5D mark III - problem with focus

Dear All,
I would be extremely appreciative if anyone has a solution to this problem:
The Canon 5D Mark III sets its default focus point at the centre, but has many focus points for users to choose from. I've been trying to use some of the off-center points. However, every time I changed the focus point (by moving the red square away from the centre to one of the off-center points), as soon as I press "focus", the red square would shift back to the centre, and centre becomes focused instead of where I want the focus to be! And as soon as I release the focus button, the red square would return to the focus point I chose! I've tried this with 3 different lenses, all producing the same result. The Canon Technical Hotline said that it is most likely an issue with the camera settings, and advice that I reset everything to factory default. However, this would mean deleting all my other settings too. Does anyone have a more simple solution (and may be even an explanation) for the problem?
Many thanks in advance for your advice!!
Best wishes,
Kit

Landscape Lens advice

This is good to know, regarding the 17-40. Thank you all.

A friend announced to me yesterday, that he just bought the 16-28 Tokina, for his 7D. I hope to try it on my new 6D. Hopefully I will make the right choice. I have a feeling the right choice is to buy several lenses including a T/S, but I would rather not spend the money.

I wonder...does anyone ever try to correct rectilinear distortion? I guess I should google it. That distortion, is why people don't like shooting really wide angle. It's either that, or barrel distortion of a fish-eye...in some cases neither is preferable...which is where panoramas come in. But who has time to do stitched panoramas while visiting a national park or something? I would just wind up rushing it, and miss out on going to enough locations to take pictures. I'm always rushed...time is never on my side. Sort of like posting on here. I sign in to look around for 15 minutes, and an hour later I'm done.
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Is the upcoming 50mm F/2 IS USM for me?

ahsanford said:
Again, not a rumor -- just a certainty. 8)

This lens absolutely will happen in the near future (next 12-18 months).

"Near future"... I like that...as for me, in the near future, I am hoping to have Jetson-style flying cars released...and I define near future as few years, but over the course of this thread I plan to specify that to be about 5 to 30 years. Also, with 12-18 months you give yourself a rather wide berth there and one would hope it is tough to miss such a generous timeline. ;)

But the irony might very well be that Canon's obduracy outlasts even your safer, longer, 18 month prediction.

It seems to me that Canon is focusing on opening up and expanding into newer, high end venues that were not even around a decade ago...such as mega-K cine platforms and its cameras and lens needs as an example.

Right now Canon has four 50mm models in its dSLR line up ...and their logic would be, though each has its own group of complainers and champions, there is plenty to choose from. I don't see Canon hurrying it up...in the "near future". However, I do not doubt that the 50mm's will be updated sooner or later (see I am being "high risk" just like you). ;)

But all kidding aside, I will be cheering along with you should your prediction come true and may even consider buying the damn lens. :)
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Question regarding ISO 50 on 5D III

neuroanatomist said:
Skirball said:
So, I haven't played with my camera above 25.6k, but I'd assume it's the same situation going above there as well?

Just like the L expansion is a digital pull, the H expansion settings are digital pushes, yes.

And, to follow up on neuro's point, because I know somebody will wonder and / or ask...yes, they're equally useless for knowledgeable photographers shooting RAW in manual mode, but they can be useful for those shooting in an autoexposure mode and especially useful for JPEG shooters.

The utility for JPEG shooters is especially pertinent because the 5DIII has such an awesome onboard RAW processor.

If you shoot JPEG in low light, you'd be a bit silly to not enable the H modes. If you shoot RAW and manually expose, there's no point to them.

Cheers,

b&
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III AF Points with 50 1.2 and 85 1.2

In the same vein, the shallow DOF and bokeh "seen" wide open at f/1.2 through the viewfinder doesn't correspond in 85L with the image "captured" on the sensor which will have even shallower DOF than what you saw. Even stopped down to ~f/2.0 and even if you press the DOF button to preview, the DOF/bokeh "seen" doesn't change until you stop down to about ~f/2.0+. That is one full f/stop and then some.

But the final image on the sensor will reflect the actual f/1.2 or f/1.4 you set, generating more shallow DOF and bokeh than what you saw through the finder.

Somethings to keep in mind with such fast primes.
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Question re: real world experience with 5D MkIII AF

No duh's ;D.... It's a lot to ingest. There are some very good white papers on Canon's DLP site on AF, mostly for 1DX. But since they share the same AF system, almost all of the settings function the same. Only iTR tracking and metering on the selected AF point are different.

http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/1dx_guidebook.shtml

Click the PDF link near the bottom of the page.

Harv said:
East Wind Photography said:
AF4 on the menu. Manual page 98 under selectable AF point. The manual says when you manually select all 61 points, all will be used. It's only when you manually select AF points. It also says in a foot note that expansion will also still work regardless of this setting. I assume that the center point will always have to be a cross type point but the expanded points may not be.


Harv said:
East Wind Photography said:
AF accuracy on the 5DIII is slightly better than the 1D IV. AF speed might be on par or a little less but even with BIF shots I didn't notice the difference at all. The benefit of using the 5DIII is that you will also get closed loop AF with Canon's newer lenses such as MK II models. Those lenses now report AF position back to the camera. However, even with the older lenses, the AF accuracy is improved.

For best AF accuracy for action, you also need to set the firmware to use only cross type af points. If you have it set to use ALL of them, it's possible for the AF to be less accurate...It's fine to use ALL of them if you are shooting static subjects.

Most people using the older bodies are accustomed to using the center point only. While that is still a very good option for most, the 5DIII offers a few other AF modes that are an improvement over using just the center point....and with most modest lenses, a large block of the center AF points are all cross type.

Lots of benefits to using the 5DIII for action....but a lot more options to tweak based on what you are shooting. It's a bit overwhelming. I've been using a 5DIII for about 1 year now shooting almost exclusively wildlife and I'm still finding tweaks that are improving the numbers of keepers in certain situations. Steep learning curve but glad I have it.

BTW, got rid of the 1D IV and 7D. Now waiting for the 7DII to come out as my 2nd body.


Harv said:
I apologize if this has been covered in the past but I did a quick search on the subject and could not find what I was looking for.

I'm hoping that someone out there has some real world experience and can answer my question.

How does the 5D MkIII AF compare to the 1D MkIV? I'm particularly interested in the accuracy and AF lock-on speed. My primary use is action photography; motocross and birds in flight.

The lenses I mostly use, in order of time on the camera are:

70-200 f/2.8L IS II
300 f/2.8L IS
400 f/5.6L
135 f/2L

I should mention that I do not intend to replace my 1D MkIV, which I have been using for 3 years. If I acquired a 5D MkIII, it would be a second body to use primarily at the motocross tracks. Most likely, I would carry the 300/2.8 mounted on the 1D MkIV and the 70-200/2.8 or 135/2 mounted on the 5D MkIII.

I am also not concerned with the burst rate as 6 fps would be adequate. I normally keep my 1D MKIV set at 7 fps for motocross and it's been fine.

Any help would be appreciated.

That's great information. Thanks.

I read the paragraph above with particular interest in your comment regarding the setting in the firmware for using only cross type AF points. I have downloaded the manual but have been unable to find any reference to where and how that is done. Do you mean to select a point with expansion or a zone that would only include those?

Are you able to elaborate?

Got it. I think I must have stopped reading at page 96. Duh me. Much appreciated.
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AA Battery Charger and Batteries

I have to come back on my promise to buy Eneloop XX's for flash use: according to this page (Dutch language), the standard Eneloops have a lower internal resistance, which means they can recharge your flash quicker. Having emptied six sets of AA's shooting indoors yesterday, I can safely say that to me, that's an important issue :)
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CompactFlash vs SDXC (Effectively 5D3 vs 6D)

fonts said:
RLPhoto said:
fonts said:
RLPhoto said:

C'mon. Stop supporting CF tech. SD is catching up in a more reliable and convenient package and on top of that its less expensive. At the current speeds they both are way passed practical speeds from what current cameras offer. Let CF die...

My d30 is CF only and I need to support CF until another format like XQD is adopted on canon. SD really sucks on the mk3.

Haha I see ::) I just want camera manufacturers to stop CF slots. It'll save them space for other electronics and it'll make our end a lot easier when all cameras have the same standard and computers can easily take SD. ;D

Actually, I only see the SD physical interface as being more reliable than CF. I personally think the CF cards themselves (at least electronics inside) tend to be built in such a way as to be more reliable. An SD card has significantly smaller amount of space for NAND dies and controller, while the CF card has more room for more dies and potentially better controller which can do a better job of cleaning up space that's not being used to keep write speeds high.

Now, I very much can't wait to see XQD being widely adopted. Must faster theoretical throughput via PCIe, plus I think with a simple adapter I can stick it into my laptop's ExpressCard slot and read it at extremely high rates. Plus slightly smaller size than CF.
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EOS-1D C Firmware After NAB

bvukich said:
sociophilo said:
I hope the people at Magic Lantern get their hands on this and reverse engineer the technology for the 1DX and 5DMK3.

Last I read, they have no intentions of ever bringing Magic Lantern to the 1DX, and explicitly stated they will never attempt to hack it to become a 1DC.

And I agree completely. It's not really a gentlemen's agreement, being one sided and all; more like a gentlemen's nod. As long as Canon doesn't try and stop them, and they've been WAY more generous in that regard than Nikon would ever consider, the ML team has no intention of pushing too far. Turning a 1DX into a 1DC in firmware would be too far.

They're (ML Devs) even speculating that a few "suspiciously convenient" hooks were left in recent Canon firmwares just for them. Which if it's true, means Canon isn't just turning a blind eye, they're passively assisting. That's huge, and bodes well for the future of ML. And shows that Canon sees the benefit of having them around, much like a robust 3rd party ecosystem benefits them.
Agreed completely. Also, since its been confirmed that the internals of the 1D-C are different than the 1DX, I think the ML crew would have trouble with overheating and have to worry about cameras getting damaged with the hack. It's one thing to be able to up a bit-rate or change frame rates...it's a whole other animal to offer much higher resolution, and in the case of 4k, 4x the resolution
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7D or 5D3 for low light candids?

For the past year, since buying my 7D, I thought it or the future 7DII would have a permanent place in my kit. Now, I'm not so sure.

I'm a two-body shooter. The 7D is now my second body, but I find myself shuffling lenses to shoot mostly with the 5D3, thus defeating the purpose of using two bodies. Need to payoff the 5D3 first, but I'm already considering a second FF down the road and will be weighing the merits (and price) of the 6D vs. another 5D3 for this purpose.

Curious side note. The full resolution JPEGs from the 5D3 volleyball shoot averaged between 5-6 MB. Those from the 7D averaged 8-9 MB. ISO for both cameras were mostly 3200. I'm guessing that extra noise accounts for the added data in the 7D files.

Also, I made a rookie mistake during the first game. In switching from RAW to JPEG, I inaverdently switched to Large compressed. But, even those images are cleaner than the ones from the 7D.

Funny that TrumpetPower mentions the 135 and 645 comparison. Decades ago I went from a Canon FTb-n to a Mamiya 645 1000s. When I first started playing with the 5D3 around the house and comparing it to the 7D, I did think "this is a lot like the Mamiya" -- only a tad lighter.
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5D MKIII vs 7D (70-200 2.8)

Macbook pro retina : 2880*1800 =5.184

A little different than 1920*1080 (2.073mp) or 1280*720 (0.922mp)

But thanks for the tips


TrumpetPower! said:
Apop said:
downsized to +- 5mp (like when you set a wallpaper on your pc it adjust to your screen resolution)

First, a 2560 x 1440 display is well under four megapickles, smaller even than you're indicating.
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Review - EF 24 f/1.4L II

messus said:
Justin "You are wrong about how good this lens is" - The 24 1.4 II is in desperate need for an upgrade!! This is not a lens you buy to stop down, this is a lens you buy to be able to use wide open in low lit conditions.

The vignetting I guess is something you to a certain degree must accept. But the level of Chromatic Aberration (purple fringe) this lens produces wide open is absolutely unacceptable.

The worst negative of this lens however is not the CA, but the coma distortion.

I work a lot in night/low light photography, and stars in the edges of this lens get distorted to the level that they look like "bananas". If you shoot wide open in contrasting light sources, eg. night photos of a city, the coma distortion in the edges is so bad that it is ridiculous!

A slight positive is that the 24mm 1.4 from Nikon is not any better. But that still does not mean that this lens from Canon is optically a good lens.

The Samyang 24mm 1.4 which I also own 2 samples of, may not be as sharp in the center as the Canon/Nikon 24, but it is virtually free of CA and coma distortion in the edges, and the Samyang even has more glass/lens elements!! Hence I more often tend to use my Samyang 24 than my Canon 24.

The Canon 24mm 1.4 II, as well as all other of Canons L wide angle primes (14mm 2.8 II/35mm 1.4/50mm 1.4/1.8/1.2) are in desperate need of upgrades! I wish Canon would start to prioritize the wide angle department, and not only focus on tele-lenses.

You're right about the Chroma, it's an issue but not one I've seen drastically reduced in any lens of this focal length. The Sigma 35 may be the best I've seen at equivalent apertures (but that's a different story).

The Canon 24 ƒ/1.4 L II was introduced in 2008, if we can assume a lens nowadays has about a 10-year shelf life I'm not sure you'll see an update from them until 2018.

However, good news is that Sigma is stepping up the competition with their "Art" series - it'd be interesting to see if they tackle 24mm next.

And my bad on the night-time photography, you have more experience in this than I, but I do recall seeing some incredible examples of night-scape photography taken with this lens, which is why I mentioned it.

Thanks!
Upvote 0

Good News - Camera Mator releases iUSB Port Camera

Rienzphotoz said:
JAlmodovar90 said:
Rienzphotoz said:
emag said:
This might be a bit soon, but.....does anyone have experience using this device/app with Android tablets? I've held off on CamRanger because I'm not willing to get an iPad when my Acer Iconia A500 is working fine (though the Retina display is quite nice). Wireless is very much a plus for me and the primary reason I'm considering the 6D over the 5D3. iUSBportCAMERA could sway my decision. I also use an astro modded 40D and a soon-to-be-modded 60D. I'm a patient person, my camera purchase is a couple months out anyway. CamRanger's website implies that Android support is 'coming soon' but I don't see any progress noted. Sanho has been very upfront about the lawsuit re: CameraMator and seems to be very proactive in responding to the market.
At the moment no Android support ... but if you have Acer Iconia A500, you can use the $6.24 android app called "Remote Your Cam USB Pro BETA" ... I was using this on my Acer Iconia A510 for almost a year, it is not WiFi enabled, you basically connect it to your camera with the normal USB cable that came with your Iconia ... but their support kinda sucks and it has been under "BETA" status for well over a year now.

You should check out dslrcontrollerby chainfire. Probably the best app for any sort of thetering and remote controlling application on theandroid market. It also allows for wireless controll between two android devices (via adhoc). Chainfire also actively answers emails and forum post over at XDA devs.

I wish someone would someone would release a slightly inexpensive wireless file transmitter myself. I guess it's a pipe dream for now. :(
I had (and still have) the DSLR Controller, its also a decent app but I had a few issues with it freezing on my Acer Iconia 501A ... unfortunately this too has been under BETA status for nearly 20 months now (their last update was in September 2012) ... it does not work on all Android devices and you need special USB cable and/or adapters for it to work on your particular android device, but you can't blame Chainfire coz there are far too many devices and almost every device manufacturer "customizes" the OS to suit their hardware, posing a big challenge for software developers to come up with a stable app that works on all those android devices with different screen sizes and configs ... this is the reason I shifted to Apple devices - ok, lets not start a holy war on this issue ... it is my personal choice to go with Apple and I mean no ill will towards any Android users and I still have one Android tablet :)

Don't blame you. On the photographic front, it seems like Apple has the hands up despite what many people say or believe. Luckily for me, I haven't had any issues with DSLR controller (probably due to my phones and tablets having native USB support) and Chainfire has replied to my emails whenever I have had any issues with the software. That was a big plus for me.

Hopefully you find software that best suites your need. :D
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D800, D800E firmware updates on April 1st - really

Aglet said:
RGF said:
I just saw that Nikon updated their firmware. For a whole host of cameras.

Does this mean that Nikon is more committed to their customers than Canon or simply that the firmware share lots of components and if a general (non-camera control) component is upgraded it is readily shared across the line ?

does look like some common features + model-specific ones

www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/04/02/from-consumer-to-pro-nine-nikon-dslrs-get-updated-firmware

Good software practices - reuse code. Too bad Canon does not take a clue :o
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New Specs for 70D from Cameraegg

Don Haines said:
candyman said:
It's difficult to takes announcements serious on April 1st.
Though the specs look very good.

It's even harder to take it seriously when the last line of the article is "Happy fool's day"

I fear the real April Fool's joke may be the ACTUAL specs of the 70D from Canon. :(
When it should be something like these ones.
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Fingerprint "investigation"? (ef 35mm f/1.4L)

Mt Spokane Photography said:
Don Haines said:
Your smeared fingerprint might be as minor as the third party mounting the lens onto a camera to make sure it worked before they shipped it.
I received my 24-70L today and know it had not been used. It, of course had the tiny scratch marks on the contacts. The lenses are mounted and tested by Canon at the factory, and if you look closely, they are on all new lenses. Camera shops do not test lenses before selling them.
Actually...... The last two lenses that I bought, both were in what looked like unopened boxes. The clerk suggested that I try them out in the store ( they had demo lenses too), so she opened up everything and mounted the lenses on my camera and I gave them a quick check. It never hurts to verify BEFORE they get your money......I would never pay for the product without verifying the contents of the box
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Elinchroms and High Speed Sync

agierke said:
wombat,

any chance you can post some shots demonstrating the capability of your setup? would be much appreciated!

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=13750.30

I put a couple of samples up in this thread
i still want to sit down and setup a lightmeter in studio and measure the power drop as shutter speed increases
basically the same deal as speedlights for power loss
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Added dandelion chips to my lensbaby and samyang 8mm

wickidwombat said:
thats not good, did you try calibrating the AF confirm too? it seems like a pretty complicated process which i didnt do
obviously the 8mm just about everything is in focus most of the time anyway
and the lens baby i didt worry about calibrating as its a freaky little lens anyway

My Rokinon 35 is a Nikon mount so I use an adapter. The thickness of the adapter I dealt with by programming the AF offset in the chip. It's not any tougher than programming the other data except you have to guess what value, but even that was easy and got it second try. Then fine tune using in-camera AFMA the normal way.

Pretty frustrating that everything functioned properly then this wide range of confirming focus. If I were to hazzard a guess, the range it confirms is equivalent to about 12 AFMA units...so basically a game of roulette when at f/1.4 and close subject distance.
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