Russ Isabella
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Long-winded post......read at your own risk 
1DIV Impressions
Preface
A few things to be aware of: First, this was my maiden voyage with the new body. I believe I had a good read on the custom function set-up and other settings, but I’ve no doubt there may be adjustments worth making. Second, I chose to depart from my typical approach to shooting gymnastics. Usually, I do everything I can to maintain an ISO of 1600 or lower. This time out, given the purported ISO prowess of the 1DIV, I chose to work mostly at ISO 3200. Third, for some reason (part situational, part not thinking it through well enough, which is rather remarkable since I haven’t thought about much else since receiving this camera), I shot most of the meet with a relatively wide-angle lens, the 35L. It’s a stunningly competent lens, but I do wonder what my results would have been had a relied a bit more on the 85/1.8. Fourth, because of the higher ISO, I was able to raise my shutter speed, but I also stopped down a bit more than I typically do. It’s not clear to me how much of an effect this might have on isolation of my subjects from their backgrounds. Fifth, I am working with Photoshop CS3, so I cannot process the RAW files out of camera with ACR. Thus, for the photos in my original post, I converted to .dng then converted in ACR. I have no way of knowing how that simple fact affects these images relative to my past gymnastics shots (and sorry but I’m not going back to convert previous shots to .dng so that I can make the comparisons that might help answer this question). Sixth, I shot in M mode. I can’t say I consistently nailed exposure, and when I was off, it was in the direction of underexposure. Of course this is a factor when considering noise. Seventh, with the exception of beam, where I used the ring of fire, everything was shot with a single focus point (usually center) selected. I think that covers the caveats…
Custom Function Settings for C.FnIII:
1-0
2-0
3-0
4-1
5-0
6-4
7-2
8-2
9-1
10-1
11-1
12-0
13-0
14-1
15-0
16-0
17-0
18-Disable
19-Disable
AF
The most pressing question in my mind is whether the AF system works. Every first-hand report I’d read prior to buying this camera was very positive where AF is concerned. Then, of course, Rob Galbraith posted his review and the shit hit the fan. Was I worried? A bit. Am I still? Not really. I was happy with AF performance. Not only did I think AF worked very well, but I’m confident it’ll get better as I continue to learn how to use this camera. Vault is by far my worst event when shooting gymnastics. The 1DIV was fast and relatively accurate and I feel I had more keepers than usual. Shooting bars I also was impressed by the responsiveness and accuracy of the AF system. I look forward to seeing how this might become even better with a longer focal length. Beam was a bit of a testing ground in that I chose to use the ring of fire. Looking at the photos, it’s clear I lost focus more often than I was able to realize while shooting. I’m not particularly surprised by this because the ring-of-fire approach not only adds risk to the process just because of how it functions, but the challenge to this shooter is heightened because it’s very difficult to see the center ring through the viewfinder (which matters because it’s still important to keep the center focus point on the subject) and it’s extremely difficult to know whether or not focus is on-target because there’s no perceptible “feedback” that I was aware of. Despite all of this, the AF worked (shots were in-focus and sharp) much, much more often than it didn’t, and there’s no way I can place any fault on the camera.
Shooting floor, I was impressed. With all of my planning for this shoot, I had decided to use the 70-200/2.8 for floor. I figured I would take advantage of a higher ISO setting and enjoy the convenience of a zoom rather than fumble around with two rigs and the relatively heavy 200/1.8. During pre-meet ‘practice,’ I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing from the 70-200 (which I’d stopped down a bit) because the backgrounds were more prominent than I wanted them to be, so I made a game-time decision to shoot with the 200/1.8. For me, shooting floor with this lens is like participating in aerial activities without a net. It’s physically challenging (Hammy’s daughters notwithstanding  ) and the in-your-face perspective that often results poses a huge challenge where AF is concerned….at least that’s always been my experience. I felt the 1DIV handled it better than any other camera I’ve ever used to shoot floor. I still had plenty of OOF shots, but I definitely had a higher proportion of keepers, and I’m quite happy about that.
All told, for the first time using this camera, I was more than ‘pleased enough.’ I have no reason to think there are any problems inherent in the AF system, and as already mentioned, I’m confident things will get even better as I learn to fully utilize all of the various settings.
ISO
I must say I’m not particularly impressed with this camera’s high-ISO abilities. I also must say that in light of my having no choice but to rely on a different post-processing procedure, and finding this morning that my results in this regard are quite different using DPP, and seeing that an out-of-camera jpg looks better than my post-processed .dng file, I cannot comment on ISO with any authority. One thing I thought I noticed was that in shots where the athlete’s face was in shadow, resolution was compromised. This is something I will continue to explore given that it is not yet clear to me whether the ‘effect’ is a real one. Factors I must consider: because I relied on a wide-angle lens, I had to do a fair amount of cropping in some situations; different processing approaches seems to lead to different outcomes.
Below I am posting four already-posted photos, this time processed with DPP. In every case, to my eyes, the photo looks better than that converted from .dng. I’m also posting for one of these photos a straight-out-of-camera jpg that has only been resized for the web. To me, this seems to provide evidence for ISO performance being better than the converted .dng files would suggest.
1A.
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http://www.russisabellaphotography.com/Gymnastics 2010/_M7D9598.jpg |
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2A.
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http://www.russisabellaphotography.com/Gymnastics 2010/_M7D8827.jpg |
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2B. Out-of-camera jpg:
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http://www.russisabellaphotography.com/Gymnastics 2010/OOC8827.jpg |
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6A.
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http://www.russisabellaphotography.com/Gymnastics 2010/_M7D9811.jpg |
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7A.
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http://www.russisabellaphotography.com/Gymnastics 2010/_M7D9306.jpg |
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MY MKIV will be here Monday, do I send it back............sigh.