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accurate nikon/canon autofocus wideopen

gooomz

Member
just curious, when using spot focusing, how accurate are nikon/canon when shooting wide open?

is autofocus pretty accurate even at night say when shooting at 1600iso wide open on one their f1.2 lenses.

just wondering since with the m9 and shooting wide open is still a bit hit or miss for me. although it has been more hit then miss as time is going on.

thanks a lot

Merry Christmas
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Autofocus is always managed by the camera with the lens wide open. Thus you can safely assume that the accuracy is as good as it can possibly be when wide open. :thumbs:

As regards low light with f/1.2 or f/1.4, so long as you have focus assist light enabled then you'll typically get good results and certainly better than you can probably manage with the M and shooting with a Noctilux.
 

zombii

New member
I can focus the Noctilux on my M9 in as low light level as I can focus an 85L on my 5D2. Neither is easy but practice with the M9 makes a big difference. The AF lenses, particularly the 85L, tend to either hunt or just do nothing unless they have an adequate amount of contrast to focus on. That's without a focus assist light. Since the 5D2 doesn't have one built in, that only works if I use the flash transmitter.
 

Brian S

New member
My AF-Nikkor 50/1.4 "hunted" for focus in limited lighting, aimed at low-contrast subjects. I found it easier to focus the Canon 7 with a 50/0.95 than with the Nikon using the AF-Nikkor 50/1.4 and the manual focus 55/1.2. The M9 with a 1.25x magnifier and the 50/1.1 Nokton is easy to focus in low-light.
 

Paratom

Well-known member
I found the Nikon D3/D3x/D300/d700 to all focus very accurate with 50/1.4/100/2.0DC,70-200/2.8.
With the Canon 7D I found the focus to be inconsistent with fast lenses.
With the M9 it depends a lot if the lenses are calibrated good for your body and that you use lenses which dont suffer from focus shift.
Thats my take.
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
I'd add that assuming that the lens/body are calibrated together on the M then the low light accuracy is entirely down to your eyesight irrespective of lens obviously. Therein lies the challenge.

With my D3/D3s I could nail focus in pretty much any light. Lesser camera bodies may not do so well.
 
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