5D3 quick start help

[thepancakeman]

Hey all,

I'm going to be shooting a CrossFit fund-raising event this weekend and plan to rent a 5D3 for it.  Everything I've read says you need some time to get up to speed with the camera, and I have exactly 1 evening, so I'm hoping maybe some of you experienced with the camera can help identify what settings I most need to get familiar with (or maybe even what they likely should be.)

FWIW, my experience is with an Xti, a 40D and a 7D.

In short this event will be indoor sports--crappy lighting, moving athletes.  For most of the events, the athletes will be moving in one spot, for example doing deadlifts or hand-stand push-ups.  There is a sandbag sprint, so that will be a bit different with the athletes moving linearly.  The other thing I'll be doing is spending very little time on one athlete/focal length.  Some of the events are as short as under four minutes, in which I'll have to capture 8 sets of 2 athletes each doing 2 movements.  I've done these events before with the above mentioned bodies, so I know what to expect as a whole; just looking for help to maximize my results with the 5D3 in this setting.  (Although now that I've said that, I'll retract it and say that I'm open to any and all suggestions as there's always stuff to learn--I certainly don't know everything!)

Thanks a bunch!

[tpatana]

Can't help too much as I don't have 5D3 (yet).

But last summer I spend couple hours with one, and coming from 7D there was couple items that I kept fumbling:

-the view button is different, especially the zoom. I kept pressing wrong buttons to review the pic I just took

-The 5D I had didn't move AF point with joystick. I think you can configure that, but I didn't have time to do that.

-The AF system is bit complicated, but if you know 7D and stick to the normal items, it'll be fine.

Everything else was familiar from 7D, so you'll do just fine.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

You do need some time to AFMA your lenses, and find out if that particular body over or underexposes, and if you are using flash, you need to check exposures as well.
If you want the body to track AF, you just need to take the time to learn.  I'd recommend that you use the center point and concentrate on getting exposures and shutter speeds right. 
Set a minimum shutter speed of 1/640 or whatever you think is correct for your use, that setting is found in the shoot2 menu under ISO speed settings.  For fast moving subjects, its great to help keep the shutter speed up.  You will have to use auto ISO or manually set a high ISO for it to work.  I enable auto ISO to 25600 and let the camera increase ISO as needed to be able to keep the shutter speed up.

[thepancakeman]

You do need some time to AFMA your lenses, and find out if that particular body over or underexposes, and if you are using flash, you need to check exposures as well.

Doh!  I would've forgotten AFMA--thanks! 

I have a firm policy against flash photography in athletes faces, so generally just go without so I'm not thinking about it.