Canon 5d3 settings

[KKCFamilyman]

Any suggested settings to change right away on my new camera? Also i cannot find how to enable the hi/lo iso.

 

[CanineCandidsByL]

Any suggested settings to change right away on my new camera? Also i cannot find how to enable the hi/lo iso.

There is a complete section to setup allowed manual settings of iso, automatic settings of iso, and also attempted minimum shutter speed (it will be obeyed until you hit your max auto setting for iso).

A number of people have suggested turning of noise reduction. While the noise reduction in camera is probably very good, I'd be shocked if it was better than what can be achieved in post processing (i.e. lightroom, aperture, and photoshop) .

And you'll want to setup your most frequent menu on the "my menus" section.

 

[Kane]

Go to auto focus page 4 and Select AF area selection to disable modes you don't use (I prefer single point and zone for 99% of shooting) then go to page 5 and change the AF point display during focus to (pre-AF, focused), which displays the point before focus and disappears after the shutter is pressed halfway so the 100% vf is clear for composition.

 

[Kane]

Also I believe the camera comes with the joystick point selection disabled so if you prefer that it's in CF page 2 custom controls.

P.S. The high iso is on the 2nd menu page called iso speed settings.

 

[se7en]

The manual suprisingly has a lot of useful information...

 

[SteveDF]

Any suggested settings to change right away on my new camera? Also i cannot find how to enable the hi/lo iso.

There is a complete section to setup allowed manual settings of iso, automatic settings of iso, and also attempted minimum shutter speed (it will be obeyed until you hit your max auto setting for iso).

A number of people have suggested turning of noise reduction. While the noise reduction in camera is probably very good, I'd be shocked if it was better than what can be achieved in post processing (i.e. lightroom, aperture, and photoshop) .

And you'll want to setup your most frequent menu on the "my menus" section.

I agree that most processing can be done better in post than in camera but I think noise reduction may be the exception. At least long exposure noise reduction. The thing is that photodiodes have something called dark noise where they produce a small signal even when no light is hitting them. In long exposure noise reduction the shot is taken normally but immediately afterwards the camera takes a second exposure with the shutter closed. It then takes this "dark noise" reading and subtracts it from the actual image. That's why the camera can slow down a lot when turned on. I don't think you can duplicate that in post.

I have never done any actual tests but the physics of it seem to me that this is something worth doing in camera.

I'm still waiting on my 5DmkIII but I plan to; turn 2nd curtain flash sync on, set bracketing to 5 shots, exposure steps to 1/2 stop (I shoot manual most of the time and it's easier on my brain to work in 1/2 stops), and put mirror lockup on my custom menu. Beyond that I'll have to play a bit.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The camera, or at least mine came setup with the best settings for jpegs. I merely changed it to shoot RAW for the first tests, and then set it up to allow expanded ISO and to allow auto ISO to go to 25600 for testing purposes.

I'd say do not make changes at first other than switching to RAW. Most of the settings that you change for jpegs like turning off NR do not apply to or affect raw, so you apply your settings in post processing when using raw. This means RAW images will not come out looking colorful, sharp, and as beautiful as jpeg images, but you will be able to improve them to a much greater degree.

Then, when you are producing sharp images, start changing settings as you need to acomplish specific goals. Some start changing settings, at first, and then do not realize why their images do not turn out like they expect.

Some processors like DXO convert RAWS to be very good looking immediately, while Adobe Lightroom works best if you tweak images from each ISO level and then save those settings to be applied on import. That way, you set the processing you like for a ISO 6400 image, for example, and then save that as the starting point for images imported with that ISO. You can make the settings the same accross all ISO levels, of course, but I don't apply any NR except for high ISO levels, and sharpening varies with ISO as well.

 

[KKCFamilyman]

Thanks. I think I will leave it at defaults until I get comfortable with it the see. I did disable nr but I will turn it on since it will not affect my raw output.