don_pugh

<p>David, I agree with you on the AF system of the 5DIII. I was upgrading from a T2i and a pro photographer I was buying a 70-200mm f/4 IS lens from encouraged me to send back the 5DII I had on order and get the 5DIII. She said the superiority of the AF system alone was worth the price difference. I'm happy I took her advice. I don't have a good comparison point from personal experience, but have been amazed at the birds I've been able to get in focus, even in a clutter of branches, and how quickly the camera can pick up and track birds in flight.<br>

One question I have is how often it's desirable to shoot a bird or an animal at a shutter speed of less than 1/100 even if you're able to hold the camera and lens perfectly steady. I'd think any slight movement of the subject, perhaps even from breathing, would be an issue. Even if I had the capability to shoot a telephoto lens at that shutter speed, which I clearly don't with the 400 f/5.6 handheld, I can't think of a situation other than extremely low light that left no other option when I would want to. With the image quality I can get at ISO 400 or 800 or even 1600, I want a fast shutter speed to allow for any movement in the subject and to have the possibility of tracking the bird should it take off. I blew some shots of a Great Blue Heron choking down a fish (creating a huge bulge in its throat) because the movement of the bird trying to swallow threw it out of focus even at a shutter speed of 1/1000.<br>

I bought my 400 f/5.6 barely used for a little over $900 and was concerned that its lack of IS and my lack of experience shooting birds and wildlife with a long telephoto would make it very hard to get good images with it, but I've been very pleasantly surprised. I figured that with what I paid for it that if I wasn't satisfied I could resell it without taking much of a hit, but I'm completely happy with it. There's no question that the lack of IS will cause me to miss some shots, but was very happy with my batting average shooting birds for several days and believe the other options discussed on this thread all cost close to 2X or more. </p>

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<p>Tommy, from what I read the 60D has superb image quality at up to ISO 800 and is good well beyond that. With that being the case, I think you would be surprised at the image quality you can get from the 400 f/5.6L lens even without IS and shooting handheld. I just spent a week on vacation on the east coast of central and north Florida and the Savannah/Tybee Island in Georgia and got a lot of great handheld shots of birds with the 400 f/5.6L on a 5D Mark III. I found if I could keep shutter speed at 1/640 and above, which I had no trouble doing in most lighting conditions I encountered with ISO settings of 400 and 800, if I got the bird in focus I almost always got very sharp images. Although I was shooting in Aperture Priority and didn't intend to let my shutter speed drop below 1/500, I even got quite a few images at 1/400 that are sharp even when severely cropped.<br>

Here's a handheld shot of a Great Egret at the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, not cropped, shot with a 5D3 and 400 f/5.6L at ISO 400, f/9, 1/640 second. </p><div></div>

<p>From the Viera, FL Wetlands, same camera and lens as the previous 2 images, a Great Blue Heron about to have a fish dinner. f/5.6, 1/640, ISO 400.</p><div></div>

<p>Also from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm with the same camera and lens, a pair of Snowy Egrets. f/5.6, 1/1000, ISO 400.</p><div></div>

<p>Sorry about the previous posts, didn't get the photo sized correctly and will try again.</p>

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<p>Shot in the last week on vacation in Florida at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, a Roseata Spoonbill mother feeding her 3 babies. Canon 5D Mark III, 400mm f/5.6 L, f/5.6, 1/800, ISO 400.</p>

<p>Shot in the last week on vacation in Florida at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, a Roseata Spoonbill mother feeding her 3 babies. Canon 5D Mark III, 400mm f/5.6 L, f/5.6, 1/800, ISO 400.</p>

<p>Karl, here's a link to a piece showing that the 5D III can do what you're looking for and it has the relevant screen prints.<br>

http://www.hdr-photography.com/reviews/5d3.php<br>

I virtually always shoot in aperture priority and adjust exposure compensation as needed and have only done 3 shot bracketing, so I just pulled out my 5D III to verify that the camera will allow you to bracket 7 exposures shooting in manual mode. It does. You set the number of bracketed shots at 7 on one of the menus under the camera icon (4th symbol from left to right). Then you go to the second menu under first symbol on the left and bring up AEB; each turn of the dial on top of the camera moves the exposures out in each direction by 1/3 of a stop, holding the center at 0. So one turn of the dial gets you 7 shots in 1/3 increment from -1 to +1, two turns gets you 7 shots in 2/3 increments from -2 to +2, three turns gets you 7 shots in 1 stop increments from -3 to +3, a 4th turn gets you -4 to +4, a 5th turn gets you -5 to +5 which is the limit. You probably already know this, but after you've dialed in the increments you want you have to hit the "set" button in the middle of the rotary dial on the back of the camera to lock them in. Then the next 7 times you hit the shutter button you'll get the exposures at the different EV settings for your HDR shot.</p>

<p>Sarah, there's no need to be a condescending, intellectually dishonest troll even as you backpedal. I don't recall referring to Shaw as my deity. A couple of weeks ago I had never heard of him. I came across his blog after watching an extended YouTube presentation by Art Morris on bird photography. Art is considered one of the world's leading bird photographers and I found his presentation educational (though I'm sure you could have corrected him on some points and given him some advice to improve his photography), so I took a look at his blog and saw a post in which Art, who has been a professional photographer for 30 years or more, referred to Shaw as his idol when he started shooting and said Shaw had been a mentor and a friend. Shaw posted a piece or two on Art's blog, I believe including the one on ETTR, which you've now finally read apparently, even though there was of course nothing in that or anything written by anybody else on photography that you could possibly learn from.</p>

<p>Shaw's piece on ETTR seemed somewhat at conflict from something I'd heard from a very prominent landscape photographer on another YouTube presentation and the commentary on Shaw's blog was closed on the topic, so I emailed him and he was nice enough to respond back. He said nothing derogatory about the other photographer, just said that he was wrong on that issue. Presumably the other photographer disagrees. I found Shaw's rationale more persuasive, having personally shot a lot more underexposed than overexposed images (I wish I could shoot them all perfectly exposed as I'm sure you do), have tried ETTR a few times since then and found it helpful.</p>

<p>I thought the piece on ETTR might be of interest to the person who asked the question that originated this thread, so I posted a comment that included a link to it so if interested he could go directly to the source and draw his own conclusions. I did not solicit your feedback and in my first brief response to you I tried to let you know that. This is the first photography forum I've spent any time on, but I've seen your type on a variety of other forums, the type who positions himself or herself as the resident expert that everybody should bow down to. If that's what this forum is about I won't be here long. If giving greater weight to professional photographers who have written books and had their pictures appear in top publications over decades than to self proclaimed experts on the internet whose work I know nothing about means I'm worshipping a "deity", so be it.</p>

<p>You seem like a last word type of person, so go ahead and have it. And in case I haven't made it clear, based on your posts on this thread and others, I am not interested in any advice from you on any topic. If you will do me the courtesy of ignoring anything I post, I'll do the same for you.</p>

<p>Sarah, I implied nothing about your photography, know nothing of your photography and based on the arrogance and condescending nature you display here I have no desire to. I just find your implication that you have higher standards than a very accomplished photographer like Shaw ("suspect he loses or compromises a lot of shots by doing what he does" is your latest blather) to be laughable.</p>

<p>It's clear you didn't bother to actually read Shaw's comments on ETTR at the link I posted before you mischaracterized what he actually said on multiple occasions. He said that you don't want blown highlights, that it doesn't apply in every single lighting situation, etc. But obviously there's no reason for you to read what anybody else has to say since you already know it all.</p>

<p>"The unstated basis of this argument is actually the highlight recovery capabilities of many applications such as PhotoShop."</p>

<p>Sorry Sarah, you're just wrong. There's no highlights recovery involved. I open photos in Lightroom 4 that showed a few blinkies on the display of my Canon 5D Mark III and they show no blown highlights. I don't have to touch a slider to recover them.</p>

<p>As far as dubious practices, maybe Shaw's standards aren't as high as yours, LOL. Somehow it hasn't kept National Geographic and all kinds of other publications from running his pictures for decades.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sarah, John Shaw is referring to the histogram on the camera, which I think for virtually all cameras is an RGB histogram.</p>

<p>David, Shaw's point is that most camera makers are conservative about blown highlights, so that when you see only a smidgeon of "blinkies" on the histogram of your camera, the chances are good that you will see no blown highlights, i.e. no lost detail, when you open the same image on your computer. So Shaw is suggesting that for most cameras, in most situations, from where you get your first blinkie you can generally go +1/3 or +2/3 or even +1 on exposure compensation without actually having blown highlights when you open the image on a computer, despite what the histogram on the camera shows. I have found this to be the case on multiple occasions in the last few days of trying what he suggests. And he's not suggesting that you have to or even should leave the finished image at that exposure, he's saying that's the point at which you get the best RAW data to work with. But he's not saying blindly do it, he's suggesting testing what the histogram on your camera shows versus what your computer shows and if there's a consistent gap, adjust your camera exposures accordingly. If there's not, don't.</p>

<p>Here's John Shaw's bio from his website:</p>

<p align="left">"John has been a professional nature photographer since the early 1970s. His work has been published in many publications and books, including National Geographic, Nature’s Best, National Wildlife, Audubon, Outdoor Photographer, and many others. In 1997 he received the first-ever Outstanding Photographer Award given by NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association). Nikon chose him as a featured Legend Behind the Lens in 2002, while Microsoft designated him an Icon of Imaging in 2006. He has been part of Epson’s Stylus Pro fine art print makers group since 2001.</p>

<p align="left">John has published six books on nature photography, plus six eBooks on Photoshop and Lightroom. He has photographed on every continent, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from Provence to Patagonia."</p>

<p align="left"> </p>

<p align="left">When somebody with his credentials offers free online advice on photography via a blog, and will even respond to email questions, I'm inclined to pay attention and at least give his methods a try.</p>

<p>Marcelo, I also don't understand the phrase "analogically expose". I have recently been watching a lot of extended presentations by very well regarded professional photographers on B&H Photo's YouTube channel and just about every one of them primarily shoots in Aperture Priority (Av). Av lets you control depth of field and the camera determines shutter speed to properly expose the image. Then these pros go to the histogram to see if the shutter speed setting the camera picked is giving them the histogram (which shows the range of colors between pure black and pure white that are being captured) they want; if not they typically use exposure compensation to adjust, moving the exposure compensation to a + setting if they want to push the histogram to the right to pick up more bright colors or to a - setting if they want to push the histogram to the left and pick up more dark colors.</p>

<p>Once they have the histogram where they want it, if the light isn't changing and they're working a scene and taking multiple shots, they will lock in the camera settings via either Exposure lock or changing to Manual and locking in the Aperture and Shutter Speed previously determined through the process I described. That prevents the camera bouncing the shutter speed around based on the light where it is momentarily being pointed.</p>

<p>Here is something you might find of interest from long time professional John Shaw on exposure. His advice to push the histogram to the far right contradicts the advice of at least one prominent landscape and nature photographer who says he usually shoots with exposure compensation at -2/3. I emailed Mr. Shaw and asked about this conflicting advice; he responded that the other photographer is simply wrong. With film you could get more saturated colors shooting slightly underexposed, but with digital you do not. With digital, whether you want the final image (when shooting RAW and then processing) to be bright, dark, or somewhere in between, you will get the most data to work with by exposing to the far right and then processing the image. As he says in the piece linked below, you introduce noise by pulling up shadows to show more details; with ETTR you're avoiding that as much as possible, and you don't introduce nearly as much noise pulling down highlights as you do pulling up shadows. And Shaw says camera makers tend to be very conservative in showing the "blinkies" on overexposed areas (because people hate overexposed images), that with most cameras if you're getting just a few blinkies they won't show as blown highlights on your computer monitor and you should still move exposure compensation up slightly.</p>

<p>http://www.johnshawphoto.com/ettr-to-the-far-right/</p>

<p>I've just started trying Shaw's approach, shooting in RAW, and it works beautifully.</p>

<p>As far as lenses go, with your camera you can get properly exposed images from a wide variety of Canon lenses and 3rd party lenses made for Canon cameras.</p>

<p>I watched an online presentation by long time professional photographer Michael Melford (who has been shooting for National Geographic regularly for years) in which he talked about his gear. He said back in the days of film when zoom lenses weren't very good he only carried 3 primes: 20mm, 85mm and 200mm. Even though 50mm is considered a normal lens he's never liked shooting at that focal length. He mostly shoots either wide angle landscapes or uses a telephoto zoom to shoot wildlife or compress landscapes. He has only carried zooms for many years because they're so good now, and said he's never had a photo rejected by Nat Geo or any other publication because it was shot with a zoom. He recently has switched from Canon to Nikon but had a bag with the gear he carries for each. For Canon, he carries a 16-35 f/2.8, 24-105mm f/4 and 70-200mm f/4 IS (he noted with amusement that a lot of people consider the first 2 of those to be "soft" lenses). I believe his Nikon zoom lenses were about the same focal lengths, except they make a 24-120 instead of 24-105.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Paulo Bizarro, with regard to your 4:46 AM comment on correcting barrel distortion and chromatic aberration with 2 clicks in Lightroom 4, in case you're not aware there is a way to set those 2 clicks (and any other corrections or adjustments you make to virtually every other RAW image in LR) as part of your default setting for importing and have all the adjustments automatically applied to all images that you import into LR4.<br>

If anybody who uses LR4 wants to apply automatic adjustments to the RAW files you import but doesn't know how, let me know and I'll post a link to the process, which is quite easy.</p>

<p>I watched an online presentation by long time professional photographer Michael Melford (who has been shooting for National Geographic regularly for years) in which he talked about his gear. He said back in the days of film when zoom lenses weren't very good he only carried 3 primes: 20mm, 85mm and 200mm. Even though 50mm is considered a normal lens he's never liked shooting at that focal length. He mostly shoots either wide angle landscapes or uses a telephoto zoom to shoot wildlife or compress landscapes. He has only carried zooms for many years because they're so good now, and said he's never had a photo rejected by Nat Geo or any other publication because it was shot with a zoom. He recently has switched from Canon to Nikon but had a bag with the gear he carries for each. For Canon, he carries a 16-35 f/2.8, 24-105mm f/4 and 70-200mm f/4 IS (he noted with amusement that a lot of people consider the first 2 of those to be "soft" lenses). I believe his Nikon zoom lenses were about the same focal lengths, except they make a 24-120 instead of 24-105.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Mike, about 3 weeks ago I had a Mark II on order from B&H for $1799 after a $400 rebate. About the same time I bought a 70-200L f/4 IS lens used from a long time pro photographer who has won a lot of awards, does workshops, etc. She asked me via email what kind of camera I would use it with and I told her I had the Mark II on order. She strongly encouraged me to look at the Mark III versus the Mark II more closely, primarily because the autofocusing system was a huge upgrade. She has used both cameras extensively and said the Mark III focusing and metering was in a different league, that the LCD display was much better and in her opinion it was worth the price differential. I had previously dismissed the Mark III largely because of the price point, but after talking with her I did more research and decided to send the Mark II package back unopened and order the Mark III for $2975 from B&H.<br /> I took the Mark III out last weekend with the 70-200 IS and got about 90 shots of my 18 month old golden retriever running around in an off leash dog park on an overcast day with no sun. I shot wide open in aperture priority at f/4 and ISO 100, mostly in the 120mm to 200mm focal range and would estimate that 80% of the shots of my dog (who was running all over the place) were tack sharp. I'm looking forward to shooting some birds and wildlife. I'll attach one of the dog in motion pictures taken with the Mark III later if I can figure out how to do it.</p>

<p>I was able to attach a picture. It was taken at the full 200mm focal length, no crop, f/4, ISO 100 and 1/640 in RAW, minor processing in Lightroom. My dog wasn't moving real fast when this one was taken but I have a bunch of him on the run with paws in air, ears flying that are razor sharp.</p><div></div>

<p>Here is a very good YouTube video by Tony Northrup comparing image quality and autofocus performance of the Mark II to the Mark III used in a bunch of different types of photography.<br>

His conclusions are that there is very little difference in image quality between the 2 cameras, even at higher ISOs where the Mark III is supposed to be much better. However, the percentage of shots he gets in perfect focus shooting a moving person, a running dog and birds in flight is much higher with the Mark III than with the Mark II. And the Mark III shoots 6 frames per second versus 3.9 for the Mark II which is significant when you're shooting birds and wildlife. He also says with the Mark II he has always had to use the center focus point to get decent results but with the Mark III he can use off center focus points and track a moving subject.<br>

So his recommendation is that if you shoot primarily landscapes and studio work you'd be better off buying the Mark II and putting the $1300 difference towards other equipment. But if you like to shoot birds, wildlife, moving pets and kids and weddings (where people are moving), the vastly superior autofocusing system of the Mark III is worth the price differential.<br>

He also notes that Live View and the focusing capability of the Mark III are vastly superior to the Mark II for night photography.</p>

<p>I've only had the 17-40 for 10 days or so, have shot a lot of pictures with it on a 5D Mark III at 2 different sunsets across the focal range and have been very happy with the images. I shot a lot of pictures straight into the sun, blocking 80% or so of it behind a foreground tree, and produced some sun stars but have had no issues with flare. I just about always shoot wide angle at apertures of f/8 and higher on a tripod, so f/2.8 versus f/4 is not a real consideration for me, particularly when the 16-35 is twice as expensive, heavier to drag around and takes more expensive filters. Just about every review I've seen says the image quality of the 2 lenses is virtually identical.<br>

I just switched from the T2i to the 5D Mark III and as others have noted the 17-40 is a great full frame option but there may be better options for a T3i like the EF-S 17-55. However, if you think you might go to a full frame camera in the next few years, you'll already have your ultrawide lens with the 17-40 while the EF-S lens won't work and you'll have to buy again. </p>

<p>David, I'll throw out a 3rd option, the Canon 17-40 f/4 L lens, which is the same price neighborhood as the 24-105L, probably cheaper if you aren't bundling the 24-105 with a camera. I was looking at the same choice you're facing a couple of weeks ago. I was in the process of buying a 5D Mark III as an upgrade from the T2i, had the 35mm f/2, the 50mm f/4 and the 70-200 f/4 IS L lens which I'd just bought new. I shoot mostly landscapes and needed a wide angle to replace the Tamron 10-24mm I'd been using with the crop sensor camera. I shoot a lot of waterfalls which are often big and in tight spaces with limited space to back up and capture the whole waterfall and the scene I want. 24mm at the wide end on a full frame would not have been wide enough for me, but it sounds like you don't often need a shorter focal length.<br>

I had the opportunity to get the 24-105 L for $700 in a bundle with the 5D Mark III but didn't really seriously consider it because it didn't give me a wide enough angle on the low end and overlapped with the focal lengths of my other 3 landscape lenses. I didn't see the need to overlap that much with the 70-200L which is by most accounts slightly superior to the 24-105L in image quality, and I'm perfectly happy with the 50mm f/1.4 covering mid range for landscapes and as a fast lens for walking around purposes. I'll keep the 35mm f/2 even though I probably won't use it a lot because I like it, it won't bring a lot used and it takes up little space or weight in the camera bag. I can carry only the 35mm and 50mm to shoot handheld and travel extremely light <br>

So my choice came down to the 16-35mm f/2.8 L and the 17-40mm f/4 L. Virtually all the reviews said the image quality of the two was virtually identical. The 17-40 is lighter, costs about half as much as the 16-35 and since I didn't care about shooting at f 2.8 with a wide angle (most of my wide angle shots are on a tripod with aperture of f/8 or higher), the 17-40 was my choice. I paid about the same price for it that the 24-105L would have cost me bundled with the 5D Mark III. I've only shot a couple of times with the 17-40L so far but am delighted with it. If you use Lightroom 4 there's a lens correction profile for it (and the other Canon lenses) which does a great job of correcting any distortion due to the wide angle.</p>