EOS 1V?

The F5 is a tank..but I don't really like big bodies with grips. Pro Photo rents out the 1V with the grip but they were able to find the normal grip for me. I'm not shooting sports with it, and I find it without the grip more comfortable anyway.

Alright, so today was the day of shooting!

Brought the 1V/50L (of course) and the F100/50G on it. It was middle of the day, typical gray pacific northwest overcast. Shooting mostly pictures of my friend shooting too. She took some with the camera too and liked it alot Shot everything on Kodak Ektar 100

Aside from what I already mentioned, the heft, speed, big viewfinder, etc... there were three things that I noticed right off the bat:

-In the daylight conditions, the AF on the 1V is awesome. Between the F100 and the 1V, the 1V was more decisive (Especially with the center point), and overall quicker.

-Exposure compensation done in Av mode does not translate to Manual. Didn't see this until about a half hour ago. One roll is shot at ISO 50, the others at 100. I'm pretty ticked about that, and the worst part it's my own damn fault. On the Nikon system if you dial in +1ev compensation, than it will also apply it to your manual mode. You're setting +1 after all, even after you've loaded in a new roll, or two, or three, and so on.. Not the case on Canon's..and I have no idea why. So to combat this, I set my ISO manually to 50 so that my +1ev would affect both manual and Av. Well after that roll when I put a new one in, the ISO reverted back to 100 and I didn't catch that.

-Spot metering only works on the center focus point. Why? I wasn't sure until I RTFM (lol, what a concept!) and found that it's that way by defualt. Reason is: You have 45 focus points, but only 21 metering zones. Now i'm used to the Nikon system where they've had over 1,000 zones for the past 15 years. and figured, well hell if it's spot, it will be on the focus point. Not on the 1V.. there are more than twice as many focus points than metering areas. You can have about 11 spot metering areas max. Bummer.

SO...

After shooting with it on a not-so-serious subject, I've found:

-I like how it feels in the hands when working, I like the perkiness of the AF, I like the 50L, you can really tell it destroys out the backgrounds, I like how quiet it rewinds and loads film.
-I do not like the AF system ergonomics, the way it treats exposure compensation, and the limited spot metering.


It may sound grim, but I really do enjoy using the camera, ALOT.
There's a sense of excitement and confidence with the 1V I don't quite get with my F100's. The beef I have with it is relatively small and really I just need some adjusting if I plan on shooting Canon more often. Bottom line is going to be in the scans.


Since I screwed up in more ways than one while shooting today (what's new?), i'll drop them off locally. The scans won't be super, but I'd hate to spend almost $100 shipping out to RPL on film that's mostly focus and bokeh tests. I should be posting them up sometime by the end of the week with my findings!

Till next time..

F/1.4 said:

-Exposure compensation done in Av mode does not translate to Manual. Didn't see this until about a half hour ago. One roll is shot at ISO 50, the others at 100. I'm pretty ticked about that, and the worst part it's my own damn fault. On the Nikon system if you dial in +1ev compensation, than it will also apply it to your manual mode. You're setting +1 after all, even after you've loaded in a new roll, or two, or three, and so on.. Not the case on Canon's..and I have no idea why. So to combat this, I set my ISO manually to 50 so that my +1ev would affect both manual and Av. Well after that roll when I put a new one in, the ISO reverted back to 100 and I didn't catch that.

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For me thats what I expect: exposure compensation affects the automatic metering, not the manual (shot yesterday with my P645N and found out that the pentax does...). Otherwise it would just duplicate the sensitivity setting.
I'm sure there is a custom function to disable the sensitivity setting via DX - once you set the ISO it stays forever.

You're right about the C. Fn. That's what i'll do in the future.

So I got the film back yesterday, and as I expected the scans were not that great, and the lab didn't do what I asked, but whatever.. Aside from that, I'd say it was pretty inconclusive at this point. When I saw the scans, my stomach just turned..

Alot of the Canon shots were out of focus, either slightly or in some cases completely. Always behind the subject, except for one instance.

On pictures where I shot the Canon and Nikon side-by-side, the difference in background rendering was either extremely similar, or impossible to detect. I can't base color, the scans varied so much from frame to frame, it would be useless. Mind you, the Canon was always at f/1.2, the Nikon at f/1.4.

I'll be renting it again soon to shoot another couple rolls and send them down south to RPL. If half the roll is out of focus again, than i'll be sticking to Nikon. There's nothing more frustrating than spending $200 on rentals, film, developing, and scanning, only for 1/3rd-1/2 of the shots (depending on the roll) to be out of focus. I'm still pretty pissed off about that.

Here's a comparison i'm talking about. Aside from the labels, lousy color, and the misfocus on the Canon, in practical terms they look identical.






And this seemed to be par for the course with the Canon, just slightly misfocused.....



I really want to like the Canon, I really do.

F/1.4 said:

Alot of the Canon shots were out of focus, either slightly or in some cases completely. Always behind the subject, except for one instance.

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That sucks. For what it's worth, the 50 L does have a reputation of being tricky to focus. Either due to it's wide aperture or innate focus shift. I've not used it, so I can't comment on my experiences with it. Never had many focus problems with the 50/1.4 though.

Sorry for your findings, focus issues really suck, especially on film, where it is much harder to conduct tests.

Now if you wanted to like the Nikon 50/1.4G you'd have a much easier time- the 50L makes that lens look like a real bargain.

I can totally imagine how you so much want to like/love/embrace the 50L+1V, I've had similar feelings with other gear. Sometimes the facts just aren't how the heart wants them to be. I would give in to the Nikon and enjoy it to bits- will save you a lot of money (and frustration, perhaps).

Alternatively you can try to rent another sample of the 50L and a different body (other type if necessary, 1N, 3, etc.) as well. Just to exclude that this is a structural problem with the lens. If I wanted to like the Canon setup that's what I would do.

Lovely model BTW (friend I suppose), quite photogenic.

Tim Gray said:

That sucks. For what it's worth, the 50 L does have a reputation of being tricky to focus. Either due to it's wide aperture or innate focus shift. I've not used it, so I can't comment on my experiences with it. Never had many focus problems with the 50/1.4 though.

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That's the weird part: no focus shift should show up at full aperture. Perhaps the OP can check if smaller apertures give better results (although you'd expect them to be worse, the focus shift being backwards with closing the aperture).

Or what about renting the lens again and testing it on a digital (crop) body? That way the 1V body can be ruled out (or confirmed) as being the problem; also, digital is much faster and cheaper.

Tim Gray said:

That sucks. For what it's worth, the 50 L does have a reputation of being tricky to focus. Either due to it's wide aperture or innate focus shift. I've not used it, so I can't comment on my experiences with it. Never had many focus problems with the 50/1.4 though.

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I've never had many focus problems with my 50 f/1.4G either. When it gets dark, sure, but otherwise it was generally OK.

sandermarijn said:

Sorry for your findings, focus issues really suck, especially on film, where it is much harder to conduct tests.

Now if you wanted to like the Nikon 50/1.4G you'd have a much easier time- the 50L makes that lens look like a real bargain.

I can totally imagine how you so much want to like/love/embrace the 50L+1V, I've had similar feelings with other gear. Sometimes the facts just aren't how the heart wants them to be. I would give in to the Nikon and enjoy it to bits- will save you a lot of money (and frustration, perhaps).

Alternatively you can try to rent another sample of the 50L and a different body (other type if necessary, 1N, 3, etc.) as well. Just to exclude that this is a structural problem with the lens. If I wanted to like the Canon setup that's what I would do.

Lovely model BTW (friend I suppose), quite photogenic.

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I have to agree with all of that, and you're right with the 50L making the 50G look like a bargain in comparison.

sandermarijn said:

Or what about renting the lens again and testing it on a digital (crop) body? That way the 1V body can be ruled out (or confirmed) as being the problem; also, digital is much faster and cheaper.

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That's what I plan on doing. I'll rent the same 1V (only one available in the area) and i'll see about renting the 50L from Clutch (if they have one). I have a friend with a 60D that i'll also fiddle with on it too. If it shows the same behavior across that situation again, than I'll just stick with the F100's. The 45 focus points, complete weather sealing, data imprinting, slightly softer bokeh, and extra 1/2 stop just aren't worth the frustration if that's going to be the case.

I believe the lens you were using was simply back-focusing. Canon 50L is a decent lens, but it is known for focus variations. I don't care for that lens as I've stated before, but the results you got are/were really down to specific specimen issues.

As far as background blur goes, I don't expect a lot with a 50 unless you're close-focusing. An 85 would provide more blur due to it's inherently higher level of compression.

If you read the reviews of the 50MM f1.2 on the B&H website you will see all kinds of complaints about focusing issues. I thought about buying one, but got scared off. Instead I bought the 24MM 1.4 which works perfectly as far as I can tell.

Looks like you've got the dreaded 50L focus shift. One of the reasons I stayed away from it and went with the slower 1.8 and L zooms.

BTW: Isn't it funny that the two 50s render so closely? Kind of makes one snicker with all the battling people do around these two basic lens designs.

If you want something that will absolutely stand heads and shoulders above both of these lenses, rent a Zeiss 50 Planar. Manual focus only, but totally awesome lens and feel (photograph wise).

Another vote for an F5...

Well Clutch didn't have the 50L in stock for the weekend, so I thought i'd give it a rest for the next few days. Monday, depending on the weather, I'll see what's up. I might also rent the EF 50mm f/1.4 and 24 f/1.4L to take a look at those too.

clayne said:

I believe the lens you were using was simply back-focusing. Canon 50L is a decent lens, but it is known for focus variations. I don't care for that lens as I've stated before, but the results you got are/were really down to specific specimen issues.

As far as background blur goes, I don't expect a lot with a 50 unless you're close-focusing. An 85 would provide more blur due to it's inherently higher level of compression.

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Hatchetman said:

If you read the reviews of the 50MM f1.2 on the B&H website you will see all kinds of complaints about focusing issues. I thought about buying one, but got scared off. Instead I bought the 24MM 1.4 which works perfectly as far as I can tell.

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j-dogg said:

Looks like you've got the dreaded 50L focus shift. One of the reasons I stayed away from it and went with the slower 1.8 and L zooms.

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It's really dissapointing that a $1500 L prime would do that. I even used the peripheral focus points so I wasn't focusing-and-recomposing. It seems to happen with just about all of them too if you're within 4 feet, which I am alot with my 50's. Now I understand that spherical abberations can cause shift, but the 50mm f/1.0 has a floating element to correct for that. So does the 85L. Like I said though, i'll take a look at the EF 50mm f/1.4 too. I like the camera, but the lens just wasn't there which is a shame.

eclarke said:

Another vote for an F5...

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Too big, and when you axe off the vertical grip, what are you left with? The F100, which i've already got 2 of.

F/1.4 said:

Too big, and when you axe off the vertical grip, what are you left with? The F100, which i've already got 2 of.

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Easiest solution: Use what you got.

There are actually not many Canon lenses that one would consider "magic." They're all quite good, but only a few breathe character in addition to being optically great. The 50mm series is not one of those lenses.

Since you want to shoot at 50mm, and you already have an equivalent 50mm, use the F100 and just get on with producing output.

Note: this reply does not hold for the 85mm f/1.2, nor does it hold for Zeiss 50s

As I said earlier, I have the EF 50/1.4. It's a decent lens. Crummy build - it's the only lens I own which I will actually complain about the build quality. Be careful of bumping the front of the lens, or setting it down on the front - it can break the focus mechanism. It's a $100 fix. Other than that, it's lower contrast wide open, but not too bad. It seems accurate in it's focus.

I tried out the 24 L II for a weekend a couple weeks ago. Fantastic lens. My only issue with it was it's size, but that's coming from a rangefinder user. It's really not that big.

You may be experiencing a "death of film" issue - without realizing it. The lens focuses close enough with film for most people, in most situations, and they never push it to its limit by making demanding use of f1.2. However, all current mid-upper level Canon digital cameras allow you to micro-adjust the focus on lenses. Canon simply doesn't care that the lens is a bit off on the 1V. The lens was designed and produced after the 1V went out of production.

Pop that baby on a 5DII and you'd be able to get the thing to focus on a gnat's eye. Sad but true.

Wolfeye said:

You may be experiencing a "death of film" issue - without realizing it. The lens focuses close enough with film for most people, in most situations, and they never push it to its limit by making demanding use of f1.2. However, all current mid-upper level Canon digital cameras allow you to micro-adjust the focus on lenses. Canon simply doesn't care that the lens is a bit off on the 1V. The lens was designed and produced after the 1V went out of production.

Pop that baby on a 5DII and you'd be able to get the thing to focus on a gnat's eye. Sad but true.

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But this is ONLY because the lens is screwed up. Not rocket science here - the lens projects an image that should be in focus on the film plane (whether the plane contains film, or a sensor).

The ability to "adjust" that after the fact is due to shoddy engineering and shouldn't normally be required. Nothing to do with the "death of film" unless you consider "crappy tolerances, and how to adjust your way out of them" to be the new age we should be looking forward to.

Nikkor 50 did quite well BTW.

You have the 50 1.0?

F/1.4 said:

Well Clutch didn't have the 50L in stock for the weekend, so I thought i'd give it a rest for the next few days. Monday, depending on the weather, I'll see what's up. I might also rent the EF 50mm f/1.4 and 24 f/1.4L to take a look at those too.






It's really dissapointing that a $1500 L prime would do that. I even used the peripheral focus points so I wasn't focusing-and-recomposing. It seems to happen with just about all of them too if you're within 4 feet, which I am alot with my 50's. Now I understand that spherical abberations can cause shift, but the 50mm f/1.0 has a floating element to correct for that. So does the 85L. Like I said though, i'll take a look at the EF 50mm f/1.4 too. I like the camera, but the lens just wasn't there which is a shame.

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When using the Canon EOS 1V and the 50 1.2L or the 85 1.2L you REALLY need the Canon Ec-S focusing screen, otherwise when shooting WIDE OPEN it is very hard to get 100% in focus shots every time.

Also you need to have the body and lens calibrated by Canon CPS. They can set the 50 1.2L to a 1V body. Since there are no back focus adjustments on the 1V you need to have CPS do this for you.

When you have the Ec-S focusing screen and a matched set the EOS 1V ROCKS !!

Hope this helps

Thanks

The EC-B focusing screen is also quite nice because it gives you a split-screen. I use it from time to time on mine. For what it's worth, I loved the 50 f/1.2L, but I didn't think it was entirely worth the $1k+ extra cost over the 50 1.4 so I "downgraded". Build quality aside, I don't regret this decision.

I think the 1V is a wonderful and powerful camera. I don't often use the PB-E2 booster drive, but I like to have it available for using larger lenses (which I ironically no longer own, so it doesn't see much use these days )