Not doing too well with live view

[David Sutton]

I've just bought a 5D2 and after a short trip am mortified to find that many images are not as sharp as I'd hoped, mainly those taken with live view. I just did  some tests in the back yard with a sheet of newspaper tacked to the fence. I see that the shots taken with autofocus are marginally sharper than those with liveview. That is with a towel over the camera to make the rear screen easier to see, zooming right in and taking my time. No wonder the ones taken in the middle of a stream fighting off sandflies are  slightly out of focus.
Apart from visiting an optometrist, can anyone offer advice with this?
David

[avelpavel]

Hi David,

I tell you my experience with the 5D II: the first shots I made where just a bit out of focus, I thought my eyes where not working so good...

The truth was the camera had bad alignment of maybe the sensor or something else. I have made test shooting object like a keyboard, focusing on a precise letter on it and the camera gave me the letter out of focus of a bit. This was made with 3 lenses I own, 100 macro, 70-200 2.8, 90 tse, all on tripod, MLU and cable.

Next day I brought it to the shop and tested there with my mac and tripod another body, the new one was perfect. I was lucky the seller had still one body on sale!

Have a test with or without live view of a small object with a macro lens and you will find if there are sensor misalignment issues... thanks to canon quality control!

Good luck

Best regards

Roberto



_________________________
www.robertopastrovicchio.com

[Paulo Bizarro]

If the shots with AF come out all right, then there seems to be nothing wrong with the camera? Or, are you using AF with live view? Maybe the AF when using LV is not that reliable?

I have a 5DMKII and I do not use LV that much; I simply take the shot without LV, and then zoom in in playback to check the focus if I have any doubts.

[David Sutton]

Hi David,

I tell you my experience with the 5D II: the first shots I made where just a bit out of focus, I thought my eyes where not working so good...

The truth was the camera had bad alignment of maybe the sensor or something else. I have made test shooting object like a keyboard, focusing on a precise letter on it and the camera gave me the letter out of focus of a bit. This was made with 3 lenses I own, 100 macro, 70-200 2.8, 90 tse, all on tripod, MLU and cable.

Next day I brought it to the shop and tested there with my mac and tripod another body, the new one was perfect. I was lucky the seller had still one body on sale!

Have a test with or without live view of a small object with a macro lens and you will find if there are sensor misalignment issues... thanks to canon quality control!

Good luck

Best regards

Roberto



_________________________
www.robertopastrovicchio.com

Thanks for the suggestions Roberto. I made some shots of brick walls and newspapers with all lenses and with live view and autofocus today, and I'll have another look at them tomorrow for alignment issues, though I haven't seen anything yet. I've used Michael Tape's Lensalign and all lenses needed to be adjusted a little to correct front focussing.
Cheers, David

[David Sutton]

If the shots with AF come out all right, then there seems to be nothing wrong with the camera? Or, are you using AF with live view? Maybe the AF when using LV is not that reliable?

I have a 5DMKII and I do not use LV that much; I simply take the shot without LV, and then zoom in in playback to check the focus if I have any doubts.

Hi. Just checked the camera, there is no auto focus while live view is operating. Unless that's hidden in a sub-sub-menu.    
Thanks, David

[Wayne Fox]

Hi. Just checked the camera, there is no auto focus while live view is operating. Unless that's hidden in a sub-sub-menu.    
Thanks, David

You can focus the camera while in Live View mode, but I believe you have to use the AF-ON button.  I don't believe the shutter release will trigger an autofocus, so the act of taking a picture won't trigger autofocus.  The camera can either use what is called  quick mode, which means when you select AF-ON the mirror will drop down and the normal AF system is used.  If using Live Mode, the camera will use data from the sensor itself to attempt to focus, which is usually slower.  You choose which  method you want to use in the Live View/Movie Func set menu option.

Of course, the sure fire method is to set the lens to MF, which is what I do when focusing using Live View.

This doesn't really help your problem I know.  Personally I find Live View x10 focusing more accurate than autofocus, so not sure why you are having problems.

[tokengirl]

Personally I find Live View x10 focusing more accurate than autofocus, so not sure why you are having problems.

Me too.

I use Live View (with 10x mag) with the 24mm TS-E II all the time, it's fantastic.

[stever]

liveview with manual focusing works great -- with the right lens and subject distance.  the Canon AF lenses are designed for AF and pretty much are so sensitive in MF to be unusable.  The 100 2.8 is works okay for MF at macro distances, but is impossibly sensitive at long focal lengths

i've had great results with the 90 TS - a manual focus lens.  if you want to do landscapes you probably need a Zeiss or adapted MF lens

using autofocus with liveview is not a problem and gives you mirror lockup in the bargain along with being able to see the depth of field on the screen

for macro and landscapes on a tripod i use liveview

[spotmeter]

I've just bought a 5D2 and after a short trip am mortified to find that many images are not as sharp as I'd hoped, mainly those taken with live view. I just did  some tests in the back yard with a sheet of newspaper tacked to the fence. I see that the shots taken with autofocus are marginally sharper than those with liveview. That is with a towel over the camera to make the rear screen easier to see, zooming right in and taking my time. No wonder the ones taken in the middle of a stream fighting off sandflies are  slightly out of focus.
Apart from visiting an optometrist, can anyone offer advice with this?
David

I think the problem may be that you are trying to focus with liveview without using a loupe that will block out all the light and magnify the screen.

I use the Hoodman loupe and find that it works really well with liveview.  It is big enough to cover the whole screen

There is another loupe made by Zacuto that is more expensive but may be even better.

Hope this helps.

[David Sutton]

I think the problem may be that you are trying to focus with liveview without using a loupe that will block out all the light and magnify the screen.

I use the Hoodman loupe and find that it works really well with liveview.  It is big enough to cover the whole screen

There is another loupe made by Zacuto that is more expensive but may be even better.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for reminding me about this! I now recall seeing a review for it on Digital Outback Photo, and although it's another piece of gear to carry, should solve a few problems, particularly just being able to see the rear screen in bright sunlight to check exposure. Many thanks to everyone for their comments.
David