Configuring your 5D Mark III AF for fast action

[tron]

Keep in mind that a piece of advise from the article didn't work for me. At least at some non real shooting conditions.

More specifically: I have tried my 1.4XIII on my 500mm 4L IS II.

Nothing happened apart from the noise of a failed attempt to start focusing.
Something like a click and a very slight move of the focusing mechanism and then nothing.
Focusing distance was close and withing range (inside my house).

I turned "Lens drive when AF impossible" to ON and IT WORKED!

But to tell the truth I haven't tested the lens without a teleconverter and/or at the outside during day.
So I will repeat the test under more realistic conditions.

 

[cervantes]

Hi.

Tomorrow I'll shoot some action and I'd like to ask for some advice. Not BIF, but kayak competition (slalom). I suppose you imagine how does it look like.

I'd like to ask, if you recommend to shoot in single shot or continious mode? if the latter, then in which mode - high burst (6 fps) or low burst (3 fps). BTW, I'm using 5D mkIII.

And what should be an appropriate shutter time to freeze the motion? OK, it depends if subject goes toward me or pass me. I think, I'll shoot them coming toward me. But OK, I can experiment and check what time is necessary to freeze it.

I'm more interested about burst mode. I don't want to have million pictures and half of them soft, because AF wasn't able to refocus between each shot in 6 fps mode.

Thanks

Hi,

I'm sorry I didn't check canonrumors for a couple of days so I'm too late now for your question but maybe you still want some info for next time.

I'm not quite sure how a kayak competition looks like but it sounds to be quite slow action. Burst will likely work fine but I wouldn't recommend the settings I described in my article because they are for very fast moving / erratic subjects.

The way I always do action photography is setting my drive mode to high burst (6fps) but then I always shoot single frames by briefly pressing the shutter. If a situation arises where the distance between me and the subject doesn't change much but something interesting is happening I always have the option to make shots in quick succession.

Shutter speed is quite easy to determine: Start at 1/1000 and look how it turns out. Use the fastest possible speed that lets you shoot at ISO 100-800 (the lower the better of course). To freeze the water droplets something shorter than 1/2000 would be desirable.

 

[cervantes]

Keep in mind that a piece of advise from the article didn't work for me. At least at some non real shooting conditions.

More specifically: I have tried my 1.4XIII on my 500mm 4L IS II.

Nothing happened apart from the noise of a failed attempt to start focusing.
Something like a click and a very slight move of the focusing mechanism and then nothing.
Focusing distance was close and withing range (inside my house).

I turned "Lens drive when AF impossible" to ON and IT WORKED!

But to tell the truth I haven't tested the lens without a teleconverter and/or at the outside during day.
So I will repeat the test under more realistic conditions.

Are you sure you understand what "Lens drive when AF impossible" means? If the subject was vastly out of focus the AF is supposed to not do anything so that it doesn't throw off focus even further. You should at least be able to easily recognize the subject in the frame before you start attempting to focus (this is more or less also the cameras criterion for starting to focus - when it can immediately determine in which direction and how much it has to adjust focus). Also when you tested inside in dim light with a converter I'm not surprised that it did not work.

Yes, please repeat the test under sufficent light and be sure to pay attention to my remark above - I'm sure it will work just fine.

 

[climber]

Cervantes, thank you for your reply. Here you can see three of my shots that day - http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=20239.0 At the bottom.

It's not so slow movemnet, actually is quite fast. I shot this with 6 fps (of course not like a machine gun, maybe only 3-4 shots)

The setings were: f/2.8, 1/2500 s and ISO 160-250

 

[cervantes]

Cervantes, thank you for your reply. Here you can see three of my shots that day - http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=20239.0 At the bottom.

It's not so slow movemnet, actually is quite fast. I shot this with 6 fps (of course not like a machine gun, maybe only 3-4 shots)

The setings were: f/2.8, 1/2500 s and ISO 160-250

Congrats, they turned out great!

I shot this with 6 fps (of course not like a machine gun, maybe only 3-4 shots)

That's what I would do in this situation. 1/2500 was perfect to freeze the motion of the water.

 

[Sandrac]

Great read..Could these settings be used for high school basketball? I'm using a 5d mark lll with a 135mm f2 with no luck.
Any help would be appreciated
Sandra

 

[cervantes]

Great read..Could these settings be used for high school basketball? I'm using a 5d mark lll with a 135mm f2 with no luck.
Any help would be appreciated
Sandra

Yes, but be sure to set the "Tracking sensitivity" value to -2.

Greetings!

 

[tron]

The suggestion about the way AF-ON gives us the capability to switch quickly to 61 point AF is FANTASTIC.

By the way I have checked it not only on my 5D3 but on my 7D2 as well. In fact it can be even more parameterized on 7D2.

It memorizes AF start position (HP, AI Servo case, AF operation and AF area selection). So by pressing AF-ON it can even switch you from AF ONE SHOT say to AI SERVO Case 2.

I wish I had tested that specific part one week ago.... Never mind. Next time.

 

[cervantes]

The suggestion about the way AF-ON gives us the capability to switch quickly to 61 point AF is FANTASTIC.

By the way I have checked it not only on my 5D3 but on my 7D2 as well. In fact it can be even more parameterized on 7D2.

It memorizes AF start position (HP, AI Servo case, AF operation and AF area selection). So by pressing AF-ON it can even switch you from AF ONE SHOT say to AI SERVO Case 2.

I wish I had tested that specific part one week ago.... Never mind. Next time.

Quickly switching from SERVO to ONE SHOT is also possible on the 5D3. All you have to do is change the setting of the depth-of-field preview button. There is one option that will set the AF mode to ONE SHOT as long as you keep the button pressed. It's my standard setting for my action mode.

 

[East Wind Photography]

The suggestion about the way AF-ON gives us the capability to switch quickly to 61 point AF is FANTASTIC.

By the way I have checked it not only on my 5D3 but on my 7D2 as well. In fact it can be even more parameterized on 7D2.

It memorizes AF start position (HP, AI Servo case, AF operation and AF area selection). So by pressing AF-ON it can even switch you from AF ONE SHOT say to AI SERVO Case 2.

I wish I had tested that specific part one week ago.... Never mind. Next time.

On the 7d2 you can also program the ae lock button as well for af type. You could set your default to 61 pt, af-on to center af point and ae lock to spot focus. However if you use back button focus exclusively you will only be able to use two modes.

 

[cervantes]

On the 7d2 you can also program the ae lock button as well for af type. You could set your default to 61 pt, af-on to center af point and ae lock to spot focus. However if you use back button focus exclusively you will only be able to use two modes.

Yes, the fact that you can program both back buttons independently for focusing on different AF points / areas was already established in this thread.

It doesn't really work for me though, since it overcomplicates things a little...

 

[kaihp]

Yesterday, I attended a Canon Demo day in Copenhagen and a fellow 5D3 photographer pointed out an issue to a Canon rep (and myself):

If you use:
* Back-Button Focus,
* AI Servo mode,
* Set the 'AI Servo 2nd image priority' to 'Focus', and
* Release the Back-button focus button for shooting,
The shooting speed will drop to ~3fps.

If the AI Servo 2nd image priority is set to 'Equal priority' or 'Shooting speed priority', the camera will "correctly" shoot at the full 6fps.

I put the correctly in quotes, because it is arguable whether this is the drop in fps is the expected/correct behavior or not. From a user perspective, we argued that since you've released the focus button, the camera should just shoot at the highest fps.

 

[privatebydesign]

Yesterday, I attended a Canon Demo day in Copenhagen and a fellow 5D3 photographer pointed out an issue to a Canon rep (and myself):

If you use:
* Back-Button Focus,
* AI Servo mode,
* Set the 'AI Servo 2nd image priority' to 'Focus', and
* Release the Back-button focus button for shooting,
The shooting speed will drop to ~3fps.

If the AI Servo 2nd image priority is set to 'Equal priority' or 'Shooting speed priority', the camera will "correctly" shoot at the full 6fps.

I put the correctly in quotes, because it is arguable whether this is the drop in fps is the expected/correct behavior or not. From a user perspective, we argued that since you've released the focus button, the camera should just shoot at the highest fps.

So what your fellow did was set the camera to shoot when focused (on second shot), refused to focus (by releasing the back button) and then wondered why the camera slowed down! It is doing exactly what it is being told to do, giving priority to focus rather than fps, I am amazed it defaults to 3 fps in this situation.

 

[kaihp]

Yesterday, I attended a Canon Demo day in Copenhagen and a fellow 5D3 photographer pointed out an issue to a Canon rep (and myself):

If you use:
* Back-Button Focus,
* AI Servo mode,
* Set the 'AI Servo 2nd image priority' to 'Focus', and
* Release the Back-button focus button for shooting,
The shooting speed will drop to ~3fps.

If the AI Servo 2nd image priority is set to 'Equal priority' or 'Shooting speed priority', the camera will "correctly" shoot at the full 6fps.

I put the correctly in quotes, because it is arguable whether this is the drop in fps is the expected/correct behavior or not. From a user perspective, we argued that since you've released the focus button, the camera should just shoot at the highest fps.

So what your fellow did was set the camera to shoot when focused (on second shot), refused to focus (by releasing the back button) and then wondered why the camera slowed down! It is doing exactly what it is being told to do, giving priority to focus rather than fps, I am amazed it defaults to 3 fps in this situation.

I politely disagree. He told it to "don't bother focusing - just shoot". If I set the lens to manual, it will shoot 6fps in that situation. Are you saying it should refuse to release the shutter in MF mode if set to 'Focus priority'?

But regardless of which side of the argument you are, I posted this as a heads up for people.

 

[privatebydesign]

Yesterday, I attended a Canon Demo day in Copenhagen and a fellow 5D3 photographer pointed out an issue to a Canon rep (and myself):

If you use:
* Back-Button Focus,
* AI Servo mode,
* Set the 'AI Servo 2nd image priority' to 'Focus', and
* Release the Back-button focus button for shooting,
The shooting speed will drop to ~3fps.

If the AI Servo 2nd image priority is set to 'Equal priority' or 'Shooting speed priority', the camera will "correctly" shoot at the full 6fps.

I put the correctly in quotes, because it is arguable whether this is the drop in fps is the expected/correct behavior or not. From a user perspective, we argued that since you've released the focus button, the camera should just shoot at the highest fps.

So what your fellow did was set the camera to shoot when focused (on second shot), refused to focus (by releasing the back button) and then wondered why the camera slowed down! It is doing exactly what it is being told to do, giving priority to focus rather than fps, I am amazed it defaults to 3 fps in this situation.

I politely disagree. He told it to "don't bother focusing - just shoot". If I set the lens to manual, it will shoot 6fps in that situation. Are you saying it should refuse to release the shutter in MF mode if set to 'Focus priority'?

But regardless of which side of the argument you are, I posted this as a heads up for people.

Yes, so the second shutter release will not occur until focus is achieved, meanwhile he doesn't press the focus button, when would you expect the second image to be triggered?