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Cameras

Field Review: Canon 1D Mk IV (Day 8)

Chris Gampat
No Comments
07/19/2010
3 Mins read

Last Updated on 07/19/2010 by

So remember how previously I stated that the autofocus points on the Canon 1D Mk IV do not track the subject in your frame? I was wrong. After shooting a soccer game on the Lower East Side the other day, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Canon 1D Mk IV will only track subjects with a USM lens of some sort. Obviously, the camera needs to be switched into AI Servo mode and the focusing points need to be selected. More on the performance after the jump.

Equipment Used

Canon 1D Mk IV

Canon 24-105mm F4 L IS

Autofocus Performance

When the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV was coupled with the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens (ultrasonic motor), it excelled at focusing and tracking fast moving subjects. To be fair, I wasn’t exactly at the range most of the time to be tracking some of the subjects, so this worked best when they were closer in. Further, I didn’t have any other of the other USM lenses that sports photographers would use on me.

In practice, the 1D Mk IV tracked the subjects down very accurately and precisely. It almost ever had problems. Granted it was a tad bit slow even with the AI Servo tracking priority at the fastest speed, but I actually blame it on the lens. After using this as my bread-and-butter lens for a long time, I can tell you that it isn’t really for sports. This is a lens designed for events, portraits, weddings and photojournalism.

All subjects were kept sharply in focus.

Coupled with the unlocked/customized settings of using the back main controller joystick to move the focusing points around, it worked flawlessly. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t perfect though. Ergonomically speaking as I’ve mentioned before, I wish that there was another joystick for use when the camera is flipped into the portrait perspective.

This is also something that the Nikon D3S was able to do very well. They suffer from the same problems in terms of ergonomics. When it comes to performance though, the Canon system felt a bit faster, but the Nikon system remains smarter in tracking the subject. It seems like it almost can predict where the subject will move to—this is important as many sports photographers try to do this themselves. It may also account for the very slightly slower performance.

In terms of video performance, the autofocus was much slower and at times it hunted for the subject. Despite this, the video still looked very good.

Gallery

All images were edited for contrast, color balance and resizing for the web.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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