5D Mark III AF settings

Sniper, as I mentioned on page 1, I've had similar issues dealing with low available light. The difference was that I was making different choices than you, but coming up with similarly dissatisfying results.

The lighting is pretty similar to yours. You mentioned 58mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO 10000. Mine was 35mm, f/2, 1/200 or so, ISO 10000. ..about a one stop difference.

I decided to try the 550EX flash I had lying in box, unused for ages since I bought a fast prime (35L). Took a couple of shots last night and went, holy...umm...cow (except it wasn't cow).

Same basic lighting as before, but this time:

5D3, 24-105L @ 75mm, f/4, 1/200, ISO 400 (Manual mode with auto ISO)
550EX on hot shoe, bounced up and right

IIRC, nothing done to RAW except a tighter crop, and maybe a small white balance adjustment (I don't recall). The RAW is pretty darn sharp but might not have downsized well since I didn't apply any sharpening.

The point is to show you a result in similar light with a flash. The difference is that there was not much motion in this shot, but still the point is that the shutter speed was 1/200 at ISO 400 as opposed to your 1/50 at ISO 10000 without flash. You could choose to go faster than 1/200 or higher than 400!

edit: see picture in comment #52 below.

dsteve wrote in post #14242108
You mentioned 58mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO 10000. Mine was 35mm, f/2, 1/200 or so, ISO 10000. ..about a one stop difference.

I took lots of shots in that range, albeit with ISO 1600-3200, when my son was an infant and not moving as much. Results were mixed with my 50 f/1.4, enough that I wonder what utility a fast prime has at all.

That gets into HSS territory, though, for better or worse. I've had some decent shots with bounced flash and a smaller aperture, but it's a challenge: chasing my son around and trying to get an angle on his face is work enough; adding in constant re-aiming of the flash and having to adjust FEC every time only makes it worse.

http://photography.ste​vemekata.com/20120409-20-33-48-.jpg

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Thanks Steve. Actually I used my flash before posting here but I was on AV mode which I use mostly for stills. Now it is much clear to me the way to go when shooting my son while moving. BTW, I couldn't open the image you attached a link to.

anthony11 wrote in post #14242455
I took lots of shots in that range, albeit with ISO 1600-3200, when my son was an infant and not moving as much. Results were mixed with my 50 f/1.4, enough that I wonder what utility a fast prime has at all.
That gets into HSS territory, though, for better or worse. I've had some decent shots with bounced flash and a smaller aperture, but it's a challenge: chasing my son around and trying to get an angle on his face is work enough; adding in constant re-aiming of the flash and having to adjust FEC every time only makes it worse.

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It seems I was not alone in this regard. But I'm learning as I go.
To me flash now is another source of light that can help in those kind of situations. With 5D mark III and flash I'd get at least 30%-50% keepers.

Sorry, I'm trying to figure out how to allow direct linking to pictures on my hosting. I think you could open the image in a new window or copy the url and paste it into a new browser window.

Sniper258 wrote in post #14242462
Thanks Steve. Actually I used my flash before posting here but I was on AV mode which I use mostly for stills. Now it is much clear to me the way to go when shooting my son while moving. BTW, I couldn't open the image you attached a link to.

Shooting in Av mode indoors with flash for stills and having any kind of success depends on the focal length. You'll see that because the camera will take flash into consideration for the exposure, it'll set the shutter speed too slow for longer focal lengths thereby putting camera shake into play. This may not be such a huge issue for shorter focal lengths. It depends. Best practice for shooting indoors with a flash regardless of stills or moving targets is to put your camera in M and let the flash be the main source of light.

Ok, easiest solution was me to resave the jpg to size allowed by potn. Here it is

nicksan wrote in post #14242733
Shooting in Av mode indoors with flash for stills and having any kind of success depends on the focal length. You'll see that because the camera will take flash into consideration for the exposure, it'll set the shutter speed too slow for longer focal lengths thereby putting camera shake into play. This may not be such a huge issue for shorter focal lengths. It depends. Best practice for shooting indoors with a flash regardless of stills or moving targets is to put your camera in M and let the flash be the main source of light.

I choose AV over M mode for shooting stills with flash, because I want fill light rather than main light. Most of the time I get good results.
The way I like to do it is lower exposure compensation by one stop and increase the ISO to get a way with a shutter speed of at least 1/30. This way I take more of the ambient light which helps in PP. BTW, I did this with my 500d which is terrible above 400 ISO, but the 5d I go to 6400 without a problem at all.

dsteve wrote in post #14242805
Ok, easiest solution was me to resave the jpg to size allowed by potn. Here it is

Cute.

Great thread and lot of information for me. I'm just getting into the same thing: shooting my 11 month runner with my 5Dmkiii. Wondering a lot about the AF settings... what cases to use and so on...?

Will try with flash and without.

Also a new thing to me was that flash behaves differently in Av than M. If I understood correctly. Can someone elaborate on this? How does it really work?

I wanted the use AI Servo on this but couldn't figure out how to do it. I figured the starting point was outside the 61 point focus area and even if I set it to case 3 it wouldn't focus fast enough because of the speed of the cat. Was I wrong? I ended up setting it on manual focus but as you can see my focal point was to far forward. My previous camera was a 60D and I never experimented with AI Servo but would like to learn the capabilities with the Mark III. My first attempt was with cats running toward me in the yard. I tried 61 point with manual selection and case one. The results were just ok. The thing with the running cat scenario it has traits from at least 3 different cases so it's going to take a lot of practice to see which is best. Then there is the case customization! Any help would be appreciated.