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Archive 2012 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated

Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


I've been waiting to shoot football with my 5D3 since picking it up last May. I shot some ISO 50K that turned out pretty nice with some minor tweaks & NR. But lets face it, football is more of a challege.

I normally flash my night football (MaxPreps jobs). Las season my night setup was a 1DS3 with a 400 2.8 & a 580ex2 on a DIY bracket mounted low on the monopod. My normal settings were ISO 800-1000, 250 @f/4 manual....

Last night was the first time out for night football. I started at ISO 6400 at around 800 @ F3.5. I then went to ISO 10K @ 1000-1250 F/3.5 or so. I was really pleased with what I got. I was really pleased with the low-light focusing of the 5d3. I have a couple shots where I tried using a "fill" flash. I used highspeed sync, kept all my settings the same just to see if it was worth it. I found I was able to flash a few frames in a row where before, I only got one shot out. PP was done in CS5 with moderate NR using the CS5 noise filter.

Take a look and let me know what you think.










Here is one where I used the "fill" flash. The benifit I saw was no huge shadow caused by the low flash position, but the flash did fill the player's face a tad.







Here is the next shot in the sequence with no flash fill







This one is also flashed, I think the nr is a little high on this one One thing I don't miss is the ghosting I used to have to watch for.




Sep 01, 2012 at 08:48 PM
Fish On
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Very nice set of pics with the high ISO and also with the HSS. I think that these should pass the muster at Maxpreps. Now you got me thinking about getting the 5D3 instead of the 1DX.


Sep 01, 2012 at 10:35 PM
Jred
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


They look really good to me.

John



Sep 01, 2012 at 10:45 PM
jerbear00
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Quite nice


Sep 01, 2012 at 10:45 PM
RobertCB
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


You did a great job with these images as they came out great. If you do not mind, what AF setting (case) did you use and what did you think of the camera's performance compared to the ones you had in the past.


Sep 01, 2012 at 11:54 PM
Russ Isabella
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


These look great, Ralph. I don't know anything about your shooting style, but assuming that every now and then you have occasion to let 'er rip, what's your take on the 5DIII's frame rate? Did you find it to be limiting in any way?


Sep 02, 2012 at 12:41 AM
Frank Lauri
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ralph....these look great to me. On #2 and #3....for ISO 10000, those faces are spot on and sharp. Nice work.


Sep 02, 2012 at 07:03 AM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Robert: I used case 4, it worked well. At this point, I've not tweaked much with any of the AF settings. I used center point focus with the AF expanded to the inner 9 points. That seemed to work well with football and trying to swing a 400 2.8 on a MP while keeping the subject centered can be a daunting task. My keeper rate was better than my 1d3 or 1d4. Any oof shots were pilot error.

Russ: I never found the frame rate a limiting factor. I've shot so many different sports/events/portraits with this camera, I've been so impressed! It really does it all. I'm not s spray and pray guy anyway. I usually am on and off the shutter button in any given sequence. If you stand next to me while I'm shooting it's a double tap...double tap....double tap. As opposed to a long burst. With last year's set-up (w/flash) I shot AI servo and single frame. I would shoot around 250 shots per game. Almost like the film days where we would shoot very selectively compared to today's digital world (although I was told early on to shoot like film was cheap... that's the only way you get better... still sound advice). On this game I shot almost twice as many shots.... Really increased my PP time. I still only post around a 150 shots per MP gallery. I mean really, how many shots of the QB dropping back do you need?

We all know the high ISO performance of the new Canons is really great, but the big takeaway from this first shoot was how well you can use fill flash from across the flipp'in football field! High speed sync really cuts down on flash power, but I found myself turning it down to like -2/3 or even -1 (ETTL). What I was trying to do was just get a little "puff" of light into the helmet. What I found was the flash wasn't working very hard at all. I was able to do my double taps and still get the flash to fire more than one frame (normal recycle on my 580 ex2 w/ a cp-e3 on a full dump is around 2 sec). When your exposure is pretty solid already, your shutter speed is high enough to stop the action (i.e. your not relying on the flash to stop the action anymore) you can actually use the flash as a fill light like a portrait photographer might do it. A little long winded but I think you get the point. Hopefully some one can learn from this.

Ralph



Sep 02, 2012 at 10:16 AM
gschlact
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Very impressive Ralph. Enjoy the Ned body

Not sure of it is my iPad, but what is happening in the first shot with the word Lodi on his chest looking blurrey yet the other parts seem aparently fine?

guy



Sep 02, 2012 at 11:25 AM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Guy,

I think its a combination of the double stroke on the font on the jersey and the down resing of the file. It was sharp on the original.

Thanks for noticing..

ralph



Sep 02, 2012 at 11:37 AM
tmalone893
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ralph,
I was able to use my 5d iii this week as well but at iso 12,800 in the rain. I was extremely impressed how they came out but I never thought of using the flash. Your pics look outstanding and I can't wait until Friday to try this. Thanks for sharing theses and your setup.



Sep 02, 2012 at 01:10 PM
clarence3
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Nice shots Ralph.

Ralph Thompson wrote:
I'm not a spray and pray guy anyway. I usually am on and off the shutter button in any given sequence. If you stand next to me while I'm shooting it's a double tap...double tap....double tap. As opposed to a long burst.


Ditto. FPS is the least of my concerns. If anything, I'll end up throttling the 5D3 back to Low continuous so my flashes can keep up.

Ralph Thompson wrote:
We all know the high ISO performance of the new Canons is really great, but the big takeaway from this first shoot was how well you can use fill flash from across the flipp'in football field! High speed sync really cuts down on flash power, but I found myself turning it down to like -2/3 or even -1 (ETTL). What I was trying to do was just get a little "puff" of light into the helmet. What I found was the flash wasn't working very hard at all. I was able to do my double taps and still get
...Show more

Yep, I was able to take over 300 hypersync flashes on Friday with one set of eneloops. Of course it helps having multiple speedlites, but that's still very good performance.

I've been very impressed with my 5D3. But I won't be taking it to a Friday Night game until PW adds it to the firmware. They're getting close... here's an update from a few days ago...

PocketWizard.com wrote:
Status of 5D Mark III Compatibility with MiniTT1 and FlexTT5

So. Burlington, VT – August 27, 2012 - We have a version of the ControlTL firmware that includes compatibility for the 5D Mark III that is very promising. We are hard at work testing it with both the 5D Mark III and all the other previously compatible Canon cameras, flashes, and transmitters. Please keep in mind, the beta and the official release must be compatible with all currently supported cameras in addition to the 5D Mark III - we cannot separate one version out for just one particular camera.

Testing is
...Show more



Sep 02, 2012 at 02:21 PM
BillyHurst
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Nice job Ralph. I don't know how everyone else sees it, but for my taste, I much prefer images 1 & 3 without flash. I think MaxPreps needs to take another look on their policy regarding "must use flash" because with the newer bodies there are some super nice results I have seen lately without flash versus with it. Just sayin'.

Billy-



Sep 02, 2012 at 07:11 PM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Billy,

MaxPreps has taken a look at the new generation of cameras and does consider non flashed work. I shot about 80% non-flash. When I got enough images is when I started playing around with the flash. I liked it on some, didn't like it on others. What I hate doing is red-eye repair in post. Even with the little "puff" of light I was trying to get, I was still getting some redeye not a lot but some...



Sep 02, 2012 at 07:36 PM
clarence3
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ralph Thompson wrote:
What I hate doing is red-eye repair in post. Even with the little "puff" of light I was trying to get, I was still getting some redeye


How low is your flash mounted?

From the shadows in picture #2, I'd guess not low enough, especially if you're getting red-eye.

An easy to remember rule-of-thumb is 1" of separation for every foot of subject distance (or the tangent of 5 degrees if you prefer math over rules of thumb).

So if a player is 10 yards away (i.e. 30'), then you'll need then flash 30" away.



Sep 02, 2012 at 07:55 PM
Russ S.
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ralph - any comments or thoughts on the black AF points in the viewfinder? Did you find it harder to track a subject and did they cause any missed shots? Thanks.


Sep 02, 2012 at 07:59 PM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ya know, it is what it is. I didn't think about it until you mentioned it, I didn't find it to be too big a deal. Would it be better as a big red square, yes... Was it ok the way it was, yes. Just my $.02.

I didn't miss any shots that my fat ass wouldn't have missed anyway. I just didn't find it an issue.



Sep 02, 2012 at 08:47 PM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Here's a photo of my set-up... Only the body has changed... This was when I shot a 1ds3... Yea, I know the red-eye math, But....





My lovely wife modeling my night football rig...




Sep 02, 2012 at 08:54 PM
acoll123
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Has anyone ever complained about the use of flash during the game?


Sep 02, 2012 at 09:03 PM
clarence3
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated


Ralph Thompson wrote:
Here's a photo of my set-up


If you just mount your speedlite upside down, that will give you another 8" of distance from the lens



Sep 02, 2012 at 09:39 PM
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