MNUplander wrote in post #13604534
Hi everyone -
-When connected to my 430EX II, it would seemingly randomly fire a high-speed synch flash burst for about a second. This occured twice in 4 days of family shooting.
Yes, I suspect it's what a couple others have suggested... you are accidentally pressiing the DOF button on the front of the camera... When a flash is mounted and powered up, that button gives you a flash preview/modelling lamp effect instead of DOF preview. It's really easy to press the button with your left hand, when "cradling" the camera and lens.
-Image playback button seems un-responsive for a short time (5-10 seconds?) after taking an image. This occurs more frequently but not all the time.
Could be several things... but basically it takes a little while for the image to be stored on the memory card. Exactly how long varies depending upon some of the camera's settings and the speed of the memory card. 5DII can use faster UDMA memory and take advantage of 300X or 45MB/sec memory. Faster than that, it really doesn't use... limited by the camera's write speed abilities.
Settings that can effect the time it takes to file an image include noise reduction (definitely Long Exposure, which takes a second "blank" shot to compare noise and deduct it... the second shot takes as long as the first one, whatever that happens to be)... also possibly Peripheral Illumination Correction, Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Lighting Optimizer... if you have any of those enabled.
RAW images are large and will fill the buffer and slow down the camera more quickly. RAW + JPEG, even larger and slower to process. JPEG, expecially the smaller ones, are the fastest, but the camera is throwing away a lot of unrecoverable data in the conversion process (all images start out as RAW files, if you set the camera to "shoot JPEG", it's just converting the image in-camera).
-I took a couple short videos and upon trying to locate them in playback, it said "image not available" in the spot where the video should be. Images were fine. Then, it displayed a message about a problem with my CF card (dont recall exactly what it said - maybe error "02"?). I turned the camera off then on and it seemed resolved. This happened once.
I don't shoot video, so am not sure about this. Do you regularly format your memory card in the camera before using it? (I'm in the habit of formating in-camera every time I put a fresh mem card in... This erases any images remaining on the card, so be sure to remove or copy any you want to keep.)
Another possibility is the memory card isn't fast enough. However, video isn't really all that demanding. I think Canon has info on minimum card speed (which is surprisingly low, if I recall correctly) in the instruction manual.
-Is the metering different from the 5D? The 5DII seems to under-expose by about 1 1/3 stops compared to my 5D but this could just be a learning thing for me. It actually seems to match the look in the room a bit better, but there are definitely more under-exposed areas than the metering in my 5D would have chosen (aperture priority).
AKAIK, the metering system is the same as in the 5D. If you are judging by the image review on the LCD... well, don't do that. The LCD isn't calibrated, is highly subject to ambient light variances, is governed by whatever Picture Style you happen to have set, and the brightness of the LCD has sort of a crude auto brightness adjustment (unless you disable it).
Learn to use the histogram instead. It's much more accurate info about exposure accuracy (but be aware that it is also effected by the Picture Style that's set, even if shooting RAW, since the histogram is always based upon the preview JPEG embedded in the RAW file)
The best way to evaluate images is with a print done on smooth, matte paper. The second best way is on your computer... And it's best if it's a desktop computer always being used in consistent viewing conditions and if its monitor is properly calibrated. Laptops are a lot harder to calibrate well, since they are used under a wide variety of viewing conditions and different light sources, plus the viewing angle of the screen is hard to keep consistent.
-How much should I be able to push my shadows in post at say 3200-6400 ISO? It seems like if I touch them at all I get weird red noise in my shadows, sometimes its slightly noticeable even without touching the shadows. This could also be my in-experience using high ISO coming from the 5D that I never used above ISO 800.
We all have different expectations when it comes to noise... what we each consider "acceptible". So this a tough question to answer. I will use my 5DII up to 6400 without much concern... But if the image is of a subject or scene with a lot of dark areas or shadows, more noise will be present. I'll use the higher ISOs more rarely, but I always expect to do a lot more post processing, or possibly have to convert the image to black & white. I shoot RAW and don't use in-camera noise reduction.
The key thing is to avoid underexposure. It also makes a big difference what software you use for RAW conversions (assuming you are shooting RAW). Canon DPP is pretty darned good handling noise. Lightroom 3 is much better than Lightroom 2, and Photoshop CS5 has far better noise reduction than previous versions.
There are also tricks you can do, depending upon what software you use... Such as selective noise reduction just in the shadows or dark areas of an image, if NR isn't needed in the brighter areas (I'd use Photoshop and layers to do that.)
But it's still best to avoid underexposure as much as possible. If you have to dial up the exposure in post, that amplifies noise a lot. A lot of people shooting with Canon in any of the auto exposure modes (Tv, Av, P) will set a slight bias with Exposure Compensation... +1/3 or +2/3 stop. This is just a blanket precaution to try to avoid underexposure (but you still need to know how to read a scene and dial in any other necessary compensation, to correct for the inherent errors in any reflective metering system... see Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" for more info about this). This is called ETTR or "Expose-To-The-Right", since you are dialing Exposure Compensation 1/3 or 1/2 or 2/3 stop to the right of center (the + side) as a starting point. There's a lot of discussion of this on www.luminous-landscape.com, too.
The general idea is that it's better to slightly overexpose than to underexpose.... pulling back or dialing down exposure is much safer than pushing it or dialing it up... Gives a much cleaner image. Part of the reason for this is that there's more "headroom" to protect highlights than we realize. You likely won't see it on your computer monitor... will only see how much highlight and shadow detail there really is if you make a print from the image on smooth, matte paper. That's the best way to fully evaluate an image.
5DII handles a higher dynamic range than most DSLRs. But at some point it's limited and you might want to read up on High Dynamic Range or HDR techniques, too.
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