My first real shoot with the 5DIII

[V8Beast]

First the results:

Now some commentary. This car wasn't running right, so I didn't get to put the AF system through the ringer, but overall I like the camera. That said, I do have some concerns with, of all things, the light meter. I don't have a 5DII, so I can only compare it to my 5DC. I almost always keep the metering in evaluative mode. For some reason, I had to bump the exposure compensation up 1 to 1.5 stops all day long. Even in scenes that aren't contrasty by any means, the light meter seems to freak out whenever it seems any whites, grays, or silvers.

I don't expect miracles from a light meter, and as an old film fart, I still bracket. Even so, for my shooting needs, I find the metering on my 5DC is more accurate. The 5DIII seems overly sensitive to highlights as far as metering is concerned, which could be a good thing depending on what you shoot, but I'm not crazy about it thus far.

The same thing plays out when use a couple of 550EXs off camera for fill or accent lighting. In this arrangement, both the ambient and flash output is underexposed. I was cranking up on the flash exposure compensation 1 to 1.5 stops all day. Metering was inaccurate in both AF and manual focus modes. Me no likey

I'll have to play with the different metering modes more until I pass final judgement, but I'm less than thrilled with it so far. Hopefully it's just user error.

Has anyone experience similar issues?

 

[tasteofjace]

Fantastic shots - I would love to hear your workflow for the first shot!

 

[iso79]

Amazing shots!!!!!

 

[Frankie T Fotografia]

V8Beast, could it be that you have highlight tone priority, and/or auto lighting optimizer settings enabled? If so, try shooting with them disabled That might be the cause of your under exposure problem.

 

[prestonpalmer]

Amazing pictures!

 

[Kahuna]

What a fantastic beast..reminds me of my younger years.. 8)

Oh Yea V8Beast - NICE Shots!

 

[V8Beast]

V8Beast, could it be that you have highlight tone priority, and/or auto lighting optimizer settings enabled? If so, try shooting with them disabled That might be the cause of your under exposure problem.

I have both highlight tone priority and auto lighting optimizer disabled. I have the camera set to record raws to the CF card, and jpegs the SD card, and both sets of images have the same problem

As for the under exposed flash images, I was thinking maybe the 550EXs are too old to properly interface with the 5DIII. That, however, wouldn't explain why the metering is off when I'm not using flash.

 

[rlarsen]

I see a lot of chrome and reflections. No surprise EC was needed.
Good thing there are many metering modes to choose from and experiment with.

In the past it has taken me many, many months to get totally comfortable and familiar with new cameras, and that's with daily pro use. I'm not crazy about the endless things I'll have to master with the MK lll, starting with AF.

Nice car shots, great color.

 

[V8Beast]

I see a lot of chrome and reflections. No surprise EC was needed.
Good thing there are many metering modes to choose from and experiment with.

In the past it has taken me many, many months to get totally comfortable and familiar with new cameras, and that's with daily pro use. I'm not crazy about the endless things I'll have to master with the MK lll, starting with AF.

Nice car shots, great color.

I don't expect any light meter on earth to accurately meter shots with lots of chrome or with highly reflective objects. The weird thing is the camera seems to underexpose in far less challenging lighting conditions as well. There are several shots I took yesterday with lots of black, but the meter underexposed the by a full stop. For all I know, this might be completely normal and perhaps the 5DIII is more sensitive to highlights than I'm accustomed to.

As you suggested, there's always a learning curve with a new body and I'll have to adjust accordingly I'm going to let a friend of mine borrow it to get his impressions. Maybe I'm just going crazy.

 

[RyanDavis200]

Always shoot in manual.

 

[wickidwombat]

as alway I love your work!

as for metering i stopped using evaluative on the 5D2 and the 5D3
I always use spot metering and get a quick meter from the center of the frame of the part of the scene i want to use as my exposure control point and set my shutter speed in manual accordingly, I've stopped shooting in AV or Tv as I find this method is quicker than bothering with changing exposure compensation on the fly
just remember that unless using a 1D its only metering from the center not from your selected af point so on the 5Dmk3 check you exposure first on the center frame, then compose and shoot. I also use back button focus to seperate the focus action from the shutter button

 

[dunkers]

I love the 1st and 4th photos.

What was your setup/settings for the 4th one?

 

[hhelmbold]

For some reason, I had to bump the exposure compensation up 1 to 1.5 stops all day long. Even in scenes that aren't contrasty by any means, the light meter seems to freak out whenever it seems any whites, grays, or silvers.

First I must say that I love the shots and my comment is purely from a personal point of view. From the above samples it looks to ME like the photos are sligthly over exposed - but it works and it gives a great feel to the pics. Could the exposure compensation on your side maybe be because of your personal taste? This said... if I say the pics looks slightly overexposed, it is definately not by a full stop - more like 2/3rds.

I also don't use the 5D mkII, but I have read before that of photographers saying they always overexpose with 2/3rds as a rule when shooting RAW.

 

[Tcapp]

For some reason, I had to bump the exposure compensation up 1 to 1.5 stops all day long. Even in scenes that aren't contrasty by any means, the light meter seems to freak out whenever it seems any whites, grays, or silvers.

First I must say that I love the shots and my comment is purely from a personal point of view. From the above samples it looks to ME like the photos are sligthly over exposed - but it works and it gives a great feel to the pics. Could the exposure compensation on your side maybe be because of your personal taste? This said... if I say the pics looks slightly overexposed, it is definately not by a full stop - more like 2/3rds.

I also don't use the 5D mkII, but I have read before that of photographers saying they always overexpose with 2/3rds as a rule when shooting RAW.

To my eyes, they are perfectly exposed. Just goes to show that what is a "good" exposure is not set in stone. Maybe the folks over at canon just like slightly darker photos than I and some others do. So to them, the camera doesn't underexpose at all.

 

[hhelmbold]

For some reason, I had to bump the exposure compensation up 1 to 1.5 stops all day long. Even in scenes that aren't contrasty by any means, the light meter seems to freak out whenever it seems any whites, grays, or silvers.

First I must say that I love the shots and my comment is purely from a personal point of view. From the above samples it looks to ME like the photos are sligthly over exposed - but it works and it gives a great feel to the pics. Could the exposure compensation on your side maybe be because of your personal taste? This said... if I say the pics looks slightly overexposed, it is definately not by a full stop - more like 2/3rds.

I also don't use the 5D mkII, but I have read before that of photographers saying they always overexpose with 2/3rds as a rule when shooting RAW.

To my eyes, they are perfectly exposed. Just goes to show that what is a "good" exposure is not set in stone. Maybe the folks over at canon just like slightly darker photos than I and some others do. So to them, the camera doesn't underexpose at all.

Yes... it is all in the eye of the beholder ;D But I suppose the way the image is viewed also comes into play - like monitor calibration.

Who doesn't see 20 bands?

 

[Tcapp]

For some reason, I had to bump the exposure compensation up 1 to 1.5 stops all day long. Even in scenes that aren't contrasty by any means, the light meter seems to freak out whenever it seems any whites, grays, or silvers.

First I must say that I love the shots and my comment is purely from a personal point of view. From the above samples it looks to ME like the photos are sligthly over exposed - but it works and it gives a great feel to the pics. Could the exposure compensation on your side maybe be because of your personal taste? This said... if I say the pics looks slightly overexposed, it is definately not by a full stop - more like 2/3rds.

I also don't use the 5D mkII, but I have read before that of photographers saying they always overexpose with 2/3rds as a rule when shooting RAW.

To my eyes, they are perfectly exposed. Just goes to show that what is a "good" exposure is not set in stone. Maybe the folks over at canon just like slightly darker photos than I and some others do. So to them, the camera doesn't underexpose at all.

Yes... it is all in the eye of the beholder ;D But I suppose the way the image is viewed also comes into play - like monitor calibration.

Who doesn't see 20 bands?

I count 20. But that is very true! Too bad my clients mostly all have crappy monitors!

 

[rambarra]

holy f*ck the first is gorgeus. the camera seems to be sliding over the grass
how did you do that

 

[kenraw]

As you know the 5d3 has the same 63zone metering system as the 7D. I have two 7D's and both nearly always needed +1 exp comp in both ambient and ttl flash, especially for portraits. I got used to it so It's not much of a problem for me know I have a 5dmk3 also.
I must admit it would be nice if the metering was a bit more accurate, however I like the sound of the spot metering idea then recomposing I might give that a whirl and see how I get on.
If not it's not a problem because I have an idea now that for a particular scene or subject I know I need to to start at +1 and go from there. Metering sysytems are never 100% accurate anyway because the camera doesn't know how you want the image to look!

 

[wickidwombat]

As you know the 5d3 has the same 63zone metering system as the 7D. I have two 7D's and both nearly always needed +1 exp comp in both ambient and ttl flash, especially for portraits. I got used to it so It's not much of a problem for me know I have a 5dmk3 also.
I must admit it would be nice if the metering was a bit more accurate, however I like the sound of the spot metering idea then recomposing I might give that a whirl and see how I get on.
If not it's not a problem because I have an idea now that for a particular scene or subject I know I need to to start at +1 and go from there. Metering sysytems are never 100% accurate anyway because the camera doesn't know how you want the image to look!

Exactly. no metering system is going to be perfect until they invent a mind reading chip which is why i find spot meter on the part i want to be the control for my exposure works the best

 

[V8Beast]

Thanks for the compliments, fellas. Logistically, a lot of stuff went wrong on this shoot, so I was glad to be able to salvage some decent shots.

as for metering i stopped using evaluative on the 5D2 and the 5D3
I always use spot metering and get a quick meter from the center of the frame of the part of the scene i want to use as my exposure control point and set my shutter speed in manual accordingly, I've stopped shooting in AV or Tv as I find this method is quicker than bothering with changing exposure compensation on the fly
just remember that unless using a 1D its only metering from the center not from your selected af point so on the 5Dmk3 check you exposure first on the center frame, then compose and shoot.

Thanks for the tip. I have the luxury of manually focusing on most of my shots. Since there are no AF points in that situation, I'm presume the camera just meters the entire scene and not from the center point?

As you know the 5d3 has the same 63zone metering system as the 7D. I have two 7D's and both nearly always needed +1 exp comp in both ambient and ttl flash, especially for portraits. I got used to it so It's not much of a problem for me know I have a 5dmk3 also.
I must admit it would be nice if the metering was a bit more accurate, however I like the sound of the spot metering idea then recomposing I might give that a whirl and see how I get on.

Great info! I definitely need to refine my technique to adapt to the 5DIII. While in the field, I couldn't figure out if the metering wasn't what I was accustomed to, or if the screen display was set too dark. The screen on the 5DC is so bad, I rarely rely on it to judge exposure. The 5DIII, however, is another beast entirely In the worst case scenario, I'll just train my brain to treat a +1 reading on the light meter as "0."

First I must say that I love the shots and my comment is purely from a personal point of view. From the above samples it looks to ME like the photos are sligthly over exposed - but it works and it gives a great feel to the pics. Could the exposure compensation on your side maybe be because of your personal taste? This said... if I say the pics looks slightly overexposed, it is definately not by a full stop - more like 2/3rds.

The monitor on my desktop is calibrated, and on it the exposures look fine. The images do look slightly over exposed on my laptop, however, which has one of those stupid glossy screens and hasn't been calibrated for quite some time. That said, I have gotten into the habit of slightly overexposing. Many of my clients use very poor quality paper and ink, and the images tend to print darker than what I submit to them.