Canon 5D MKIII official owners/users thread, anything related to the 5D MKIII

One thing I've been meaning to try out, not sure if anyone knows before I give it a whirl: are you able to use mirror lockup with the 2/10 second timer? If so how does it work? Does the press to activate the timer also raise the mirror?

EDIT: Actually, while I'm in a question asking mood (and seeing as I've just ordered a tripod, head and macro lens): cable release or wireless trigger? Bizarrely the RC-6 wireless trigger for the camera is only £15 whereas the cable release (RS-80) is nearer 40. Obviously the wireless trigger can be operated from some distance in front of the camera, and for that alone I think it's worth the relatively small investment, I'm just wondering whether the cable release is worth it as well?

Actually not sure if that last question should be here or a new thread in talk equipment.
 
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Number45 said:
One thing I've been meaning to try out, not sure if anyone knows before I give it a whirl: are you able to use mirror lockup with the 2/10 second timer? If so how does it work? Does the press to activate the timer also raise the mirror?
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Try it and see ;-)
One thing to remember is if you are using Live view then the mirror is already up, so no need to worry about that.

Number45 said:
EDIT: Actually, while I'm in a question asking mood (and seeing as I've just ordered a tripod, head and macro lens): cable release or wireless trigger? Bizarrely the RC-6 wireless trigger for the camera is only £15 whereas the cable release (RS-80) is nearer 40. Obviously the wireless trigger can be operated from some distance in front of the camera, and for that alone I think it's worth the relatively small investment, I'm just wondering whether the cable release is worth it as well?

Actually not sure if that last question should be here or a new thread in talk equipment.
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My thoughts are to get both. I already had a 3rd party RC6 from when i had the 60D. Its good for something but i much prefer the wired remote.
Its handy if you want to take self portraits, need to fire it from across the room etc.
Ive got a 3rd party (can you see the pattern here?) wired one that doesn't have a timer, but only cost about £10.
For me thats more usable as i can use it easier from behind the camera. Although i dont do macro, yet, i can imagine its more convenient to use than to have to reach around the front.

@Spiritflier. Thats a great image. so sharp it feels like im looking through a window :)
 
Lovely shots Gary & Si!

Gary, looking through mine from that site can't help thinking some of the fish are dead? I've got some upside down ones (fish don't swim upside down) and stiff as a board also, no bend when flying, and colouring is pretty dull on them. Did you find the same?
 
what i dont like about the 5d3 is when the battery gets below 50% the max shooting rate drops from 6fps to about 3 or 4 , cant say it's done it on any other canon camera ive owned, 40D 60D 7D 1D3 etc.

Ive also got about 7 batteries for it as well :)
 
Is is worth paying extra for the official canon grip or are there decent third-party ones about?
 
alexw9 said:
Is is worth paying extra for the official canon grip or are there decent third-party ones about?
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Grip is always bought when I get a camera - would only use the canon one, sure there's cheaper ones available but really, buy a two grand camera and stick some 3rd party p.o.s. on the bottom of it?
 
buckas said:
Lovely shots Gary & Si!

Gary, looking through mine from that site can't help thinking some of the fish are dead? I've got some upside down ones (fish don't swim upside down) and stiff as a board also, no bend when flying, and colouring is pretty dull on them. Did you find the same?
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Odd you should say that Drew. Someone mentioned that on one of the morning sessions.

I hope that if any are that it's just coincidence. My guess is that there will be one or two that get injured when the birds drop them. They wouldn't last long once they'd had one of those talons through them.
 
Balb0wa said:
what i dont like about the 5d3 is when the battery gets below 50% the max shooting rate drops from 6fps to about 3 or 4 , cant say it's done it on any other canon camera ive owned, 40D 60D 7D 1D3 etc.

Ive also got about 7 batteries for it as well :)
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It's mentioned in the manual, page 114.
 
buckas said:
Grip is always bought when I get a camera - would only use the canon one, sure there's cheaper ones available but really, buy a two grand camera and stick some 3rd party p.o.s. on the bottom of it?
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I agree with Drew here. I've never been able to understand why these cheap grips are so popular.

The only time I would buy a third party grip would be if I knew that it was for occasional use. After having a couple of 1 series cameras I much prefer the feel of that size body so the grip on my 5D went on the day I bought it and hasn't been off since.

I've noticed the slowdown when the battery levels get down. Another good reason to have a grip with two batteries.

That's one area the MkIV has a big plus point. It really takes something to slow it down. It just hammers those 10fps out constantly.

Wonder what camera Canon makes now that can do that!!!!!
 
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Balb0wa said:
what i dont like about the 5d3 is when the battery gets below 50% the max shooting rate drops from 6fps to about 3 or 4 , cant say it's done it on any other canon camera ive owned, 40D 60D 7D 1D3 etc.

Ive also got about 7 batteries for it as well :)
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Ah...
Haven't read that far into the manual as yet. But that explains my post yesterday saying that mine sounded real slow the other evening when I tried it for the first time.
Fair enough I was comparing to my previous body (7D) but it definitely sounded more than half a frame slower than the 6.5 FPS of my old 40D :)
 
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Grips worth having. Got mine for £200 when I brought the camera. Also got 2 Canon batteries for a healthy discount at the same time. Only got 3 batteries but have never come close to using them up.
 
Been testing the video capturing side of things lately on my mkiii. I'm using a 100mm 2.8L macro with IS. With the IS on when taking video in a quiet scene you can hear the IS motors whirring away as you move the camera around in the video itself. Do other people shoot video without IS enabled or just have it on when things aren't so quiet?
 
chump1979 said:
Been testing the video capturing side of things lately on my mkiii. I'm using a 100mm 2.8L macro with IS. With the IS on when taking video in a quiet scene you can hear the IS motors whirring away as you move the camera around in the video itself. Do other people shoot video without IS enabled or just have it on when things aren't so quiet?
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There's a jack for an external mic, so I guess the ideal solution is to use an off camera solution for the audio if that's a concern.
 
Mystery57 said:
Been trying HDR mode and quick query that springs to mind - is the created file just the next number in sequence.

Ie when shooting in Raw + JPG format, there would be 1 x Raw, 1 X Jpg and 1 x JPG
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Don't know if I'm quite grabbing what you're asking?
But the camera only saves the final HDR file as jpeg.
Only the bracketed shots are saved (if asked) as RAW files.
 
buckas said:
Lovely shots Gary & Si!

Gary, looking through mine from that site can't help thinking some of the fish are dead? I've got some upside down ones (fish don't swim upside down) and stiff as a board also, no bend when flying, and colouring is pretty dull on them. Did you find the same?
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Drew don't forget as the osprey hits the water his tallons would probably be against the side of the fish due to his angle of attack. Add in the fish might start to turn away and try to go deeper and this might lead to the upside down fish just a thought mate. Your shutter speed may lead you to think the fish is stiff as a board. :D i was just doing some high speed shots of water coming out of a hose with an adjustable head if the shutter speed is high enough there is gaps in the water :D in real time no gaps.

On the up side over grips i got mine from a car boot for £125.00 the warranty and bill of sale was in the box it was'nt 1 month old the seller had it with the camera and didn't want it they are fetching about £160 on e-bay secondhand :D here's the best bit there was 2 Genuine canon batteries in the grip it. Result or what.

Regards
Richard
 
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Don't think I explained it very well as I was getting confused with all the numbers.

I save all photos as RAw, and a medium JPG.

For the bracketed shots I got

A___324 in both format

A___325 in both format

A___326 in both format

A___327 in just JPG format -- this latter Im guessing to be the HDR even though same size as normal JPGs I save.

Presumably the easiest way to get a higher quality HDR photo would be to merge the RAW images from the sequence.

What was confusing me was that the HDR file saved was literally just like another photo as far as the indexing was concerned - I was expecting to see something different in the file name.
 
Could well be. Both of us saw fish being picked up and dropped. It's quite reasonable to expect the odd dead or almost dead fish to be taken. After 3/4 missed attempts the bird is not going to be too fussy about what it takes.

But as you saw the way the birds go in the fish must be wondering what the hell has hit it anyway never mind which way up they are.
 
Mystery57 said:
Don't think I explained it very well as I was getting confused with all the numbers.

I save all photos as RAw, and a medium JPG.

For the bracketed shots I got

A___324 in both format

A___325 in both format

A___326 in both format

A___327 in just JPG format -- this latter Im guessing to be the HDR even though same size as normal JPGs I save.

Presumably the easiest way to get a higher quality HDR photo would be to merge the RAW images from the sequence.

What was confusing me was that the HDR file saved was literally just like another photo as far as the indexing was concerned - I was expecting to see something different in the file name.
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Yeah I think that's what I took from your last post.
The 3 jpeg and RAW files will be the bracketed shots you took. Which the camera has (optional by settings) saved for you to play with at a later date. The other jpeg only will be the merged shot,as the 5D3 only saves that as jpeg unfortunately.
As you say it is a bit confusing at first, being the same file type :)
 
It was a fun day out in London taking pictures on my own. Met an artist, ,A fellow togger sporting a 600mm lens thats bigger then me! a pottery designer, a break dancer plus many more covering areas from Shoreditch to Leicester Square London!

Dave i popped down that place you suggested and there was a Turkish festival happening. i was tempted to have a kebab their but wasnt hungry LOL.

Next time im their we should link up seeing as you live close by there.
 
Wish something interesting happened around here. There's a music festival on at the moment, but my god I'm sick to death of covering bands.
 
Yeah, trouble is I have no transport so getting anywhere is a real pain in the rear. It's a day out even going 10 miles around here.

I'm off the first week in September, so I'm actually planning on getting some landscape stuff done.
 
I was sitting in a hide at the Teifi Marshes reserve at Cilgerran yesterday, just generally chatting about gear with another guy there .... as you do.....when in walked a chap with a big white lens.

"Ah, here's someone with more money than sense" I said. After he'd sat down I noticed it was a brand new 200 - 400 zoom (the one with the built in converter) on a 5d3. Or the other way round really. About £15000 quid's worth, altogether.

Cue much embarrassment.....

But it demonstrated to me how good the 5d3 must be for photographing wildlife.
 
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jerry12953 said:
I was sitting in a hide at the Teifi Marshes reserve at Cilgerran yesterday, just generally chatting about gear with another guy there .... as you do.....when in walked a chap with a big white lens.

"Ah, here's someone with more money than sense" I said. After he'd sat down I noticed it was a brand new 200 - 400 zoom (the one with the built in converter) on a 5d3. Or the other way round really. About £15000 quid's worth, altogether.

Cue much embarrassment.....

But it demonstrated to me how good the 5d3 must be for photographing wildlife.
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So back to the more money than sense part.
You were right then :D
 
For anyone interested in the 5D3 Sigma 50-500 combination, this was taken (grabbed!) when I came across the bird during a walk in Rotorua, New Zealand.

f/9, 1/500, ISO 800, EV +0.3, 500mm and no PP other than a straight crop.

New_Zealand_Silver_Eye.jpg
 
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Multiple Exposures - am I doing something wrong.

I set the camera to Multi exposure x2 images, set the self timer pressed the shutter and went and sat at a table.

Pressed the shutter a second time and sat at another chair.

I had two images of myself in the different positions but they were ghost like - could this be because I got the shutter speeds wrong indoors (didn't use flash) or is this how its supposed to work.

The background behind me was sharp.
 
Sounds like you had a slow shutter speed set and it captured you moving. Set the camera to manual and set a quick shutter speed (or leave as is and make sure you stay still), or set it to shutter priority and do the same (the second one will automatically adjust your aperture to compensate, the first you will need to tweak the aperture for a correct exposure). You might also want to raise the ISO a little to allow for faster shutter speeds.
 
chump1979 said:
Been testing the video capturing side of things lately on my mkiii. I'm using a 100mm 2.8L macro with IS. With the IS on when taking video in a quiet scene you can hear the IS motors whirring away as you move the camera around in the video itself. Do other people shoot video without IS enabled or just have it on when things aren't so quiet?
Click to expand...

I used to hate that when i had my old 17-55 f/2.8IS on my 60D. That was way too noisy.
One thing you should do (other than use an external mic) is to use manual level control. You will (and have) found in a quiet place the camera is upping the gain too much, its trying to amplify background noises, and this will certainly bring out the IS noise.
Take control of the record level and set it so the camera wont increase the gain, and you should find the IS noise is not too intrusive.
 
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