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Archive 2014 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue

  
 
dresearch
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


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?



Apr 20, 2014 at 09:04 PM
fraga
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


Very interesting.
Thank you for mentioning this, it was quite helpful to me as I wasn't aware of it (yes, my fault for not reading the manual! ).
I wasn't aware if it because I believe none of my previous cameras did something similar and in my case, I own a bunch of different cards with varying speeds and SD is also notoriously slower, so I never actually attributed any change in FPS to battery levels.
So I guess that when shooting a long sports event, it is wise to change batteries when their levels drop.

You say 38% already displayed a drop in FPS, so perhaps 50%?

Edited on Apr 21, 2014 at 05:39 AM · View previous versions



Apr 21, 2014 at 04:15 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


That's interesting . It's not happened as far as I can remember on my 5D3 (but I've not been using it on high fps much) . But I've had similar on both my previous 7D and 40D before that
Totally random (or so it seems) but sometimes I would get a much longer VF blackout . It was as if I was shouting a slow shutter speed when I wasn't .

Can't say how much juice the batteries would have had but I don't normally run them long enough to be very low . And things would pick up after anyway .



Apr 21, 2014 at 05:24 AM
schlotz
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


hmm... vote me into the camp of others who didn't RTFM Good find!
Note to self: always go out on a shoot with charged batteries....



Apr 21, 2014 at 08:04 AM
riokid
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


My guess would be that the voltage on one of the cells gets lower than the other(s) after it has been used (discharged) for a while. This may not be apparent as the charge level would still appear to be high.

As a parallel: when I was racing RC cars (with my kids), we would go to a tedious process of matching the batteries and make a pack where the voltage and discharge rates are close to its other. This allows the cars to run a little faster and longer.

While each Lithium-Ion battery are rated at 3.6V, it is not uncommon to get a digital reading of 4.2 volts. So on my 7D battery, a published 7.2 volts can read as high as 8.4 volts. If they are discharging unevenly, you might still get a combined high voltage, but one is actually not able to put out enough juice.

HTH

riokid



Apr 21, 2014 at 08:35 AM
Monito
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


dresearch, how do you delete photographs on your card? That can affect frame rates if the camera computer has to pull together scattered blocks for files due to fragmentation.

Do you

1) After downloading to computer, delete files from cards instead of formatting?

2) Delete files frequently during the earlier part of the day before you notice the slowdown?



Apr 21, 2014 at 08:40 AM
Bruce Sawle
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


I experienced this a few weeks ago. I like you did my research and found that my close to empty batteries were the culprit. I now make sure everything is charged before going out.


Apr 21, 2014 at 08:51 AM
Sir_Loin
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · 5D Mark III Shutter Lag Issue


I noticed that my 5D3 slowed down from its 6FPS as the battery level went down but not by much, perhaps down to 4FPS when it got really low. No such noticeable drop in FPS on 1D4 though probably due to it's higher capacity batteries.


Apr 21, 2014 at 08:54 AM





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