G3 Sports shooting

[phili1]

I have been reading all kinds of comments about the good and bad points the G 3 has, and one is the focusing system.

First I am and SLR person, I have had one all my life, so buying a prosummer camera was a hard choice that I think was a wise choice.

For those who are on the thin line of what do I buy a 300d, 10 d or G3-5-6, if you want fast composition and shooting the big boys are the way to go. I can say this because I have used the 10 D. and they do things that a prosumer cant do, like higher ISO and faster focusing and processing.

Now I can say this from experience the G3 performed just fantastic and the only problem I had was after I viewd my shots the soccer ball in the attached was not fully in the picture but was in my mind. The slight lag and I mean slight caused a miss allignment of the ball. This can be dealt with adjusting my panning skills. This shot showed me that the coninuous mode of focus was working just fine.

The only thing I am upset with is the 28.8 MM (140mm) lens is not telephoto enough to crop the scenes the way I am used to, but I think this can be dealt with by shooting Raw or supper fine instead of fine, and photoshop cropping.

The other comment I heard about was noise complaints and I shot these at ISO100 and no noise. Well I grew up with film ASA 400 had golf ball grain until the last 7 years when film Iso 200 was the equvilent to ASA 64. In doing a few tests I think this is a problem only at low light levels problem and you can overcome this with ISO 50 and a tripod.

Now for those on the boarder line the prosummer has an edge over the SLR, the LCD is like shooting with a picture frame, you have an idea of what you are going to get and hey you can buy a special monitor (Detached) and view everything with a 5 to 7 inch screen, you cant do that with an SLR. You can shoot waist level and be looking down and the person your pointing the camera at has no idea the in the shot.

I am now a G3 lover, but when I can I will buy a 10D because there is room for both in a photgraphic bags

Now this is a question for you long time users. The only problem I had was in useing the LCD I wore my changing glasses and they got so dark I could not see the screen image and panning with moving objects takes practice, does anyone have any ideas on this. The second questions is dont you think Canon should have made the view find a more integral part of the camera with information in it, like MInolta.

Anyway I blew this up in photoshop to simulat a 13 x 19 picture and it is sharp as a tack.

http://image.pbase.com/u34/phili1/medium/22411058.LukeSoccer.jpg

Shot at 2272x1704 / ISO 100/JPG fine/1/500 at F4

[WW50]

I was unable to see the photo(would love to). The link didn't work for me.

Wendell

[phili1]

Try this one Wendell


www.pbase.com/image/22411058

[jglisson73]

Wendell,

Woodstock, GA! I live in Woodstock - near Hwy. 92 and Trickum Rd.

John

[civis]

If you want to cut down the shutter lag time, preset everything you can get away with. For outdoor shooting, I can often preset the WB to something besides auto (sunny or cloudy - depending on that day - works almost always), which saves the camera from having to crunch it. I set both C1 and C2 as different hyperfocal presets, one for close, and one for further with a small bit of zoom, and this saves the cam from having to ping the target for focus. I preset the ISO, and I preset the aperture (of course, it's a hyperfocal preset), and so the only thing the cam needs to do is meter the light, crunch the shutter speed, and fire.

http://dfleming.ameranet.com/

[civis]

phili1 wrote:
The other comment I heard about was noise complaints and I shot these at ISO100 and no noise. Well I grew up with film ASA 400 had golf ball grain until the last 7 years when film Iso 200 was the equvilent to ASA 64. In doing a few tests I think this is a problem only at low light levels problem and you can overcome this with ISO 50 and a tripod.


I'm an old 35mm dinosaur that cut my photo teeth on a used Nikon F, and I think some digicammers really whine *way* too much about the high ISO noise. Sometimes it's the price you have to pay to get the shot (half a loaf or none at all). If the shot is too noisy, but it's worth keeping, they can always de-noise it easily with something like NeatImage.

[phili1]

Thanks Civis.

I already pre set WB and ISO, I will try setting F stop.

As far as DOF Hyper focus, did you set your custom settings in maual mode, because to use HYper focuse you need lens marks and the G3 is missing them.


By the way I used it last night for indoor with the buit in at low light levels at iso 100 and no Noise. The only problem was the Camera had trouble focusing. When I used my 540Ez on manual it had no problem. Did you find this problem.

Also if you have Photoshop you can make a black image and drag it to the photo and change layer settings to difference and it will remove noise.

[civis]

I set the hyperfocal presets by setting everything up in Av mode, set manual focus after pinging a target at the correct distance, then saving it as a custom preset. For the "close" preset, I was at full wide angle, and for the "further with some zoom" preset, I arrived at it by bumping the zoom up, snapping a pic, repeat repeat, then looked in the exif to see what the focal length were at each position and wrote them down. I then bumped it up from 7.2 to (hopefully) whatever focal length I was trying to get, pinged a focus target at the right distance, then set MF and saved as a custom.

Focusing in low light can be a pain, and I usually carry a 4 d-cell mag-lite with me to light up the target for night shots where a burst of extra focus-assist light won't spook anything.

I'd tried that difference method before in PSPro, but NeatImage really did a much better job for me, and while it takes a bit longer, you can queue the images up and do the lot while you watch TV or sleep (or whatever).