5D's Focus Point Grouping.

[bellavance]

The nine Focus Points on the 5D's screen are grouped much closer

together than on my 20D. Does this cause owners to only use the

central point, or are the other eight points still useful?

 

Thanks.

 

Pierre.

[jon_austin]

I can't speak to the practices of owners, but according to the reviews I've read, the 5D's focus points have identical spacing to the 20D's. It's just that the larger viewfinder causes them to occupy a smaller section of the total viewfinder area.

 

I would think that, as a result of the identical *actual* grouping, they'd provide identical functionality (usefulness) as on the 20D, with the same amount of risk inherent in focus/recompose.

[bellavance]

I haven't tried the 5D, but I doubt they're as useful, because they're not distributed over the whole screen, like they are on the 20D.

 

I ask because I'm thinking of the 5D.

 

Pierre

[robin_sibson1]

If you are using AI Servo to track a bird in flight, you may not always be able to keep the central focusing point over it, and you want to be sure that the AF system can hand over control from one point to another so that the lock onto the subject is not lost. The merit in this situation of the 45-point system on the pro cameras is not so much that it has lots of points but that the gaps between them are small. Even leaving aside its extra focusing points, I would guess that the 5D system might well be better than the 20D system for that purpose, whereas it obviously provides less good coverage for substantially off-centre subjects.

[jbq]

I didn't have a 20D, but compared to my 10D I like the grouping on the 5D better. I thought that the focus points were too far apart on the 10D, whereas in the 5D they are clustered close enough that they don't seem to get in my way. And the extra 6 "invisible" points seem to do miracles when tracking moving objects.

[tommyinca]

The 5D focus points is too closely grouped in AI servos mode. It forces the subject to stay in the center area if one want to track focus. Good thing is that the 5D has ~13Mpixel, so the extra border could be crop out later. For non-AI servos mode, the 8 other sensors point is useful.