# AF review of Eos 1Dx Mk3 by Fro



## Chaitanya (Feb 18, 2020)




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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

I already posted this and the links too the RAW files.


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## Chaitanya (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> I already posted this and the links too the RAW files.


Didnt see it, that live view AF seems to be finally caught up with PDAF found on competition.


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

Indeed it does look good, and I had mulled the idea he used of a hoodman to use it as an effective MILC in Live View, I know it looks silly etc but I am having real issues converting to EVF's full time for pro work, I still find the lag distracting, the brightness odd, and looking through one for hours gives me motion sickness.


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## unfocused (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> Indeed it does look good, and I had mulled the idea he used of a hoodman to use it as an effective MILC in Live View, I know it looks silly etc but I am having real issues converting to EVF's full time for pro work, I still find the lag distracting, the brightness odd, and looking through one for hours gives me motion sickness.


The problem with a Hoodman is that you lose access to the touchscreen, which is one of the main advantages to live view.


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## AlanF (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> I already posted this and the links too the RAW files.


It’s bad enough seeing that face once.


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## ISv (Feb 18, 2020)

AlanF said:


> It’s bad enough seeing that face once.


! A lot of theatrics (and I don't like this - as well as some other and more important things...). Anyway, there is no problem - I just learned not to click on the link...


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## Jack Douglas (Feb 18, 2020)

After seeing this I'm debating how I'm going to keep my composure if the R5 doesn't AF this well!  And then there is the, will there soon be an R1 that will be the true mirrorless of the 1Dx3, a little bigger and all the bells and whistles. And what if it (the R5) doesn't have a CFe slot?

Jack


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## Sharlin (Feb 18, 2020)

I love how the camera momentarily locks onto the basketball a couple of times. I wonder if it's seeing a face in there or if the deep learning neural net has learned to recognize balls as pertinent objects in their own category.


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## Joules (Feb 18, 2020)

Sharlin said:


> I love how the camera momentarily locks onto the basketball a couple of times. I wonder if it's seeing a face in there or if the deep learning neural net has learned to recognize balls as pertinent objects in their own category.


My guess would be that it recognized the ball as a head with a helmet. Face AF detection should be really reliable, but the Head detection uses a Neural Network and is as good as the training data. Maybe it will see improvements over time once Canon gets more Input, like we saw with the EOS R. 




Jack Douglas said:


> After seeing this I'm debating how I'm going to keep my composure if the R5 doesn't AF this well!  And then there is the, will there soon be an R1 that will be the true mirrorless of the 1Dx3, a little bigger and all the bells and whistles. And what if it doesn't have a CFe slot?


Why would Canon spend so much time and effort to get the LiveView Performance of a 1D X series body as great as possible? In previous versions, there straight up was no servo AF in LiveView, so clearly they don't think the target demographic craves good LiveView AF.

I believe the 1DX III gave them the budget to lay down the fundament for future mirrorless bodies. The DIGIC X plays a great part in the AF, for instance it handles the head detection and has dedicated circuits for dealing with DPAF. It would be a shame if they didn't tickle that thing down to the upcoming models.


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## Chaitanya (Feb 18, 2020)

Jack Douglas said:


> After seeing this I'm debating how I'm going to keep my composure if the R5 doesn't AF this well!  And then there is the, will there soon be an R1 that will be the true mirrorless of the 1Dx3, a little bigger and all the bells and whistles. And what if it doesn't have a CFe slot?
> 
> Jack


In case of R5, I suspect we will see mix of both SD and CFe slots rather than both CFe slots(if its prices in same range as 5D then certainly it wont 2 CFe). From the video its really interesting to see buffer clearing near instantly and best part of it being a Canon camera no lockouts during clearing process.


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## Kit. (Feb 18, 2020)

Joules said:


> My guess would be that it recognized the ball as a head with a helmet.


As it is a sports camera, it can as well be trained to recognise the ball as a ball, especially near the basket.



Joules said:


> Why would Canon spend so much time and effort to get the LiveView Performance of a 1D X series body as great as possible?


It could be mostly reusing the same neural net that makes the OVF AF performance as great as possible.


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## Joules (Feb 18, 2020)

Kit. said:


> As it is a sports camera, it can as well be trained to recognise the ball as a ball, especially near the basket.
> 
> It could be mostly reusing the same neural net that makes the OVF AF performance as great as possible.


I didn't read anything about recognizing objects like balls in the white paper though. That's why I'm not certain tracking the ball here is really a feature or a bug - but depending on who you ask, they might just be the same


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

unfocused said:


> The problem with a Hoodman is that you lose access to the touchscreen, which is one of the main advantages to live view.


If you are using an EVF the only advantage to the rear screen being touch is if you can drag focus, the 1DX III doesn't need that capability on screen, and it would ba a stretch with a thumb anyway, because it has the new scrollable AF button.

I'm not saying a hoodman is an elegant solution, more a way to wean me into EVF's, or at least better come to terms with when their use can be advantageous.


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

ISv said:


> ! A lot of theatrics (and I don't like this - as well as some other and more important things...). Anyway, there is no problem - I just learned not to click on the link...


The point of my thread was the access to the first RAW files I know of.


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

Jack Douglas said:


> After seeing this I'm debating how I'm going to keep my composure if the R5 doesn't AF this well!  And then there is the, will there soon be an R1 that will be the true mirrorless of the 1Dx3, a little bigger and all the bells and whistles. And what if it doesn't have a CFe slot?
> 
> Jack


The biggest difference I would expect between an R1 and R5 would be resolution.


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

Sharlin said:


> I love how the camera momentarily locks onto the basketball a couple of times. I wonder if it's seeing a face in there or if the deep learning neural net has learned to recognize balls as pertinent objects in their own category.


No, it will 'mistake' a ball for a 'head' shaped object, don't forget we know it was taught to look for heads with helmets on, I don't see how you could differentiate between a helmeted head sitting in an open cockpit and a basketball.


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## Joules (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> The biggest difference I would expect between an R1 and R5 would be resolution.


And price


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## Jack Douglas (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> The biggest difference I would expect between an R1 and R5 would be resolution.


Well, it would be great if there aren't many differences. I already love the second button arrangement (1Dx2) up front and the R5 has only one but at least it's one.

Jack


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## Jack Douglas (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> No, it will 'mistake' a ball for a 'head' shaped object, don't forget we know it was taught to look for heads with helmets on, I don't see how you could differentiate between a helmeted head sitting in an open cockpit and a basketball.


I know some people who might as well have a basketball for a head (empty space full of air), so maybe the camera is that smart.

Jack


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## Jack Douglas (Feb 18, 2020)

Joules said:


> And price


I hope so but this may be the highest priced 5D ever.

Jack


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## koenkooi (Feb 18, 2020)

Jack Douglas said:


> I hope so but this may be the highest priced 5D ever.



With or without adjusting for inflation?


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## Kit. (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> I don't see how you could differentiate between a helmeted head sitting in an open cockpit and a basketball.


By the fact of the presence of the cockpit.

That involves gathering and labeling some amount of "ground truths" for the neural net to learn, yes.


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## privatebydesign (Feb 18, 2020)

Kit. said:


> By the fact of the presence of the cockpit.
> 
> That involves gathering and labeling some amount of "ground truths" for the neural net to learn, yes.


Thats too literal, what about a helmeted head on a luge, or walking across a pit area, on a motorbike, slalom skiing etc etc....


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## koenkooi (Feb 18, 2020)

Sharlin said:


> I love how the camera momentarily locks onto the basketball a couple of times. I wonder if it's seeing a face in there or if the deep learning neural net has learned to recognize balls as pertinent objects in their own category.



It also likes that pom-pom a lot, maybe it likes contrasty spheroids?


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## pj1974 (Feb 18, 2020)

koenkooi said:


> It also likes that pom-pom a lot, maybe it likes contrasty spheroids?



I am thinking that the intelligent AF actually locks onto an object, which is a combination of being a moving spheroid and a contrasty spheroid.

The reason I write this is because in a number of Jared's/Fro's photos, the blue AF square jumped _from _being locked onto the *stationary *person's face (which was still facing the camera enough to be detected as a face) _to _locking onto the ball or pom-pom. The ball or pom-pom had then become the fastest moving object in the composition, and also was reasonably contrast against the respective backgrounds.

My $0.02.

PJ


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## koenkooi (Feb 18, 2020)

pj1974 said:


> I am thinking that the intelligent AF actually locks onto an object, which is a combination of being a moving spheroid and a contrasty spheroid.
> 
> The reason I write this is because in a number of Jared's/Fro's photos, the blue AF square jumped _from _being locked onto the *stationary *person's face (which was still facing the camera enough to be detected as a face) _to _locking onto the ball or pom-pom. The ball or pom-pom had then become the fastest moving object in the composition, and also was reasonably contrast against the respective backgrounds.
> 
> ...



This is why I dread changing AF options like tracking and responsiveness, I'm too lazy to setup repeatable tests and take enough time to keep rereading the manual.
Maybe Jared/Gordon/Matt will do a youtube video on it, would save me a lot of time


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## Kit. (Feb 18, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> Thats too literal, what about a helmeted head on a luge, or walking across a pit area, on a motorbike, slalom skiing etc etc....


The same. The more scenarios you are providing for the net to recognize persons and find their head positions during training, the better. We are talking about no less than tens of thousands of pictures anyway.

As a bonus, you might be able to estimate where to focus to keep the head in focus even if the head is completely obscured at the moment.


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## Viggo (Feb 18, 2020)

Why aren’t we talking about the fact that I can’t see any blackout or lag even with the mechanical shutter here?

and holy smokes that blue square moves on that pompom! That is insanely fast AF tracking.


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## koenkooi (Feb 18, 2020)

Viggo said:


> Why aren’t we talking about the fact that I can’t see any blackout or lag even with the mechanical shutter here?
> 
> and holy smokes that blue square moves on that pompom! That is insanely fast AF tracking.



I really, really, really hope all new R models will get similar performance.


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## Bennymiata (Feb 18, 2020)

I think Fro was very impressed and I don't think he was expecting it to be so good.


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## Jethro (Feb 18, 2020)

koenkooi said:


> I really, really, really hope all new R models will get similar performance.


The 1DX III gets an extra DIGIC dedicated to AF, doesn't it?


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## koenkooi (Feb 19, 2020)

Jethro said:


> The 1DX III gets an extra DIGIC dedicated to AF, doesn't it?



The wording makes it seem that extra DIGIC only processes the data from the external AF sensor, so it wouldn't be needed on mirrorless.


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