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This past weekend at an automotive event I noticed my 5DIII slowed down in FPS midway through the event. I was shooting with a 400mm 2.8 IS II, Manual, AI Servo mode with shutter speeds above 1/250 sec. For the first half of the event the body was shooting at normal FPS, but suddenly I noticed the FPS slowed down significantly during burst shooting.
Even though I was shooting at 1/250, the shutter sounded like it was shooting at 1/80th; however; the exposure of the image was fine and still shooting at 1/250.
I did some research and tried to determine all the possible culprits of the problem:
-Buffer maxing out: I'm shooting with Lexar CF 1000x cards, and I don't hold the shutter down long enough to max out the buffer, not an issue.
-A/F AI Servo mode settings: I have my secondary focus priorities to shoot continuous whether or not the body can lock on to the subject, not an issue, and wasn't during the first half of shooting the event.
-IS mode on lens being used: Found a post talking about IS mode on certain lens will cause the body to shoot slower than normal, but this shouldn't be an issue as I've never had problems with this in the past, nor do I use 3rd party lenses.
-*BATTERY ISSUE: I found another post on a forum where a 5DIII user experienced a similar problem where his shutter lagged and also his FPS slowed down. Here's the post:
"Actually, I noticed this FPS drop randomly today while I was talking to some friends at a local photo shop I frequent. I believe that the camera scales back FPS based on battery levels.
I was in High Speed Continuous, shooting large jpegs at 1/8000th and was only getting what felt like regular speed continuous FPS. I noticed my battery was at 38%. The guy I was talking to took a brand new 5D3 off the shelf in the store, set it to the same settings I had, and it was firing normally. I swapped out my battery for the spare that I carry which was at ~85%, and it fired at the rate I was expecting (matched the store model).
I went one step further; when I got home, I charged the battery that was in the camera, put it back in, and it fired at the higher rate as expected. Finally, I checked my other batteries (I have a total of five, I checked a total of four since the fifth one isn't even unsealed yet). The other two I tested were at 85% (again) and the fourth was at ~5%. The 5% one shot slow like the 38% one did. All of the batteries are genuine Canon batteries.
I hadn't heard of this before, and I've only done some preliminary research in regards to this. I'm currently checking through my manual to see if I see anything about it.
A-ha! See page 113 of the Canon 5D Mark III manual (Selecting the Drive Mode) - "When the battery level is low, the continuous shooting speed may become slightly slower."
Is this something any of you have experienced? Apparently the 5DIII Manual states that shooting speed will slow down when the battery level is low; however, I had over 50% charge on both batteries?
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