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Thread: 5D Mark III Takes on an Osprey: Initial AF Impressions

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    Default 5D Mark III Takes on an Osprey: Initial AF Impressions

    I spent the afternoon with Jim Neiger on his boat. It was my first opportunity to test the AF of the 5D Mark III on BIF against varied BGs. My initial impression is that the 5D III has significantly better AF tracking than the Mark IV. I got frame after frame of sharply focused birds. The AF wasn't perfect, but it really was impressive. Of course this is a preliminary impression, and I've got another 4 days of photography with Jim to help me reach a solid conclusion. This frame was processed on my laptop.

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    Canon 5D Mark III, 500mm + 1.4x, f/7.1, 1/2000, ISO 800, manual exposure, hand held
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    BPN Member dankearl's Avatar
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    It is very sharp and a very nice pose.
    It looks dark.
    Dan Kearl

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    Looks good on my laptop. I was hoping to hear that the AF is amazing:-). Looks track sharp here and not much noise, though you are a PP master as well. I am sure we will hear from you in the coming days. Thanks for sharing.


    Lorant

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    nice looking bird Doug, glad you're having fun. To my eyes this one isn't your best osprey in terms of IQ though, in particular head looks a bit oversharpened by I'm sure it's laptop processing.

    I like 5D3 AF too but the 1D4 nails the same frames as well here is a frame from last year
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    BPN Member Steve Uffman's Avatar
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    Thanks Doug, would love to see a BIf coming head on. Are you using case 5?

    I hope to get some of my eagle examples up but have been fighting a "root kit" issue with my computer for over a week. That's a curse you hope no one ever gets! Killing all my productivity but must perservere

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    I'm never totally comfortable processing images on my laptop, so my apologies for that. I know the Mark IV can get very sharp frames of the same subject. What I'm trying to say is that the 5D III is getting a higher percentage of keeper frames IMO (as measured by AF on the subject). The 5D Mark III isn't the perfect BIF camera due to its frame rate, buffer size, and pixel density, but the AF is really good. This bird wasn't particularly large in the frame, but I liked the wing position, eye contact, and habitat.
    Last edited by Doug Brown; 04-17-2012 at 05:39 AM.
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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    Here's a 100% crop of a straight RAW to JPEG conversion where the bird is larger in the frame.

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    Last edited by Doug Brown; 04-17-2012 at 05:51 AM.
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    BPN Viewer Charles Glatzer's Avatar
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    Hey Doug,

    Focus looks like it is on the wing (as expected), with the head head having a sort of crunchy appearance. The crop looks better :~). I have done some quick processing on my laptop as well, wink.

    The 5D3 appears to AF better than the last two models, and I hope the 1DX AF lives up to our expectations.
    Looking forward to testing the new 200-400, 600 lenses with 1DX bodies in a month or two.

    Best,

    Chas

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Brown View Post
    Here's a 100% crop of a straight RAW to JPEG conversion where the bird is larger in the frame.

    this one looks great!
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    Great capture Doug. The Lexar Professional 1000x CF card provides some relieve for me (quite expensive though), it can fire about 18-20 frames(RAW) at 6FPS and goes about 4FPS forever...so at least the camera never get frozen.
    Last edited by Ruhikanta Meetei; 04-17-2012 at 01:08 PM.

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    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    Hi Doug, great flight posture showing the full downstroke of the wings. Overall nice and sharp, and the Osprey is separated nicely from the BG.

    Not that Ive shot with either a MK IV or the new 5D MKIII, but if I ever have the opportunity to own either, I know what to look forward too.

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    Doug, I liked this one a lot. BG has just the right amount of blur...I like such BGs a lot. you get subject separation and at the same time, nice feel of the surroundings. well done.

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    Thanks for the feedback everyone!
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    Very nice shot. I really like the background, excellent wing posotion, and great comp.
    Well done.

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