Lately, on the last couple of shoots, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the AF system on my Canon EOS 5D and having to resort to MF (manual focusing). And it was while shooting a gig last night, when another issue with the camera surfaced, that I realized it might be time to seriously take a second look at my current equipment line-up.

For the shoot, I took my Canon EOS 5D and two lenses—an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM and an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. The lenses were fine, as always. It was the camera; The two biggest problems are the limitation of ISO and inadequate AF coverage.

Low-lighting means poor AF performance

When it comes to shooting gigs, I like to frame up a subject and wait. When the right moment occurs, I’d activate AF, let it lock, and then snipe a shot, sometimes in a burst if the moment is sustained.

But without enough light, AF goes out the window.

The first casualty of low lighting is AF (auto focus) performance. A camera relies on the contrast in a scene to determine a spot where it can latch its focus on. As I’d written before in another post, every camera has a minimum f-stop that ensures AF would perform well. But specs from manufacturers are theoretical, the product of best-case scenarios. It’s a completely different story in the real world, where shooting conditions are a million and one in variation.

There simply isn’t enough AF points in the 9-point AF system of the EOS 5D to get a focus in the right area, let alone track a subject well. And the poor lighting condition of last night’s gig was further compounded by the kind of clothes the performers wore. Solid white, solid black. To a camera, these are all patches of gray it cannot sufficiently distinguish for AF.

Insufficient ISO for fast-moving subjects

The maximum ISO the 5D can go up to is also lacking for my style of shooting; I abhor the harsh look that Speedlites give, so I prefer to shoot in available light whenever possible.

For gigs, I like to use f/4 or higher—particularly for two-shots—so that I can better depict the relationship and context between foreground and background subjects. That limits the shutter speed available to me. And it goes without saying that subjects have to be sharp. But musicians groove and move when they’re playing, so there’s a minimum shutter speed needed to stop the action. Depending on the luminance of the existing stage lighting, shutter speed can get as slow as 1/90 or 1/60.

One way to overcome this is to crank up the ISO to the highest: In the case of the 5D, that’s 3200. But, even with that, the average exposure was f/2.8 at 1/90, which was cutting it a little too tight for my liking.

When Plan B is as bad as Plan A

I would have much rather used my other camera, a Canon EOS-1D Mark II. It has a fantastic 45-point AF system and is capable of 8.5 frames per second. For what I was trying to accomplish last night, the EOS-1D Mark II would have been great.

But I don’t use the 1D Mark II for low-light shoots, for one reason: Sensor noise. Being such an old camera, using an early-generation DIGIC II image processor, it performs poorly at maximum ISO: resulting shots are extremely noisy and quite often unusable.

What are my options?

So the issue now is that I have two cameras, each with a significant performance issue that cannot be compensated for by using the other: Fast, accurate AF on one camera comes at the expense of noise, while clean images on the other comes at the expense of good AF coverage. I’d need a camera that does both well.

The first choice is obviously a 1-series body, namely the Canon EOS-1D Mark III or Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III. Believe me, it’s hard to settle for anything less once you’d used a 1-series body.

But Canon’s 1-series bodies, with their spate of known problems, face some very strong competition when compared feature-by-feature to similar offerings by Nikon and Sony. The levels that the latter two have been innovating at for their latest offerings make Canon’s recent moves evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Canon has been slumbering and stumbling, a fact that is painfully obvious to many who have adopted the Canon system. Furthermore, there is talk in the winds that the EOS-1D and 1Ds Mark IV are just around the corner.

Still, having said all that, I really enjoyed using an EOS-1Ds Mark III I rented for a shoot a few months ago.

There is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which by all accounts should be an obvious choice for me.

Sure, it’s a major upgrade. But there is just one problem. Canon obviously deems the 5-series as semi-professional; accordingly, it has chosen to retain the same 9-point AF system from its predecessor. This limits the 5-series bodies to architecture or nature photography, or any application that doesn’t require minute focusing. Say what you will about how the 9-point AF system has six additional invisible AF points to assist in tracking—an AF point that is invisible to me and of which I have no control of is worth nothing to me. Which leads me back to square one.

Then there are the Nikon D700 and Nikon D3. I’ve had my eye on these bodies for quite a while now. Both are very strong contenders—superior, even—for two reasons: 51-point AF and ISO up to a mind-boggling 25,600. Takes care of the two problems I am facing with my current cameras.

What about Sony, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla? Its α system is pretty complete, and the Sony α 900 looks to be a really formidable answer to what Nikon and Canon have to offer.

But I feel it is still too early to tell where the young Sony α system is headed for. While all signs indicate that Sony does seem to be serious about its foray into DSLRs, the fact that it has, in the past, displayed a ready willingness to kill product lines abruptly—think Sony CLIÉ—makes me just a little wary to invest in its α system.

If I eventually decide I’m crazy enough to forgo my entire line-up of Canon equipment, and rebuilt a new system from scratch, I’d most likely adopt Nikon’s.

Any one at Nikon wants to hook me up?