I recently was working in Costa Rica and started trying out some night shots with my new Canon 5D. I had used a 10D before so I thought that it should work similarly.
In the end it was really frsutrating trying to get some way of focusing in low light. It was too dark to see through the lens and the AF wouldn't work either. So I finally estimated the distance and did everything in manual mode. It was pretty hit and miss and in some situations I never got a shot that was to my liking.
Also I noticed that many of my longer exposures had some movment in them. Anything over a second long had motion blur in the distant lights. I was using a good heavy SLIK tripod with a remote trigger and there was no wind. I really can't figure out where the motion was coming from unless it was in the camera itself or slight ground tremors ( I was photographing near a volcano).
I would appreciate it if anyone has some suggestions that might work for night focussing.
Thanks,Bill
In the end it was really frsutrating trying to get some way of focusing in low light. It was too dark to see through the lens and the AF wouldn't work either. So I finally estimated the distance and did everything in manual mode. It was pretty hit and miss and in some situations I never got a shot that was to my liking.
Also I noticed that many of my longer exposures had some movment in them. Anything over a second long had motion blur in the distant lights. I was using a good heavy SLIK tripod with a remote trigger and there was no wind. I really can't figure out where the motion was coming from unless it was in the camera itself or slight ground tremors ( I was photographing near a volcano).
I would appreciate it if anyone has some suggestions that might work for night focussing.
Thanks,Bill
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Re: Canon 5D problems with focussing in night shots
Tue, December 26, 2006 - 12:39 AMI'm just guessing with the following - did you use mirror lockup?
And I've heard the 5D is second only to the 1DsMkII regarding autofocus in low-light situations.
H
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Re: Canon 5D problems with focussing in night shots
Tue, December 26, 2006 - 10:54 PMcarry a flashight.and shine the object first turn on the autofocus focus on the object then shut off the flashight.
The 10 D had a flash assist beam, the 5D does not unless you have the 580 camera flash attached to the hot shoe. the Infared emitor should be on.
I notice the same issue with this compared to my 10d and 20d. -
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Re: Canon 5D problems with focussing in night shots
Tue, January 23, 2007 - 12:54 PMHow disappointing.
I'm just about to buy a 5D and for two big reasons - low light focus and full frame sensor (1600 ASA rocks on the 5D).
I've tried Canon 5D, Nikon D70, D80, D200 in the store to compare the focus. THe 5D well outperformed the Nikons on lowlight, low contrast. I have a Nikon D70 and it drives me absolutely bananas on low light. I didn't even think to try a Canon 10D or 30D for that matter. I'd have a hard time believing they focused better but it's possible. It seemed to me the Nikon D80 focused better than the D200 on low contrast.
I wish there was a killer way to focus in low light with out an assist light such as infra-red or ultra sonic.
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