So frustrated with new 5DmkIII - returning it!

[JR]

This seems pretty symptomatic of the DPP issue, and I bet that is indeed the problem.

As someone else posted earlier, Bryan C over at the-digital-picture had this to say:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=2142

Another fellow returned his because he encountered the exact same problem (but did not know the cause at the time which has been revealed to be the above).

My apologies if you don't use DPP and already use the DNG converter, and are still getting sub-par results. In which case, I hope things turn out better if you exchange for another copy.

I tried DPP, the new Adobe 6.7 DNG converter then import in LR4, and I also tried ACR 6.7 altogether with PS CS5...all more or less give me the same disappointing result.

 

[dystorsion]

This seems pretty symptomatic of the DPP issue, and I bet that is indeed the problem.

As someone else posted earlier, Bryan C over at the-digital-picture had this to say:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=2142

Another fellow returned his because he encountered the exact same problem (but did not know the cause at the time which has been revealed to be the above).

My apologies if you don't use DPP and already use the DNG converter, and are still getting sub-par results. In which case, I hope things turn out better if you exchange for another copy.

I tried DPP, the new Adobe 6.7 DNG converter then import in LR4, and I also tried ACR 6.7 altogether with PS CS5...all more or less give me the same disappointing result.

I see... then I guess this should be considered odd. I hope the next body works out (if you choose to get another one)!

 

[JR]

Not meaning to hijack the thread but, since most of this is about soft images from the 5DM3, here goes...

I have had the 5DM3 for 4 days now and am pretty pleased with its performance. I've been doing mostly outdoor landscape type of stuff testing it out. Tonight I realized that I hadn't used a flash on it at all so I mounted a small 270EX that I use for fill flash and began firing away at at a stack of magazines on the coffee table with the 24-105L. With the camera set to let it select the focus points the results were soft to completely out of focus. Changing the AF to single point produced sharp photos. The magazine on top was a copy of American Photo with the large word "Photo" in red. When the camera locked onto the red Photo word, the focus was completely off. It got better when it chose to lock onto areas with black text but never produced anything as sharp as single point AF focused on the same black text. This requires more investigation on my part but it will have to wait. I have a 580EX II that I can test with as well but I thought I'd go ahead and put this out there in case anyone else with a 5DM3 can look at it too...

Interesting about the flash since I was using a 580 II speedlite ... Will investigate further.

 

[bchernicoff]

Not meaning to hijack the thread but, since most of this is about soft images from the 5DM3, here goes...

I have had the 5DM3 for 4 days now and am pretty pleased with its performance. I've been doing mostly outdoor landscape type of stuff testing it out. Tonight I realized that I hadn't used a flash on it at all so I mounted a small 270EX that I use for fill flash and began firing away at at a stack of magazines on the coffee table with the 24-105L. With the camera set to let it select the focus points the results were soft to completely out of focus. Changing the AF to single point produced sharp photos. The magazine on top was a copy of American Photo with the large word "Photo" in red. When the camera locked onto the red Photo word, the focus was completely off. It got better when it chose to lock onto areas with black text but never produced anything as sharp as single point AF focused on the same black text. This requires more investigation on my part but it will have to wait. I have a 580EX II that I can test with as well but I thought I'd go ahead and put this out there in case anyone else with a 5DM3 can look at it too...

If you were using the flash AF assist beam(default setting) and were very close to the magazines, is it possible that the flash's beam was overshooting the area you were focusing on?

 

[helpful]

Re: rate button

Have any of you had to take photos and turn in "several good ones for web use" to sports information at halftime of a basketball game? I receive my 5D3 on Wednesday next week, and I am so hoping that the rate button will work by simply pressing it twice to give a default 1-star rating to a photo. If it requires pressing the button and selecting a rating with another knob, then yes, that will be extremely irritating.

Right now my workflow is like this:

* During the first half I have to be chimping after any major play, and if a photo is good or a play is good if I don't have time to chimp, then I take a blank picture of the floor after that sequence of photos containing the good photo.
* 1-3 minutes before half time I have to run to the media room, download all photos, look at them in thumbnail mode, scroll through the ones before the blank floor pictures, and then star the ones I want to turn in.
* Select and export the starred photos.
* Give flash drive to sports information about 15 minutes of wasted time, if I'm lucky.

Assuming that I can just do a quick double "click" of the rate button to assign it a 1-star default rating (the stars aren't important, because I'm not rating them, just indicating that I want to turn them in to SI), then the rate button would be a tremendous boon to me. I could lesiurely go to the media room, download photos, export the starred photos, and walk back with flash drive in hand in under 5 minutes.

Hopefully I can even have a direct ethernet connection so that someone else can use my pictures live, but I am not sure if I would be happy with that. Some people don't realize that every click of the shutter on a professional camera does not necessarily a cover photograph make. Letting someone else select photos would probably result in a bad representation of my work.

Anyway, I just thought that I would speak out in favor of what hopefully is going to be a good feature for me.

 

[bchernicoff]

Re: rate button

Have any of you had to take photos and turn in "several good ones for web use" to sports information at halftime of a basketball game? I receive my 5D3 on Wednesday next week, and I am so hoping that the rate button will work by simply pressing it twice to give a default 1-star rating to a photo. If it requires pressing the button and selecting a rating with another knob, then yes, that will be extremely irritating.

Each push adds one star, so a picture starts with none. Push it once for one star, twice for two, etc. up to 5. A sixth push returns to zero stars.

 

[wickidwombat]

Re: rate button

Have any of you had to take photos and turn in "several good ones for web use" to sports information at halftime of a basketball game? I receive my 5D3 on Wednesday next week, and I am so hoping that the rate button will work by simply pressing it twice to give a default 1-star rating to a photo. If it requires pressing the button and selecting a rating with another knob, then yes, that will be extremely irritating.

Right now my workflow is like this:

* During the first half I have to be chimping after any major play, and if a photo is good or a play is good if I don't have time to chimp, then I take a blank picture of the floor after that sequence of photos containing the good photo.
* 1-3 minutes before half time I have to run to the media room, download all photos, look at them in thumbnail mode, scroll through the ones before the blank floor pictures, and then star the ones I want to turn in.
* Select and export the starred photos.
* Give flash drive to sports information about 15 minutes of wasted time, if I'm lucky.

Assuming that I can just do a quick double "click" of the rate button to assign it a 1-star default rating (the stars aren't important, because I'm not rating them, just indicating that I want to turn them in to SI), then the rate button would be a tremendous boon to me. I could lesiurely go to the media room, download photos, export the starred photos, and walk back with flash drive in hand in under 5 minutes.

Hopefully I can even have a direct ethernet connection so that someone else can use my pictures live, but I am not sure if I would be happy with that. Some people don't realize that every click of the shutter on a professional camera does not necessarily a cover photograph make. Letting someone else select photos would probably result in a bad representation of my work.

Anyway, I just thought that I would speak out in favor of what hopefully is going to be a good feature for me.

good explanation, I never shoot sport so never have that issue typically i find trying to identify if images are good or not on the screen is quite difficult.
It would be nice if they made the ability to assign other funtions to that button so people that will never use the rate button in their life can make it usefull for their purposes.

 

[XanuFoto]

Sorry to hear that. But since its still on warranty, you are covered. Sorry for the bad luck of getting a bad copy.

 

[helpful]

So you are saying that I could just push the Rate button once to tag it with a star? That would be so awesome and make my life 10 times easier for sports!!

 

[Bosman]

Not sure how this got to be about the rate feature haha. As far as the issue with the came i think it is the sensor alignment because its not just one lens that is an issue for you. You prob could get what you need out of micro adjustment features but start at the highest number to the left or right because it is almost indecernable each notch you move it.

 

[bchernicoff]

On the subject of JPEG quality I just did a test. I set the camera to RAW+JPEG, turned off Auto Light Optimizer, Highlight tone priority, and Noise Reduction and used Sigma 85mm f/1.4, 25mm extension tube, manual exposure at ISO 100, f/8, 1/180s, macro flash, tripod mounted, 2 second self timer to avoid shake. This is an incredibly sharp lens at f/8, so this should be a best case scenario. I took one with Standard picture style and one with Neutral picture style. In this setup the JPEGs show nearly the same amount of detail as the RAW. Looking at the histogram, the Red channel did overexpose, so I did botch the test somewhat. Still, by comparing areas that didn't overexpose I think the JPEGs look fine. I think the only real difference in camera setup compared to some of the initial JPEGs I took is the Auto Light Optimizer... it could be that this is what is killing the JPEGs. I will do that comparison tomorrow. For those of you curious, here is a 49mb zip with the in-camera JPEGs and the converted DNG files: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32275661/samples.zip

 

[jrista]

@JR: It sounds like your lens(es) and camera body may be out of alignment. Thats not really all that uncommon (all manufactured equipment has to be manufactured within certain tolerances, and when you have broadly compatible interchangeable parts, tolerances usually have to be loosened to a greater degree than would be ideal), and the primary reason most higher grade cameras like the 5D III include lens micro adjustment features. You may have a general adjustment problem, or it may be lens specific. The 5D III supports adjusting for both cases, however by default micro adjustment applies globally.

I would try micro adjusting your lens+camera combinations and see if that improves your results. You will need a calibration chart or device. For a chart, you might try this one: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart (this site also includes very detailed instructions on how to print and use the chart.) If you really want to go all out and get things extremely precise, you should probably get a LensAlign device: http://michaeltapesdesign.com/lensalign.html. Canon cameras allow you to micro adjust per-lens, and I think you can store up to around 20 lens micro adjustment profiles. The camera will automatically select the right profile for a given lens when that lens is attached (I am not sure if that works with third-party lenses or not...Canon lenses are microchipped with a bunch of statistical information.)

Hopefully micro adjust will help, and prevent you from having to return your camera (and incur all that extra shipping cost and who knows what other costs.)

Thanks jrista this is a good suggestion indeed, just not sure I want to invest the time required for this MA since I tried before and lets say I am note he best at these test. Point is for a brand new camera, I feel a should return it and get a proper unit that does work ...

Keep in mind, both the lens and the camera have manufacturing tolerances. It sounds like you might have received a copy of the camera that is at one of the extremes of those tolerances. On the other hand, you may have a few lenses that are at one of the extreme ends of their tolerance ranges, and whatever camera you had previously was on the same end of its tolerances. Returning the 5D III for another does not, in any way, guarantee that you will get a good copy next time...or even the third, fourth, etc. times. It may not even be the 5D III that is "bad"...if it IS the lenses, then you could get any number of normally calibrated 5D III bodies and they would all perform roughly the same for your particular lenses.

Calibrating is not all that difficult...you point the camera at a 45 degree test chart, AF the lens on a given mark in the test chart, and examine the focal plane. If the lens+camera combination is significantly out of alignment (i.e. opposing ends of their tolerance ranges), you'll know right away, and one or two microadjustments will solve the problem. It may take a little more work to identify and fix a slight misalignment, however if you shoot teathered (as the one blog mentions), you'll see the results in large size immediately on your computer, and it still won't take long to correct even minor misalignment issues.

You could save yourself a lot of hassle of returning one camera body after the other to get a "perfect" one if you just align your gear yourself. Once its aligned...your good to go, and don't have to worry about it again.

 

[bchernicoff]

So you are saying that I could just push the Rate button once to tag it with a star? That would be so awesome and make my life 10 times easier for sports!!

YUP, you will be very happy... and as far as sport shooting... the AF performance is going to make you wet yourself. I wanted to do some tests this weekend with the different servo modes, but didn't get to it.

 

[XanuFoto]

I am hoping to shoot lots at the American Lemans series in Canada in July. Really want to test the AF there.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Here is a quick screenshot from Aperture. I was shooting RAW+JPEG. Photo on left is in-camera JPEG (one of the better ones) and photo on right is CR2 converted to DNG. Notice the missing detail in the white petals.

I've noticed since the early samples that the jpg and video engine, in cam, seems very prone to waxy away fine details in lower contrast areas and in ultra-high contrast areas with extreme whites, to outline things in black. They seem paranoid about noise showing through and going for the waxy nasty look of a really bad blu-ray transfer where some video guy was told to scrub all film at all cost by some studio guy not knowing much abotu the finer points of nice video processing. An ugly combo. I wonder if they sort this if it will bring the video back up to true 1920x1080p??? Or if the 3x3 sampling being so much larger scale than the AA filter was designed for means they have to do resolution AA on the video (maybe they can add a 2x2 blocked, like C300, crop mode video for perfect 1920x1080p if so?).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Thanks jrista this is a good suggestion indeed, just not sure I want to invest the time required for this MA since I tried before and lets say I am note he best at these test. Point is for a brand new camera, I feel a should return it and get a proper unit that does work ...

The thing is each lens might need a different MFA, so a new body can't be a universal fix if MFA is the issue (although if the body is way off, and if if most everything seemed ok before, then perhaps the new one might at least make most of your lenses seem sort ok to the degree they had on your old camera, myself I fine tune every single lens+body combo, for low DOF shooting, sports, wildlife, I find it to be critical, 400mm f/4 has such thin DOF at certain distances that even a single step adjustment can make a difference).

 

[Bosman]

On the subject of JPEG quality I just did a test. I set the camera to RAW+JPEG, turned off Auto Light Optimizer, Highlight tone priority, and Noise Reduction and used Sigma 85mm f/1.4, 25mm extension tube, manual exposure at ISO 100, f/8, 1/180s, macro flash, tripod mounted, 2 second self timer to avoid shake. This is an incredibly sharp lens at f/8, so this should be a best case scenario. I took one with Standard picture style and one with Neutral picture style. In this setup the JPEGs show nearly the same amount of detail as the RAW. Looking at the histogram, the Red channel did overexpose, so I did botch the test somewhat. Still, by comparing areas that didn't overexpose I think the JPEGs look fine. I think the only real difference in camera setup compared to some of the initial JPEGs I took is the Auto Light Optimizer... it could be that this is what is killing the JPEGs. I will do that comparison tomorrow. For those of you curious, here is a 49mb zip with the in-camera JPEGs and the converted DNG files: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32275661/samples.zip

Thanks for the post, i'd like to know how those diff settings affect things...

 

[Bosman]

Thanks jrista this is a good suggestion indeed, just not sure I want to invest the time required for this MA since I tried before and lets say I am note he best at these test. Point is for a brand new camera, I feel a should return it and get a proper unit that does work ...

The thing is each lens might need a different MFA, so a new body can't be a universal fix if MFA is the issue (although if the body is way off, and if if most everything seemed ok before, then perhaps the new one might at least make most of your lenses seem sort ok to the degree they had on your old camera, myself I fine tune every single lens+body combo, for low DOF shooting, sports, wildlife, I find it to be critical, 400mm f/4 has such thin DOF at certain distances that even a single step adjustment can make a difference).

All my lenses but my 70-200 II have been to Canon so they have all prob been brought to spec and being lucky with my camera also being to spec it all is magic.
It is expensive to send stuff to them but some people do get all their lenses and bodies calibrated for utmost accuracy.
For the best way i have seen calibration done go to this link:
http://arihazeghiphotography.com/MA-web/
Like Live view seeing the image you are focussed on zoomed in you use DPP to calibrate it, pretty sweet if you ask me.

I have bought the lens calibration kit from some dudes store online that makes them and I prefer to not really use it as it didn't work all that well in my opinion.

 

[Aglet]

Can you get any better looking results by using magnified live-view and manual focus, just to check?

My 5D2 with EF 50mm/1.4 set to f8 renders small leaves clearly at large distances right to the edge of the frame. Per-pixel sharpness can be impressive on 5D2, maybe a weaker AA filter in it.

 

[Crapking]

I thought the JPEGs were actually pretty good for ISO 3200 in a high school gym, varying light.

Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 140 mm
ISO Speed 3200

70-200 2. 8 II

I posted these raw comparisons in a couple of other threads
https://rapidshare.com/files/265985045/045C0110.CR2
https://rapidshare.com/files/2949940123/IMG_8491.CR2


5D3L0657 by PVC 2012, on Flickr

I feel the 5D2 is sharper still

I saw these posted earlier but didn't look at them as closely as I did today. They don't look too bad, although they are on the soft side. They did sharpen up nicely with a subtle unsharp mask, though. Maybe my standards are just low

It sounds like the jpegs are real turds, though. Can anyone put up some sample jpegs? I'd like to see how bad the in-camera processing is.