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Finally got 1DIV but... 5DII sports wow! (400kb pic)

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richiedodson

richiedodson

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I've been waiting for my 1DIV to arrive for quite a while - I suspect that the majority of available bodies were sent to the Australian Open and the Winter Olympics. I was lucky enough to use one at the Aussie Open for a few days from CPS while waiting for mine to arrive.

I had a quick shoot for a magazine advert to do - but unfortunately my 1DIV hadn't arrived until yesterday. I had to use my 5DII.



We had 1 chance to get a good pic. Banked up traffic was everywhere. The rider pushed the crossing button and as soon as the cars stopped at the lights we were off! He rode, shot taken from a car driving next to him. We had one stretch of road a couple of hundred metres to get the pic. We could not do a 2nd run because I needed to desperately go and take my son to school (early morning shoot)

I had some nice shots @4fps all with the same settings but many had garbage cans, trees, construction fences, shadows and other ugly stuff in them. A bumpy road stopped many from being without blur.

One good thing about this being from a 5DII is that it will also get blown up huge and will completely cover an entire shop wall so the extra resolution will be nice.

I can't wait to try similar stuff with a real autofocus system :) I find some shots with 5DII to be excellent for sports but there are so many misses also and just as many let-downs as good shots. It's certainly not a sports camera as everyone knows but can do a good job occasionally.

btw - colours are quite natural - it was sunrise. Not much post other than lightening the face from shadow.
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'high IQ'
 
It's a beautiful image alright! Mr Anderson seems to be a great athlete.

I have no experience trying to get this type of image. Were you worried that with 1/60th of a second you were not going to get any decent images, or were you somewhat certain that there would be a good percentage of keepers?
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I have never taken photos from a moving vehicle before - but I have found with cycling that tracking from a standing position with IS set to mode 2 at 1/60th gives the best images (you can use a relatively small aperture of f7.1 or 8 to get good depth of field of the athlete but the background is very blurred). Unfortunately a lot are oof from camera shake when using a longer focal length such as 200 - but this shot was at around 70mm - there are not a lot of keepers with a 5D/5DII but the ones that do work are great images.

I actually forgot to switch on the IS for this shoot (2 hours sleep before and brain not functioning) and I expect with mode 1 IS turned on in a moving van would have given me more hit rate.

I can't wait to try cycling with a 1 series now...
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'high IQ'
 
Just to summarize your points:

1. Would've been better with the "real autofocus" of the 1DIV--too many unusables with the 5DII (though you later say you'd have had more usable images if you'd remembered to turn on the IS).

2. But you got enough keepers with excellent focus and exposure (at least the one keeper that satisfied the assignment, and that's the only one that counts) with the 5DII.

3. And the keepers you got with the 5DII were better (or at least better for the assignment) than you could have gotten with the 1DIV because of the extra pixels in the 5DII.

4. And if this was taken with a 70-200 lens (just a guess--75 mm in the EXIF means it was either this or the 24-105; doesn't seem likely you'd have taken a consumer zoom out for this job) and you'd used a 1DIV, it wouldn't have the same pleasing subject-to-background proportion because of the crop factor (if you'd wanted it zoomed in more on the rider, you would have zoomed in more). If you'd switched to a different zoom to get the same proportion on the 1DIV, you'd have given up a bit in optical performance and IS effectiveness.

I wouldn't argue that the 5DII is a better sports camera, but from your own statements it seems it turned out to be the better one for this job: you got the keepers you needed (and would've gotten more if you'd turned on the IS) and because of the extra pixels they were more useful to you than 1DIV keepers would have been.
 
I got about 20 shots off before the end of the road. Probably 4 were useable. another 2 or 3 had background objects but were sharp enough.

I would have preferred to use the 1DIV for sure - just that I didn't have it in time and my only current camera was a 5DII.

The shot with the 5DII is better for a wall than a 1DIII or II because of the extra resolution - I think 1DIV and 1DsIII would have been better choices for a body if I had them available. The photo has 2 uses - firstly for a magazine advert and so doesn't have to have high resolution - but seccondly for the wall which may be 3 or 4 metres wide and tall.

I didn't realise I would be so close to the rider - and so I only had a 70-200mm 2.8 IS - I had it basically at the 70mm end - probably lucky I didn't have the extra crop factor in hindsight. I only had 1 chance (or string of photos within a 30 seccond timeframe) to get the shot.

I used manual mode and knew from experience that f7.1 and 1/60th were good for bikes - I just had to set the ISO to expose close enough to fix in post (shot raw)

I suppose the point of my post is that 5DII is certainly capable although perhaps not as reliable for keepers - and the images can really pop with the extra resolution - something that I think sports shooters are going to love about the 16MP 1DIV as opposed to a 12MP Nikon or a 10MP 1DIII (or at least those who have to process the images for various purposes are going to love)
Peter Rivard said:
Just to summarize your points:

1. Would've been better with the "real autofocus" of the 1DIV--too many unusables with the 5DII (though you later say you'd have had more usable images if you'd remembered to turn on the IS).

2. But you got enough keepers with excellent focus and exposure (at least the one keeper that satisfied the assignment, and that's the only one that counts) with the 5DII.

3. And the keepers you got with the 5DII were better (or at least better for the assignment) than you could have gotten with the 1DIV because of the extra pixels in the 5DII.

4. And if this was taken with a 70-200 lens (just a guess--75 mm in the EXIF means it was either this or the 24-105; doesn't seem likely you'd have taken a consumer zoom out for this job) and you'd used a 1DIV, it wouldn't have the same pleasing subject-to-background proportion because of the crop factor (if you'd wanted it zoomed in more on the rider, you would have zoomed in more). If you'd switched to a different zoom to get the same proportion on the 1DIV, you'd have given up a bit in optical performance and IS effectiveness.

I wouldn't argue that the 5DII is a better sports camera, but from your own statements it seems it turned out to be the better one for this job: you got the keepers you needed (and would've gotten more if you'd turned on the IS) and because of the extra pixels they were more useful to you than 1DIV keepers would have been.
Click to expand...
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'high IQ'
 
It's a walking path - for walkers, skaters and casual riders - it is like a small road with dashed lines dividing the lanes. The photo just happened to capture a line behind the rider. It is something I should possibly clone out but I hadn't thought about it at all - being quite a famous stretch of Melbourne beach many people will know the area :)
Daniel L said:
why there's 2nd white line inside the wheels but not on the outside? :)
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http://www.danator.com
Click to expand...
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'high IQ'
 
If you were riding side by side with him, basically, you were shooting something that was more or less still........This of cos wont be difficult for most cameras.

Great shot anyway!!
 
yes - pretty much - but the van driver cannot see the rider - therefore varying distances between camera and subject as the van or bike speeds/slows - it's most definately the job for servo and not for still shots. Only a camera equipped with decent servo mode could track it. There may be differences in distance of 5 or 6 metres within seconds.

Add to this a bumpy road.
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'high IQ'
 
richiedodson said:


We had 1 chance to get a good pic.
Click to expand...
Is this the only 1 good picture from the 3000 shots photo ???
what a keeper rate

Not surprised ... I know the autofocus people are talking about ;)

Fortunately you didn't need panning from the moving car, otherwise you would have needed the 10 fps

TBH, that ws perfect picture there !!!

... and don't forget to delete those 2999 non keeper pictures from your hard-disk :D
 
Bleguk Banget said:
Is this the only 1 good picture from the 3000 shots photo ???
what a keeper rate
Click to expand...
When you are hired to produce one picture, the end result is 1 keeper if you will.
Bleguk Banget said:
Not surprised ... I know the autofocus people are talking about ;)

Fortunately you didn't need panning from the moving car, otherwise you would have needed the 10 fps
Click to expand...
And if you didn't read all he wrote, he had to deal with bumpy roads and traffic most of the time.
 
richiedodson said:
One good thing about this being from a 5DII is that it will also get blown up huge and will completely cover an entire shop wall so the extra resolution will be nice.
Click to expand...
If you were to print a 1D4 (16MP) and a 5D2 (21MP) image on that shop wall, you wouldn't notice a difference in resolution or print quality. The difference between 16 and 21MP is just too little honestly. You'd need to be 10 feet away from the wall to see the whole image anyways! So it'd be similar to viewing a billboard!
 
I don't know where you get the 3000 figure from exactly unless you are talking about the original photo filename. The CF card since new has probably taken just over 3000 but in this sequence I fired off around 20 or 30 shots tops.
Bleguk Banget said:
richiedodson said:


We had 1 chance to get a good pic.
Click to expand...
Is this the only 1 good picture from the 3000 shots photo ???
what a keeper rate

Not surprised ... I know the autofocus people are talking about ;)

Fortunately you didn't need panning from the moving car, otherwise you would have needed the 10 fps

TBH, that ws perfect picture there !!!

... and don't forget to delete those 2999 non keeper pictures from your hard-disk :D
Click to expand...
--
'high IQ'
 
Anyone shoot action to make money deserve a better AF system. The 5Dii series (actually anything sub-1) is garbage to track anything that moves. Yes you get those 'check out my 5Dii action shot' posts from time to time. But a point and shoot or a DRebel can get a few equally good shots if you use them long enough. Out of curiosity I shot one soccer game with 1DsII, 5D and DRebel XT in the past. The 5D and rebel got similar keeper rate (equally low), while the 1DsII is higher. The 1DsII doesn't even have high frame rate like a real sports cam. You simply waste time and shutter count and harddrive space shooting action with those.

Max
richiedodson said:
I've been waiting for my 1DIV to arrive for quite a while - I suspect that the majority of available bodies were sent to the Australian Open and the Winter Olympics. I was lucky enough to use one at the Aussie Open for a few days from CPS while waiting for mine to arrive.

I had a quick shoot for a magazine advert to do - but unfortunately my 1DIV hadn't arrived until yesterday. I had to use my 5DII.



We had 1 chance to get a good pic. Banked up traffic was everywhere. The rider pushed the crossing button and as soon as the cars stopped at the lights we were off! He rode, shot taken from a car driving next to him. We had one stretch of road a couple of hundred metres to get the pic. We could not do a 2nd run because I needed to desperately go and take my son to school (early morning shoot)

I had some nice shots @4fps all with the same settings but many had garbage cans, trees, construction fences, shadows and other ugly stuff in them. A bumpy road stopped many from being without blur.

One good thing about this being from a 5DII is that it will also get blown up huge and will completely cover an entire shop wall so the extra resolution will be nice.

I can't wait to try similar stuff with a real autofocus system :) I find some shots with 5DII to be excellent for sports but there are so many misses also and just as many let-downs as good shots. It's certainly not a sports camera as everyone knows but can do a good job occasionally.

btw - colours are quite natural - it was sunrise. Not much post other than lightening the face from shadow.
--
'high IQ'
Click to expand...
 
Yes that's why I said it was a better choice than a 1DIII but would rather have had the 1DIV or 1DsIII if I had owned them for focus reasons.

I'll take as much resolution as I can get though and I'd prefer to have a 21MP image than a 16MP image to put on a huge wall. At 2m tall, a 21MP image enlarges to become 48dpi which is pretty bad print quality from close-up. A 16MP image from a 1DIV enlarges to become 41dpi. A 1DIII shot comes out at around 33dpi.
RedFox88 said:
richiedodson said:
One good thing about this being from a 5DII is that it will also get blown up huge and will completely cover an entire shop wall so the extra resolution will be nice.
Click to expand...
If you were to print a 1D4 (16MP) and a 5D2 (21MP) image on that shop wall, you wouldn't notice a difference in resolution or print quality. The difference between 16 and 21MP is just too little honestly. You'd need to be 10 feet away from the wall to see the whole image anyways! So it'd be similar to viewing a billboard!
Click to expand...
--
'high IQ'
 
What does it matter how many shots he fired? As long as he got ONE good one the client wants and will buy, he (and his camera) did the job they were asked to do. If you go and shoot a basketball game and shoot 800 shots, and "only" end up with 100 good ones, that's a terrible percentage. However, if you sell all 100 of them, you got 100 shots the client wanted. Big flippin' deal if you had to shoot 800, the end result is all that matters. So what if you had to sort through 800 photos, that's part of your job.

Also, where did the OP ever say he shot 3000 pics and only got 1 keeper? He said he only had a few hundred meter stretch of road to accomplish this. There is NO way a 5DII shot that many shots in such a short distance. In fact, I'd say a 1DIII would be rather hard pressed to shoot that many shots in such a short distance. No, he didn't say he repeated the process, as he said he only made the run one time.

OP - nice shot, and glad the camera worked well for you, and you got a shot a client liked. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.
 
Happy you didn't clone it out :)

This minor post-processed picture looks that perfect that it makes people
think it is manipulated.

Ruut
richiedodson said:
It's a walking path - for walkers, skaters and casual riders - it is like a small road with dashed lines dividing the lanes. The photo just happened to capture a line behind the rider. It is something I should possibly clone out but I hadn't thought about it at all - being quite a famous stretch of Melbourne beach many people will know the area :)
Daniel L said:
why there's 2nd white line inside the wheels but not on the outside? :)
--
http://www.danator.com
Click to expand...
--
'high IQ'
Click to expand...
 
I am sorry, but this is just awful, the spokes are comletely out of focus. Throw the camera away now!
--
http://mitchseaver.com/
 
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