topic Re: Customer service? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Customer service?

fdfd — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 18:02:59 GMT

I've had one prior experience with Canon customer service, and it was terrible. I thought they'd never be able to match it, but now I can't contact them by phone at all, and their email form won't let me click the "submit" button to send communications that way either. Is there any way at all to get a customer service rep?

I've got more than $20,000 in Canon gear, one would think they'd provide some support.

Re: Customer service?

Danny — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 18:11:58 GMT

Hi, fdfd! We'll be glad to provide you with support here on the Canon Community Forum. Please let us know what Canon product you've got and what kind of problem you're encountering and we'll be happy to help!

Re: Customer service?

fdfd — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 18:48:41 GMT

Canon 1DX MkIII. Auto ISO is all over the map, and occasionally producing wildly inconsistent exposures from one shot to the next. Consider the two attached pics. These were taken a fraction of a second apart. The first was taken at ISO 640 and is properly exposed. The next shot in the series the camera jumped to 1600 ISO and completely blew it out.

I did a screeshot from Lightroom so you could see some of the data. These shots were taken back to back in less than one second, nothing changed with the lighting on the field. This was shot in manual exposure with Auto ISO. Why did it blow out the second pic? This isn't an isolated incident, I've got several like this from this game. Heck, one of them jumped to 10,000 ISO in broad daylight, completely washing the frame out.

Re: Customer service?

wq9nsc — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 23:18:05 GMT

Which metering mode were you using? I have shot a lot of day and night images with my 1DX III, (often using the 400 f2.8 also) and I haven't experienced those odd exposure variations.

I did find with my 1DX III that evaluative metering seems to work very well for sports. With my 1DX II for night high school U.S. rules football partial metering seemed to work best but since the pandemic I haven't had a chance to try out my 1DX III in that setting because it arrived at the end of February. For sports I always shoot manual with floating ISO and the 1DX III provides consistent results.

Rodger

Re: Customer service?

fdfd — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 05:25:38 GMT

I can't say for certain, but almost all of my shooting is done with spot metering.

I've had the same issue on my 5D MkIV as well. If I'm shooting baseball for example and right field is in shadow, with left field in the sun, the camera cannot do right with Auto ISO as I shift back and forth. I don't trust it at all.

Re: Customer service?

Mark35mmF2 — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 05:31:13 GMT

Hi there,

Spot metering would be more susceptible to something like this, although it is not super common. Without seeing the spot the camera is metering from (linked to AF point or not) I could not say for sure that this is the case, but the metering point being placed on a white jersey, for example, and then to a darker area of the frame could definitely cause the camera to bump Auto ISO since it will be trying to reach the same exposure of the previous white area.

One possible solution, other than switching to a metering mode with a wider sample area, would be to limit the Auto ISO range. In a shooting situation like the one you show I would probably preset the Auto ISO between 100 to 800 to keep the exposure within an acceptable range even if the metering shifts too far.

Re: Customer service?

fdfd — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 06:30:21 GMT

This was a late afternoon game on a partly cloudy day, heading into sunset, and finishing under the lights. Limiting the ISO wouldn't be a solution, because I'd have to keep bumping up the upper end of the range to keep up with the decreasing amount of light as the game went on. If I have to do that, then I might as well not use auto ISO and just keep changing it manually every five or ten minutes.

Once it was dark and the only light available was from the field lights, the problem went away. The only time I have this issue is during daylight. Days when the clouds move in and out, changing the available light levels, or shooting on a field that's half in the shade and half in the bright sun would seem to be the perfect opportunity for Auto ISO to shine, but it routinely fails me on the 5D Mk IV and the 1DX MkIII. To be clear, it's not doing this on every shot, but it's enough that I'm losing some shots every time I try to use it.

I shoot a lot of night games and this never happens then, largely becuase the ISO pegs the high end of the range I allow (12,500) and pretty much stays there all night. At indoor venues like basketball and volleyball I've never had the issue. It's just during daylight.

Re: Customer service?

wq9nsc — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 12:39:23 GMT

Spot metering does not work well for shooting sports in the situations you describe. It will work a little better if you tie it to the active AF point AND you consistently keep that point on the same part of the player but under dynamic lighting conditions where there is a huge contrast across a small part of the frame it will give you widely varying exposure values because it is looking at a tiny part of the scene which often switches from dark to light within a fraction of a second. Spot metering is really useful for static scenes where you have time to compose and evaluate scene lighting but that is the polar opposite of live sports shooting conditions.

Try shooting next time in a different metering mode, you will find that either the partial or center weighted average modes will work fine with auto ISO and prevent the wild variance you get from the spot being on a slightly different part of the scene. I prefer partial although I found that the 1DX III works surprisingly well with evaluative metering under some pretty lousy lighting conditions (strong side or backlighting with extreme contrast as the day transitions from afternoon to dusk).

These two shots were taken with the 1DX III and EF 400 f2.8 at a summer soccer conditioning drill. They are RAW files converted in DPP with NO recipe or additional processing applied, just reduced in size during JPG conversion. In the first, the camera chose ISO 160 and the second frame went to ISO 100 for nearly a full stop difference.

I had been using the 1DX III earlier that day to shoot some technical photos of electronic gear and used spot metering for that and I initially forgot to change that for the practice I shot. But this shows what can go wrong with spot metering during sports. The camera is doing what it was set up to do by the user but that isn't the proper metering for this type of action shot. I caught that setup issue quickly and switched to partial for the rest of the shoot and the 1DX III exposure was consistent and correct. I always shoot sports in full manual, usually with the lens wide open, and the ISO at auto. It works extremely well under partial and probably would also with center weighted average.

Rodger

Re: Customer service?

Waddizzle — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 15:09:46 GMT

@fdfd wrote:
This was a late afternoon game on a partly cloudy day, heading into sunset, and finishing under the lights. Limiting the ISO wouldn't be a solution, because I'd have to keep bumping up the upper end of the range to keep up with the decreasing amount of light as the game went on. If I have to do that, then I might as well not use auto ISO and just keep changing it manually every five or ten minutes.

Once it was dark and the only light available was from the field lights, the problem went away. The only time I have this issue is during daylight. Days when the clouds move in and out, changing the available light levels, or shooting on a field that's half in the shade and half in the bright sun would seem to be the perfect opportunity for Auto ISO to shine, but it routinely fails me on the 5D Mk IV and the 1DX MkIII. To be clear, it's not doing this on every shot, but it's enough that I'm losing some shots every time I try to use it.

I shoot a lot of night games and this never happens then, largely becuase the ISO pegs the high end of the range I allow (12,500) and pretty much stays there all night. At indoor venues like basketball and volleyball I've never had the issue. It's just during daylight.

I agree with the opinion that Spot Metering is the most likely cause of your inconsistent exposures. I only use Spot Metering on a tripod shooting static scenes, never anything dynamic. Asking whether or not Spot Metering is linked to the active AF point raises another good point.

I think Evaluative Metering is better than people may give it credit. It does more than simply take an average reading of the scene. It also biases that reading to whichever AF point has locked focus. The keyword here is LOCKED focus.

Locking focus and accurate metering seem like they are joined at the hip. Metering an OOF scene will always be less accurate than metering a well focused scene. Metering does not lock until focus locks. When you are in AI Servo mode, both focusing and metering are constantly evaluating and updating.

I used to get outlier exposures until I made some changes to my settings, and it suddenly went away. I am not sure why it went it away, but it did. I was archiving photos one day, and realized that the outlier exposures were gone. It would always happen when I was in AI Servo mode, shooting continuously.

I was always using Evaluative Metering, so that was not the issue. I started using BBF, which gave my thumb something to do besides wander around bumping into the AE Lock button. I was using a 6D, so there was no joystick to keep my thumb occupied.

I also changed Image Priority to Focus Priority. This last change dramatically improved my keeper rate. Nearly all of my shots were sharply focused. Exposures were more consistent, too. I am guessing that metering works best when there is an actual focus lock, which may not always be the case using AI Servo and Continuous Drive mode.

Re: Customer service?

fdfd — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 15:57:35 GMT

Thanks to all. I'll go run the camera on a few different metering modes to see how those work out under similar conditions.

Re: Customer service?

ebiggs1 — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:54:23 GMT

"I think Evaluative Metering is better than people may give it credit."

This is the solution and spot metering is your problem. Auto ISO doesn't help either. It is usually, no always, a bad idea to let the camera have two auto settings to decide. Let the camera have one auto setting and you set all the others.

Re: Customer service?

ebiggs1 — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:29:56 GMT

"...I can't contact them by phone at all, ..."

I have heard this from several people lately. I suspect it is a function of the COVID outbreak. Canon usually has outstanding CS as compared to other companies. Monday's and Friday's are bad days to call. Try mid-week time periods.

BTW, I suggest you get the full user manual on the 1DX Mk III and get up close and personal with it.

Re: Customer service?

wq9nsc — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:48:47 GMT

In addition to Ernie's suggestion about the owner's manual, also take a look at the white paper Canon issued when this model was introduced because it provides additional info on the 400,000 pixel exposure metering sensor. An important note from the white paper:

Spot metering only covers 1.5% of the image area (default is center of image but it can also be linked to the active AF point but in either case it is incredibly small) so it really is a horrible choice for moving subjects because the odds of keeping proper exposure is very poor. It is an excellent mode if you want exact metering for a specific item in a static scene or if you want to use the camera as a very awkward substitute for a handheld light meter in setting up studio strobes.

If evaluative or center weighted doesn't meet the situational needs, then partial has worked well for me with some difficult sports shooting situations. Partial still only covers 6.2% of the area which isn't much BUT it is four times the area covered by spot metering greatly increasing the odds that the camera will be metering off what you want instead of a random flash of sunlight or dark background. As you move from spot to partial, center weighted, and ultimately evaluative you are reducing the weight of any one part of the image in exposure calculation.

Evaluative metering has become "smarter" on every generation of Canon and it now does a good job of avoiding problems with backlit subjects and allows the smart algorithm in the camera to choose a suitable exposure setting to best handle the combination of blown highlights and shadow noise that occur in high dynamic range environments.

1DX III white paper link: https://downloads.canon.com/nw/camera/products/eos/1d-x-mark-iii/resources/Canon_EOS_1DX_Mark_III_Still_White_Paper.pdf

Rodger

Re: Customer service?

fdfd — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 19:44:05 GMT

Heck, I read the manual and the white paper before I ever bought the camera. 🙂

I've used spot metering on sports for years, for literally hundreds of games, and have no problems with it at all. I love it for sports and it remains my default. It gives me great results. The only issue I've got is the Auto ISO blowing some shots along the way, and only during daylight. Indoors it does fine, even with lighter and darker portions of the court. It's not uncommon in some of these gyms to see the auto ISO wander from 6400 to 12800 depeding on a number of factors, but it never blows exposures like when I'm shooting outdoors. Spot metering in conjunction with Auto ISO may be the issue, so I'll try a few other modes when using that feature.

Prior to that particular game I used I tried several other methods because with spot and Auto ISO this camera tends to underexpost just a slight bit. I figured one of the other metering modes might do a bit better. While shooting warmpups I switched around to some other metering modes but the ones I tried all overexposed things, so I went back to spot.

I'll dig a little deeper on the combinations and see if one of the others produces less variation.

Re: Customer service?

ebiggs1 — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 19:51:28 GMT

"I'll dig a little deeper on the combinations and see if one of the others produces less variation."

Sounds like a plan. I urge you to try another metering method and see if it cures it up. Also I never let the camera make two automatic decisions. Limit that to just one. I know the auto ISO is popular in M mode but Tv and Av or P mode I don't like it.

Good luck.

Re: Customer service?

Waddizzle — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 21:17:45 GMT

@fdfd wrote:
I can't say for certain, but almost all of my shooting is done with spot metering.

I've had the same issue on my 5D MkIV as well. If I'm shooting baseball for example and right field is in shadow, with left field in the sun, the camera cannot do right with Auto ISO as I shift back and forth. I don't trust it at all.

You do realize that the 5D Mark IV spot meters only at the center AF point. Right?

Re: Customer service?

Waddizzle — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 21:20:31 GMT

"It's not uncommon in some of these gyms to see the auto ISO wander from 6400 to 12800 depeding on a number of factors, but it never blows exposures like when I'm shooting outdoors."

There is typiclly far more dyanmic range outdoors, than there is indoors. Heed the advice to limit the camera to controlling only one leg of the exposure triangle.