It’s been a busy month at Craft & Vision. First of all they released some Lightroom presets, then the third edition of PHOTOGRAPH magazine. Today they have released Vision is Better 3, a new ebook by David duChemin.

Those of you familiar with David’s work will know he’s a brilliant writer and photographer. Vision is Better 3 is a curated collection of some of the best posts from his blog. It includes two new essays and, as usual, is beautifully laid out.

Most of this content is available on David’s blog, but the ebook brings it all together in a new format that you can read offline and refer back to in years to come. Plus, you can buy all Vision is Better ebooks for just $10. It doesn’t get much better than that…

You can buy Vision is Better 3 for $US5.

Or you can buy the Vision is Better bundle for $10.

Special offer

Buy five or more titles (bundled titles count as one product) from the Craft & Vision store by May 26th at 11:59 PM (PST) and use discount code VIBTHREE20 and you’ll save 20%.

Photo gallery

Here are some spreads from Vision is Better 3:

It’s hard to ignore the number of photos being produced on camera phones using apps like Instagram. Who would have thought that adding filters to photos to create a retro or vintage look would be so popular? Not only that, but it’s often surprisingly effective.

Now, what if you’d like to take advantage of programs like Instagram but want to apply them to photos taken with your camera rather than use a camera phone to take the photos? One option is to load the photos you want to alter to your phone or tablet then use Instagram (or your app of choice) to edit them (you can see some examples of that here). But that’s an awkward way of working and the software also reduces the size of the image.

You can also use Photoshop Actions or Lightroom Presets to achieve similar effects, but with a lot more control (you can read my article about using Lightroom Presets here).

Perfect Effects 4 Free

Enter Perfect Effects 4 Free, made by onOne Software for both Mac and PC. It lets you apply fancy Instagram type effects to your images, a little like using presets in Lightroom or actions in Photoshop. Click the link to go to onOne software’s website and find out more.

That’s the fun side of the software – it also has a few tools for more serious functions like retouching portraits. Best of all it’s free, and it gives you a taste of what you can expect from other onOne Software applications.

Note: Perfect Effects 4 Free is a scaled down version of Perfect Effects 4. You can buy the full version of Perfect Effects 4 on its own or as part of the Perfect Photo Suite.

Perfect Effects 4 Free for portraits

Let’s start by taking a look at how you can use Perfect Effects 4 Free to spice up your portraits. Remember, the best way to use software like this is to make good photos better. Don’t fall into the trap of using it to try and make mediocre images look better than they really are.

Here’s my original portrait, processed in Lightroom 4:

This is the Perfect Effects 4 interface. It displays your photo in the middle, with effects and presets on the left. There’s a Navigator pane on the right, with layers displayed underneath:

Click on any of the Effects categories on the left to reveal the options. The program displays a thumbnail with a preview. Click the thumbnail to apply the effect. It is applied as a layer and displayed in the Effects stack on the right, where you can click the eye icon to turn the effect on or off.

Each later has an Amount slider, similar to Opacity in Photoshop. If an Effect is too strong, use the Amount slider to reduce it. You can also stack several effects on top of each other, varying the Amount of each (use the Add button to create a new layer each time). This gives you a lot of control:

Here are some more examples. They show some of the available effects:

Black & white – coffee

Cross-process blue

Landscape – Magic sunset

Vintage – Blue yellow

Vintage – Honky tonk

Vintage – Mayor

The most interesting (and Instagram-like) effects are found under the Vintage tab. Combining the Vintage Effects with Black & White Effects creates some interesting results:

Black & white – coffee & Vintage – Honky Tonk

Black & white – sepia & Vintage – Red yellow

Portrait retouching in Perfect Effects 4 Free

This is all good fun, but Perfect Effects 4 Free has some useful tools as well. A good one for portrait photographers is Auto Skin Smoother. Here’s an example of it in action, with the Amount dialled down to 60 (the skin smoothing effect is applied to a new layer) so it looks realistic:

In both cases I used the Masking Brush to restrict the skin smoothing effect to the face. The Masking Brush is can be used with any of the Effects, and lets you apply it to just part of the image. This screenshot shows you how it works – the red area is masked and unaffected by the Auto Skin Smoother Effect:

Brushes

You can use brushes to make local adjustments. For this portrait I used skin smoother and lighter brushes to lighten the shadows underneath my model’s eyes, and warm and more punch brushes to add contrast and warmth to the background:

Original portrait

Processed in Perfect Effects 4 Free

Finally here’s another portrait that I processed in Lightroom 4 then ran through Perfect Effects 4 Free:

These are the Effects I used to obtain this look.

Vintage – Honky Tonk
Vintage – Brandon
Vignettes – Subtle Vignette
Landscape – Magic Desert
Vignettes – Dark Glow Vignette

Perfect Effects 4 presets

Just like Lightroom, Perfect Effects 4 Free lets you create presets. You should do this after you have applied Effects and brushes, but before you save the image (as the Effects stack is compressed into a single layer for saving if you select JPEG or TIFF formats).

Go to Preset > Save Preset to save your settings as preset. You can then easily apply it to any of your photos, and make changes to the settings to suit the image you are editing.

Toxic Warmth Heavy

In my last article I wrote about using Lightroom presets to simplify the task of processing portraits (you can catch up here). One of the benefits of using presets is that you can buy, or download for free, presets created by other photographers. It’s reasonable to ask yourself, before making a purchase, whether buying presets can really make a difference to your images.

Sometimes, the answer is no. I’ve downloaded presets (thankfully free ones) that provided a special effect (that didn’t work with my Raw files anyway) and nothing more.

But sometimes, you may find presets that genuinely help you create better images. They are a tool, not a gimmick, and help you become better at using Lightroom.

Craft & Vision Lightroom presets

Craft & Vision have just released two sets of Lightroom Presets. I have tried them myself and found them genuinely useful, and I’m sure you will too.

The first set was created by Dave Delnea, professional photographer and Craft & Vision author.

The second set was created by David duChemin. It’s been available on his website for a while, and now you can buy it at Craft & Vision.

The sets cost $10 each or you can buy them bundled together for $18. Of course, being Craft & Vision, there’s a special offer – order before May 5, 2013 and get both packages for $16 when you use the discount code PRESET2. That’s 82 Lightroom presets used daily by working photographers, for only $0.20/each.

You can buy Dave Delnea’s presets here.

You can buy David duChemin’s presets here.

Or you can go wild and buy the bundle here.

Okay, that’s the deal, let’s take a closer look at what you get.

Dave Delnea: A set of 46 Lightroom presets that Dave uses to process photos taken for commercial clients. They are all colour presets and include a guide to show you how to install and use them.

David duChemin: A set of 36 presets, mostly colour but including some black and white, that David uses to process his photos taken for personal use and commercial clients. A guide is included to show you how to use them.

Using Lightroom presets

The benefits of using third-party presets are:

• You can create different looks that you might not have thought of until you used a particular preset.

• You can see how the photographer uses Lightroom to achieve certain effects – a great way to learn more about how it works.

It’s important to understand that Lightroom presets are just a starting point. Every Raw file is different, and not every preset is going to suit every Raw file (the guides that come with the Craft & Vision presets explain what types of photo the presets suit). A degree of common sense is required, and you will need to take control and make adjustments to your images to get the best out of these (or any) presets.

Craft & Vision presets in action

To get an idea of how useful the Craft & Vision presets can be I used them to process a couple of photos of mine. I processed the original image in both examples in Lightroom 4, to achieve a look that I am happy with. Then, I made a virtual copy and applied various presets to see if they improved the image.

It has opened my eyes to different ways of processing my images. I tend to get locked into processing my photos a certain way, and these presets have shown me a different approach.

These are my favourites:

Dave Delnea Lightroom presets

Original image, processed in Lightroom 4, no presets

Backlight horizontal right

Blue hour look 1

Desaturated green look 2

Forest walks look 2

Washed tropics look 2

Washed vintage look 1

David duChemin Lightroom presets

Original image, processed in Lightroom 4, no presets

Golden hour

Honey on land

Midtone lift with vignette and clarity

Milford greens

New direct positive with vignette

Maasai split

Old Polar Lightroom preset

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about processing portraits (you can read that article here). I touched on using Lightroom Presets, and today I want to explore that topic a little more deeply.

One of the biggest advantages of Lightroom 4, for me, over other software such as Photoshop CS or Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) is the ability to save the settings that I used to process an image as a preset.

Here are some of the benefits of including presets in your workflow:

• Presets save you time. You can use them to automate tasks that you perform regularly.

• If you come up with a ‘look’ that you like, you can save the settings you used to obtain it as a preset. You can then use that preset to process other images or pass it on, or even sell it, to other photographers.

• You can use presets created by other photographers to automate some tasks or process your images. This lets you benefit from the processing expertise of other photographers. It forms part of the learning process too as you can see the settings used and learn how to apply those functions to your own images.

• You can use presets, whether your own or somebody else’s, as a starting point. You can change as many of the settings as you wish in order to adapt the preset to your images.

Automating your workflow

There are two ways that you can use Lightroom presets to automate your workflow:

1. Applying presets upon import

You can select a preset to apply to Raw files at the import stage. The preset becomes a starting point that you can work from.

You could create several presets just for this purpose, and select the one that is most appropriate for the subject. For example, I have a preset that I use for portraits. It sets Picture Style to portrait, White balance to daylight, enables lens corrections and zeroes the Tone and Presence sliders.

The aim of this preset is to automate these tasks, and bring me to a starting point from where I can edit the portrait.

This screenshot shows where you can select a Lightroom preset to apply during import:

2. Automating tasks during processing

You can also use presets to automate certain tasks during processing. First, you need to create a new preset:

1. Go to the Develop menu and select New Preset.

2.In the New Develop Preset window, select the settings that you want to save in the preset. If you are saving a preset to use that stores most of the settings used, then the boxes ticked would look something like this. The only boxes left unticked are the ones which will differ according to the composition of the image (such as Graduated Filters and Post-crop Vignetting) or the ISO settings (Noise Reduction):

Alternatively, you can select a single setting. The idea is to automate part of your workflow to save time. For example, you could create vignettes, or graduated filters, or even a set of presets that apply different contrast settings or exposure adjustments.

The preset applies the settings whose boxes are ticked. If the only box ticked is Split Toning, as in this next example, then using this preset will alter the split toning settings and nothing more (I use this to store split toning presets to apply to my black and white portraits):

Gavin Gough explores this idea further in this ebook The Photographer’s Workflow, which includes a set of Lightroom presets to help you automate your workflow. Click the link to read my review of his ebook.

Other people’s Lightroom presets

There seem to be quite a few photographers and companies providing Lightroom presets. Some are free, others you will have to buy. These can be fun to experiment with and the better ones should help you improve your processing skills. Feel free to Google ‘Lightroom presets’ and see what comes up. There are also links later in this article to Lightroom Presets that I’ve found useful. They are a good place to start.

Once you have obtained some presets you need to add them to Lightroom:

1. Open Preferences (Lightroom > Preferences on a Mac, Edit > Preferences on a PC).

2. Click the Presets tab and then the Show Lightroom Presets folder button.

3. Copy your new presets to the Develop Presets folder and restart Lightroom.

With Lightroom open, you will find the presets in the left-hand panel in the Develop module. Hover over a preset to see a preview in the Navigator panel. Click the preset to apply it to the image. If you are happy with the result, you can stop right there. Or you might like to go to the develop settings and tweak them to bring the best out of your image:

Lightroom presets in action

Let’s take a look at what you can achieve with Lightroom presets. I’ve selected a portrait to demonstrate. This is the original, processed in Lightroom 4. It’s good enough to be considered a final image, but I thought it would be fun to see how many different versions I could produce using Lightroom presets, and how they differ to the original:

Portrait processed in Lightroom 4 (no presets)

Lightroom 4 presets

Let’s start with some of the presets that come with Lightroom 4. You don’t have to do anything to obtain these – they are already there:

Aged photo

Video Colour pop

Video Cross process 2

Black & white look 5

Creamtone

Orange filter

Yellow filter

Sepia tone

Split tone 4

OnOne Software’s free Lightroom presets

OnOne Software provides some free Lightroom presets – The Signature Collection. I really like these, there are some interesting effects that you can play with. You can download these presets here:

Glow – Subtle portrait

Gritty – Daylight

Gritty – Warm

Movie Looks – Clarity

Tinting – Red

Toners – Black & white high contrast

Toners – Light mocha

Presets Heaven vintage presets

A set of seven free vintage presets that you can download here:

Vintage III

Vintage V

Vintage VI

You may be aware that I write articles for other websites as well as this blog and my magazine and ebook commitments. I thought it would be fun to create a page with links to articles that I have written. I’ve tried out a few different options and finally settled on Pinterest. It looks beautiful and is easy to use.  You can see my Pinterest page here (you don’t have to be a Pinterest member to access it).

I’ve spent the last six months taking and processing a lot of portraits. I tried out lots of software to see which works well for me. My conclusion? Lightroom 4 is by far the best option out there. Other software has its place for specific features, but for versatility and ease of use, not to mention quality of results, Lightroom comes out on top (the portrait above is processed with Lightroom 4).

Let me show you some examples.

I took this portrait with an EOS 5D Mark II and 85mm lens and processed it in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP). That’s Canon’s proprietary Raw processing software, supplied with its cameras.

I set the Picture Style to Portrait, white balance to cloudy and tweaked the highlights and contrast sliders. That’s about as far as I can take it in DPP, and it’s fairly close to what would come out of the camera if I chose to use the JPEG format instead of Raw. To do more with this portrait I need to use other software.

When it comes to portraits, there are a few features that DPP lacks:

• The ability to retouch portraits or soften skin.
• Local adjustments (all adjustments are global in DPP).
• Some sort of preset system to make it easier to save your settings or use third-party settings to process your portraits to obtain a certain ‘look’.
• Advanced black and white processing and toning.

Not all readers of this article will be Canon users or use DPP. But no matter how you get to this point with your portrait, you probably have the same question. How do you start with a portrait like the one above, and retouch and enhance it so that it looks great?

Here are some of the options. I’ll leave Lightroom 4 until last, so I can explain why it’s my favourite.

Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements

Most photographers have one or both of these programs. There is a lot you can do with both, and the layers system gives you great flexibility. However they both take a long time to learn, both can get complicated and there is very little that is intuitive about their use.

Let’s take a look at what I managed to do with Photoshop CS (you can do the same in Photoshop Elements):

I used the healing brush tool to eliminate the lines under her eyes and the high pass filter to soften the skin (I’ll write a tutorial about that technique another time). You may have to look closely to see the difference, so here’s a comparison:

It’s possible to go too far with removing lines from under eyes, but this time I think I’m okay. My intent is normally to lighten rather than eliminate, as I’m after a natural look rather than a heavily retouched one. It’s a subjective judgement I make on a case by case basis.

OnOne Software

OnOne Software is a company that is making useful software that you can use in conjunction with, or even in place of, Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements.

For this article I used Perfect Portraits 2 and Perfect Effects 4, which I purchased as part of Perfect Photo Suite 7 (click the link for details).

This is what I managed to achieve using these two pieces of software:

I used Perfect Portrait 2 to smooth Wimmy’s skin, and enhance her eyes and lips. I lightened the area under her eyes in Perfect Effects 4. This is easier and more intuitive than using Photoshop.

Here’s the comparison with Photoshop CS. Note the difference in eyes and lips:

Another feature of Perfect Effects 4 is that it contains presets you can apply to your images. These are fun, and extend your creative options. Here are a couple I used:

Lomo Soft preset. The difference is very subtle.

Split blue orange preset. This one is not so subtle.

If your curiosity has been piqued, you can try out some of these presets for yourself with the free version of Perfect Effects 4.

Lightroom 4

So far, both Photoshop CS and Perfect Photo Suite 7 have proved very effective for processing my portrait. Earlier I said that Lightroom 4 has become my favourite software for portrait processing. Here are some reasons why:

• Lightroom 4 is more than a Raw processor. It lets me catalog, view, organise and search my Raw files. Lightroom 4 is a tool that has become an integral part of my workflow from the time I download my Raw files from the memory card through to exporting final images.
• Lightroom is intuitive. I’ve used that word a lot, I know, but here’s what I mean. In Photoshop CS or Elements, if you want to smooth skin you need to create another layer, apply a softening effect and use a layer mask to control the effect. In Lightroom 4 you just use an adjustment brush, set it to skin smoothing and brush in the skin smoothing effect where required. It’s easy and you don’t need to follow step by step instructions to do it.
• You can buy or download free Lightroom presets that let you apply creative effects to your portraits. It’s easy to edit any part of the preset as the settings don’t have to be applied in any particular order. You can use Photoshop actions to create similar effects in Photoshop CS, but they are not as flexible or as easy to alter.
• You can make virtual copies. This is very useful especially if, like me, you like to create multiple versions of the same portrait for converting to black and white, toning or applying other effects.
• I can use Lightroom 4 to do most of the processing work, then export a JPEG or TIFF file to edit in other software as required. Often you can open the image directly in the software or plug-in from Lightroom 4 if you wish.

Here is how this portrait came out after processing in Lightroom 4. The key difference compared to what I was able to do with Photoshop CS or Perfect Photo Suite 7 is that I was able to process the background with a different colour temperature. I did this to emphasise the difference in colour between Wimmy’s skin and the background (an out of focus metallic children’s slide in a playground that appeared slightly blue anyway as it was reflecting the blue sky):

Here’s the comparison with Photoshop CS. Note the difference in background colour (which is possible in Photoshop using masks, but a little more complex):

Black & white in Lightroom

I also like Lightroom 4 for converting to black and white. Here are some toned black and white versions of the portrait:

Lightroom presets

Lightroom presets make it easy to experiment with different ‘looks’. Here are some more versions of this portrait I created. Not all are flattering – but they are interesting and show what can be done.

The OnOne Lightroom presets, part of the OnOne Signature Collection, are free. Download them here.

David duChemin’s Lightroom presets are part of a package of 36 presets. They cost $US10 and you can download them here.

OnOne Gritty Light Lightroom preset

OnOne Toners – Mocha  Lightroom preset

OnOne Vintage – Grandma’s Lemonade Lightroom preset

OnOne Vintage – Classic Muted Lightroom preset

OnOne Cross-Process Blue Lightroom preset

David duChemin Black & White Green Filter Warm Duo Lightroom preset

David duChemin New Direct Positive – No Vignette Lightroom preset

A treat for you today – Craft & Vision have released their second free ebook. It’s called Craft & Vision 2: More Great Ways to Make Stronger Photographs and you have to do to obtain your copy is click on the link and go and download it.

Craft & Vision 2 contains essays by David duChemin and several Craft & Vision authors including Martin Bailey, Nicole S. Young, Piet van den Eynde and Dave Delnea. Here are some spreads to give you a taste of what’s inside:

Canon EOS cameras use three types of autofocus (AF) system:

• Phase detection AF. Used in the majority of EOS cameras (this is the system I’m going to write about in this article).

• Contrast detection AF. Used in EOS cameras where autofocus is available in Live View and movie mode.

• Hybrid AF. Phase detection AF and contrast detection AF are combined to obtain accurate autofocus and tracking in Live View and movie mode. A relatively new feature only available on the EOS 650D, 700D and EOS M (I’ll cover the latter two in a future article).

Phase Detection Autofocus

In the traditional SLR design used in all EOS cameras apart from the EOS M, light passes through the lens, hits a reflex mirror and is reflected up through a pentaprism and out through the viewfinder. The aim of this type of camera design is to show you exactly what the lens is seeing, avoiding the parallax errors you get at close focusing distances with rangefinder and twin lens reflex lens cameras.

The centre of the camera’s mirror is translucent and a sub-mirror behind it reflects light down into the base of the camera body, where the autofocus sensor unit is positioned (the photo above shows the autofocus unit of the EOS 50D). This is the heart of the phase detection autofocus system. This diagram shows the paths of light through the camera body:

The autofocus unit contains a sensor known as BASIS (BAse Stored Image Sensor). It is made from two 48 bit line sensors and amplifier circuitry. The autofocus sensor in each EOS camera contains line sensors that correspond to that camera’s autofocus points.

This is the autofocus sensor of the EOS 5D Mark III. The lines on the sensor match the camera’s autofocus point array (which you can read more about here):

Phase Detection Autofocus in action

The light reflected from the sub-mirror is split into two separate images by microlenses in the autofocus sensor unit, each aimed at two lines on the autofocus sensor corresponding to the active AF point.

• If the images hit the two lines precisely, the subject is in focus.

• If the two images are closer together, then the lens is focused in front of the subject.

• If the two images are further apart, then the lens is focused behind the subject.

The distance between the two images tells the camera how much the lens is out of focus. The autofocus unit works out how far to move the lens to bring the subject into focus, and in which direction, then drives the lens to that position.

High precision AF points

Most EOS cameras contain at least one high-precision AF point. For each high-precision AF point the autofocus sensor has two sets of lines. The second set of lines is further apart and is used by the autofocus sensor unit when you have a lens with an aperture of f2.8 or wider mounted on the camera. As the lines are further apart the autofocus sensor unit can measure the distance that the lens has to move to obtain accurate focus more precisely. This only works with lenses that have an aperture of f2.8 or wider as the system requires a certain amount of light to function accurately (lenses with smaller maximum apertures let less light pass through).

Limitations of Phase Detection AF

There are three main limitations of Phase detection AF:

• It doesn’t work as well in low light. The camera needs light to focus and the less of it there is, the more difficult accurate focus becomes.

• It may not be able to focus accurately on low contrast subjects. This applies Contrast detection AF as well.

• You can’t put AF points close to the edge of the frame. That’s because the camera focuses with the lens set to its widest aperture, and the edges of the frame are always darker than the centre at this setting. Since Phase detection AF doesn’t work well in low light, the vignetting makes it impractical to place AF points near the edge of the frame.

Phase Detection AF and Live View

Phase Detection AF forms part of a very accurate and precise autofocus system that allows high end EOS cameras like the EOS 1D-X to accurately track fast and erratically moving subjects. But it does have limitations. One of those is that it doesn’t work in Live View or movie mode. In those modes, the camera’s mirror is flipped up to allow the light from the lens to reach the sensor in a continual feed, and light no longer reaches the autofocus unit. This diagram shows the path of light through the camera body in Live View or movie mode:

I don’t use autofocus in Live View or with movie mode but I’m sure many people do. Canon uses Contrast detection AF and Hybrid AF to enable the use of autofocus in Live View and movie mode. I will look at these, and how they differ in practical use from phase detection AF, in my next article.

Up until the release of the EOS 1D-X the EOS 1D Mark IV was Canon’s most advanced professional camera. Photographers who bought one will use it happily for many years to come. Some readers may also be tempted to buy one on the second hand market, as a relatively economical way of purchasing a 1 Series camera.

The EOS 1D Mark IV has a 45 point autofocus (AF) array with up to 41 cross-type AF sensors, depending on the lens used with the camera. This is the same array used by all 1 Series cameras up until the EOS 1D-X (which you can read about here).

1 Series cameras

Before I look at the autofocus of the EOS 1D Mark IV in more detail (pictured above), let’s take a brief look at the 1 Series range of EOS cameras. These are aimed at professional photographers and are designed to withstand the rigours of the working professional’s life. These are some of the features that differentiate 1 Series camera from other EOS cameras:

• Weatherproofing. 1 Series cameras are more resistant to water and dust, especially when used with L series lenses (that are also weatherproofed).

• Build quality. 1 Series cameras are built to last. A disadvantage of this is that they are heavier than other EOS cameras.

• Built-in portrait grip. No need to buy a portrait grip. The built-in grip on 1 Series cameras houses a larger battery that lasts longer.

• More shutter actuations. The shutters are built to last longer than those on other EOS cameras.

• More AF points. Up until the release of the EOS 7D if you wanted an EOS camera with more than nine AF points you had to buy a 1 Series camera. Now, you also have the choice of the EOS 7D, 5D Mark III and (to a lesser extent with 11 AF points) the 6D.

Up until the release of the EOS 1D-X, 1 Series EOS cameras were split into two lines:

The 1D series

EOS 1D, 1D Mark II, 1D Mark IIN, 1D Mark III, 1D Mark IV

These cameras have an APS-H sensor (mid-way in size between APS-C and full-frame sensors). They have high burst speeds, high precision autofocus and are aimed at wildlife and sports photographers.

The 1Ds series

EOS 1Ds, 1Ds Mark II, 1Ds Mark III

These cameras have full-frame sensors and higher megapixel counts than their 1D counterparts. The ‘s’ stands for studio, which is where these cameras are intended to be used. They have slower burst speeds. The autofocus system is exactly the same as the corresponding 1D series camera.

The 1D-X

Last year, the 1D and 1Ds lines were consolidated into the 1D-X, an all-rounder with a full-frame sensor, high burst speed and high-precision 61 point autofocus.

EOS 1D Mark IV

This is the autofocus array of the EOS 1D Mark IV:

If you manually select an AF point (the best way to use the camera in One Shot AF mode), there are 39 high precision cross-type AF points to choose from if you have a lens with an aperture of f2.8 or wider. This also applies to some L series lenses and lens/extender combinations with a maximum aperture of f4 (listed in the camera’s instruction manual):

If you let the camera select an AF point automatically there are 19 high precision cross-type sensors available when you use a lens with a maximum aperture of f2.8 or more:

If your lens has a maximum aperture between f4 and f2.8, the only cross-type autofocus point is the centre one. If your lens has a maximum aperture of f5.6 then there are no cross-type AF sensors available.

The EOS 1D Mark IV has more cross-type AF points than preceding 1 Series cameras. These are the AF points arrays from earlier models (cross-type AF sensors available with f2.8 or greater lenses). All these cameras have 45 total AF points:

EOS 1D Mark III & 1Ds Mark III

19 cross-type AF points:

EOS 1D, 1D Mark II, 1D Mark IIN, 1Ds, 1Ds Mark II

7 cross-type AF points:

Conclusion

The EOS 1D Mark IV may be a discontinued model but it’s still a high-performance camera with advanced autofocus designed for sports and wildlife photographers. The autofocus of a second-hand 1D Mark IV will outperform that of any EOS camera except the EOS 5D Mark III or 1D-X. The extra ‘reach’ created by the 1.3x crop factor of the APS-H sensor may also appeal to photographers using telephoto lenses, and gives it a slight edge over full-frame cameras in some scenarios.

If you look around online about the EOS 5D Mark II* you will inevitably come across negative comments about its autofocus performance. Is that justified? Well, partially (in my opinion). I see no good reason why the EOS 5D Mark II has only one cross-type AF point when the EOS 40D (released earlier) and EOS 50D (released at the same time) have nine cross-type AF points.

* I looked at the autofocus (AF) performance of my EOS 5D Mark II (plus other EOS cameras with the same nine point AF array) earlier in the series. You can read that article here.

Thankfully, any autofocus concerns with the 5D cameras have been well and truly put to rest with the release of the EOS 5D Mark III. It has 41 cross-type AF points and features the same autofocus system as the top-of-the-line EOS 1D-X. Together, these two cameras contain Canon’s most advanced autofocus system yet.

While there are some minor differences, the autofocus of the EOS 5D Mark III and 1D-X is nearly identical, so I will look at both together in this article.

EOS 5D Mark III

The EOS 5D Mark III has a 61 point AF array with up to 41 cross-type AF sensors available (depending on the maximum aperture of the lens mounted on the camera). This is more AF points than any other EOS camera except the 1D-X.

This diagram shows the arrangement of the 61 AF points:

If you have a lens with a maximum aperture of f5.6 on the camera (with some exceptions) you have 21 cross-type AF points available (marked in red):

If you have a lens with a maximum aperture of f4 or wider on the camera you have an extra 20 cross-type AF points available (marked in green):

If you have a lens with a maximum aperture of f2.8 or wider on the camera the five centre AF points become high precision points with twice the sensitivity of the rest to assist with focusing prime lenses at wide apertures (marked in red):

If you use the camera in Single point AF or Spot AF modes and select an AF point that is not a cross-type point, the AF point blinks in the viewfinder to let you know. I like this – it’s very useful as it means that you don’t have to memorise the above patterns.

This is how the autofocus point array of the EOS 5D Mark III compares to those of the EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D. As well as having more autofocus points, they cover a larger area of the viewfinder:

The EOS 5D Mark III (and 1D-X) use a transparent LCD overlay in the viewfinder to give more flexibility in the way the autofocus points are displayed and used (the only other EOS camera with a transparent LCD overlay in the viewfinder is the 7D). This camera menu screen shot from the 5D Mark III shows you the options. Choose anything other than 61 points and the camera displays only the available AF points in the viewfinder. Clever!

Note that you lose some of the above functionality with certain zoom lenses (those with maximum apertures approaching f5.6, such as an EF 28-80mm f3.5-5.6 lens), or if you use a prime lens with the 1.4x or 2x extenders. Canon lists all the affected lenses in the instruction manual.

Autofocus tracking

Autofocus has two purposes. One is to be accurate when focusing on a still subject (ie when the camera is in One Shot AF mode). The other is to accurately track and focus on a moving subject in AI Servo mode. The autofocus system of the EOS 5D Mark III has several features that help achieve the second purpose.

Part of that is down to the 61 point AF array. This is great for shooting still subjects, but helps the camera keep track of moving subjects as well.

Another feature is that the camera’s predictive autofocus is highly customisable. You can calibrate it to suit the type of moving subject you are photographing.

There are six ‘cases’, and you simply choose the one that you want to use. This is what they do, in brief:

Case 1: Versatile multi purpose setting

This is a general setting that you will use, unless one of the other cases suits your subject better.

Case 2: Continue to track subject, ignoring possible obstacles

The camera locks onto the moving subject and tries not to be influenced by anything that appears between your lens and the subject, or to focus on the background if the subject leaves the area of the viewfinder covered by the AF points.

Example use: You could use this if you were photographing a rugby player in a scrum and wanted the camera to keep focus on that player, and not any others that are closer.

Case 3: Instantly focus on subjects suddenly entering AF points

This does the opposite to the previous case. If a new subject enters the area of the viewfinder covered by the AF points, the camera will stop tracking the current subject and switch to the new one.

Example use: This is useful for photographing sports or wildlife where you want the camera to focus on whatever player or animal is closest to the camera.

Case 4: For subjects that accelerate or decelerate quickly

Some subjects move around at an even speed (such as a bird in flight) and others may change speed or direction quickly (such as players on a sports field). This mode lets the camera know that the subject may change direction and speed rapidly. It lets the camera know how you expect the subject to behave so that it can use the information to keep track better.

Example use: Cornering in motor sports, football players avoiding tackles.

Case 5: For erratic subjects moving quickly in any direction

This mode tells the camera that the subject may move quickly in any direction and change direction at any moment. Helps the camera keep track.

Example use: Figure skating, air races.

Case 6: For subjects that change speed and move erratically.

This case combines the two types of movement of the previous two cases.

Example use: Basketball or rhythmic gymnastics.

Note: Cases five and six can’t be used in Single point AF or Single point spot AF modes. They are designed to be used with multiple AF points to track the subject.

Furthermore, each of these cases has parameters that you can adjust to tweak the camera’s autofocus to work the way you want it to.

The menu options are well thought out and make a complex and potentially confusing autofocus system relatively simple to use.

EOS 1D-X

The autofocus system used in the EOS 5D Mark III first appeared in the EOS 1D-X. The two systems are nearly identical but the 1D-X does have a slight edge when it comes to tracking moving subjects.

This is very clever – the camera uses the data gathered by its autoexposure sensor to calculate the colour of the moving subject that it supposed to track. It then uses this information to help differentiate the subject from the background. It works with faces as well as colour.

The EOS 5D Mark III has a different autoexposure sensor and doesn’t support this feature.

Conclusion

Canon have answered any complaints about the autofocus performance of the EOS 5D Mark II emphatically in the EOS 5D Mark III. This camera really does seem to have everything – high ISO performance, a full-frame sensor and high-precision autofocus.

If you’re a sports or wildlife photographer, or simply want to have a camera with high-performance autofocus, then there are now three superb cameras to choose from: the EOS 7D, 5D Mark III and 1D-X. I await the anticipated release of a 7D Mark II this year with interest.