thehallway said:

thehallway said:

I preordered the morning of March 7 (in AL). Got the email last night - "Estimated arrival date: May 22, 2012".

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Got another email from Amazon this afternoon - "New estimated arrival date: April 03, 2012." Charge is also now pending on CC and order status says "Shipping Soon." Very excited!

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Got the tracking number this afternoon. Shipped from Nashville, will be here tomorrow.

japhoto said:

For "never" formatting your card in a computer as suggested by samueljay, I'd say why is that?

Especially if you're using the card with multiple cameras, for example I've gone from Oly E-520 to E-3 to Canon 7D and had a try with 1Ds MkII, I always format the card in the computer before putting it in a new camera. And when I do, I don't use the "quick format" option.

This is because every camera formats the card "in their own way" and I had a big problem when I went from the E-520 to the E-3 and formatting the card in the computer solved it. The camera would take a few photos ok, then freeze with mirror up and wouldn't reset until the batteries were taken out. So yeah, learned my lesson there.

I mean what's bad about formatting the card in a computer if you format it again when you put it back in the camera with it's own utility? For some reason I don't think new cards are formatted in camera when they ship out...

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I format in camera so as that the card is formatted the way that that camera likes. As for using different cameras with the same memory cards, in that case, maybe formatting on a computer is a good way to go, but it's something I would never do. I would have separate memory cards for each camera (and I do for my compact and dslr and any other device).

Like you said, the camera format's "in their own way" I don't know if I'm being overly anal, but I've read it a bunch of times that it's better to format in camera as then the camera and card are both set exactly how the camera would like it.

To quote wedding photographer Jeff Ascough:

On the subject of reusing cards I never, ever, ever use the computer to format the cards - I always format the cards in the camera they are to be used in. Another thing I never do is delete files on the fly in camera as this is just asking for trouble. If you feel the need to do this, may I suggest you spend some money and buy some extra cards?

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No, you're right, new cards are not sent our pre-formatted in camera, that would be stupid, what camera would they choose? And a lot of cards wouldn't even be used in a camera, that's why, when I get a new card, I format it in camera as soon as I put it in.

Whatever works for you though, since you swap cards in different camera's formatting on a PC is probably the best way to go about it since it's a uniform format that every camera should be able to read/write to.

My 7d has done me, and is continuing to be extraordinarily well. The only better for me is something like the 1d mark iv which Is currently out of my budget. The 5d things everyone seems to be on about, doesn't get my attention at all!

If a mark ii comes along Im sure if it will be just evolution. Iso may get better, it may get faster and a few more af points with digic 5+ processors (thats obvious). And in which case, I think that would be fantastic.

The one thing I can't see happening is canon dropping such a successful camera. Not a chance in a cold day in hell.

I don't know, but here's a Pop Quiz: Which company's offering below is just a friggin pipe dream?

Sony: FS100 (super35) @$5k
Panny: AF101 (micro4/3) @ $5K
JVC: GY-HMQ10 (1/2") @ $5K
Canon: C100 (super35) @ $5K

Is it just me, or does Canon have a disturbing lack of interest in producing a $5K-range professional big-chip camera that records professional sound? Dual recording is preferable for cinema. I get that. But what about the rest of us who make a living doing day-to-day video projects who need XLR inputs and a pro-level recording deck and would STRONGLY prefer to record straight to the camera?

There are a lot more of us out there than career indie film makers, I'm sure... so what gives? Will Canon finally produce a big chipper for the average working pro? Hell Canon, you don't even have to innovate. All I want is an FS100 that has a native EF mount. Come on! Don't make me go buy an FS100 and a Metabones adapter for $5400....

Or do make me. Who cares. I have your awesome L primes. Sony has the camera (and mount) you are reluctant to build. So good luck impressing me at NAB. You can keep your no-audio 4K DSLR monster "in development."

Wow, this is what happens when I work too late.

Axilrod said:

You have to figure 1/2 of the "duds" probably aren't actually duds. Too many people have taken a handful of snapshots (of things like the lamp in their living room) looked at the pictures on the back of the screen, and then instead of experimenting they hop online and start a thread about how disappointed they are. There are pages and pages of settings ,people just need to read the manual and use them before rushing to judgement.

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it goes the other way too someone gets it takes a picture of a tennis ball on a lawn at f8 and declares that its categorically perfect

Bosman said:

wickidwombat said:

From the week I have had with the 5Dmk3 I can safely say I feel the sensor is fantastic. At narrow apertures and shooting with strobes the images are razor sharp.

open up that aperture and shoot ambient light on my copy and it all goes to hell. My copy definately has a nutty AF, i am glad many others are reporting joy with theirs so I'll see if I can get another copy and give it a whirl.

I'd rather have the 5Dmk2 AF over the AF on my copy of the 5Dmk3 (at least I can rely on the center point of on that camer!)

I'm a bit disapointed, taking it back today I hope I can get a replacement within a week sinc ei'm going overseas and would like to use the mk3

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wicked, what lenses, apertures, focus points and shooting mode are you using? They all work together but they are very specific in application. Never use servo with big glass, use spot af primarily for static subjects, use spot af for most everything for things moving rapidly use focus with assist points. You prob know all that but i just dont get how you are experiencing this other than you need to micro adjust your lenses to the body or that you possibly have a bad copy, electronics aren't perfect, some get thru to the consumers even when tested in factory to be working properly. I hope you get things worked out because with what i have been getting in testing is excellent. I dont have any gigs at the moment so dont expect to see samples at this time.

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I've stopped even bothering trying to work out servo now until I can get single shot AF sorted out,
Lenses tested are
16-35 f2.8 II
50mm f1.4
50mm f1.8II
sigma 85mm f1.4
100mm f2.8L IS Macro
24-105 f4L IS
70-200 f2.8L IS II
300 f4L IS

I have set it in spot focus only (I usually shoot in spot focus anyway) I failed miserably with AI servo but I blame myself for that and not knowing the AF but I've gone back to basics and even just trying to use it the way I use the 5Dmk2 with centerpoint and recompose.

I took it back to the shop yesterday but it started working, couldnt get it to misbehave for the guy in the shop
he said regardless they have a backlog of preorders to the end of may so no chance of exchanging it and him and none of the staff had even handled the camera yet. my mk3 was the first time he had put his hands on the camera and he was the assistant manager. He suggested I keep trying it out and seehow it goes.
I definately don't have enough confidence in this camera to use it in a wedding though, studio with flash and narrow aperture though no problem It's great but apertures wider than 2.8 Its just plain unreliable.

last night i sat down to go through all the micro adjust process again but just gave up in disgust after 2 lenses

I am doing dance photography. Normally the light is sufficient to get 1/250 F4 at ISO 800. Using 70 - 200 F2.8L IS II
With that amount of light, what AF mode do you suggest for Dance (Indian bharatnatyam and kuchipudi for those who know).
I am having a dance rehearsal this weekend when i can practice, but what is the starting point?

I was trying auto AF point selection and that was consistently focusing on the dress instead of the face. With the thin DOF of F4, that is not acceptable for me.

I tried doing AF 8 point expansion in AI Servo AF and this felt slow to AF. I had so many times it just did not lock focus and kept hunting and this was with Focus priority and not shutter priority.

Should i try zone priority or do you think i have to learn the focus point switch? Can i use a single focus point for initial selection and have the focus point switch automatically to track the subject? Or is that the 1DX feature only from the RGB based exposure sensor?

donjensen said:

I have wet dreams about the 35L, do you have any pics online with the Mark III + 35L?

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No I don't have the 35L, it is the lens I am missing in my prime setup.

Here's my attempt at 12,800. Shot in RAW (under tough lighting conditions at a concert) and processed (including NR) in CS5:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edwinland/6886762262/#in/photostream

Profeel.com

Canon 5D mk IIIs in stock at Profeel.com!!! I canceled my amazon.com order.

I ordered mine at 2:30 a.m. PST on the day it was released (March 2) and I didn't get it until 7:30 p.m. on Friday the 30th.

Amazon screwed this up royally if you want my opinion. I think it has something to do with ordering cameras directly to their distribution centers, so I think it matters what area you live in. Lesson learned!!

NotABunny said:

unkbob said:

FWIW The little girl dancing was shot at ISO 1600, the other two were ISO 3200, all on 5D2. Of course the higher the ISO, the more powerful the flash becomes, which opens up some real possibilities with the mark iii and bounced flash.

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Have you used some color gels / filters (for the first two shots)?

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I often use CTO gels so the flash light is not too cold compared to the ambient light, but I don't use other colours. Can't remember for sure what I used here but I probably had 1/4 or 1/2 CTO on the flash. The funky colours in the background are the DJ lights.

I have only had the 5D3 for a few days now and I know there are some folks complaining a little about it but I have to say I love it so much better than the 5D2. The one thing I absolutely love is knowing that it will accurately focus almsot 100% of the time, no matter what focus point I select, at f/1.2 on my 50mm. I love that lens and I couldn't use it much more than 1.8 on my 5D2. At 1.2 it almost always missed focus and I had to focus and recompose which would throw it off even more. Being able to use it whenever I want now has opened up a whole new world for me. Anyways there is link below to a picture I took during a senior session. It isn't supper sharp, but the 50mm 1.2 isn't a supper sharp lens at 1.2 and I don't need it to be.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaayres/7039873381/#in/photostream

scrappydog said:

neuroanatomist said:

So, Canon's iFCL metering system sees color in the same way as a dog or an old-world monkey sees color - a dichromatic system, not a trichromatic system like the 1D X and us humans use...

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Does this distinction have any real-world implications in the accuracy and/or quality of the AF system?

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I wouldn't say it has too many real-world implications, probably even less than a biological system.

In human vision, we have two separate "poles" of color sensitivity: blue/yellow and green/magenta. Because of the nature of how our trichromatic sight works, we cannot actually sense both blue and yellow or both green and magenta at the same spatial point at the same moment. If you try, the eye & brain will compensate by oscillating between sensing one color then sensing the other (http://io9.com/5710434/train-yourself-to-see-impossible-colors)...however you will not actually see green (which according to color theory is what you should get when blending blue and yellow). This is generally not a problem, as we have two separate poles of color sensitivity (increasing "color sensitivity resolution"), and our eyes "refresh" some 500 times a second. Dichromatic vision has only a single pole, and therefor has lower color sensitivity resolution. If you had dichromatic vision, you could either sense red or blue, but not both at the same time.

Now, the iFCL sensor is not a biological system, its an electronic system. Silicon is semitransparent to various wavelengths of light. So long as the upper layer is blue sensitive, there is nothing to prevent an electronic sensor from simultaneously sensing blue-green and red-green at the same time. Such a sensor probably still doesn't have as high a color sensitivity resolution as a trichromatic system would since your sensing blue-green and red-green rather than blue, red, and green, but its probably better than a biological dichromatic system.

In light of the nature of posts these past weeks...

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/03/hammerforum-com

Hammertime: I blew up those pictures 200%, ran them through Photoshop and measured the arctan radius of the depth of the nailheads. It’s obvious that you were torquing the hammer from right to left when using it, which makes all of the framing you did inconsequenctial and of no use to anyone. A better hammer doesn’t make up for poor technique.

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haha, what a great post!

Canon hav still not said anything official about a 1d x delay , let's cross fingers.. CR2 on June, but nothing confirmed. I'm hoping for April-May for us normal customers.

Axilrod said:

However, I've been saying for months that the 5DIII would only have improved video in an effort to not eat into the Cinema DSLR sales.

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I still think that was a mistake. It's much harder for them to compete at the Cinema level or maybe more like it's harder for them to really stand out there as something remarkable even if they can compete there. But a full out effort on the 5D3, THAT would've kept them on the top of the raves heap and the 5D3 would've flown off the shelves maybe even faster than the 5D2. Instead you have people eyeing new Sonys at the somewhat higher end and giving the 5D3 (for video) meh reviews. They had a revolution, a gold mine, but I wonder if that is now over.

(if it truly was not technically possible to get a sharp, actual 1920x1080 out of then it is not a mistake though of course, but just a fact of life, it seems hard to believe that at least a cropped 2x2 sampling like the C300 does couldn't have delivered 1920x1080 on the 5D3 and the mode would have be useful at times even regardless, the other makers all see the point in cropped video modes, only Canon holds back as Canon is so in love with doing.)

Had they added a true-res 1920x1080 1.6x cropped 2x2 block mode, zebra stripes and focus check zooming while recording I bet they would've have all the video bloggers going nuts and raving like mad about it. Instead all I saw were rants, although some of them have no tempered to meh or not bad at all, but I still don't see the sort of raves they could've had.

No Problem. Im working on a few more videos to post since Canon doesn't.

thenickdude said:

That was helpful, thanks!

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Can't find the update on the Canon site...

Only a WFT 2.0 update shows up for Mac OS X Lion...

Thanks, I didnt even think of the 2 flash mount.

Heading to eBay now to search.

I hate how when a product gets released that's out of someone's price range it all of a sudden becomes a "rip-off." There are plenty of people that bought a 5DIII and are very happy with it even considering the price, myself included. If it were truly that much of a ripoff no one would buy it. If you look at the pricing of all the bodies the 5DIII fits nicely between the 5DII and 1DIV. I mean look at the 1DX, it's almost twice the price but doesn't seem to be twice the camera.

Go buy whatever camera you want dude, but this is probably the stupidest post I've seen in a long time. So you found Canon Rumors by accident while looking for information, congratulations, what's your point? If Canon is too expensive for you then buy something else and stop trolling; and if you don't like Canon stop hanging out in a Canon rumors forum.

neuroanatomist said:

You're talking about unrelated issues. The EV sensitivity of the sensor is independent of the f-number threshold. The f-number specification is related to the 'baseline' of the sensor - f/2.8 lines are further apart (physical spacing on the AF sensor), and require a wider aperture lens to cover that larger area.

Also, the -2 EV spec applies, "Using a single central AF point with an f/2.8 lens..." So, you'd need four times as much light (EV 0) to focus with an f/5.6 lens in extremely dim conditions.

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Thanks for the clarification, I was always pondering about it and this thread was a good place to ask.

Drizzt321 said:

darash said:

I tried focusing on a 3mm white flower today at a botanical garden and failed miserably. To be fair, I was just using the kit lens.

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The 24-105L? That's a good lens. Were you in spot? Maybe try using point or expansion or surround next time. Give it more points to use, but still keep it as a small grouping.

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I do agree that it's a good lens. I was using spot at that time. I'll try using expansion or surround next time. Thanks for the advice.

This camera is really good...


I have come to the conclusion that I can do ISO1600 RAW files for my commercial work, ISO3200 commercial if I am willing to spend a bit of time. ISO6400 at a push...


HOWEVER....


If you really need to get the light in, there is no reason not to shoot at ISO12,800... simply do an in camera RAW conversion to JPEG and you will be amazed at how clean the file comes out (some luminance noise, almost zero chroma noise). Critical though... your dynamic range is not so wide, so exposure and focus must be perfect to get the best out of the shot...


I have finally found a reason for JPEG