10D tracking, an example

[Sebastian]

Many people swear that the Canon 10D is not good enough for sports, while others say the exact opposite. Who's right? Who knows, they never give any examples or go into an details. I know this won't help much, but it might help a little.

Here's a sequence from the 10D with 70-200 f/2.8 IS. The setup tracked perfectly until the first base player got in the way while the runner changed direction, shown in the last two shots. This caused those two to be out of focus while the camera tried to regain tracking. I'm sure the 1D/1DII would have been able to regain lock in time to get at least one frame in focus.



The only comparison I have is the Nikon D100 with 80-200 f/2.8D NON-AF-S. After shooting several football games I can tell you with great certainty that few of these shots would have come out in focus, and once it lost focus it would be nowhere near as close to being right as the 10D was. This is in large part due to the slower focusing of the non-AF-S lens. I never had the chance to shoot a sports event with the AF-S version of the lens.

This is not meant to be an apples to apples comparison, but instead just a little bit of my experience that someone can hopefully benefit from.

BTW, although a large fellow, this guy was not slow. His skinnier buddies were tracked just as well, overall the peformance of the Canon setup was very consistent throughout the night, even as light levels changed. I used AI Servo with the center focusing point selected. Auto point selection worked well also, but had a tendency to focus on the background if I wasn't careful to keep at least one point on the subject.

[Photo-John]

Good post, Sebastian. This is the kind of thing I was envisioning for this board - sharing sports-specific photo techniques. Because shooting sports really does require a different type of knowledge, equipment, and skills.

I thought my 10D's AF tracking worked very well, until it completely failed me. But that's a separate issue. It's actually been repaired although I haven't picked it up yet. I don't think it worked quite as well as my EOS 3 and definitely not as well as the 1D. But that doesn't mean it's no good. From my EOS 3 I learned to have a lot of faith in using the center focus point and AI Servo to lock onto my subect and get multiple shots. If you ask a bunch of seasoned sports photographers I think you'll find they all use pretty much only the center point. It's the sure thing and why mess around and risk missing the shot? I go so far as to shoot a little wide to leave some room for cropping later. Focus is everything. You can crop later. But if your images are soft, you might as well toss them.

[Sebastian]

Good post, Sebastian. This is the kind of thing I was envisioning for this board - sharing sports-specific photo techniques. Because shooting sports really does require a different type of knowledge, equipment, and skills.

I thought my 10D's AF tracking worked very well, until it completely failed me. But that's a separate issue. It's actually been repaired although I haven't picked it up yet. I don't think it worked quite as well as my EOS 3 and definitely not as well as the 1D. But that doesn't mean it's no good. From my EOS 3 I learned to have a lot of faith in using the center focus point and AI Servo to lock onto my subect and get multiple shots. If you ask a bunch of seasoned sports photographers I think you'll find they all use pretty much only the center point. It's the sure thing and why mess around and risk missing the shot? I go so far as to shoot a little wide to leave some room for cropping later. Focus is everything. You can crop later. But if your images are soft, you might as well toss them.

Thanks PJ.

You make good points. Sports is different than typical shooting, but it lessons from it can be applied back to everyday stuff. Shooting weddings, I tend to have the camera track the bride walking up the isle. When kids play, I tend to shoot a bit loose in case any action suddenly shifts to any side. It all helps one way or the other.

I learned to use the center point the hard way. Center points are typically cross-types, at least they are on the mid range bodies. The upper-end tend to have more than one cross type. THe cross is the only sensor that gives you the same performance consistently, the linear ones completely fail if the are parallel to contrast instead of perpendicular, and that will cost you more shots tghan anything. Once again this applies to any shooting, if the pattern isn't locking with other sensors, I'm sure it will lock with a cross.

I'm tired, so I'm sorry if I made no sense...

[JSPhoto]

Thanks PJ.

You make good points. Sports is different than typical shooting, but it lessons from it can be applied back to everyday stuff. Shooting weddings, I tend to have the camera track the bride walking up the isle. When kids play, I tend to shoot a bit loose in case any action suddenly shifts to any side. It all helps one way or the other.

I learned to use the center point the hard way. Center points are typically cross-types, at least they are on the mid range bodies. The upper-end tend to have more than one cross type. THe cross is the only sensor that gives you the same performance consistently, the linear ones completely fail if the are parallel to contrast instead of perpendicular, and that will cost you more shots tghan anything. Once again this applies to any shooting, if the pattern isn't locking with other sensors, I'm sure it will lock with a cross.

I'm tired, so I'm sorry if I made no sense...

I rarely use center focus when shooting motorsports. I tend to use use 1 point off center in the direction the cars are moving and this works very well in most cases. One shot that shows this is the first shot I uploaded with Cole Carter driving up on the front end of another car. If you notice the left side of the photo is in focus but the right is slightly off focus. I actually messed up as I still had the focus set for shooting from the infield. It actually worked out ok though as normally the car going up is out of focus , in this case though it is in focus and the lower car isn't.
It takes some practice to shoot this way, I think it took me two races (nights) to really get the timing right, but now I can probably do it in my sleep.
I usually use center focus for things like basketball, football and so on.

[Sebastian]

The point I'm trying to make is, use cross sensors. On the 10D and D100, they happen to be the center points. On higher end cameras they can be off to the side as well, since those cameras have additional cross sensors. My F100 had three in the horizontal, and I used them a lot. N80, D100 and 10D all have only one, and the non-cross ones are too unreliable to use unless the subject is really contrasty. Don't know what camera you use, but with soemthing like a sports car, with all of its stickers, a linear sensor might not have that much trouble, I wouldn't know from experience though.

[SmartWombat]

Seems the Konica Minolta A2 has a linear sensing algorithm.
I was trying to use the flex focus point to track and focus on moving cars.
When that didn't work I tried focussing on stationary track kerbing.
When THAT didn't work I tried rotating the camera - locked just fine.
Seems it's set up to work best in landscape mode (point & shoot) with vertical subjects.
F1 cars aren't that shape

[Sebastian]

Seems the Konica Minolta A2 has a linear sensing algorithm.
I was trying to use the flex focus point to track and focus on moving cars.
When that didn't work I tried focussing on stationary track kerbing.
When THAT didn't work I tried rotating the camera - locked just fine.
Seems it's set up to work best in landscape mode (point & shoot) with vertical subjects.
F1 cars aren't that shape

THe problem with P&S cams is that the AF works on contrast detection. It has to capture the image, find the area of contrast, adust exposure, update the screen, and try to keep up with your input. With an SLR, seperate sensors and processor take care of the focus, while another sensor and processor take care of the exposure, and another processor taking care of the image processing once the image is taken. SLRs are simply designed for response, the only way to match that with a P&S is to make an SLR with a lens permenantly mounted.

I read your thread on the F1 experience. That sort of thig is very hard for cameras to keep up with, even the lower-priced SLRs. I think you did well with what you had.

As for Digimarc, it doesn't degrade with resizing as far as I know. However, if soemone wants to steal your image, it won't stop them. Digimarc only find images on the web, any other use off the computer is beyond it. Kind of a waste of time and money IMO...

[SmartWombat]

I'm interested in how Digimarc survives, with other steganographic techniques the message will even survive printing and scanning. Though you can't carry much information in the image.