Canon 1D Mark III: Field Review

As previously reported, between the two of us we generated 35+ Gb of images over the course of our two week trip to Africa. That’s a result of shooting roughly 4,000 pictures between the Canon 1D MkIII and a Rebel XTi. As detailed here, the Mk III survived a bit of an accident, and pretty much on day 1 in Tanzania to boot, that my 70-200 L lens did not, so right off the bat I guess it gets good marks for ruggedness and dependability! I’d also have to give it high marks for the way in which it repelled dust. When we were shooting in Arizona with my (now) old 20D, sensor dust was a real problem by the end of the trip, resulting in frames towards the back-end there that were almost unusable thanks to the files showing dust marks all across the skies. The 1D was both a) better sealed and b) had Canon’s vibrating “shake ‘n clean” sensor technology This two-pronged approach of prevention plus cure seemed to do the trick better than, say, just the sensor-shake piece that is in the Rebel. And just to to be clear, Africa is a pretty stern test in this regard! Safari roads are no more than dirt tracks that are fast turned into airborne dust plumes by the many tourist vehicles plying back-and-forth, something that is especially evident when you are parked trying to photograph something and they are driving past you. Add to that a constant need to change lenses and you have a recipe for slews of images spoiled by specks on the sensor. A big win for the 1D here, then.

Over the course of the trip I got to really like the form factor, size and weight. The extra heft helped balance longer lenses and overall the body quickly felt familiar, despite my first impression of the whole thing being a bit too large and cumbersome. Coming from the Mk II, say, you’d have absolutely no issues adjusting and even my switch from the 20D ultimately went well. Indeed, about the only thing I wish they would to improve the handling is to differentiate the buttons a bit more. I like to use a separate focus button, and I’m pleased to say that this body now has one, but, it’s small, tucked round a corner and I can’t quite reach it comfortably. I’d prefer Canon provided something a bit larger and with more feel than just yet-another-button so I can be confident on what I’m doing without having to pull the camera from my face to check which button I'm about to press. And copy that comment too for the ISO button. On the plus side, Canon have finally included the ISO reading in the viewfinder; on the minus side I kept hitting focus lock or something else when I was quickly trying to switch ISO settings.

One reason in particular why the ISO button got to bug me was that the biggest change in this generation of camera was the noise performance of the sensor, and hence the way it really did allow you to use the ISO setting as a third dimension to get the settings you want for aperture and speed. On my old 20D, going above ISO 200 means you quickly start to hit the law of diminishing returns as noise quickly becomes intrusive and severely impacts perceived image quality. However, once you figure out that on the Mk III, ISO 800 is very acceptable from a quality standpoint then all of a sudden you have degrees of freedom not available to you before to get good DOF combined with a shutter speed that will keep things pin-sharp. This really was a revelation, and indeed it took me more days than it should have done to push the ISO to those rarified levels above 400 because I just couldn’t get my head around what it would mean in terms of the results.

The other big change for me is overall picture quality: right out of Lightroom the images look significantly better than I’ve seen before. Image files are clear, well defined and smooth, much more so in fact than I’ve ever seen with my own camera, confirming the notion that it’s not how many pixels you have but the quality of the data flowing from each of them that ultimately matters most. (Quick aside: I wish Canon would produce a black-and-white only version of this sensor. Quite makes me drool to think of what it could produce once de-Beyer-ed.)

OK, onto the more controversial stuff. To say that there have been a lot of reports about the auto-focus capabilities of this body, both good and bad, is the biggest understatement since the Captain of the Titanic announced that they had hit a small piece of ice but that the ship was unsinkable and so everyone should just keep dancing, having a good time and not worrying about it. Just for the record, the sample I used was a body reported to have had the mirror fix applied and was running the latest version 1.2.3 firmware.

In short, when it worked well then the Mark III's autofocus was very good indeed. Focusing was generally fast and accurate, results borne out by looking at the files afterwards and on the same day so that I had some recollection of each frame sequence shot. I used both one-shot and AI, each mode working pretty much as I expected it to. It took me a day or two to be able to convert how the image looked on the LCD into what that meant for actual sharpness when viewed in Lightroom, but it soon became clear when the image, err, wouldn't be. (The frame shown on those on-camera LCDs is, I assume, still a JPG constructed on-the-fly and hence is compromised even before you look at it. Add to that the fact that it's being displayed on a 3 inch square screen then there’s a limit to how critically one can judge things in the field on an absolute basis.) However, I could certainly see things well enough to know when shots were not in focus which is really all you can - and some would argue, should - be doing whilst out taking pictures. Remember the mantra, “memory is cheap, the shots you miss by playing with the camera are not”.

Throughout the trip I largely used just the central focusing point (with surrounding AF assist) and recomposed once I had lock. I did use the full-up pattern from time to time but mostly stuck to rifle-shooting rather than shot-gunning (if that makes any sense?) However, I did experience some issues when either the contrast was a problem or, quite frankly, I was in the wrong mode for the subject being shot. Not perfect, therefore, but way better than I was used to with the 20D and perfectly easy to figure out what was going on once you knew it was happening. Again, I got better at sorting this out as the trip went on and really the only time things were particularly challenging was trying to catch, for example, white birds flying quickly across grey skies (i.e. low contrast and fast moving subjects).

Speed shooting? 10 FPS? “Bloody fast” is the short answer, and in all honesty I had the burst rate dialed down to more like 5 or 6 FPS for the entire trip. Animals just don’t move that quickly, but having said all that I’d love to try it at Laguna Seca, the surf beaches or somewhere else where there’s fast motion because I’m sure the results would be very impressive indeed. Hmm, in fact I might think about renting one again for the ALMS meeting at Laguna Seca in October. Stay tuned ….

Other stuff: very impressive battery life, even with significant chimping of pictures just shot. (Great LCD by the way, though you have to keep brightness cranked up in order to see it in strong daylight). Didn’t try live view so no comments there except that I could see it being useful. Never got to try it in low light, with a flash or otherwise push it in areas outside of just shooting animals doing whatever it was they happened to be doing at the time we showed up, so nothing more to add really outside of the basics.

Value for money when figuring a price close to $4k here in the US? I’m tempted … very tempted, in fact, as reverting to the 20D to photograph the new dog this past weekend was a real comedown. But another $4k is hard to justify today, especially given just how much we dented our finances by being away on safari. Think I’ll wait and see what the 5D replacement looks like before deciding (to be revealed to the press on 26th August?), and even then may wait for the 1D Mk IIIN to see what the next generation brings. However, it was absolutely worthwhile spending the $630 for three weeks rental so no regrets at all on that front. I ended up with better quality files that can withstand tighter cropping and that show lower noise, and that ultimately do better job of bring you back to what was a wonderful experience each and every day we were in-country.

Beginner's Guide To African Safari Photography

Male Lion, Tanzania

As advertised, now we are back and have had some time to take stock, thought I'd post a few thoughts on safari wildlife photography and what I learned over the two weeks we were shooting.

Before jumping in, though, let’s begin by saying that whatever your level of experience the good news is that you don't need the best equipment possible, but as always you do need to make the best of the equipment you do have available! That’s more of the point here rather than focusing on specific lenses, cameras or accessories, but having said all that then it is worth looking at renting equipment to supplement what you may already have because the better your technique, the more benefit you will get from higher-end equipment. More on that below.

Firstly, for a more detailed summary of the itinerary we followed, see S’s post here. Posted on this blog (July 08 archive) are some more posts covering our trip accomodations, travel and experiences.

Secondly, run, don't walk, to Andy Biggs' site. There's more good advice in here than you even realize, especially on first reading when it’s hard to figure out what’s important and what not. Print out the relevant stuff and take it with you. I did, and I picked-up more and more from these notes on each subsequent reading, especially after a day shooting and hence better understanding all the great points being made.

Thirdly, here are a few shots from the trip just to give an idea of what we, as average tourists with some photographic experience at least, were able to produce.

Starting with everyone’s favourite topic, equipment, then for those of you with a decent entry level or above DSLR (e.g. Canon Rebel or Nikon equivalent, say) then buy or rent the best lenses you can. Having just one decent lens with reasonable reach will get you further and faster than anything else you can invest in. Although we were reasonably well resourced in this regard, we did rent a camera body from lensrentals.com where, as you might guess, lenses can also be found! This service worked well (there are several others out there on the web so you can shop around) and the price was very fair indeed; highly recommended, in short. Just using them as an example, three weeks for a Canon L 100-400 zoom will set you back some $150. Bearing in mind what you have just dropped on airfare, hotels etc. this is a small additional price to pay, and compared with the less-than-stellar kit lenses supplied with the Canon Rebel family, for example, you *will* see the difference. 100 to 400 mm gives you great flexibility and with current generation sensor performance being restricted to f4 or f5.6 as the widest aperture is really no big deal. Downsides? Weight is the only thing I can think of. If that’s a primary concern, look instead at lighter small aperture fixed lenses in the 200 to 400 range (yes, I think they rent teleconverters too so that can help deal with some of the loss of flexibility in going fixed.)

Key point: for those of you who bought a DSLR in the past couple of years, don't be afraid to push the ISO. My own camera is an aging 20D and I don't usually go beyond 400 ASA because I find the resulting noise is just too intrusive. On newer bodies (and here I only have experience with the 1D Mk III) however, 800 ASA looks like mine does at 200, a fact it took me quite a few days to get comfortable with. Therefore, and again following the sterling advice from Andy, try the following approach:

1) pick the required depth of field you want. I used anything from f5.6 up to f14 depending on how close/far the subject was and what I wanted to show. To help planning, I printed out a small set of example DOFs for 400 mm and kept those in my camera bag as reference. (Beats me why we need to do that and why camera manufacturers can’t just give the calculated answer in the view finder. They have all the necessary information to do the math after all.)

2) Since you are in aperture priority mode (right?), look at the shutter speed. If you are using a bean bag or similar then even with longer lenses you can get away with 1/100th if the subject is rock steady, but don't rely upon it, even when using lenses with stabilization. Reviewing my results, 1/200th upwards looked to be a more practical lower limit (except in limited situations) and that shutter speed + IS was able to handle both camera shake and the odd movements of the animals.

3) adjust your ISO setting to get within the above parameters while striving to keep it as low as possible.

While not foolproof, the above approach does get you some way there, and quite frankly I wish this had been my starting point from day one instead of having to learn the hard way, producing too many shots that were almost sharp … but not quite.

One other point: don't forget to constantly check all *3* parameters if you go down this road. Many cameras still don't show ISO in the viewfinder and I've lost count of how many frames I've messed up in the past with my 20D because I forgot to shift back from a high ISO setting I've used in poor light! (Kudos to Canon therefore for now including this on the 1D Mk III.)

It’s also important to watch your histograms and be prepared to regularly dial-in some exposure adjustment. There were a couple of days there where we were trying to shoot game that was set against a bright but grey sky. Getting anything exposed appropriately in those situations by just relying on the camera’s meter was very challenging, especially for high-contrast things like zebras and colobus monkeys!

If all these technicalities are more than you want to deal with then don't despair: Program or Auto Mode can work and work well, but again try to at least use the ISO setting to give youself the best chance of making the shot crisp and clear. (On some cameras you can set a range over which the electronics will use ISO settings to keep the other parameters within reasonable bounds.)

In very general terms, if the animal is in bright sun then 100 or 200 ISO is fine. For a beastie under a bush (or otherwise shaded) go to 400 ISO. If it's darker still or you are photographing a group of animals such as a pride of lions (where more depth of field is required to get the group sharp), move up to 640 or 800 in order to cause the camera to close down the aperture. Nope, it's not foolproof and it does require that 800 ASA is usable on your camera, but it should be better than just allowing the electronics to figure out all by themselves what it is that you are trying to do.

Only other thing to check out in advance and that is is what sort of focus mode your camera has. On Canon, it's basically AI Servo, which means the focusing will change as the subject moves, or Single Shot, where once set the focus stays where it is. More often than not, you want to focus on something and then recompose, especially if you want pictures that are something other than an animal front-and-centre of the frame, and trust me when I say "you do". Can you, for example, half-press the shutter to focus on something, move the camera to look at something much closer and see that it's not changing focus? You are in good shape if so, otherwise go back and read the manual until you know how to make that work right! Nothing, I repeat, nothing can really fix up a blurred photograph, and frankly getting the focus right is probably the most important thing you can learn even if the rest of shooting is done entirely on automatic settings.

One final recommendation: take something to back-up your files with. I carry a laptop to act as one place to cache pictures as well as a small Maxtor USB hard drive to provide a second level of safety. (It weighs just 5 ounces, has 300Gb storage and transfers data reasonably quickly.) We heard tell of someone who had been in Zanzibar coming back with some wonderful shots from a trip photographing the gorillas, who got their equipment stolen and lost the lot, pictures and all. Therefore, keep the back-up drive separately if you can, preferably in the room safe if you are out all day, and don’t take chances. Yes, many hotels have internet access in Tanzania but you will find it's a) relatively slow and b) relatively expensive ($10 for 30 minutes was the cheapest I found) so backing up to the net will not be a viable option. For a 10 day trip with two camera bodies, one each, we generated 40 Gbytes of still images, so at that level it’s also viable these days to buy extra memory cards and go that road, but frankly I just feel more comfortable with a layered approach of having files cached in more than one place.

On the creative side, try and think in advance what you want to show. Animals in their natural, enclosing environment or tight close ups? Action shots or posed stills? Take elephants, for example. After the first 10 shots of "large grey mammal standing in a field", try instead to photograph some impression of the animal you want to convey. Age and wisdom? Solidity? Family grouping? Candid? Alone in the wild? You get the picture ... (sorry, couldn’t resist). Take some time to browse the web and see what the pros have produced, and once more Andy comes up trumps with the galleries he has posted on his site providing a great starting point.

Lastly, have a great time, and don't forget to take the camera away from your face sometimes just to experience the magic of Africa! It's going to be a wonderful trip no matter how the shots work out so don't sweat-it unduly - it is meant to be a holiday after all!

Africa #13: Tarangire National Park

Elephant Grazing, Tarangire national Park, Tanzania

Heading into the home straight now and Tarangire National Park is our last real stop on the tour. The terrain here is a mix of savannah, light forest and river plain; a bit of everything, in short. The day started out grey and chilly, with a stiff westerly breeze. That actually turned out to be a good thing as it meant that the hippos we found at this hippo pool, to differentiate it from the 4 other hippo pools we have seen, were out of the water and actually doing hippo-ish sorts of things above and beyond bobbing around in dirty water. Mostly, though, even these extended behaviours seem to involve a lot of standing around, bellowing challenges and having occasional fights. Think Brighton and Hove Albion supporters on a wet Saturday afternoon at an away game in Milwall, but with less drinking.

It was fun listening to the noises they were making and watching the young hippos undergoing training for adult hippohood. Basically, the modus operadi here was bite anything close to you, and if nothing was to hand then wander around until you bump into something you can bite and hope it was no bigger than you. Perfect grooming, therefore, for the young hippo eager to reach adulthood and to progress to, well, larger bouts of shouting and biting. The motto of the hippo SAS equivalent must be “he who bites best, wins” because it really was the only discernable core competency of the males with the most clout.

From there we headed off to see the flamingoes – enough were around to form a pink slash across Lake Tarangire – and watch storks and pelicans swooping around the shoreline. There were, as always, a few giraffes around, accompanied by zebra and impala. Throw into the mix various monkeys (baboons, vervet and blue), mongeese (is that the plural of mongoose?) and even a snake or two and you begin to get the African picture.

After lunch, which was a rather fine picnic hamper to make a change from the cardboard-box with sandwiches we’d experienced before, we found a lion that was busy lining up something for its lunch by stalking carefully through the undergrowth. Alas, we watched for a while but it decided to postpone anything too energetic, opting instead to fall asleep in the long grass. Lions really do spend much of the day time hours asleep or awake and contemplating falling asleep.

Time to head back to the hotel. Along the way we had several brief encounters with small herds of elephants, none of which were bothered or even swayed from eating the countryside by our presence. Sadly, we did however came across a large, dead male that was in the early signs of being eaten by the local scavengers, lions included. Little bush craft was involved in this discovery as the carcass was hard to miss given that there’s something about a couple of tons of rotting meat that really seems to grab the attention of one’s nostrils ….

Tarangire Treetops is indeed an interesting place to stay and strongly recommended. Remarkably, the food here was quite the best we’d found all trip and they do seem to work hard to harmonize with both the African environment and the local Maasai people, the aim being to have the hotel add, rather than subtract, from the pristine nature of the place. For example, although there was the inevitable evening show of Maasai dancing, it was actually done well and the guys involved did seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves as they tried to outdo each other on who could jump the highest, a measure, it seems, of Maasai manhood. Wonder what they’d think of the Olympic high-jump contenders?

Africa #9: Taking To The Air

Good news: we get to go up in what is billed as an instance of the world’s third largest hot air balloon. Bad news: the wake-up call for said trip is at 4 am. Still, we struggled up and made it on time for the off, leaving the hotel around 4:45 am for a 50 minute drive to the take-off site. Bumping down yet another dirt road we suddenly slowed and through the windscreen saw a hippo lumbering into view, presumably off foraging for grass. Seems they prefer to feed when its cooler, hence the preference for mud pools during the day and grass munching by night. Glad to see the bloke driving was on the ball because having a collision with a 2 ton, hungry, hungry hippo would doubtless dent even a Land Cruiser’s bodywork. And piss -off the hippo to boot …

The balloons were lying on the ground waiting for us when we arrived, but basically were still at the “kit of parts” stage. These guys have two balloons they use for trips in the Serengeti but the company as a whole does trips across Africa as well as other places around the world.
To get the whole shooting match off the ground involved firstly sticking two petrol powered fans in front of the canopy to force an airstream into it strong enough to get the mouth of the balloon open. Secondly, once at that point the burners are fired up to now drive hot air in there and hence begin the real process of getting these things off the ground. Each basket holds 16 people in 8 compartments, two to each obviously, and the basket has to be entered while it’s still horizontal. No issue for us, more challenging for the elderly or the portly, or indeed those who were both.

Anyway, we were soon aloft and moving at some 20 knots over the Serengeti just as the sun was starting to rise – lovely stuff! While we didn’t spot that much in the way of game whilst up there, we did see hippos in the river, a couple of hyenas searching for food and drifted close to the tree-top nests of vultures perched high-up in the acacia trees. The views were magnificent, and it really was a highlight of the trip to be up there just moving slowly over the African landscape with only the occasional roar of the burner to be heard as the pilot gave us a bit more height when needed.

All too soon it was time to land, though I have to say by then I was more than ready for breakfast and the advertised glass or two of champagne. We drove a few miles away to a long table laid out with silverware, linens and stemware, all under a tree somewhere out in the bush. Breakfast was the full-up English affair, cooked on a burner from the balloon team. Sitting there, in the warming morning light of another new day, sipping a glass of champagne and tucking into sausage, bacon and eggs really was a great experience. Definitely a highlight of the trip, regardless of whatever else we might see or do. Highly recommended.

Back to the animals. We headed out in a different direction today heading towards a part of the Serengeti that is hilly and sports large rock outcrops, and is known to be a hangout for rhino and lions. However, today the animal gods decreed that we’d see neither of those, preferring instead to show us a cheetah and her cub. Behind them in the long grass was clearly visible an impala that looked to be a fresh kill. The cheetah was resting up after the exertion and taking a breather before eating. Seems they prefer to wait for dinner, but not too long because at some point the scavengers figure out there’s a meal to be had and they’ll be all over the carcass which means more hassle and less food for the cats.

Africa #8: Central Serengeti

Look Behind You!

Today, we started off with a three hour drive eastwards towards our next stop, the central Serengeti. On the way though we were quite surprised to be chased by a Cape buffalo that thought we unfairly disturbed his mud bath by stopping to take pictures. Despite their bulk, those things can be quite quick once really ticked-off, and certainly a match over the first few yards for a ponderous diesel Land Cruiser caught in the wrong gear. However, 100 years of internal combustion engine development won out and we escaped unscathed.

Today was also the day we caught sight of our first cheetah. Alas, by the time we got there it had gone to ground, lying down in some long grass about 50 yards away. We stayed and waited for a while but ultimately gave up and decided to move on, stumbling over a price of lions instead!

This all came about as we headed off-road a distance to reach a small wooded area close to some water where the guide thought there might be game to be found. And he was right, there was, but we didn’t actually find it ourselves. Instead, and this turned out to be a pattern we repeated many times, we saw a couple of vehicles already stopped in the long grass watching something off ot the side. This was the cheetah, and they had first seen it crossing the open space just ahead of them. Said cheetah decided to hide here for a while until we all just gave up and went away, but as we started-up our vehicle to move on he/she got up and loped further into cover. We decided to go around the end of this area to see if we could find her again, only to stumble across the aforementioned lions. They seemed to care very little that we were there, other than to note that the noise of the engine seemed to be keeping a couple of them awake. Tch, neighbours, eh?

Next stop was the Hippo Pool, so called because , well, it was a pool full of hippos. Never knew quite how noisy those things were, or how smelly. However, let me try an analogy: imagine a small body of water that, year round, is the primary resting place of very large creatures who eat nothing but vast amounts of vegetation which, let’s face it, has to end up somewhere. Let's further pretend that they will spend most of their waking hours wallowing around in said pool while it all, err, matures. Oh, and imagine too that this is all somewhere hot where there’s no flow to the water and 30 of the world’s most virulent diseases can be found, doubtless all transmitted by the sorts of insects that love a dirty, swampy place with lots of ordure and big tasty animals to feed upon. Yup, that’s a hippo pool.

Time to head off to the hotel, but on the way we again saw a small group of LCs caucused by the side of the road, and by now you all know what that means: something’s afoot …. apaw? In the far distance you could just about make out a set of four legs hanging over a branch high-up in a large tree. With binoculars you could see that it was a leopard and that it was happily having a siesta up there basking in the late afternoon sun. Tried a few shots but even with a 400 mm lens plus a 1.4x converter the end result was a bit small and not at all sharp. Bummer. Still, something to now aspire to finding again somewhere on the rest of the trip, but preferably a lot closer to the road.

Africa #5: Finally, Animals!

Colobus monkey, Arusha, Tanzania

Today was a day to be spent in the Arusha National Park, situated just about 30 minutes drive from the hotel. It was grey, misty and lightly raining when we got up, and stayed that way until early afternoon. Still, the wildlife didn’t seem to notice too much, nor did the Tanzanians who were all piling into the local market on what was a Saturday morning.

Arusha NP is quite hilly and lush in parts, drier in others. Entering from the gate we did (south east) then right away we saw a few giraffes, some Cape buffalo and a herd of zebras, all happily co-existing on a lightly tree-dotted area off to the north. Naturally, we took pictures, ignoring the little voice in our heads that was saying “they are a long way away still and you are here for another 9 days – chill out”. In a day spent bumping around the park, we also added to that total an entire herd of giraffes, comprising more than 25 animals ranged across the hillside (and no, I don’t know if herd is the correct collective noun for giraffes, OK?) and a number of birds including egrets and other stuff the names of which now completely escapes me. Hmm, should buy a book: “Ladybird Book of Tanzanian Wildlife You Have Specifically Seen”, would do the trick.

Lunch was a picnic which we ate sat alongside a lake where some other tourists were out in canoes. It didn’t escape my notice that a pamphlet at the park entrance said there were hippos in this particular lake and therefore “some caution was advised”. Nope, not sure canoes and hippos are a good mix myself but hey, what’s travel without a little risk, eh, especially if I am not the one taking them?

Highlight of the day would have to be several sightings of colobus monkeys high up in the trees. These are beautiful black and white creatures that are a couple of feet long from head-to-toe, but with seemingly oversized white tails. Very graceful-seeming creatures, happily tucked up there eating bits of trees and really not paying much notice to the sounds of an idling diesel Land Cruiser parked below. However, they are a bit tricky to photograph a) because they are smallish and like to hide in trees and b) are black-and-white and have to be shot against a bright grey sky. The above is about the best I could manage, given the selection we had to choose from!

Back to the hotel for dinner, memory dump (camera’s, not mine) and sleep. All-in-all, a good way to begin.