Messages

31

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Battery Drain on Pixel Vertax Grip for 5D3?

« on: July 24, 2012, 04:52:35 PM »

Ok, camera was off overnight, one battery stayed at 64% the other dropped from 72 to 68%. I'd say normal. Obviously both are used in parallel by the grip.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Battery Drain on Pixel Vertax Grip for 5D3?

« on: July 24, 2012, 08:27:25 AM »

I was just about to start a thread with the same question. My grip arrived from mainland China two weeks ago and it really chews the batteries. I was wondering how should the battery management by the grip normally be? Start one battery until empty, start both until empty? One goes down earlier than the other but both a drained during camera on standby over the day. I'll switch it off now and see what happens.

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EOS Bodies / Re: Canon EOS M Specs

« on: July 22, 2012, 04:07:09 PM »

I am curious to see the IQ of this M against the Sony RX100!

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EOS Bodies / Re: Would you buy a new full frame camera for $1999 with the 5D Mark III sensor?

« on: July 16, 2012, 09:31:28 PM »

Furthermore many of the people saying that the 5D3 isn't that much better in ISO are not comparing the cameras correctly in likely two ways. Camera manufactuers generally make up their cameras ISO ratings out of thin air. There are a few acceptable ways of rating ISO but most manufacturers chose the least regulated ones which so the manufacturer can essentially make up their ISO numbers as they see fit and when the 5D2 was released the ISO ratings were very optimistic to say the least with ISO 12800 being actually around what is commonly accepted as ISO 7000. With the 5D3 Canon has been less optimistic so ISO 12800 is actually a "true" ISO of 10000. The point is that people are comparing cameras using their RATED ISO which are on different scales not ISO measured on the same scale. It's like comparing a car going 0-60 kph vs a car that's going 0-60 mph, which doesn't make sense. The other issue is that after speaking to several Canon Techs and Reps, it seems that Canon specially designed the 5D3 to produce very low noise JPG's for photographers that have to shoot in JPG. Part of the innovation that they introduced was software but they also engineered the hardware to help in the process to make the noise coming from the sensor have far less speckle noise and have a very gausian distribution. This makes computer programs able to distinguish from the noise easier so when you apply noise reduction there is a slight advantage to the 5D3 of around a quarter of a stop more than the RAW data would suggest.

The 5D3 sensor is actually very advanced and has 0.55 stop advantage over the D800 in noise at higher ISO. Due to the fundamental technology that Canon uses in it's sensors, they cannot improve the low ISO performance very much.

This is exactly my experience ! Thank you Radiating for explaining this because I couldn't. But I was getting a lot better denoise-ification from 5D3 files at all ISOs, even the low ones than from the 5D2. The 5D3 RAWs are more pushable, richer and as easy to sharpen as the 5D2.
I won't buy a cheaper FF because I have the 5D3 already but would have considered if that one came out first. 

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Quality gap 5DIII?

« on: July 16, 2012, 03:47:11 AM »

very interesting xps! Could you please post some samples so that we, single camera owners, can benchmark ours against your worst and best copies!

36

EOS Bodies / Re: New Upgraders (to FF) - what is your experience

« on: July 16, 2012, 03:17:27 AM »

I went from a D30 to 40D to 5D3. My goal was to get the FF aspect and IQ. I have used the 5D2 borrowed for about 5000+ shots (landscape and portraits). 5D2 is enough for anyone not doing professional stuff. For a good while. I just could afford the Mark III, that's all.
Weight is not a big deal when you pay such a low price for a FF camera with  "contemporary" IQ (I mean the Mark III did not really improve much on that part ).
Flash: get some cheaper chinese flashes, they are probably not as good as good as original but might do the job for you until you overgrow them, or a 430.

Biggest deal on an FF are the LENSES ! This is expensive! Don't buy the kit lens - have you been happy with the Rebels kit lens? For how long? If yes, OK, go for it. The Mark 2 shines really with good lenses (Canon or alternatives, not going to discuss this here). But consider this: if you buy the 5D2 now what will be your next DSLR in about 5-7 years? What will be it's IQ? Think future - get the best possible lens you can afford (faster than f/4!) , if no zoom, no big deal, get a prime. For weight reasons a bought not a 70-200/2.8 but a 135/2. Cheaper too. So, ask yourself if you could go with let's say a 50 and a 135 for a start. If you need wider - go stitching.
Good luck!

37

5D MK III Sample Images / Re: Recent wedding with 5D Mk iii incl. ISO 12800 images

« on: July 11, 2012, 07:27:18 AM »

Very nice shots of Very nice people ! The faces are really photogenic in their happy laughing! Big fun watching! I am not a pro, neither wedding tog but I like watching happy people enjoy life! Thanks for sharing! What was your lighting for the indoor shots?

38

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Constant AI Servo on 5d3?

« on: July 01, 2012, 08:24:58 PM »

OK, I misunderstood,  I appologize, bdunbar, I just have been coming across many threads with similar content and now decided to respond, sorry!

39

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Constant AI Servo on 5d3?

« on: July 01, 2012, 08:12:00 PM »

I don't understand why people always claim that on the 5D3 the metering does not follow the AF point achieving focus or pre-selected to achieve focus. Of course the camera meters at this AF point as long as you use it in evaluative mode. It's at the bottom of page 171 of the manual and I can confirm that. How comes that people always claim the opposite? Am I missing something? If you use spot metering or the other three then it goes through the center point only but evaluative follows the AF point achieving focus! Only on AF lenses though! And not in MF mode on an AF lens.
So, I use AI-SS switch over the DOF Preview button if I suspect movement. But if I focus and recompose a bit then AI is obviously not practical. On my MF ZE line neither But using AI with my 135/2 or the 85/1.4 S is just a great experience on moving subjects! It is tricky though to select the right AI mode on a 5D3. I'll open a new topic on that soon.
Cheers

40

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Canon EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.1.3

« on: June 19, 2012, 08:08:44 PM »

I'm not sure if this was present before the new firmware but I've only noticed this after updating to the new firmware.
When using Orientation linked AF point, for example if I select 'Manual Selection: 1 pt AF', turn the camera to shoot a portrait and select a point in the corner then change to 'Expand AF area', turn the camera to shoot a portrait it will go back to the same point but in 'Manual selection: 1 pt AF' even though I've changed to 'Expand AF area'.
I've tried to explain this as simple as I can, hope someone understands what I'm trying to say.
And just want to know has it always been that way?

The camera saves your AF settings for each orientation it is in (3 of them all). So, if I have single AF point in Portrait Left but AF expansion in Landscape it keeps them while turning the device. The Pre-selected point keeps the selection of the main point, i.e. if main is expanded then the pre-selected is expanded too and vice versa. At least this is what mine does before updating. I won't update the firmware this time as there is no point of doing it if I don't own the 40 and operate in English.

41

EOS Bodies / Re: Focus screen for 1dx.

« on: June 18, 2012, 04:17:14 AM »

Has anyone used a brightscreen on his/her 5D3?

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EOS Bodies / Re: Canon BG-E11 Grip Unboxing! Including Fitment Pictures

« on: May 25, 2012, 02:05:19 AM »

Probably a dumb question but can you put a plate for a tripod on the grip, i.e. is there a screw opening for it?

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Seriously people, how many of you have actually read the 5DIII manual?

« on: May 22, 2012, 11:54:10 PM »

OK, who can recite by memory the different options for Multiple Exposure Mode 

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: RAW vs JPEG debate in the light of 5DIII improvements

« on: May 22, 2012, 11:51:03 PM »

I started exactly the same thread topic a month ago (being surprized how good the JPEGs look like on the camera own LCD) only to find out later that I continued shooting only RAW after that - big advantage in image quality in RAW. If you don't care about IQ but care for workflow speed instead, OK - go JPEG, but no other reason.
The only advantage of JPEG is that I had to become a lot more skilled with custom WB, metering, lighting etc because JPEG doesn't tolerate that much PP correction... Not that I managed but it is worth trying.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5DM3 ISO 1600/3200 bad technique, or broken camera?

« on: May 20, 2012, 08:16:47 AM »

Photo kid,
I had the same impression initially using Aperture. Is this your only noise reduction system?
DPP and LR 4.1 RC2 gave a lot better noise control with chroma. Try a different RAW converter. I changed over to LR because of that just a week ago. LR chroma + Dfine 2.0 clean up almost everything up to ISO 10000...
Just an idea. I loved Aperture until I started shooting high ISO.
Cheers