C80: C80 and C70 owners: how good do you find the touch tracking AF to be?

drboffa

drboffa

Well-known member
I have a shoot coming up in a few weeks with a C70 and a C80 at an off road style race. I've covered similar events with my FX6 and found that the touch tracking AF was basically flawless: I could select a vehicle on the LCD and basically be guaranteed it'd be in focus for the duration of the shot, unless something really challenging happened (like another car getting in the way or someone walking by the camera).

Can I rely on similar AF performance in either (or both) of these cameras? Any tips for getting the best performance out of them? Or is it a lost cause and worth leaning on manual focus?
 
Haven't used the C80 but wouldn't trust the C70. Traditionally, every year, Canon's photo/video hybrids were simply better for AF and tracking, like a lot better.

[Ironically though the R5II is supposedly having some problems with AF recently and the latest firmware (or something like that).]

It's always best to experiment with settings because you never know how a camera reacts to something. If it's tracking well then you want to increase the settings that lock onto something (animal, car, etc). If it's all over the place then you want to decrease the speed transitions so it's a more subtle focus change (but that also obviously defeats the purpose of fast moving tracking).
 
We're hoping to test the cameras in advance of the shoot but it all depends on whether they're available for us to test. It's a busy shooting season where I work and other units are also booking these cameras for their shoots.
 
For me, if it was important enough, I'd rent from LensRentals for a weekend and eat the $200-$300.

Probably no race cars you could test but perhaps some fast traffic could work.

The C200 and C70 can get confused with basic interviews, but maybe the C80 has improved.
 
C80 owner here and former C70, C500M2, C300 Series. The AF on the C80 is definitely better than the C70. I haven't had it track cars but in terms of people it's much better. No idea if it would be as flawless as you found the Fx6 to be.

A big factor can be the lens you are using. Whether it's RF vs. adapted EF glass or something third-party. Native RF is the best for AF. Better than adapted EF. The newer RF lenses like the VCMs, the 24-105 or 70-200 Z lenses, are the best so far. I haven't used any of the super telephoto primes or tested the RF 100-500 with the C80, if that's how you roll for the covering off-road races.

If you can rent and test, as other have said, it would be the only way to know. You might also want to check out Griffin Conway's YT channel. He does a lot of off-road, car to car, type work. He may have some info in his C80 user reviews.
 
I would not trust the C70's AF on very fast-moving subjects. It's great for interviews, or depending on the lens, people walking towards the camera. The EOS-R and any Canon mirrorless that followed seem to have better DPAF than the C70, though many seem to lack the feature where the camera will focus on the back wall if the subject leaves the frame. But it might be worth looking at them because I think some of the more recent models have dedicated vehicle-tracking modes.
 
Thanks very much for the input everyone. Glad to hear the C80 (may) be up to the task, though we'll do our best to get some testing in beforehand. This is for public television, though, so there's not much budget for renting just to test things (even less so these days). Those decisions are above my pay grade.

And @Jon Roemer thanks for the YouTube suggestion, as well. I'm not familiar with him so I'll check that out. I've generally been very happy with all the Canon models we use at work, but most of what we're shooting is nowhere near as dynamic as cars flying around a dirt track.
 
Ive been sitting on this for a while as Ive been too busy to look and I dont think the subjects were too happy to be filmed and I felt I need to like read the menu.

Pro Av canon day.. they chose the perfect set up.. an unlit shed with a few lights causing distration.

25p timeline so 50p is 'slo mo' (a situcation I would use to grab broll at a corporate horror) lense is 24-105 f 2.8

vimeo.com

Stresst test! Canon C400 'tested' at ProAv demo day

The canon c400 hdmi into my atomos monitor. Ive not published before as I feel more thought is needed,. but this it still worth a watch!. The lighting was terrible,…
vimeo.com
 
There seems to be growing consensus that the C70 is not to be trusted, while the C80 *might* be workable (and is a significant leap over the C70).

I'm hoping we'll be able to do some testing in the coming weeks.

Thanks very much for all who chimed in so far.
 
drboffa said:
There seems to be growing consensus that the C70 is not to be trusted, while the C80 *might* be workable (and is a significant leap over the C70).

I'm hoping we'll be able to do some testing in the coming weeks.

Thanks very much for all who chimed in so far.
Click to expand...
Griffin's latest video shows a few good examples, except looks like they had unobstructed foregrounds:


C70/C80 AF notes:

The caption comes up that says please add vehicle tracking - I wonder if this is in reference to further increasing the strike rate, or wanting more fine tuning options.

Looks like I posted the same link 3x, but they're all time stamped to different places.
 
Thanks Rob! I just watched this the other day after you recommended the channel.

It looks like the C80 might be up to the task, but as you note their scenario featured unobstructed views (which may be the case for us, as well—that remains to be seen).

In any event, we're still hoping to do some testing beforehand. Worst-case scenario is we'll have to figure it out between the start of the race and the final lap on race day (we really only need a handful of good shots, not the entire race).
 
drboffa said:
Thanks Rob! I just watched this the other day after you recommended the channel.

It looks like the C80 might be up to the task, but as you note their scenario featured unobstructed views (which may be the case for us, as well—that remains to be seen).

In any event, we're still hoping to do some testing beforehand. Worst-case scenario is we'll have to figure it out between the start of the race and the final lap on race day (we really only need a handful of good shots, not the entire race).
Click to expand...
Just sneak in your fx6 LOL
 
rob norton said:
Yeah, we can’t you just use the fx6?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure the station likes (or permits) people using personal gear of that value (likely for insurance reasons). All of us end up using smaller, cheaper personal items on occasional shoots but aside from a couple instances where I was filming B roll outside of normal work hours (and thus without easy access to station equipment) I've never used my FX6. Depending on how testing goes (or if it doesn't happen) it may be worth bringing up this possibility, but it's not something I can count on as a definite option.

But believe me I'd be very happy to let the FX6 AF take over and make my life that much easier (although the Canon C70/C80 are generally great to use and produce stellar images).
 
Recently got a C80. Using it in addition to my R5C. I find the C80 AF good. Haven't used with long lenses yet in a shoot. I am now shifting to all RF lenses as these work better than the EF with adapters.
 
A little update in case it's of use for others: I found the touch tracking AF on the C80 to be quite good, and generally good enough to follow the trucks during the race (though not as solid as my FX6).

That said, the biggest challenge was keeping an eye on framing and following the vehicles while also trying to pick out and tap on the specific vehicle I wanted tracked. This was especially challenging as I was relying on an external monitor for the most part, as the camera's LCD was way too dim for the bright sun.

Ultimately, I decided to rely more on the C80 to simply focus on whatever was in the center of the frame. I put the vehicle I wanted at the center of the crosshairs and in most scenarios (aside from when lots of dust was kicked up) the camera did a great job staying locked on.

This was with an adapted Canon EF 100-400. I'm sure performance would have been even better with a native RF lens, but even with this setup it was very reliable, and certainly better than what I was going to do manually.
 
I haven't used a C80 or C400, but I do own a C70 and a C300mkI and have used later C300s. Anyway, on the C70, for AF I often use face tracking or the wide-bracket AF setting. Here's a bit from a Griffin Conway YouTube video from a few years ago that has some good tips, including a bit about C70 AF. So perhaps it'll all relate to the C80 settings.

I set this to start at the AF section. If it doesn't start there, just go to 11:40.
 
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