We recently took our 5DII out for its maiden sports voyage this past weekend at a duathlon. Keep in mind that the 5D is not and never really was built for the sports shooter.


I find the AF slower than on a 1D and a 40D. When we shoot we live by AI Servo and primarly use center focus lock.


OOPF as related to just the AF performace is subjective. Runners are usually 90-95% in focus using any camera system we have. Bikes on the other hand are coming at you at speeds from 15-28 mph. For the past race, in BreezeBrowser, I nixed 4 completly horrible shots (bike moving too fast, focus hit the legs and not the face or helmet, etc) out of 280 frames. Of the remaining frames, probably 13% were sharp enough to be blown up but not optimal, think of a softfocus filter.


Over all the 1DIII and the 40D we've found have better af performance on moving objects over the 5D. Would we use the 5D again? We're going to give it a few more tries at events, but it'll probably be regulated to medal shots, candids and running events. The camera was bought for our wedding gigs, where it shines.


Our single biggest snitch: the redesigned and cant retrofit %^&*&#!!!! battery.