Let’s set the scene…

So I was standing on a chair while the bride was sitting so I could shoot down on the bride. I was kind of in the middle of ideas. I wanted to shoot half her face for something a bit more creative, but the angle wasn’t right. I kept on clicking away trying to get things right. I was shooting tighter and shooting looser etc. Just trying different stuff. I did eventually shoot what I had in mind but I wasn’t really all that crazy about the results and her expression wasn’t the greatest on those shots.

So I wanted to see if I could “extract” something from one of those photos and materialize my vision for this shot!

Let’s begin with the original photo.

It’s decent enough. It’s nothing special. But I see potential in that her eyes are shut, her lashes are there for all the world to see and one side of her face is in the shadow. Let’s see what we can do!

I cropped it horizontally, made the shadows even darker, and played around with the sliders as below.

I am really liking the crop and the shadow on the left side of the frame. Now let’s take this into Photoshop! After playing around with the contrast even more and giving it a little bit of “glow”, we’ve got a winner!

This is a perfect example of finding a great photo within a decent one!

With that being said, let me give you an example of what a 5D Mark III photo looks like when trying to recover shadow areas.

Here’s a photo I recently took at a wedding. I meant to take this as a silhouette shot and I think it came out rather nicely. This was shot at ISO100.

So just out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to see how the photo would look like if I recovered the shadow area, i.e. the couple. You can see the Adobe Camera Raw settings I changed to achieve this goal. Most notably, the exposure was pushed 1.75 stops and the fill light was pushed to 100, the maximum value.

You can see a bit of horizontal banding even at this size. Let’s take a look at 100% crops!

Not horrendous, but horizontal banding is there. Not surprisingly it’s pretty noisy even at ISO100. I think that’s to be expected somewhat, but this is where the Nikon D800 excels at. Anyways, let’s attempt to remove the horizontal banding. For this, I like to use Nik Software’s DFine 2.0. It does an absolutely great job removing both vertical and horizontal banding.

And here’s how it looks like after I ran the photo through my usual noise reduction workflow.

And this is how it looks like resized.

So there you have it!

I don’t anticipate having to recover shadows in this manner, so while the Nikon D800 is superior in this specific regard, I’m just not that worried about it.

I happen to think 22MP is great for Wedding Photography. The 61pt AF system, 6fps, and all the other improvements certainly have made life easier for me!

Here’s the before photo:

I think it’s a pretty good shot, but I think the orange background detracts from the image.

This is what I did to fix this image up. In Adobe Camera Raw, I first corrected the white balance for the subjects. I then opened it in Photoshop CS5. Then I went back to into Adobe Camera Raw again and this time I corrected the white balance for the background. I pasted this version in its own layer. Then I used the eraser tool to erase over the subjects.

Here’s what it looks like with the subject erased. I have the background layer hidden so that the erased area can be seen.

Here’s the final image with both layers visible and merged.

I think this looks much better and more natural. While I was at it, I used the liquify tool to slim down her arm for a more flattering image.

Here’a another before and after using the same technique.

Before:

After:

Anyways, this is an initial impression type of thing. I just got it today so this won’t be a comprehensive review for obvious reasons.

So the first thing I noticed is that the box that it comes in is HUGE! It’s easily twice the size of the box for the 580EXII. OK, so that’s not important at all, I know, but hey, it’s a pretty big box. Hahaha!

Anyways, comes with the standard stuff. You know, a pouch, a stand. But there’s something new aside from the huge box. There’s a filter holder and 2 filters, a CTO and either a 1/2 or 1/4 CTO. Not sure. Hey I remember those from my Nikon shooting days!

The updated button layout:

With the CTO filter and filter holder attached:

2 other angles to see how the gel holder attaches:

I fired off some test shots with and without the CTO gel.

Here it is at ISO800. First one is without the gel. Second one is with the gel.

And at ISO1600 to let in more ambient. Again, first one is without the gel. Second one is with the gel.

Looks pretty good to me!

The build feels very similar to the 580EXII. I’ll have to see if it will give more consistency. The 580EXII drives me nuts sometimes!

More to come!

A quick preview…

I’ve been shooting with two 5D Mark II cameras for the last year. Prior to that, I’ve pretty much shot with most of the top-end cameras out there including the 1D Mark III, 1Ds Mark III, 1D Mark IV, D700, D3, and the D3s. Last year, I decided to go with the 5D Mark II because of its resolution and video capabilities. Of course the AF system left much to be desired but I already knew that going in. So needless to say I was pretty excited when the official specs came out for the 5D Mark III.

After using the 5D Mark III for just over a week including a walk in Central Park, a Wedding, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, here are my thoughts:

• The AF system is indeed a huge…and I mean HUGE upgrade. It’s quite a leap from the not-quite-there 9 point AF system to the  full blown pro-level 61 point AF system. I mean, Wow! I am so thankful to have all those crosstype AF points back again! Hurray! It’s also extremely configurable, like what you would expect in a 1 series camera. I am really loving the spot AF feature so that I can really dial in on smaller details. Testing AI Servo against moving cars in NYC and at the Wedding proved an easy task. It’s great to be able to accurately track a moving target with an outer AF point. I can’t emphasize that enough. The only AF point I trusted on the 5D Mark II was the center AF point and I always found tracking moving targets to be an iffy proposition on that camera. Gathering from all the positive comments by other owners, I think Canon got this one right! Finally!!! Low light sensitivity of -2 EV is also an improvement from the 5D Mark II’s -1 EV and even the 1D Mark IV. And of course I love that I don’t have to focus recompose anymore! One thing I am not happy about is when auto focusing is starting, the selected AF point does not light up red. I use the * button for focusing. On the 5D Mark II, as soon as I press on this button, the selected AF point lights up red, which I find helpful especially in low lights situations or when shooting against a darker backdrop. The 5D Mark III does not do this. It lights up red only when it acquires focus. Thumbs down on that. Definitely not a show stopper but something that I certainly hope that Canon would address.
• 6fps is certainly a nice upgrade from 4fps. It’s no speed demon but I can definitely feel the increase in fps.
• The camera is slightly bulkier and actually feels better in my hand.
• The LCD screen is slightly bigger which is always welcomed.
• 100% VF is also very nice.
• I like the dedicated Live View/Movie button.
• The dual card slot is a great feature to have for redundancy and backup.
• I like the Auto ISO implementation. In Av mode, I am now able to specify minimum shutter speed for Auto ISO, which is great. Usability of Auto ISO in Manual mode is still a mystery for me however!
• I love that I can assign the DOF Preview button to switching between Single Shot and AI Servo mode.
• I am really digging the silent shutter mode. This will be perfect in churches!
• I am not sure I like the menu system. I like all the custom functions to be under one parent menu. I think this is just something I’ll have to get used to.
• I am not crazy about the zoom button. However, I like the fact that you can now zoom in close to 100% with a click of the zoom button.
• I didn’t expect a noticeable IQ improvement. I was right.
• I only expected an incremental improvement in high ISO noise handling. I was right.

Personally, I think the upgrade was worth it for me. I really wanted a 5D Mark II with a better AF system, so this is what I got in the 5D Mark III. To me, the 61 point pro level AF system is the star of the 5D Mark III. Time will tell how the AF truly is with regards to consistency and reliability. But for now, I am certainly liking what I am seeing.

Here’s how I initially set up my 5D Mark III. I’ll list off only the settings that are key to me. If it’s not listed, I left them the same as factory default settings.

• Lens abberation correction: Both disabled
• ISO speed settings: ISO speed range = 50-102400, Auto ISO range = 100-12800, Min shutter speed = Auto
• Auto Lighting Optimizer: Disabled
• Picture Style: Neutral
• Long exp. noise reduction: Off
• High ISO speed NR: Off
• Highlight tone priority: Off
• Selectable AF point: Only cross-type AF points
• AF point display during focus: All (Constant)
• VF display illumination: Enabled
• Magnification (apx): Actual size (from selected pt)
• Custom Controls: Shutter button = Metering start, AF-On button = AE lock, AE Lock button = Metering and AF start, DOF preview button = ONE SHOT <-> AI Servo, Multi-controller = AF point direct selection

Here’s a very informal high ISO comparison test between the 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III. I used Adobe Camera RAW 6.7 RC1 to convert the photos. I zeroed out the sharpening sliders as well as the Luminance noise slider. I left the color noise slider at 25 since it does a very nice job of removing only the color noise and not sacrifice any details.

Here’s the scene:

f8.0/13″/ISO1600

The following are side-by-sides between the 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III. 5D Mark II is always on the left side.

f8.0/13″/ISO1600

f8.0/6″/ISO3200

f8.0/3.2″/ISO6400

f8.0/1.6″/ISO12800

f8.0/0.8″/ISO25600

In my opinion, the 5D Mark III begins to pull away on the higher ISO values. That said, I am only seeing about a 1/2 stop improvement over the 5D Mark II. Some have claimed at least 1 stop, if not 2 stops of improvement. Clearly, this is not the case, at least in my sample shots above. However, I agree that the high ISO photos from the 5D Mark III are more workable, especially at ISO12800 and ISO25600. There’s less color blotching and I don’t find things like banding and pattern noise to be an issue for the 5D Mark III.

Not that I would ever use the H1 and H2 high ISO values, here they are.

Here’s a link to the 5D Mark III ISO25600 file resized to 12MP that I cleaned up using my NR workflow.
http://www.nicknphoto.com/galleries/upload/2012/03/30/pwg_high/20120330001807-3025de8b.jpg

Looks pretty good to me. That said, I’ve decided that my “comfortable” high ISO setting will now be ISO6400. ISO12800 will be used on a as-needed basis with ISO25600 being the emergency ISO.

Here are sample shots from a walk in Central Park and NYC.

16 shot sequence in AI Servo mode. Lens used was the 135L. f2.8 1/3200 ISO100. Used the lower center column AF point to track the Yellow Cab.

Here’s the scene:

Sequence goes from left to right, then the next row. ZERO sharpning. 100% crops.

The cross-type AF points in the corners work well too.

100% crop

100% Crop

I tested out the HDR feature on a few shots. I am certainly not an HDR kind of guy, but it’s certainly fun to experiment with this feature. Here are the resulting JPEGs with a little bit of further processing.

Some other random photos from my walk.

I was excited to get the opportunity to use the 5D Mark III at a wedding I helped shoot over the weekend. As I mentioned before, it was great not having to focus and recompose. Focusing in low light was great. AI Servo worked as it should. 6fps came in handy as well. In my opinion, this is an ideal camera for Wedding Photographers!

Here’s a 9 shot sequence of the guys jumping off a ledge. AI servo. 6fps. It nailed it. Now granted I was using my 16-35L MKII at 16mm and f4 so I had pretty good depth of field to begin with.

Using AI Servo at the ceremony was no problem.

ISO 10000 shot cleaned up nicely with my NR workflow.

Using AI Servo for the first dance went without a hitch. I like the fact that I can actually select an outer AF point and still maintain accurate tracking. With the 5D Mark II I only trusted the center AF point and often resorted to cropping.

Love being able to use the outer AF points and trust that they are going to nail it. Shot this one with my 85L MKII at f1.2.

Just for kicks, I shot this only with ambient lighting at ISO 25600. Noisy? Sure. But it cleans up decently and it looks good when resized.

Shooting this wedding with the 5D Mark III and the 5D Mark II side-by-side convinced me that I needed to trade in my second 5D Mark II for another 5D Mark III and that’s exactly what I did!

Here are some shots taken exclusively with the 5D Mark III at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from a few days ago. This was my daughter’s first “road trip”. She’s only 1 month young so she doesn’t get out much!
]]> http://www.nicknphoto.com/5d-mark-iii-review/feed/ 13 http://www.nicknphoto.com/using-fill-flash/ http://www.nicknphoto.com/using-fill-flash/#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:29:34 +0000 nicksan http://www.nicknphoto.com/?p=4249 I was browsing through the files from my Puerto Rico trip from last December and spotted a perfect example of using fill flash for better images.

My brother wanted me to take a photo of him and his family in front of a small waterfall. So I told them to begin lining up in front of the waterfall and began taking some test shots. I was in Aperture Priority mode and was at f7.1 1/100 ISO400 with -0.3 stops of Exposure Compensation dialed in. Here’s the resulting image.


Not so great. The background looks to be decently exposed but the subjects are too dark. So I then quickly mounted my 580EXII on my camera, pointed the flash head towards the subject and let it do its thing in ETTL mode. I was still in Aperture Priority mode. The camera forced the shutter speed to 1/60, but the rest of the settings were the same as before. The camera will use the flash to figure out the appropriate flash power for fill to achieve a good exposure. Here’s the resulting image.

Ah…much better! The background’s exposure is same/similar but the subjects are properly exposed. You can dial in Flash Exposure Compensation depending on whether the subjects are being under or over exposed.