Messages

271

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 09:59:26 PM »

Not meaning to hijack the thread but, since most of this is about soft images from the 5DM3, here goes...

I have had the 5DM3 for 4 days now and am pretty pleased with its performance.  I've been doing mostly outdoor landscape type of stuff testing it out.  Tonight I realized that I hadn't used a flash on it at all so I mounted a small 270EX that I use for fill flash and began firing away at at a stack of magazines on the coffee table with the 24-105L.  With the camera set to let it select the focus points the results were soft to completely out of focus.  Changing the AF to single point produced sharp photos.  The magazine on top was a copy of American Photo with the large word "Photo" in red.  When the camera locked onto the red Photo word, the focus was completely off.  It got better when it chose to lock onto areas with black text but never produced anything as sharp as single point AF focused on the same black text.  This requires more investigation on my part but it will have to wait.  I have a 580EX II that I can test with as well but I thought I'd go ahead and put this out there in case anyone else with a 5DM3 can look at it too...

If you were using the flash AF assist beam(default setting) and were very close to the magazines, is it possible that the flash's beam was overshooting the area you were focusing on?

272

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 09:08:03 PM »

The bottom line is, this is fantastic camera and I really like using it. Converting to DNG proves the sensor and the RAW files have the detail, we are just stuck dealing with a firmware/software issue...which sucks, but is not the end of the world.

To anyone concerned about their camera: try converting with the Adobe software first. If you are still not satisfied do some tripod Live view manual focus shots to make sure you aren't having a focus calibration issue. If the result is still bad, then maybe you have something to worry about.

273

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 08:59:04 PM »

Oh, I should also say that to me it looks more like noise reduction... almost like it's applying noise reduction at all ISOs. This shot was ISO 100.

274

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 08:57:30 PM »

This was one of the first pictures I took with it, so I believe it was on Standard with all the defaults.

275

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 08:48:26 PM »

Here is a quick screenshot from Aperture. I was shooting RAW+JPEG. Photo on left is in-camera JPEG (one of the better ones) and photo on right is CR2 converted to DNG. Notice the missing detail in the white petals.

276

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 08:26:22 PM »

Uh, those seem to be magnified way beyond 100%

277

EOS Bodies / Re: So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

« on: March 25, 2012, 08:18:33 PM »

I don't think the in-camera JPEGs are very good at this point either. I never shot JPEG on my Mk II, so I don't really know big the RAW vs. JPEG difference was in detail in good light, but with the Mk III the JPEGs loose a lot of detail compared to RAW images process with Adobe ACR 6.7 RC1 / DNG convertor. I think that Canon has a RAW processing problem in both the DPP software and the camera firmware. The Adobe processed RAWs show the detail is there. I've been looking at this a lot and would be glad to take a look at one of your RAW files compared to mine. You can sign up for a free dropbox.com account and upload it to your Public folder to share. You can do it all through their website if you don't want to install their software. My gmail address is the same as my username here.

278

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5d3 Annoyances

« on: March 24, 2012, 04:15:25 PM »

Not that I have a 5DIII, but I really like that C3 is the end of the dial on my 7D and 5DII.  My C3 setting is sort of 'OMG I've got to capture that' setting (birds in flight, etc.), and being able to just spin the dial until it stops.  I'll miss that on my 1D X.

I do the exact same thing.. f/2.8, 1/500s, Auto ISO, Ai Servo, All AF points... That is my OMG setting.

279

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: This article is seriously making me question my 5DIII purchase....

« on: March 24, 2012, 12:16:38 PM »

I have been using the Raw beta from adobe and it's been working fine in CS5.

I just tried it and the results are great. Someone else pointed out that DPP is doing a bad job too:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III-DSLR-Camera-Review.aspx

For now, it seems everyone should be using ACR 6.7 RC1

280

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Defective 5D MK III.....

« on: March 24, 2012, 11:56:01 AM »

Photoshop CS6 Public Beta wont open the 5d3 cr2's either but the release candidate for Adobe Camera Raw 6.7 opens them and doesnt seem to display the issues that DPP is showing.

Hopefully Adobe will get the LR 4 update that includes 5d3 cr2's released soon.

That's a great point. I processed in ACR 6.7 RC1 using the defaults. Looks great to me.

BTW, this picture was taken at ISO 100 with 70-200 f/2.8L IS II at 120mm f/4 1/90s with 430EXII/ Gary Fong Diffuser for fill.

281

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: This article is seriously making me question my 5DIII purchase....

« on: March 24, 2012, 11:45:08 AM »

I got my 5D Mark III yesterday. After shooting with it yesterday afternoon and this morning I have to say you couldn't pry this thing from my cold dead hands. I freaking love it.

I couldn't agree more. As someone who owned a 7D and 5D Mk II simultaneously and struggled between wanting the speed of the first and the image quality of the latter, this has met all my expectations and then some. I have a serious concern about in camera JPEG quality right now, but that's it. I never shoot in JPEG, but with the lack of decent RAW support at this point, thought I would try it. I expect they will resolve it with firmware.

282

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Defective 5D MK III.....

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:34:03 PM »

Okay, I've been playing with mine today and there is definitely something going on with the in camera jpges. I shot in RAW + JPEG today to compare and found all the jpegs to look very muddy as far as detail. As a basis for comparison, I opened the raw in DPP and set it to Neutral, no sharpening, no ALO, no noise reduction and exported a 16-bit TIFF. I then imported that TIFF into Aperture and did a version with sharpening and a version with Niks ColorEfex Tonal Contrast (which does bring out detail). Here are 100% crops saved as jpegs. The neutral TIFF shows more detail than the in camera JPEG. The Aperture sharpened TIFF looks best. The Niks contrast enhanced TIFF looks pretty good too. I suspect a combination of sharpening and the Niks filter applied more subtly would look even better, but I didn't try that.

At this point I am wondering if this is less a sensor issue and more an issue with rushed RAW processing software.

283

Third Party Manufacturers / D800 just took DXO Mark top spot...

« on: March 23, 2012, 10:56:50 AM »

Very impressive that the ISO score essentially matches the D4. Wow, just Wow.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/News/DxOMark-news/The-Nikon-D800-is-the-new-king-of-DxOMark-with-a-score-of-95

284

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Defective 5D MK III.....

« on: March 22, 2012, 04:04:07 PM »

As another person posted, the crops you have been posting today/yesterday do not give us much information regarding location of crop in the overall scene/setting/etc and we're getting no where... Post a raw file so we can download it and see on our own computers...  If it is a defect, the effect should be universal across the board on everyones computer... if not it could be your processing.

Actually, if you look at his first post, second Lightroom screenshot you can see where the crop was taken from. However, what I initially missed was that the "100% crop" he posted is not a 100% crop. It's 2000 pixels wide. Based on the Lightroom screenshot, it's seems clear that the crop has been upscaled in order to be 2000 pixels wide. That explains why that image posted here looks so blotchy, but not what he is seeing.

285

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Defective 5D MK III.....

« on: March 22, 2012, 03:07:48 PM »

The issue is that every image taken with the camera, no matter what ISO, F stop, RAW, JPEG, etc. is coming out very milky/blotchy, almost like the camera is applying heavy NR to every image.

Sorry about your luck but thanks for bringing this to our attention. When mine arrives, I will test thoroughly. The 5DM2 I just sold would easily outperform what you sent.

I wonder how critical anti-alias filter alignment is? If it were askew relative to the sensor, I speculate it would create some strange NR looking results...