tony field
Forum Pro
I picked up the 5D-III three days ago. First day was spend trying to figure out the buttons and reading the manual. A few random test shots indicated that, for image quality, was a minor upgrade to the 5D-II. Playing with the focus points and auto-focus indicated that serious improvements were made in this area. To test the auto-focus, I when to a show jumping event at Spruce Meadows the day before yesterday.
Normally, I shoot show jumping in AI-servo mode, single af-spot, and shoot a single frame (although, when I use my normal 1D-IV, I leave it it 5fps mode just in case there is a crash and you can get horses, riders and rails in disarray). In general, I can time the jump better by shooting single frame rather than relying on a motor drive. It was nice to see that the 5D-III general camera feel and shutter lag was up to the standards of the 1D-IV and I found it very easy to instantly work with the without prior practice. Here a a single shot.....
I subsequently turned on the 5D-III motor drive and played with various focus point assists. My impression was that focus point assist did nothing at all for focus acquisition (same as on my 1D-IV) so I turned it off and reverted to single AF point. I tried both the "small spot" af point and the "large" point. Both worked well - although I had a preference to use the "small spot" trying to follow the riders head.
Focus tracking was set to "Case 1: Versatile multi purpose setting". For show jumping, this seems to be the best choice and is similar to how I run the 1D-IV. Certainly shooting football or other erratic movement sports would be done with other settings.
With the motor drive set to high speed, I shot about 10 riders. As expected, a number of OK captures were found the the drive sequences however most of the series did not have the "perfect timing" to represent the horse properly - the actual money frame would have been between two shots in the sequence. Out of the 10 riders, only two came out well with motor drive. This is certainly expected with only 6FPS. Also, of the 15 total riders I shot, every image, with or without motor drive, was in perfect focus - not one image was missed except a few where I really did a lousy job following action and I cannot blame the camera for that.
These are the two where the motor drive, by luck, did the good timing:
Yesterday, I took a lady friend to the park to do some people shots and played with focus points (I really LOVE the excellent layout of the cross-type points). The new points completely solves my problems with shooting the 5D-II where you only have one useful focus point. Not much can be said - the camera performed beautifully. However, the single NASTY I noticed is that, if you use AI-Servo mode (which is my preference), there is no visual feed-back with a blinking focus point when you pump the AF-ON button. Don't know how Canon missed this - it works on the 1D-III, 1D-IV and 5D-II. Because of that lack of feedback, I missed the focus on a few shots. I will ***** to Canon about that - it is important to me.
Overall, I like the camera. It is a logical upgrade to the 5D-II. IMHO, the only thing missing is a stop or two of DR which would certainly be useful for some of the artsy things I am interested in. For the vast majority of things I will use this camera for, it is excellent to use and delivers great image quality.
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tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
Normally, I shoot show jumping in AI-servo mode, single af-spot, and shoot a single frame (although, when I use my normal 1D-IV, I leave it it 5fps mode just in case there is a crash and you can get horses, riders and rails in disarray). In general, I can time the jump better by shooting single frame rather than relying on a motor drive. It was nice to see that the 5D-III general camera feel and shutter lag was up to the standards of the 1D-IV and I found it very easy to instantly work with the without prior practice. Here a a single shot.....
I subsequently turned on the 5D-III motor drive and played with various focus point assists. My impression was that focus point assist did nothing at all for focus acquisition (same as on my 1D-IV) so I turned it off and reverted to single AF point. I tried both the "small spot" af point and the "large" point. Both worked well - although I had a preference to use the "small spot" trying to follow the riders head.
Focus tracking was set to "Case 1: Versatile multi purpose setting". For show jumping, this seems to be the best choice and is similar to how I run the 1D-IV. Certainly shooting football or other erratic movement sports would be done with other settings.
With the motor drive set to high speed, I shot about 10 riders. As expected, a number of OK captures were found the the drive sequences however most of the series did not have the "perfect timing" to represent the horse properly - the actual money frame would have been between two shots in the sequence. Out of the 10 riders, only two came out well with motor drive. This is certainly expected with only 6FPS. Also, of the 15 total riders I shot, every image, with or without motor drive, was in perfect focus - not one image was missed except a few where I really did a lousy job following action and I cannot blame the camera for that.
These are the two where the motor drive, by luck, did the good timing:
Yesterday, I took a lady friend to the park to do some people shots and played with focus points (I really LOVE the excellent layout of the cross-type points). The new points completely solves my problems with shooting the 5D-II where you only have one useful focus point. Not much can be said - the camera performed beautifully. However, the single NASTY I noticed is that, if you use AI-Servo mode (which is my preference), there is no visual feed-back with a blinking focus point when you pump the AF-ON button. Don't know how Canon missed this - it works on the 1D-III, 1D-IV and 5D-II. Because of that lack of feedback, I missed the focus on a few shots. I will ***** to Canon about that - it is important to me.
Overall, I like the camera. It is a logical upgrade to the 5D-II. IMHO, the only thing missing is a stop or two of DR which would certainly be useful for some of the artsy things I am interested in. For the vast majority of things I will use this camera for, it is excellent to use and delivers great image quality.
--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca