5D macro shots

Ok, Second trip out with my new toys. This time shooting macro. Wow the AF on this camera rocks. Any of you who have used the 150mm macro lens knows that it is very demanding on the AF system. On my Rebel, AF was near impossible. With the 5D is easy. The 5D AFes the Sigma 150mm faster than my rebel AFes the Canon 100USM.

EXIF

Camera Canon 5D

Lens Sigma 150mm

Canon 500D

+woodies diopter on some

Shutterspeed 1/200

Aperature F/16 - F/20

ISO 100

First, Wrasses. These guys swim really fast. I could not believe it when the AF was able to keep up with them. No focus light needed.

Now for some shots with 100% crops

100% crop

100% crop

100% crop

Some other shots I liked.

And finally here is a RAW you can download and play with it you want. (warning dialup users it is 13MB)

http://web.willandsam.com/IMG_1372.CR2

I am a nikon guy but wow your system is impressive, the yellow fish and that 1st wrasse really blend in with the background and seems like there was no tracking touble on that. The 100% crop on the eel cleaning fish is not doing it justice. The depth of field is off on the eel, so that was out of focus to begin with. Crop the right nostril and I bet you will be blown away. The queen or blue angle is really nice.

After all the big money is spent a couple of nice shots seem to make it all worth it!

REALLY nice stuff, William! I can tell that you're (understandably!) excited about this new rig! I'd think you'd be ecstatic about getting these results on your first macro dive with it! It still requires a skilled finger on the shutter button, but having great equipment sure helps! Good job!

That is great news about the AF William. Good shots too. For some reason they do not load properly here for me.

The 100% crops don't look very nice. But I agree with Photobeat that you have cropped the wrong bits, rather than there being anything wrong with the camera. I think a 100% crop of the Gorgonian polyps would be more impressive.

Alex

Ok, I changed the 100% crops around.

Nice shots! Having photographed many wrasses, I know how hard it is to get them in focus.

Luiz

Good work, William. That AF is certainly very impressive. Seems much closer to the 1D/1DS than the 20D, which is great news. In fact I know James says that even the 1D when used with the Sigma 150mm can require manual focussing at times. The AF is very encouraging.

What ISO are you shooting on? The background in of the crop of the gorgonian doesn't look as smooth as I would expect at low ISO. Or is this a JPG artifact from saving for web? Sharpness is impressive, though.

I am also very excited to see what this camera can do with filters, utilising its fantastic high ISO performance.

Alex

It's exciting to see that since casmera demand has gone rapidly up, manufacturers improve little things like auto focus speed Go figure. Great information, William.

Joe

150mm Macro on the 5D?

Are you useing the Sigma 150mm f2.8?

Have you tried the Canon 100mm on this camera yet?

Mark

Alex, it is a combination of noise, sharpening(USM 100, 1, 0), and JPG artifacts.

I thought I was shooting ISO 160, but the EXIF reported 100 so that is what I reported here. So it is either 100 or 160. The 5D seems to be noiser at 100 than my rebel was at 100 especially in the shadows. But the noise does not increase much as you up the ISO to about 800.

Yes Mark it was the Sigma 150/2.8 macro. I no longer have the Canon 100 so I can not say how it perfroms on the 5D. But if it improves as much as the 150 did, it will be lightning fast.

When you are used to shooting a cropped sensor Canon with the 100mm, to get the same magnification with a FF camera, you need a 150 (really 160mm) lens.

Cheers

James

And when you are used to useing the 150mm on the crop sensor camera you need a 240mm macro (it would really be fun to try to house a 240/2.8 macro lens.)