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 p.9 #13 · Official 1dx Mark III picture thread | |
My 1DX3 arrived this morning. I had the day off so I went to shoot some birds in crappy light with rain. I used the 1DX2 for about 2 years prior to getting the 1DX3 and also used the 5DIV, 5DSR, and 7D2 pretty extensively. I have also recently purchased a SONY A9 with a 200-600 and I have about 15,000-20,000 shots on that camera.
Most of my shooting today was photographing chummed Ring-billed Gulls through the OVF with the handheld 600iii with and without the 1.4X TC III. I found the autofocus/tracking to be a very significant upgrade to the 1DX2. I used the auto case setting for most of the shooting with auto point selection, although at the very end I used case 2. I modified that to have the camera stay with the subject as much as possible but also adjust for fast/erratic movements.
I was able to get many series of gulls flying directly at me with the head and eyes consistently in focus. Occasionally the camera had to catch up for the first couple shots and once locked on, it would keep very close focus. I did seem to have a slightly lower rate of shots focused on the head than the SONY A9. I do want to play with the autofocus settings before making any definite statements about which camera is better.
When birds were flying parallel to me, a large majority of photos were very sharp on the head and eyes, although occasionally the camera did choose the wingtip to focus on. I think that changing the case setting for AF may improve this--I'm anticipating leaving the first setting in the AF cases to -2 and probably reducing the sensitivity to motion to 0 or +1. I was shooting -2, +2 today when I was on Case 2, and obviously with auto the camera adjusts as it sees fit.
What I was really most happy about was the camera did NOT seem to jump to the background at all. The reservoir I was focusing on was frozen. There was a large flock of Ring-billed Gulls on the ice when a Great Blue Heron flew in and landed amongst the gulls. A few minutes later, it got up and was flying away against the treeless forest--drab blue-brown against black. The 1DX3 picked this up and tracked it perfectly. I don't think there is any chance any of my previous Canon cameras would have caught this bird for even one shot. Similarly, I was able to photograph multiple gulls which were a bit more distant and the camera did not lose focus to the background. I was able to have the gull transition from white sky to brown forest to white ice and in between with no issues whatsoever. I was VERY happy to see this.
Finally, I had multiple photos where the gulls flew from a distance and flew in quite close to me. With previous Canon cameras, when the gulls flew in close to me, I often struggled to have the 1DX2 to get multiple very sharp on the head photos. It seems the improved tracking of the 1DX3 significantly improved this ability. I had multiple series of 5-8 photos when 4-6 of the photos were sharp on the face and eyes--previously I would have averaged maybe 1 per series, or perhaps every other series.
One last caveat as I continue to compare the Canon 1DX3/600iii to the Sony A9/200-600. The lenses are significantly different. The 200-600 is lighter and easier to handhold, although the 600iii isn't terribly difficult. The 200-600 has a max aperture of f/6.3 whereas the 600iii is an f/4 lens which leads to less depth of field. Additionally the zoom on the 200-600 does have some benefits for flight photography.
I will include a series of 9 shots of the Great Blue Heron and then a handful of gull photos. ISOs ranged from 2500-5000, shutter speeds were typically around 1/2000 to 1/3200. I was shooting at max aperture, with or without the TC. With the TC attached, I did find that I had a slightly higher percentage of shots focusing on the belly or feet of a bird flying at me. I would guess perhaps double the shots were like that, but still most photos were sharp on the head of the bird.
Great Blue Heron Photos are straight out of camera, uncropped.
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Great Blue Heron Sequence 1DX Mark III 2-17-2020 by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
 Ring-billed Gull, Eagle Creek Park, February 17, 2020. by Ryan Sanderson, on Flickr
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