Recommend settings for my new 5D3

[YellowJersey]

Picked up my 5D3 last week and I'm curious about what the optimal settings would be, considering I shoot landscape and nature almost exclusively. I do all my own retouching using Lightroom, Photoshop, and the Nik plugins for sharpening and noise reduction, so I'm largely curious about settings that affect noise and sharpness. I'm under the assumption that external NR and sharpening is better than doing it in-camera.

The settings I'm curious about are:

-Auto lighting optimizer
-Lens aberration correction
-Picture style (currently use "faithful," although I used "standard" on my 5D1)
-High ISO NR
-Long exposure NR
-Highlight tone priority (I've noticed this is restricted to certain ISO settings)

 

[JerryKnight]

Whatever settings work best for you.. Isn't experimenting part of the fun?

Ask specific questions, get specific answers.

EDIT: Regarding external vs internal NR, yes, I agree. Lightroom has fantastic noise reduction, and I think the camera should produce raw data and not try to do much in the way of processing. I'd say all of those settings can be ignored if you process individual shots. If you're on a time-sensitive workflow, then the in-camera adjustments can probably save you considerable time, if you trust the quality.

Lens peripheral illumination correction, for example.. easy to do in PS/LR, but the camera knows more about the lens you're using than PS/LR, so it can probably do a better job correcting it.

 

[YellowJersey]

Whatever settings work best for you.. Isn't experimenting part of the fun?

Touche, good sir, touche.

 

[Loswr]

Leave all but one of them off, shoot RAW, process as desired. ACR/LR will ignore all except one of those on your list - HTP. With HTP, you 'lose' ISO 100 with this because the camera is actually exposing at one stop lower ISO (i.e. you set ISO 200, it exposes at ISO 100, you set ISO 800 it exposes at ISO 400, etc.), but it records the ISO you set, not the one-stop lower real exposure, in the metadata. Then the camera selectively applies a tone curve to push the shadows and not the highlights, meaning one stop more shadow noise. It sets a flag in the metadata, which DPP resepcts, and ACR tries to mimic. You're better off leaving it off, shooting RAW and avoiding having your camera lie to you, and setting your exposure properly.

The one to leave on is long exposure NR. That one actually modifies the RAW image data (the only one that does). Long exposures result in higher noise because low levels of read noise add up over time, and high temps make that worse. So, after the exposure the camera takes a dark frame, and subtracts the frame (noise) before writing the RAW file. The only reasons to leave it off are if you shooting several long exposures in quick succession (can't wait for the intervening dark frames, the exposure time is the same as the image), and/or you're using special software to subtract your own dark frame in post (both of those are common for astrophotographers, and probably no one but them).

Hope that helps...

 

[JR]

@Neuro. Well you just helped me understand why some of my early shot witht he camera had more noise then my 5DmkII even at low ISO because I had HTP turned on. As soon as I turned it off, pictures started to look more like I am used to and with less noise. Relloking at my pictures tonight, a lot of them that were "bad" in terms of noise had HTP on!

Thanks!