p.2 #1 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated
clarence3 wrote:
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...
(mainly notes to myself, but in case anybody else is planning on using their 5D3 for night football and has PocketWizard MiniTT1/FlexTT5s)...
The reviews from early testers on Flickr seemed very positive, so I gave beta 6.153 a try.
My 5D3 now gets clean hypersync at 1/250". And a very usable 1/320" (about 5% of dark curtain at the bottom of the frame). That's 100% fully-available flash power (no HSS pulsing). I'll just leave the Hypersync/HSS transition to 1/250", since I'll be shooting at 1/1000".
The out of the box behavior is for the 5D3 to stay at xsync of 1/200", until you enable HSS on the mounted speedlite.
I'll leave TT1/TT5 C1 configured for my 1D3 and leave C2 as Auto Detect and Auto Hypersync for the 5D3 (and/or 7D if I decide the full frame just isn't reaching far enough).
On another 5D3 sports note, I used it last night for volleyball for the first time. 5D3 did great.
p.2 #2 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated
Though I thought about using a PW for football, with only a few feet between flash and camera, an off camera cord makes a lot easier set up. I know Clarence is using three speedlights (which I'm still trying to figure out with a 5d3 in his bag.. but that's ok) on his set up. but you can get OC cords to trigger multiple flashes. I'm thinking of ditching the flash altogether on my next game w/ the 5d3. But hey it takes all kinds to spin the planet. I saw a four speedlight set up on the MaxPreps photographers facebook page. I'm used to folks having lens envy when looking at a 400 2.8, now I've gotta figure in flash envy too
p.2 #3 · 5d3 first crack at night football C&C appreciated
Ralph Thompson wrote:
Though I thought about using a PW for football, with only a few feet between flash and camera, an off camera cord makes a lot easier set up.
True... an OC cord is the easiest way and I might revert back to that. That's how I started and I'd prefer the simplicity of a $30 cord.
Ralph Thompson wrote:
I know Clarence is using three speedlights (which I'm still trying to figure out with a 5d3 in his bag.. but that's ok) on his set up.
I'll be the first to admit... it doesn't make sense at all. At this point it's having fun playing with what I've already got. Several years ago, one flash didn't reach far enough, didn't cycle fast enough, and left a pitch black background when you set exposure low enough for the flash to overpower ambient and freeze motion on the subject. It also produced a heavy "flashed look", which I don't like as much as a well-balanced ambient+flash. And adjusting flash power manually or through aperture was too cumbersome for fast moving subjects at constantly changing distances and constantly changing ambient light levels across the field.
So I decided I needed/wanted to use ETTL.
And I decided I needed/wanted to have more power and faster cycle times from multiple speedlites. I really like being able to fire off 3 consecutive shots on big plays without counting "one mississippi two mississippi" between clicks.
I started with RP, then was impressed with the ETTL and hypersync (and optimized HSS) from the PW miniTT1/flexTT5.
Ralph Thompson wrote:
but you can get OC cords to trigger multiple flashes.
Can you link to one? I've seen one on ebay for ~$60, but it says only one flash will be ETTL. But then I've seen reports that it might work if both speedlites are the exact same model. Again, might be worth playing with.
So now fast forward to my 5D3. AF and High ISO has really impressed me. So now I'm hoping high ISO with a puff of HSS for fill might be a much more practical approach. If I can get SS between 1/800"-1/1000", with f/2.8 - f/4 at around ISO 6400, then a single OC cord and a single 550EX in ETTL HSS would be great. And it'd be about $1000 cheaper and 5 pounds lighter than the mix I'm using now.
I have a thrid party cord made by interfit that has a shoot through hot shoe on the on-camera piece and then another on the end of the cord.
I think one the chinese makers (Phottix or another) has a better cord. I need to get one also so I can have two flashes, one below on the monopod and another one high up. Just make sure both flash models are same.
I will be using my 5dmk3 with 300mm f2.8 IS at tomorrows night game. Shot last saturday day game and did noticed the 6 fps which does drop as I had configured both 1st shot as well as 2nd shot priority to focus.
