5D mark III woes

To take the photo of the cyclist you should not have your camera set at Av as the camera will choose a shutter speed depending on the aperture you set. Since you are using a 580 flash, the camera will make sure you never go over the synch speed of the flash. Much better is to use Tv and choose a speed of 1/250th (or maybe 1/200th) and you get at least the max synch speed of the flash. This way the camera will automatically choose the appropriate aperture and the flash will give output accordingly. To be honest, I really don't think you will be able to get good results at a shutter speed of 1/200 for your pictures, and most likely will need something at around 1/500. I would go to ISO 3200 and drop the f stops and see if I can get a speed of 1/500. If I can't I might even go to ISO 6400 ... this all depends on the lens you are using, and the faster your lens the more leeway you get. Obviously by going higher than your flash synch speed that means that you cannot use your flash in normal settings, but the 5DIII can do quite well without flash.

Now to make it a little more complicated, if you really want to use flash and are willing to put the effort into understanding your equipment more the 580 has a High Speed Sync setting that allows you to overcome the sync speed limitation, this is usually used in daylight with high contrast subjects to equalize light, not sure how it would work in your type of scenario. Here is more info

http://cameradojo.com …lash-101-high-speed-sync/

http://www.bobatkins.c​om …dite_high_speed​_sync.html

lapiqurestudios wrote in post #15128191
I was panning WITH the cyclist and had my 580exII firing too, so it should have frozen the image a bit. Also when zoomed in a bit more the noise was considerable. And I really think the lens needs to be micro adjusted on the 5D mark III, I've never had to do that before.

Bump your ISO up a bit, but keep your exposure histogram to the right more, that seems really underexposed, and when a picture is that dark, and you try to bring the exposure back up afterwards, you bring up the noise too. If you do this correctly, you should have a sharper, yet very acceptable ISO 6400 shot. Open up your lens a bit more too, that will give you a bit more latitude.

Panning WITH the cyclists doesn't mean your pan speed is exactly the same as the cyclists' speed. Your hand will still wander up/down/forward/backwa​rds, and it'll also not match the left right speed of the cyclist exactly. If you shutter speed is too slow it'll catch those inconsistencies from human hand movement, and your image will look blurry.

Like everyone said, open up the aperture, lock in a 1/500 shutter speed or faster, and bump the ISO up. This camera has great noise control, and 6400 ISO should still be clean with proper exposure.

thanks guys! I just notice a lot of noise in low ISO's so I started to worry about something being wrong with the camera.

post a 100% crop

lapiqurestudios wrote in post #15128191
I was panning WITH the cyclist and had my 580exII firing too, so it should have frozen the image a bit.

The motion blur apparent in the front wheel indicates that the flash used was only slightly more powerful than the ambient in this shot. This is also apparent from the lack of light fall off with increasing distance from the camera. This meant that the flash could not freeze the action. With the aperture set to f8, the relative wide depth of field would negate any front or back focus issues with the lens. Therefore there is only one thing to conclude. The panning was not good enough to get a sharp image.

As has already been stated the increased noise is likely due to underexposure.

The 5DIII pictures at ISO 6400 are pretty amazing, and after the focus I would rate it as the most impressive thing about the camera. Here is what you should expect at ISO 6400. If there is even relatively good light, you can easily take decent pictures without a flash.

lapiqurestudios wrote in post #15128191
I was panning WITH the cyclist and had my 580exII firing too, so it should have frozen the image a bit. Also when zoomed in a bit more the noise was considerable. And I really think the lens needs to be micro adjusted on the 5D mark III, I've never had to do that before.

A flash will only really freeze motion if it is about 3 stops above the ambient light levels. Flash here looks more like it was used for Fill and there is not enough differential between flash and ambient to get the frozen motion. Micro adjust is there to compensate for the manufacturing tolerances in both the body and lens AF systems. Any lens that does not seem sharp should first be adjusted with micro focus. If nothing else, it will tell you how much the lens is front or backfocusing and that would justify a trip to repair if it is excessive.

Well I am in the market for a 5D camera. I have been researching mII vs MIII and I have looked at alot of pictures. To my eye the 5D MII looks like it has better dynamic range and better noise at 100-6400 iso. I am disappointed at the noise lvl of the MIII. I am upgrading from a 7D so I would rather have the better focus of the MIII but so far the MII IQ is pulling me in.

lapiqurestudios wrote in post #15130390
thanks guys! I just notice a lot of noise in low ISO's so I started to worry about something being wrong with the camera.

Lots of suggestions in here to go with a faster shutter, but I hope you don't go too far on that route. I would not shoot moving cyclists faster than 1/250, and I prefer slower than 1/200.

The suggestions to move your histogram to the right in-camera are good. Pick a shutter speed, pick an aperture, and shoot in M. Then set your ISO to get the histogram to the right, without blowing out subject highlights.

This is what GOOD ISO NOISE control is all about.
And from my Mk II, I knew I am not going to be disappointed.

I'm no artiste, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't open the aperture up completely and increase shutter speed (along with increasing ISO) in that poor light. What is gained by not trying to freeze the action - a bit of blur to depict speed? I'd rather have clarity.

Fuce wrote in post #15143517
I'm no artiste, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't open the aperture up completely and increase shutter speed (along with increasing ISO) in that poor light. What is gained by not trying to freeze the action - a bit of blur to depict speed? I'd rather have clarity.

That's how you shoot bike racing from the side. It's generally expected that you will have implied motion in the wheels, panning your subject. If you freeze the action, it looks like they are, well, frozen. You can't tell if they're doing 4mph or 40mph.

https://www.google.com …ei=npeBUNePKanh​0wHP-oCQDQ

Thanks. Sounds tricky to do well in that light.

The 4 mph is closer to my own racing abilities anyway!

Re the noise, even though it seems to have already been determined that it's just a missed shot, are you using lightroom?
If so, by default it applies NO luminance NR, obviously you'll need more than that.

Also, I came from a 1D3 to the 5D3 and initially thought there was too much noise on the 5D, soon I realised I was comparing 100%s and the 5D is double the resolution. 100% imo is sort of meaningless to look at with such high res, whereas with the 10mp my 2 2560x1600 screens made it almost fill the screen at 100%.