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Six ingenious ways how Canon DSLRs used to illuminate their autofocus points
- ExAr 7mo agoThis article presents the inventive solutions Canon has found to shoot beams of light into the camera's viewfinder in order to light up individual autofocus points. Six different approaches are shown using six Canon DSLR models between 1994 and 2009.
- myself248 7mo agoIt's absolutely wild to me that this function would be so important as to justify all the time and effort to create not just two, but six entirely different ways of solving it. The first one seemed perfectly adequate to me. But I guess that's why I'm not a Canon engineer.
- roblh 7mo agoI haven't used all of them, but I have used both the 9 point and the 45 point types, and the difference is massive. The 45 point was far, far more tactile and responsive. I don't mean speed of autofocus, but the actual way that the points sit over top of the viewfinder and light up, it's hard to explain. I'm sure part of that is software, but owning an older model and then trying out a newer one in the camera store in like 2013 really was eye opening, it blew my mind. The 9 point feels like a toy.
- omnimus 7mo agoOn the other hand in actual usage i don't think that they are really that different. It's useful for sports/wildlife for focusing closest moving target (and speed of AF on these cameras was not that quick so you were hunting focus anyway). Otherwise selecting some offset autofocus point is pretty niche. With more static subjects majority of photographers would use the single middle point, focus and then recompose. It's only with advent of smart focusing of mirrorless cameras with people/faces recognition where there is a big difference.
- yial 7mo agoI started to write a stupid comment about how insanely fast the focus on the EOS R5 C is- only to remember it’s a non reflex ! The difference in focal time between my 5D mkii even with the best lenses, and the R5 C with a cine servo or vcm is insane. The R5 feels instant and only ever searches if it’s been locked to an inappropriate point.
- Melatonic 7mo agoFor most stuff it's not a huge deal. Keep in mind however that for years the latest and greatest pro camera bodies were going to people getting photos at the Olympics and things like Formula 1. Getting something or someone flying through the air at high and unpredictable speed perfectly in focus is pretty impressive
- Sharlin 7mo ago@ExAr I suspect your comment was downvoted to oblivion because people didn't realize you're the OP and thought you were an LLM summarizer bot :(
- jagged-chisel 7mo agoThe comment reads like an LLM summary. And we don’t typically get an OP summary on a new post. Just post it and let people read it.
- xnorswap 7mo agoHN appears to encourage it, because it shows a text box which becomes a top level comment when you submit, although it isn't obvious that will happen.
- Sharlin 7mo agoHuh, that definitely explains it. I wonder how many people know that. In that case it's particularly unfortunate to downvote the OP simply for filling a field in the submission form! Sigh… I guess it's another case of LLMs having made the world a little worse for everybody.
- jagged-chisel 7mo agoI don’t think it’s because the comment was submitted. I think it’s because it reads like LLM output. Personally, I’ve only ever provided a summary if I felt the headline wasn’t clear enough.
- Sharlin 7mo agoYeah, but before LLMs we didn't have "reads like LLM output" as a downvote reason. In 2022 nobody would've had qualms with the phrasing of the comment.
- stavros 7mo ago
- TheSilva 7mo agohijacking the thread to ask: under 200€ DSLR to get started?
- rrreese 7mo agoYou can get a Canon 5D II or a Canon 6D for that. Older cameras for sure, but full frame with excellent sensors. And there are a ton of inexpensive used EF lenses available. Compared to moderns systems the main difference is the autofocus and video capabilities. Modern mirrorless have cosmically better tracking, eye detect etc.
- myself248 7mo agoTo add: Hit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_5D_Mark_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_5D_Mark_II and scroll down to the very end, then click "show" to expand the "Canon EOS digital SLR timeline". This is an incredible collection of information that I can't figure out how to link directly.
- jmusall 7mo agoDirect link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Canon_EOS_digital_cameras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Canon_EOS_digital_cam... Not sure why it is a "template".
- rawling 7mo agoBecause it's transcluded in (into?) a lot of those cameras' pages.
- rrreese 7mo agoThe direct link is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Canon_EOS_digital_cameras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Canon_EOS_digital_cam... You can get to it by pressing the `V` in `V T E` at the top left of any tmeplate
- vee-kay 7mo ago
- brcmthrowaway 7mo agoDoes AF use LIDAR nowadays?
- dillona 7mo agoI think only in certain cinema rigs. See DJI's products eg https://store.dji.com/product/dji-focus-pro-lidar https://store.dji.com/product/dji-focus-pro-lidar
- tecleandor 7mo agoAnd just mentioning for people unfamiliar with this stuff, that's not a camera and not even an accessory for a camera. That's an accessory for an accessory. :D It's a LiDAR that follows a subject and gets distance measurements, and then sends them to an additional accessory which is typically used to control focus in cinema cameras. That second accessory has a motor and is attached to a cinema lens that has certain threading or grooves where the accessory can grip and change the focus. In cinema, the camera operator (usually) only moves the camera, but not the focus. For that, there's a 'focus puller'. A person who finely operates the focus, sometimes at a certain distance, using some sort of specialized control.
- tecleandor 7mo agoNo. Modern cameras usually use a combination of contrast detection (pure image analysis checking the contrast of the region you want in focus), phase detection (an optical system where you split the income image in two and then compare them) and sometimes help of some sort of assist lamp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus
- whaleofatw2022 7mo agoMaybe in some niches, but for most modern ILCs (e.x. Sony E mount, Nikon Z mount, etc etc etc) it is typically some form or another of On-sensor Phase Detection coupled with Contrast Detection for finer tuning. The biggest advantage compared to older SLR designs are that Phase Detection can now work with full light (vs whatever got split off on an SLR pentaprism for the dedicated AF sensor) and can work in conjunction with the contrast Detection for fine tuning focus. Then, of course, all the predictive stuff added in the last 10ish years as far as processing sensor output to detect eyes/birds/motion/etc.
- geocrasher 7mo agoMy uncle Richard is one of the inventors on Honeywell’s early phase‑detect autofocus. Patent US4333007A, which figures out both the direction and amount the lens needs to move instead of hunting. Modern systems like Canon’s Dual Pixel AF in bodies such as the EOS R5 are very direct descendants of that idea, just implemented on‑sensor with far more processing power. Every time I see an article such as this, I beam with pride. (Pun intended).
- generj 7mo agoIt’s impressive the optical complexity some of these systems use. Custom and complex prisms and mirrors to show the AF points. Arguably more complicated than the anutofocus optics. The engineering of electromechanical cameras fascinates me.
- BobbyTables2 7mo agoI’d really like to know how OP made all those superb visualizations. Must have taken ages!