5DMkIII AF performance at f/8

[AlanF]

Mac
The 300 f/2.8 x2 with the 7D does focus slowly, but with the focus limiter it is OK. I got some good birds in flight with it. With the 5DIII, it is very fast.

I have gone over to DxO PRIME for noise reduction and found it miraculous - it's raised the 7D to new level. Here is a photo I took just over a year ago at 600mm of a kingfisher speeding like a bullet, and I used iso 1600 and 1/4000 s. It has just gone through 1 round of DxO prime with simultaneous USM of 0.9. It's a 100% crop.

 

[mackguyver]

Mac
The 300 f/2.8 x2 with the 7D does focus slowly, but with the focus limiter it is OK. I got some good birds in flight with it. With the 5DIII, it is very fast.

I have gone over to DxO PRIME for noise reduction and found it miraculous - it's raised the 7D to new level. Here is a photo I took just over a year ago at 600mm of a kingfisher speeding like a bullet, and I used iso 1600 and 1/4000 s. It has just gone through 1 round of DxO prime with simultaneous USM of 0.9. It's a 100% crop.

Alan,
Thanks for the tip - I should probably go back and re-process my high ISO images I shot with my 7D. PRIME does work really well and I'm happy to hear you're liking DxO. I took me a while to really get the hang of it, but I've used it almost exclusively for the last 4 or 5 years now. I still use PS for final processing on some images, but DxO is great, especially with PRIME.

 

[AlanF]

I was really pleased that you and others persuaded me to use DxO. Like you, I also use PS for final cropping, layers etc. DxO prime works brilliantly on the SX50, which really is iso limited.

 

[mrsfotografie]

Crop vs. FF for telephoto work - the arguments are all good and fine with bricks (I like them, Alan!). In real-world shooting, however, once you hit ISO 1600 or try to focus at f/8, the 7D falls flat, at least for my needs.

This is exactly why I considered, and then bought the 5Dmk III.

 

[CarlTN]

Mac
The 300 f/2.8 x2 with the 7D does focus slowly, but with the focus limiter it is OK. I got some good birds in flight with it. With the 5DIII, it is very fast.

I have gone over to DxO PRIME for noise reduction and found it miraculous - it's raised the 7D to new level. Here is a photo I took just over a year ago at 600mm of a kingfisher speeding like a bullet, and I used iso 1600 and 1/4000 s. It has just gone through 1 round of DxO prime with simultaneous USM of 0.9. It's a 100% crop.

Not bad at all. When you say "USM of 0.9", is that ".9" describing the radius of the unsharp mask?