-= 1D MkIII Owners discuss =- and Post Your Pics

THANKS!!!

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #9571233
Ok, done here...

Not going to get into this kind of pissing contest.

One more for the Ignore List.

Truly appreciated!

PIX

NewphotoMan wrote in post #9569454
thats why you should have overnighted it lol best decision i ever made lol grats on the new camera

I really don't think there is a overnight shipping from UK to Denmark And thanks

lol true that would have been a lot of money lol

drisley wrote in post #9570015
Hey thanks Tada. Setting the servo tracking to fast sounds like what many bird photographers like best too. It's worked well for me shooting hockey.
I've never used AF expansion before, maybe it's something I will try tomorrow (shooting some friend's kids tobogganing for the very first time (they are visiting from Australia so it should be a treat )).
I guess when the kids are moving so fast, the expansion helps you stay on target.

Yeah, pretty much. I find it to be a good compromise. I don't like having the camera choose where to auto-focus. Here, I get to choose the general area where I want the camera to focus, and it will lock on to the contrast closest. I have found that when you turn off the af assist points, if your af point is not directly on what you're shooting, it will be off. As an example. With the kids running, on a few shots, the af point was in front of their faces. Because of AF Assist, it locked on to the face. If I hadn't had it turned on, they would have been blurry, and the AF would have locked on to the grass in the background. Just to give you an idea of how it works for me. I shot off 164 frames yesterday with the 1D3/70-200. Out of the 164 frames, 2 were out of focus, 162 would be considered keepers. Not a bad ratio.

I always use AF Assist on my 5D when shooting action shots.

Oh, and I only turn on AF Expansion when in Servo. I have the CF set in My Menu to turn it on/off quickly.

PIXmantra wrote in post #9570707
...This very well be the last of its "species", were more resolution, less noise, same-or-better light-gathering capabilities all coexisted beautifully and efficiently, thus offering pixel-by-pixel, gram-by-gram, the very best Image quality you could get, all the way from ISO100 to ISO6400.

All straight out-of-cam .JPGs, under scorching Florida's summer sun, shot in AdobeRGB and minimally processed for sRGB and x1024width viewing, all in AI-Servo, and captured with the sharpest zoom produced in this industry, the EF 70-200 f/4 L IS:

Creamy colors, superb tonality, feel-there skin tones, effortless whites... you name it.

NOTE: on-board cam thermometer reading 37C (98.6F) @ 10:16am.

Enjoy,

PIX

These are spectacular Pix! They have a very 3D look to them. The pool does give sort of a "clamshell" type lighting which I LOVE!
Now you've posted shots in +37c weather, and I've posted shots in -30c weather, that's a pretty impressive range of environments.
SInce I've asked others, what, if any, sort of AF customizations do you use for this type of thing?
Cheers!
PS. what's an on-board cam thermometer?!

TaDa wrote in post #9572674
Yeah, pretty much. I find it to be a good compromise. I don't like having the camera choose where to auto-focus. Here, I get to choose the general area where I want the camera to focus, and it will lock on to the contrast closest. I have found that when you turn off the af assist points, if your af point is not directly on what you're shooting, it will be off. As an example. With the kids running, on a few shots, the af point was in front of their faces. Because of AF Assist, it locked on to the face. If I hadn't had it turned on, they would have been blurry, and the AF would have locked on to the grass in the background. Just to give you an idea of how it works for me. I shot off 164 frames yesterday with the 1D3/70-200. Out of the 164 frames, 2 were out of focus, 162 would be considered keepers. Not a bad ratio.

I always use AF Assist on my 5D when shooting action shots.

Oh, and I only turn on AF Expansion when in Servo. I have the CF set in My Menu to turn it on/off quickly.

Fantastic keeper rate Tada!

PIXmantra wrote in post #9571267
Truly appreciated!

PIX

LOL!

Here you go...

drisley wrote in post #9574129
Now you've posted shots in +37c weather, and I've posted shots in -30c weather, that's a pretty impressive range of environments.
SInce I've asked others, what, if any, sort of AF customizations do you use for this type of thing?
Cheers!

The above sequence was captured (ENTIRELY) in AI-Servo on my "supposedly-affected" 1D3 (oldest body), which has never been serviced, BTW...

As for AF, I can fire up my cam's .CSD (I run the exact same settings on both cams, with custom-menu configured and enabled for loading three (3) sets of parameters which I personally call as follows: {Basic}, {Super-PJ} and {SuperPJ + Low Light}.

These three sets can all come with STD-GMB-RevC.PF2 as default choice, which creafully re-tunes the cam's delivery of shadows and highlights under scorching / bright conditions (most of my stuff). If Yyu switch to plain-vanilla STD Picture Style and you will get quite hotter highlights and shadows-depressed on these type of scenes. Also, specific tuning of AF is set for each mode. I usually operate with Set#2 (Super-PJ).

drisley wrote in post #9574129
PS. what's an on-board cam thermometer?!

...Well, as you can see from the most recent posts, some folks seem to be happy living on the desert... but seem to have been "confuzing" Photography with Astronomy... Could that be excessive heat?

In an effort to shed some light on this subject (and avoid further "confuzions" about Florida's sunlight and actual photos), I have extracted the temperature from the EXIF header of my files, as recorded by the cam's computer/thermometer.

It may be news for a few but... the EOS 1D MarkIII is equipped with an on-board thermometer, partly because, when using LiveView, the main CPU monitors closely the cam's/sensor's temperature, so it does not overheat while streaming video, either to the back LCD or via USB port (Isochronous USB transmission of quasi-720p of frames worth of 1024h*683v resolution).

For anyone interested, this is the EXIF tool to have if you really want to pull out everything there is on your file's EXIF:

http://www.sno.phy.que​ensu.ca/~phil/exiftool​/

Cheers,

PIX

HA! I never knew the camera came with a thermometer. I can't wait to see what sort of temps I'm shooting in (according to the camera) in the snow this week (it's supposed to be -15c).

Can you give basic suggestions as to what works best for AF such as AF Assist points and Servo Tracking?

drisley wrote in post #9574694
HA! I never knew the camera came with a thermometer. I can't wait to see what sort of temps I'm shooting in (according to the camera) in the snow this week (it's supposed to be -15c).

Can you give basic suggestions as to what works best for AF such as AF Assist points and Servo Tracking?

Drisley:

1. I shoot in "Super-PJ" settings, because I mostly work in AutoISO (SafetyShift enabled) + Tv mode + AI-Servo. (Set #2 of my .CSD file).

2. With the above setting, I can freely follow anything, and lighting conditions won't matter (e.g. tracking something in bright light and moving suddenly into shadows or lower-contrast area, thus AutoISO kicking to correctly expose).

3. For reasons exposed in #3 above, I have AF-Point expansion ALWAYS enabled... in case my target AF-acquisition area or subject's surfaces sharply loses contrast under the cam's selected AF-point, thus backing-up on the immediately surrounding.

4. AF-Tracking is set to SLOW (not full slow), so the cam tries to hold selected / acquired focus as long as possible, if it sees a sudden decrease of contrast.

5. When tracking SMALL, TINY things, that REMAIN tiny during the tracking-session, I turn-off AF-Point expansion, for maximum "selectivity".

6. I liberally switch from 45-point to single-point AF mode, depending on the object size: if it is big, and remains big across the AF-oval, I prefer 45-points. If it is small, and remains small, I use SINGLE point, with my finger kept at the joystick (e.g. while focusing, I dynamically change the AF point with the joystick if the region-of-interest is very specific). The 1D MarkIII has all the necessary processing power to mantain focus and image processing speed as HIGH as possible, even in 45-points AF mode (which is where it trounces all other cams, except the 1D4).

Cheers,

PIX

I've really learned a lot in the past 2 days , especially that many people are using the AF Expansion settings with great success. That's something I've never tried, so I will have to give it a whirl.

Thanks Pix and the rest for your information.

My second week with the mk3 - this time with a 135L. Lighting was better than most rinks but with most of the usual challenges.

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I use these settings also, plus I've used the 6 surrounding points when doing BIF but it's been awhile since I've usied the 6 surrounding points.

TaDa wrote in post #9569954
AF custom functions are all default except for:

2 - Servo tracking sensitivity to fast
8 - AF expansion at 2 (surrounding assist)
9 - selectable AF points 3 (19 points)

Methodical wrote in post #9580208
I use these settings also, plus I've used the 6 surrounding points when doing BIF but it's been awhile since I've usied the 6 surrounding points.

Honestly, this camera has outperformed my expectations. Purchasing it, I was a little nervous about the reliability of the auto-focus.

Reality, AF is instantaneous. Outer point AF is extremely reliable. My keeper rate is extremely high. IQ is superb. I'm sure that the 1DIV is "better", but I can't imagine how it would be a night and day difference. I purchased this to off-set the poor AF performance of my 5D, yet still retain high ISO capability, and this camera has outperformed my wants by a mile.

TaDa wrote in post #9580238
Honestly, this camera has outperformed my expectations. Purchasing it, I was a little nervous about the reliability of the auto-focus.

Reality, AF is instantaneous. Outer point AF is extremely reliable. My keeper rate is extremely high. IQ is superb. I'm sure that the 1DIV is "better", but I can't imagine how it would be a night and day difference. I purchased this to off-set the poor AF performance of my 5D, yet still retain high ISO capability, and this camera has outperformed my wants by a mile.

I'm in the same boat. Are you using the 5D much anymore? The only reason I'm holding on at this point is for the size.

Yeah, I would still consider the 1D3 the backup. For what I shoot, the 5D is just so handy. I love the true focal lengths of the lenses on the full frame, the shallow DoF, etc.

Each body has its pros and cons, so I can't really say that I prefer one over the other. If someone hires me to shoot their kids' hockey game, I will go with the 1D3. If someone wants some nice portraits in the park, the 5D. These two bodies really do complement each other very very nicely.