New Camera

[Markvetnz]

I have a 5d Mark II and a 50D. I spent a day at a motor racing event recently and found the 5D to be hopeless for action photography and the image quality of the 50D isn't comparable to the 5D. I splashed out and bought a 1D mark iv. I picked up a second hand one with only 1500 clicks on it for a pretty good price and still under warranty. I spent last night getting familiar with it and now all I need is a sports event!

Thanks to Colin Southern for keeping me in the poor house. After a few days with him and his 1D's nothing else would suffice. Its all your fault Colin. Anyone got a 400mm f2.8 for sale?

[jiro]

Wow. That is one sweet upgrade. Can't wait to see what your new toy can do. Congratulations, Mark.

[Markvetnz]

Thanks Willie. I can't wait to really use it properly. I've been on a long haul at work lately, so maybe next weekend. Its all weather dependent here at the moment. We get tons of rain in winter down south here.

[Colin Southern]

Congrats Mark,

I'm still on 1Ds3, but if you need any help with the settings, just give me a holla - they're probably very similar.

I remember aviation being expensive, but I think I spent less on it than photography!

[Markvetnz]

I know what aviation costs. My son is busy getting his PPL. Another bottomless pit.

Colin. As far as the autofocus settings go, there is an option to expand the number of focus points if the camera is unable to lock on to the subject quickly. I can either set it to just use the single programmed point or the surrounding 6 points as well or even all 45 points. What do you recommend? Obviously using only one point means that I have to be spot on with panning but I wonder whether using multiple points might not just confuse the issue??

[Colin Southern]

I know what aviation costs. My son is busy getting his PPL. Another bottomless pit.

Colin. As far as the autofocus settings go, there is an option to expand the number of focus points if the camera is unable to lock on to the subject quickly. I can either set it to just use the single programmed point or the surrounding 6 points as well or even all 45 points. What do you recommend? Obviously using only one point means that I have to be spot on with panning but I wonder whether using multiple points might not just confuse the issue??

Hi Mark,

In reality, you're going to need different configurations for different situations. Case in point: Birds in flight - having adjacent AF points enabled is generally a good thing, but with, say, a model in the studio, it's possible that it might use an assist point to lock on to something that's in a different plane.

I'd suggest just remembering that it's there, and if you find that you're not getting the result you want, try changing the settings. That's what I do anyway - I'm always making little tweaks here and there.

Perhaps the most important thing is to understand what all the settings do - so you know in your mind what you can adjust. That's probably the single biggest strength of a 1D series camera - the sheer number of things you can tweak.

Enjoy