll be working in mostly low-light museums and other national treasures in several countries. Even though I own an EOS 1Ds Mark III, and Mark II, instead, I am choosing to take my D3, and a D700 as well. It really was a no-brainer given the multiple times I won’t be allowed to use flash – but still am required by my client to make images during the trip. My Canons will sit in the equipment cabinet back in the office.

And as Harrington notes, Rob Galbraight recently released his final comments on the EOS 1D/Ds Mark III camera’s, and it doesn’t look good for Canon. Galbraith even mentions the EOS 40D:

While we haven’t written about the 40D’s autofocus performance before, we have done assignments with it and included the camera in various tests, starting at about the time it shipped in September 2007. Since then we’ve shot with four bodies, two focus-calibrated and two that came directly from the store shelf. Using focus-calibrated lenses with these bodies, the result has been the same: the 40D has real difficulties accurately picking up the focus on a moving subject and then tracking it from there.

…

A midrange digital SLR with a midrange price tag probably can’t be expected to offer the same autofocus performance as the company’s best. Even taking that into account, though, the 40D doesn’t fare well. It’s not that it can’t do the job at the level of a more expensive camera, it’s that it can’t do the job really at all.

And I have to agree, since I have experienced these issues first hand myself. For example, Galbraight wrote about the 1D Mark III:

Just enough testing was done to reveal a few things. Whereas the older firmware can introduce a change in focus distance with each One Shot activation, even if the AF point is aimed at the same subject at the same distance each time, the newer firmware seems to give more repeatable and accurate focus results under the same conditions. But if the test is done slightly differently – setting the focus to some other distance, then focusing one time on the subject using One Shot, autofocus variability seems about the same as before: there’s too much.

This same problem also exists with 40D cameras and it is very annoying because it’s unpredictable, and using it on assignments can give you (slightly) out of focus images where you don’t expect it.

Meanwhile, Canon remains quiet about all these issues that users are experiencing. Many people continue to invest large sums of money everyday in Canon DSLR bodies and lenses, only to find out they don’t work correctly out of the box.

Resale value of these items is also dropping fast right now, as Nikon has much better alternatives. I’m surprised a new defective 1D Mark III body still costs around $4000, when you can get a much better Nikon D700 with grip for about $3200. Canon must be smoking something very strong to think informed photographers are going to continue to buy the 1D Mark III at that price. But I think this reveals Canon’s strategy. And that’s a strategy of keeping quiet about the issues and not giving these problems a lot of publicity so they can continue to sell this crap to uninformed people as much as possible.

It remains to be seen what Canon will come up with later this year. They have been known to intentionally cripple products for “marketing” reasons (just look at the 40D and 5D). With Nikon now on the market with a D700 that can do almost everything the high end D3 can do, it seems Canon will have no choice but to release something at least as powerful. And if they can’t or won’t, they’re going to be in deep shit. Moreover, even if they do manage to release something better spec wise, if they can’t somehow improve the terrible quality control they currently have, they’ll continue to lose marketshare to Nikon. Because it doesn’t matter if you are the resolution leader with a 1Ds Mark III, when it can’t focus properly out of the box.

The Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens is another good example of the complete lack of quality control at Canon for the last few years. If you thought the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco was a big problem, this seems to be much worse and up till now, after about 2 years, Canon simply refuses to comment on the issues hundreds, if not thousands, of users have mentioned with this lens. Apparently this case lacked a Rob Galbraith type of person who could really persist about the issues. In the case of the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco, at first Canon didn’t seem too interested to look at the issues Galbraith was mentioning. After much feet dragging, they finally admitted there was a problem with the autofocus system of the camera, and then struggled for over a year to try and fix it (but failing each time), and up till now the camera still isn’t officially fixed. God knows what Canon Japan is up to. The amount of arrogance they’re displaying is simply astounding. As one user said:

However, for the last 18 months, Canon has displayed an arrogant, careless disregard for honesty and straight-forward practices. They have refused to replace cameras that are clearly defective (as demonstrated for them beyond doubt in my case, and in MANY other cases), and are churning out “L” lenses that ROUTINELY are WAY out of whack due to an apparent COMPLETE lack of testing.

If you’re new to this, take the time to read my previous posts on Canon quality control here, here and here. It’s worth it especially if you are considering to buy Canon DSLR hardware.

Now on to the topic. From the date of release (late 2006) of the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens, it has been known to have a rather serious backfocusing issue. Many users reported this around the Internet very early on. If you just search on Google, you’ll find loads of information and confirmation on this problem. From here:

back focus with center AF point at f/2.8-f/4

———-

first the closing: I did return this lens.
At the store, I tried 2 other copies but those were form the same batch so I did not expect anything better.
I did try this lens on 2 different 1D series bodies FF and 1.3X (1Ds MKII and 1D MKII) and the result was the same: back focusing on distances 1-3 m. Now, I do have 3 other high speed EOS lenses (24/1.4, 35/1.4, 85/1.2II) and none of those have this problem. So the statement from the previous reviewer on “accuracy” of my cameras sensors does not stand. The only lens with problem was the 50/1.2!
Sad, but I can not keep this lens at this time. Even with excellent results when manual focusing, I can not keep 50/1.2 just because those rare times when I really need critical AF (full open) ability…
———-

i will keep my canon service center story short but will say that i was very, very unhappy with how my problem was handled. lots of driving back and forth and, finally, the lens returned to me in the same condition as when i dropped it off.

finally, someone head my complaint and i brought the lens back to canon 1 final time.

HERE IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING:

1. the technician DID find that it backfocused.
2. he said that 4 CM was “within the spec” for the product.

i found this preposterous and asked him to have a crack at calibrating it.
he did.

in 20 minutes he was able to get the lens focusing properly on my 5D.

this 20 minutes was the culmination of 2 weeks of persistance.

in short:
- my copy of the lens did backfocus (i actually tried TWO copies: both with this problem)
- it was correctable.
- it was a terrible ordeal
- i have yet to determine if it was worth the time and aggravation.

this lens may yet go back to the store.

i am not a pixel-peeper and i rarely put my lenses through precise testing. this lens had GLARING issues, to my eye. perhaps my “review” will spare someone else a bit of grief.

———-

I tend not to harshly evaluate lenses, as I know that no lens will ever be perfect. However, this lens has been a very large disappointment for me (in addition to a waste of time and money). I heard plenty of talk about focus issues with this lens and how it’s not much sharper than the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens. Still, I purchased it because I expected very good contrast and wide aperture effects (thin dof, pleasant bokeh).

I did experience the above characteristics, but the EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens suffers from a design flaw: focus drift and backfocusing. The lack of a floating aspherical element means there will be depth of field aberrations when stopping the lens. That is, the depth of field will appear to shift back when narrowing the aperture.

I have evaluated four copies of the lens on two camera bodies (one old calibrated body and a relatively new body), and each copy exhibits backfocusing. Even after compensating for the backfocusing, the lens sharpness at the center of the image circle within the depth of field isn’t too good. I compared it against the 50mm f/1.4 USM lens at f/1.4 and f/8. While the 50mm f/1.2L is the clear winner at f/8 in terms of contrast and sharpness, at f/1.4, the 50mm f/1.4 lens actually wins out in sharpness. I couldn’t believe it so I exchanged the lens once in May. Same deal. When I decided to give the lens another chance in October, I was disappointed yet again.

People with a need for speed will buy the 50mm f/1.2L USM because of its strengths and in part due to a need for speed. But with severe issues in terms of the focusing and focus drift, I don’t think any price, no matter how reasonable, can justify this lens’ flaws. If you’re looking for a great f/1.2 lens, the EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM will do everything you ask of it. But as for the EF 50mm f/1.2L USM, buyer beware.

———-

When it focuses on the subject, it’s sharp, provides excellent contrast and beautiful bokeh. It’s really well built and feels great on a 5D. When it misses the focus on the subject … which seems to be most of the time … it’s not sharp, and is intensely frustrating to use. All 4 copies I’ve used demonstrate consistently inaccurate auto-focus with varying amounts of backfocus at all apertures – plus focus shift at f/2 – f/4 for close-in subject distances. My calibrated 5D focuses just fine with 85/1.2L II, 100/2.8 USM Macro, 70-200/2.8L IS, etc…

———-

I returned the lens because of repeatable mis-focusing/softness at about four feet, using an aperture of f2, that made purchase of the lens pointless. I have rated the lens at 7 but in truth I would not rate it at all-except as a paper weight(is that too mean?) Perhaps I was doing something wrong-but I don’t think I was – I am a very experienced photographer. I may test a different 50mm 1.2 in the future. But should one have to do quality control on such expensive optics?

And from here:

After my first shot with the 50 1.2L, I went WFT?!?!? It was seriously backfocusing… and I never experience that with my famed 85 1.2L lens.

———-

On the 50/1.2 Canon decided to save a few bucks and over-simplified the mechanics of the focusing mechanism.)

And from here:

Ok, so I need some input. I just received my 50 1.2L and took some test shots. It has focus issues as described by many, many people.

———-

I got a 50L. This one had something really wrong with it and all shots were fuzzy. I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t OOF….it was just all fuzzy. I sent it back.
The second 50L I got consistently backfocussed about 4″ at all apertures. This was not the famous focus shift issue….just a straight up backfocus. I sent it back.

———-

I went through two different 50Ls before returning to the 85L. Like Jeffrey said, they all have the focus shift, it’s just part of the lens.

———-

I got rid of mine as well. Even using the alternate focus points didn’t seem to make much difference. I’m much happier with my 35L, 85L, and 50 1.4 than I was with the 50 1.2. I tried at least five and they all had the same issues. Really wanted the lens to be decent, but no such luck.

———-

Surely, the chances of two copies being THAT bad are very slim, right?
I thought the same, but gave up after 5 or 6.

From the review here:

It was been mentioned by others that the 50 f/1.2 exhibits slight back-focusing at these maximum magnification, near-minimum focus distances. Since I don’t shoot with a lens like this at these distances very often, I had to go back and check mine. And my aditional tests confirmed a slight backfocusing at 10-20″ or so. The mis-focusing isn’t dramatic, but will have a slight negative effect on image sharpness at these distances.

William Castleman did some tests with this lens, and you can clearly see the issues here:

I concluded that the Jackson 2004 FocusTestChart detected real focus problems at the very short working distance (46cm). These misfocus problems are of questionable significance because I almost never try to produce wide aperture images at the shortest possible working distance to produce tack-sharp images. With the EF 50mm f/1.2L focus function was normal at longer working distances (129 and 258 cm).

Let me make this very clear: THIS LENS BACKFOCUSES / MISFOCUSES AT ALL DISTANCES AND ALL APERTURES AND THE PROBLEM IS SIGNIFICANT. At longer distances it is just harder to detect (but if you look for it, you find it), as well as smaller apertures because the focus plane is deeper. But the back focus problem remains. I have done my own tests which confirm this. The backfocusing happens only when using autofocus. Manual focus works OK.

If you’re wondering what this means in real world shooting, have a look at this picture:

50mm, f2, 1/50s, ISO 400

At this size, it looks ok, but when you look at the actual pixels, you see that the focus is WAY off. I focused on the left eye, and the camera decided to focus around the ear instead, while still giving the focus confirmation on the left eye! Check the 100% crops below:

Wrong focus on ears because of the defective lens.
50mm, f2, 1/50s, ISO 400

This eye should have been in focus.
50mm, f2, 1/50s, ISO 400

This is absolutely unacceptable behaviour. Imagine having to work with this lens, and find out later that the focus is off on almost all your pictures. You focus on the eyes, and you get the ears in focus instead. There’s a lot more on this here with some sample pictures of backfocusing. With this kind of performance, you can’t consider this lens for any kind of serious work. Just think of what will happen when you print such a picture large enough. Commercial work is out of the question. And with a price of about $1500 you have to wonder what the fuck they’re smoking at Canon HQ to expect to sell this to people. The only reason why they’re still selling it seems to be because they keep quiet about the issues and people buy it not knowing better, and finding out about these issues later.

Representatives from Canon were also sent information about this problem early 2007 if not much earlier. But up till today, Canon has still not officially commented on this problem, provided no fix, and simply pretends there’s nothing wrong. Meanwhile they are perfectly happy to keep selling a defective product to everyone without any kind of warning about the issues which they KNOW exist. The only comments about this lens were made unofficially by Chuck Westfall from Canon USA in emails to some users:

I asked chuck westfall for an update last week and this was his esponse:

“Technical discussions about the EF50mm f/1.2L USM are continuing to occur between Canon USA and Canon Inc.. The matter is not resolved yet, but it is most certainly not being ignored. Unfortunately, I can’t say much more about it until there is an official conclusion.”

————————-

If you look through all of the threads on the 50L you’ll find that a bunch of us wrote Chuck last May and got the response back that an announcement was expected from Canon in the near future. Follow-ups with Chuch haven’t gone anywhere. Here was his response:

“Canon Inc. is definitely aware of the claims concerning the AF accuracy of the EF50/1.2L USM. They’ve been investigating for the past couple of months, and I am told that there will be some kind of public announcement forthcoming in the near future. Stay tuned, and thanks for using Canon equipment!” – email from Chuck Westfall 5/24/2007

Since we’re now in July 2008, and that email from Westfall was in May 2007, I have to wonder what Canon’s definition of the “near future” is. And again, meanwhile they are perfectly happy to keep selling a defective product to everyone without any kind of warning about the issues which they KNOW exist. They even thank you for using their defective equipment.

At this point I have to ask myself, who the fuck tests these products at Canon? What kind of engineers do they have working there? When I got my copy of the 50mm f1.2 lens, I noticed within a day of using it that it was back focusing. And this was without doing real focus tests, just from normal use. How in god’s name, does Canon manage not to notice this big problem, and proceed to manufacture the lens? Seriously, how?? Is there even some kind of quality control at Canon? It’s the same with the 1D Mark III autofocus issues. Who the fuck tested that camera? How did they manage to release it with an obvious defect in the autofocus system, one which they still can’t seem to fix after a year, even after a few attempts?

And what is even more astounding, is that these issues aren’t small issues. They are CRITICAL issues. If you can’t take a picture that is in focus, that should be a MAJOR showstopper. Focusing well is one of the most important things that this equipment should be able to do. What is the use of having a lens that can’t focus well?? It’s practically unusable! If this is Canon’s idea of delivering good image quality, they might as well rub some vaseline on the sensor of every body they release from now on.

This is what Canon says about this lens:

The EF 50mm f/1.2L USM is suitable for any shooting situation; its lens coating and construction are optimized to minimize the ghosting and flare that frequently occurs when lenses are used with digital cameras. This high-performance, weather-resistant lens delivers all the superb image resolution and contrast you expect in a Canon L Series Lens.

Simply awesome. 

What is even more incredible, is that Canon seems to get away with this kind of behaviour as well. I look at this and keep asking myself how it is that companies seem to get away with such behaviour these days:

Another thing that has me amazed, is that I cannot understand how consumers seem to be so tolerant these days. It seems companies can do to consumers what they want and even rip them off, like Microsoft is now doing, without them even saying anything about it. Such a move from Microsoft should at least have sparked some major PR issues for them if not lawsuits. But consumers these days appear to have a very high level of tolerance. I recently also wrote about the bad quality control at Canon, with regards to their DSLR products. And there you see a similar problem, consumers are having issues with the products not working well, even out of the box, and many are complaining, but it looks like they just accept it for some reason as being normal. When has it become normal for a company to massively screw so many customers on such a large scale, as Microsoft is doing? When has it become normal to buy a DSLR and finding out that it does not work (well) as soon as you power it on? When has it become normal to buy a lens for your DSLR and finding out it only takes soft pictures and doesn’t focus well?

Indeed, when? And why wasn’t I informed? Did I miss a memo or something?

It looks like Canon might have taken their position as market leader for granted, and got sloppy for a few years now. With Nikon coming back into the game, it’ll be interesting to see how Canon will behave from now on. Many pros are switching to Nikon these days, and black Nikon lenses are replacing the white Canon lenses (image from Tour de France 2008 from here) everywhere. With their DSLR division operating at DEFCON 1 right now, maybe they’ll show some improvement. Meanwhile, their customers are still being screwed around the globe, and trust me, they’re not using any kind of lube.

If you’re from Canon, I understand if you initially almost get a heart attack to see another post on my blog about Canon, especially since my last few posts about Canon were not very positive. Yes, there’s a lot that Canon needs to work on, and I’m quite sure that after the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco the shit hit the fan at Canon in Japan. If you thought that was an isolated incident, think again. It appears to be part of a structural quality control problem at Canon and I’ve written about it here a few times. And after the release of the Nikon D3/300 and recently D700, I have it on good authority that the entire DSLR division at Canon was taken to their equivalent of DEFCON 1. Various Canon managers and engineers were hand delivered messages by actual ninja’s, threatening with “serious consequences” if things don’t get better in the near future. So I have to say, I’m very interested to see what Canon releases later this year.

Anyway, back to the topic. Last weekend I took some pictures with my Canon EF 135mm F2.0 lens, and I have to say, this is an incredible lens. Many reviews around the Internet will tell you this lens is sharp, and boy is it sharp! Even wide open at f2. Colors and contrast are great, and bokeh is very nice and smooth. This is a great lens for portraits (easily isolate subjects from the background), candid photography (you can get subjects close from a distance) and even some sports. I’ve posted some samples below, just some snapshots of my family, and with most of these pictures, using the EOS 40D body (1.6x crop), I was able to stand 8-12 meters away and give them more than enough room to walk around, while still being able to get them close on the pictures and throwing the background out of focus.

My daughter Sarah. I bite her at least once every minute.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f5.6, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabs everything within range.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabbing flowers.
135mm, f2, 1/320s, ISO 100

Below is a 100% crop of one of the pictures above. Converted from RAW, no sharpening applied. You can see the amount of detail and sharpness you can get with this lens starting at f2.

135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

As you can see, the stuff Canon sells is actually pretty good if you can get a good working copy. This lens is also great for low light work. Together with the 24mm f1.4, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2 and 85mm f1.2 lenses from Canon, the 135mm f2 is a prime that can deliver some of the most beautiful images.

Nikon has announced their second full-frame camera body, the D700, and it looks like they have a killer product on their hands. I’m not going to write about all of the details here, you can get more information from these links: Nikon D700 Brochure, Nikon D700 Page, Preview on DPReview, More Information. In addition, Nikon has also announced a new flash (SB900) and some new lenses.

With these announcements, Nikon is giving Canon a serious blow. If you look at the technology that is in the D700, Nikon seems to be far ahead of Canon, and it doesn’t seem likely that Canon will be able to have an answer to the D700 in the near future. Not too long ago I wrote:

And now they are rumored to be working on the 5D mark II body. If that body doesn’t have as much focus points as the Nikon D3/300 (or very close), if it doesn’t have micro adjust for lenses and if it doesn’t have weather sealing comparable to the 1D bodies, they don’t have to release it at all in my opinion. Because Nikon is going to be a much better alternative, as it already is right now. Weather sealing on the Canon EOS 40D is laughable. It’s incredible that Canon even claims that the 40D body is weather sealed. That is simply a big lie.

Canon needs to get their act together ASAP in order not to further damage their reputation, or what remains of it at this point.

Nikon already was a better choice since they launched the D300 and D3. And now with the D700, there simply is no arguing.

The features of the D700 which I like the most are:

• The 51-point auto focus system. You only get this many auto focus points in Canon’s 1D series bodies. The 40D has only 9 points, which quite frankly is hilarious in this day and age. Even the Nikon D300 has 51 points. Less points is seriously limiting your composition options.
• Nikon’s Live View implementation with Contrast-detect autofocus is MUCH more useful than Canon’s. Contrast-detect lets you focus ANYWHERE in the frame in live view. Having used this feature on the Sony DSC-R1, it is amazingly useful. Canon not having this is a serious handycap.
• Nikon’s D700 body is fully weathersealed and built like a tank. Canon’s 5D is a cheap plastic toy in comparison. Canon’s 40D is not weathersealed.
• Exceptional image quality at high ISO ranges, compared to Canon.
• High resolution LCD screen, compared to Canon’s crappy LCD screen on all their bodies.
• Microadjust feature (AF Fine Tune) for lenses with slight autofocus calibration errors. This is a VERY important feature as you can fine tune the autofocus system to get the sharpest images possible. Canon’s 40D and 5D bodies don’t have this. Only their expensive 1D series bodies have this feature, which is fucking stupid. Especially when they can’t seem to calibrate most of their lenses well and their quality control is non existent. If their next 5D body and 50D body don’t have this feature they can close down their camera division for good. I wonder what kind of morons work at Canon that decide to leave microadjust out of camera bodies like the 40D. If they did that to make people want the 1D series bodies more, they are getting what they deserve from Nikon right now.
• Nikon seems to understand Flash more than Canon, since they are including a color filter set with the new SB900 flash. Everyone knows that Nikon’s flash system is better than Canon’s, and the SB900 takes it a step further.
• Nikon’s D700, D300 and D3 bodies feel better, more comfortable, in your hands because of their design.

The only thing Canon has going for them right now is that they have a better lens lineup, though most of their lenses are very old and in serious need for updates. But this won’t get them very far, because Nikon is starting to catch up with their lenses. And better yet, all of Nikon’s new lenses include their latest innovations such as Nano coatings. I think the only thing Nikon needs right now are some light sensitive lenses that can compete with Canon’s f1.2 primes lineup.

And to think that Nikon might be releasing the D3x later this year, probably with all the features of the D700 but with a 24 megapixel sensor inside. That will put even Canon’s 1Ds Mark III to shame. Canon is going to have serious issues from now on. Even Sony is launching their 24 megapixel A900 later this year. That is sure to cause the highly inflated price of the 1Ds Mark III ($8000) to significantly drop. I wondered why the 1Ds Mark III ($8000) had to be so expensive compared to the 1D Mark III ($4000). The bodies are almost identical except for the 21 megapixel full frame sensor in the 1Ds Mark III. Does that justify a price double that of the 1D Mark III? Later this year, we’ll find out when the Sony A900 and Nikon D3x get released.

The price of about $3000 for Nikon’s D700 will further bring down the inflated prices for Canon camera bodies. Canon won’t be selling the 1D Mark III anymore if they don’t drop the price to below $3000. Not that it matters, because since the release of the D3 and D300, Nikon has been the better choice for camera bodies. If you have to buy a new camera now, you should just invest in a Nikon body. It won’t surprise me at all to see pros switching to Nikon, as already seems to be the case everywhere. And with all the quality control issues at Canon (part 2), they make it very easy for you to decide.

It’s going to be interesting to see what Canon can come up with now.

Update: Here are some sample images from the D700: Page 1, Page 2. Exceptional high ISO performance. With this performance in low light, you get even better results when using fast lenses as well.

Also, it seems Canon continues to struggle with their lack of quality control and Canon users everywhere continue to suffer. Just check out some user comments here from this thread on DPReview:

I’m right now in the process of boxing up my brand new 35 1.4L lens and sending it back for replacement. The stupid thing couldn’t focus within 12 FEET of an out-door target (and I’m not kidding!!). Not even CLOSE.

And that’s AFTER a +20 micro-adjust on the $4500 body they claim is “fixed”!!

I’ve just about HAD IT with Canon’s BS.

———

Their quality control is absolutely in the toilette…and anyone who denies that is sleeping. How many people are on their third or fourth copy of a 100-400? How many people had the same with a 24-70?

How many times have you had to listen to one more post asking the LEGITIMATE question, “Did you get a GOOD COPY of ___ L lens?” Or, “I hope you get a good copy.”

Ridiculous.

———

However, for the last 18 months, Canon has displayed an arrogant, careless disregard for honesty and straight-forward practices. They have refused to replace cameras that are clearly defective (as demonstrated for them beyond doubt in my case, and in MANY other cases), and are churning out “L” lenses that ROUTINELY are WAY out of whack due to an apparent COMPLETE lack of testing.

Pros from every corner of the globe have to routinely send their BRAND NEW LENSES in …just so they will work up to specifications.

This is totally unacceptable, and is FAR WORSE than in the past.

I own 11 L lenses. The most recent 3 have ALL needed major adjustment, and the trend is more and more and more problems.

How many times have you read a post saying, “I hope you get a good copy” or “I’m on my third/fourth copy and FINALLY got one that is sharp!”

This is common now, and the word that fits this pattern is indeed…RIDICULOUS.

And from another thread:

So here is the deal. I have a 1D Mark IIN, a 500/4L, a 400/5.6L and a 135L. Both the 1D Mark IIN and the 500/4L were calibrated for severe back focus independently. The 400/5.6L front focused severly and was calibrated for that. I got the 135L after all of this calibration and it was spot on out of the box. These are all spot on now. So I trust all of these are calibrated and focus correctly.

I just got a 40D tonight. Put it through my usual first AF test with the nice feature I can now test this against the liveview. And guess what – it back focuses. $&#$@@!~~**#

Here is the standard battery test. Furthest battery on the left, closest on the right, middle battery the focus point – all at a 45 degree angle longitudial to the lens axis. 100% crops.

I’ll tell ya, I am about ready to chuck it in, return the 40D, and sell all of my Canon gear. What a royal PITA. That is 2 lens I have had out of calibration, two bodies, and I have had IS fail on another L lens after 7 months. I would just like to be able to for once buy some equipment, receive it, and start using it

———

I dont like to whine but i feel your frustrations as i have had a similair experience with all the Canon gear i bought, a 40D severely frontfocussing, a 70-200 backfocussing, a 400mm frontfocussing (which was all dealt with by a Canon servicecentre…but it took many weeks for the gear to return from Canon which i consider unacceptable by itself…) and now i have a similair problem (again..) because the 400mm began to show a serious defect (after 3 months of usage) and while i got a (new) replacementlens from canon (which is positive by itself) that is up to the same level as the first lens IQ-wise…its also backfocussing just like the first copy wasnt properly in calibration…

With so many calibration ‘faulties’ one would have expected Canon to give us atleast a feature to instantly calibrate it on the fly, be it via the body or what do i care how as long as i wont have to sent my gear in all the time and will be able to shoot-on as i need to.

And before somebody comes rushing in saying these things can happen but dont occur that much…yes they do as a lot of my fellow shooters have had to deal with the very same, from their MKIII’s to their 40D’s to their L-lenses.

The Canongear-quality overall is outstanding but its a very bad thing they dont seem to take the time to properly calibrate the stuff before it leaves the factory…

———

Well duh, no kidding. Why should I have to send every bleeding piece of equipment into calibration for Canon. The stuff is not cheap.

And I didn’t even mention my 1d Mark IIn being in twice and out of my hands for a month to fix severe banding at high ISO. This was also out of the box. They had to replace the whole sensor assembly.

———

Canon needs to *&(#()* up and get their act together. I’ve sent in equipment twice and got it back with no apparent improvement although the Canon Service center stated that xyz was replaced and cleaned (8-[)…

Doesn’t look so good, does it?

After receiving a lot of feedback from my previous post on Canon Quality Control sucking bigtime, I thought it would be good to write an update. Before you read on, please read my previous post including the comments to make sure you know where I’m coming from.

A day after my previous post, I noticed that I got banned from the forums at DPReview. And my thread on that forum where I discussed my blog post got deleted as well. Apparently the moderator(s) there, whoever they are (Phil Askey?), don’t like the fact that I seemed to have enough courage to question the many issues Canon seems to have with their DSLR products. Even though I mentioned that the basis of my post was not only because I had experienced issues first hand, but also that I had noticed a trend on the forums where you had posts discussing focus issues every day. And to this day, this trend continues, as I have shown in the comments section of my previous post. Click here to check for yourself. As you will also notice from the feedback I got in the comments section of my previous post, there are many who have issues and agree with me, and you will find many more posts with similar issues by just searching on Google. Today I even noticed a thread on DPReview, where the poster said:

Seems every other thread you read here is about a camera and/or lens not focussing properly or some other issue that results in lousy photos. I’ve had lots of good examples of bad photos

I’m glad I am not the only one who noticed.

I also got feedback from a few professional photographers operating some of the popular digital imaging sites online today, and they also wrote to me in agreement. I noticed however that very few of them talk about these issues openly. And indeed it seems many are afraid to speak up, perhaps afraid to hurt their relationship with Canon or others. Who knows? I was surprised to find photographer Lloyd Chambers courageous enough to post a comment on my previous post where he just honestly admitted to the many issues with Canon lenses, even mentioning:

I would estimate based on my own experience that somewhere between 30-50% of brand new pro-grade lenses have at least mild optical issues, and some, like the 70-200/4 have moderate to severe ones-.

The 30-50% estimate is roughly what I thought myself based on what I have seen online. And I don’t know about you, but that’s A LOT. If this is true, it proves Canon’s quality control is bad. When I browsed around Lloyd’s website, one thing made me understand how he could speak his mind so freely:

Diglloyd.com accepts no manufacturer advertising.  Much content is free [free articles, blog] , but paid reviews help finance the site. Equipment used for paid reviews is purchased through normal retail channels; manufacturer discounts are not accepted.

It’s easy to be honest when you don’t accept ads or other gifts from manufacturers. You don’t have to worry about losing income, losing deals or hurting your relationship with them. I wish more people could be like this. It’s easier to trust Lloyd’s reviews on his website because of this.

But on DPReview? I mentioned issues and got banned. Perhaps there are things we can conclude from this. But I’ll leave that to your own imagination.

But again, what is very clear is that Canon has a major quality control issue on their hands, and every day users write to complain about it, as I have shown here. And again I have to remind you, this is just on one site, searching on Google reveals lots more.

Microsoft is at it again. Back in 2006, I had already written about them stopping support for Playsforsure on new devices, which meant that people who bought music using Microsoft’s Playsforsure DRM infection, would not be able to play their music on new devices, including Microsoft’s own Zune player. This was called one of the more massive screwings of customers by Microsoft.

Well it looks like Microsoft has outdone themselves this time, because they are going to stop supporting their MSN music service:

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running. 

This means that people who invested their money in music from MSN store will soon find that their entire music collection is unusable. To me, this is simply unbelievable. This is another clear example of what happens when you buy DRM infected products. And it further shows why piracy seems to be a better choice these days. Also check out this article:

Today, MS is saying that come August 31, a week or four shy of the two-year anniversary of the night of long knives, you will not be able to re-authorise your music. That means that the music is yours to keep. On one PC. As long as it doesn’t crash. Or you don’t update your OS. Or something doesn’t just decide to stop the music playing. If you do any of these things, you just lost your music permanently.

Basically, MS is stealing from you. It has your money, but you can’t have access the services you bought any more. So they are stopping, and legally, you are screwed. Microsoft has got your money though.

We have been saying for years that ANY sort of DRM is unacceptable, and this goes to show you exactly what we mean. Anyone who bought music from MS just got screwed, period, without recourse. It also proves what we have said for almost the same amount of time, Piracy is the Better Choice (R)(TM)(C).

MS has once again proven that if you steal the music, legality aside, you get a better product. Legally purchased music is demonstrably worse than pirated music. There has never been a case that I am aware of of a pirated copy deciding not to play any more because someone in Redmond decided it was inconvenient. You just get a better product, cheaper too, but also illegal.

Read my previous post on this subject to find out how you can recognize DRM infected products in the future so you don’t waste your money on the long term.

Another thing that has me amazed, is that I cannot understand how consumers seem to be so tolerant these days. It seems companies can do to consumers what they want and even rip them off, like Microsoft is now doing, without them even saying anything about it. Such a move from Microsoft should at least have sparked some major PR issues for them if not lawsuits. But consumers these days appear to have a very high level of tolerance. I recently also wrote about the bad quality control at Canon, with regards to their DSLR products. And there you see a similar problem, consumers are having issues with the products not working well, even out of the box, and many are complaining, but it looks like they just accept it for some reason as being normal. When has it become normal for a company to massively screw so many customers on such a large scale, as Microsoft is doing? When has it become normal to buy a DSLR and finding out that it does not work (well) as soon as you power it on? When has it become normal to buy a lens for your DSLR and finding out it only takes soft pictures and doesn’t focus well?

One thing seems to be clear, and that is that if companies are able to do this with customers, it’s because the customers are stupid enough to let it happen.

It looks like everywhere you look on the Internet, you come across messages from various users complaining about their Canon photography gear. The forums at DPreview for example are filled with posts about camera bodies giving the ERR 99 error message, dying very soon after purchase, can’t focus correctly out of the box and have to be sent in for calibration etc. Similarly for their lenses, there are so many instances of lenses front or back focusing, producing soft images, misalignment, too much chromatic aberration and flare. And these are the more expensive bodies and professional L lenses! They cost a fortune. At prices between $4000 and $8000 for a professional 1D body, and prices between $1400 and $2500 for a professional L lens, you would expect the hardware to perform really well. But apparently not if it’s made by Canon.

I can’t imagine spending $8000 on a 1Ds Mark III body and notice that it doesn’t work well within a few days of getting it. And yet, this is a situation many people have found themselves in. Just search on the Internet. It’s simply incredible. And Canon seems to get away with it too.

Take the autofocus fiasco with the 1D Mark III camera for example. That is just an excellent example of the bad quality control, or the complete lack of something resembling quality control at Canon. It took them months to fix it and a complete recall of all 1D Mark III bodies sold. And then, you find out that it is still not fixed. What a mess.

With such bad quality control, it doesn’t matter what products you deliver and specs that make you look better than the competition don’t matter either. What’s the use of being the only one with a 21 megapixel camera, when it looks like more than half of them don’t function correctly out of the box? When you buy a body or lens from Canon, these days you have to pray that you get a good (enough) copy.

The 40D body doesn’t even have the micro adjust feature so you can adjust the autofocus of lenses that front or back focus slightly. So the only option you have is send the body and lenses back to Canon for calibration. In my opinion, even the consumer level DSLR has to have micro adjust capability for lenses, especially if you can’t seem to make your lenses autofocus correctly out of the box, like is the case with Canon.

And now they are rumored to be working on the 5D mark II body. If that body doesn’t have as much focus points as the Nikon D3/300 (or very close), if it doesn’t have micro adjust for lenses and if it doesn’t have weather sealing comparable to the 1D bodies, they don’t have to release it at all in my opinion. Because Nikon is going to be a much better alternative, as it already is right now. Weather sealing on the Canon EOS 40D is laughable. It’s incredible that Canon even claims that the 40D body is weather sealed. That is simply a big lie.

Canon needs to get their act together ASAP in order not to further damage their reputation, or what remains of it at this point.

Update: Also, do NOT buy the Canon UV Haze Filters. Save your money. They claim that it prevents haziness, but forget to tell you that it also causes some really beautiful internal reflections  in high contrast situations and bright light. In certain situations it also causes loss of contrast in images. Totally unacceptable. And this even when used with L lenses. Most people claim to buy them to protect their lenses, but protecting your lenses can’t happen at the expense of image quality. To this day I wonder why Canon even sells them.

Update 2: Just in case you think I have something against Canon, you should know that I currently own close to $20,000 worth of Canon photography gear. I do however think that they should deliver more quality than they currently do.

Update 3: I also forgot to mention the many instances of camera bodies arriving with dirt, dust and even oil on the sensor or in the mirror box. I actually had one 40D myself that arrived with a big black piece of dirt on the sensor. Way to go Canon!

Update 4 (April, 21 2008): Photographer Lloyd Chambers posted a comment below that is certainly worth reading. The link he provides is further evidence that you cannot seem to trust lenses from Canon and even Nikon these days (Also check this related thread on DPReview.) I like his conclusion:

Don’t assume that your brand-new lens (or one you’ve banged around) is optically good. Test it and see for yourself. Today’s modern lens designs are outstanding, but real lenses must be manufactured and transported, offering many possibilities for theoretical performance to drop considerably.

If you find that your new lens is optically out of whack, you might be able to exchange it for another copy—one good reason to work with a reputable vendor. Or you can send it in for service, which nearly always resolves the problem (in the author’s experience). Both approaches require retesting the lens; there is no guarantee with either approach. The risk in sending it in for service is exceeding the return period of the vendor. Be sure to be as specific as possible about the problem, including photographs that show it clearly. This will help ensure that the problem is fixed.

Lloyd also sent along some more interesting links:

• Optical misalignment with the Canon EOS 24-70/f2.8L
• Focus Accuracy
• Lens Mount Misalignment

And here’s his take on the Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II:

In my view, images from the 16-35 II which have not been corrected for color fringing are unacceptable at 16mm, at least with some subjects, such as the white birches in the test image. I am sorely disappointed at Canon’s assertion that chromatic aberration has been “virtually eliminated”. The claim is so much at odds with the rendered images that one can only marvel at Canon’s brazenness. While we can’t expect too much from an ultra-wide zoom lens, we can expect realistic assessments of imaging performance from the manufacturer.

Owning a copy of that lens myself, I can only confirm this, and I was equally surprised when I saw the first results when using the lens. Finally, I want to add that this part of Lloyd’s comment below:

I would estimate based on my own experience that somewhere between 30-50% of brand new pro-grade lenses have at least mild optical issues, and some, like the 70-200/4 have moderate to severe ones-. Fortunately, in most cases these are correctable with a trip to the service center.

roughly matches with what I’ve seen so far online. Lloyd gives some good tips in this article for when you purchase a new lens.