Posted by Wick Smith on April 17, 2012 at 12:22 PM
I know there’s a lot of discussion about the Canon 5DIII, so I thought I’d share my initial impression after two weekends of shooting this camera – one for landscapes & one for event photography. I have been shooting a 5DII for two years & love it. Here’s some of my limited observations on features that make the 5DIII a much better camera IMO – I’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s worth the extra $$$
Images are quite a bit sharper. I’m having to lean on the sharpening slider even less with the 5DIII, and my 5DII was very sharp.
As reported, there is much less noise at higher ISO. I shot a few at 1600 ISO & they were very clean – much more so than the 5DII.
The live view now has on-screen auto-focus. You can zoom to 10x onto the spot you want to meter/focus and press the shutter half-way down. A green box appears when it is focused, and it is deadly accurate!
The live view screen is a higher resolution so when in live view, you can see to manually focus more clearly. You can also zoom in tight on images you've shot to better tell if they are sharp throughout.
The manual exposure compensation while in aperture priority mode has been expanded so I can select up to 5 stops below & above the recommended exposure for any one shot. The 5DII has 2 stops max on either side.
It will auto bracket for 3, 5, or 7 shots (not just 3 with the 5DII).
It has multi shot in-camera processing – I had no idea what this was until I played with it. I can shoot up to 9 images and the camera will average all of them into one shot. So, I can take nine 30 second images, all with the same settings, and they get blended together as if it was one 4.5 minute exposure. Great if you don’t have enough ND filters in bright light! Nikon had this feature already...
I've not played with the HDR mode, & don't really care to :-)
With event photography, the auto-focus was dead on for both my 70-200 2.8 II, and a 24-105 f4 lens.
One downside - this camera body will not talk to my Nikkor 14-24 lens & adapter. It keeps looking for the aperture setting without success. It worked great on my 5DII - hope there's a fix for this! Update 7/13/12 - I was using the Fotodiox adapter from Adorama - it does not work on the 5DIII. I bought one from 16-9 & it works great. http://www.16-9.net/nikon_g/
Update 4/23/12 - I also discovered that if you shoot with polarized sunglasses on, the screen on the back of the 5DIII is also polarized. You cannot see the image review if you hold the camera in the horizontal position - you have to rotate it to look at the image vertically. It has to do with opposite plane polarization (I think). Or you can take your sunglasses off :-)
These aren't scientific - just observations from an amateur landscape photographer that loves ease of use & sharp images! The 5DIII delivers for me.
Thanks for posting this! Sounds like a great piece of equipment - like all the 5Ds have been so far.
I am mainly interested in the difference in image quality compared to the 5DII. I skipped the 5D II deliberately, as I owned the 5D I for just two years when 5DII came out. I expected something in 25+ or even 30+ MP range for the 5D III, the MP increase over the 5DII is not that striking. I know, 22 MP are likely sufficient. For my pursposes anyway. But I shoot LF as well and for landscape, detail and resolution can never be enough. I wonder if Canon has something in store to compete with Nikon in the 30+ MP segment.
Just sharing my thoughts...
Posted by Mark Stahlke on April 17, 2012 at 2:07 PM
The multi shot in-camera processing sounds interesting.
A long time ago I read about a technique for shooting waterfalls. Basically, you shoot a number of short exposures so the action is frozen in each of the exposures. The the combined exposures result in a lot of action and a tremendous sense of volume in the waterfall.
I wonder if the multi shot in-camera processing can accomplish this technique easily.
Mark,
That is exactly what this function will do. I shot nine frames at the beach & it smoothed out the low surf to a silky look. I did exactly the same thing with one shot with a polarizer and a 8 stop ND - a pain to have to focus and line up. Some like that look, some don't. But this technique will help with waterfalls, streams, surf, etc. when trying to achieve it.
Posted by Keith Bauer on April 17, 2012 at 2:47 PM
Wick: I got my 5D Mark III a couple of weeks ago as well. I can't say that I've had nearly enough time to to work with the camera, but so far I'm very impressed. I'm upgrading from the original 5D. I agree with every point you've made above. Back in the film days, I really enjoyed doing multiple exposure work. Now I can do that again with the 5D III. I have a simple example that I posted on my blog (link below the "signature" ). The AF system seems to be deadly accurate and extremely flexible.
I have played with the in camera HDR. It does some very nice processing for the right scene. The obvious downside is the processed image is stored as a JPEG. It does keep the original RAW files so you can post process on the computer if desired. Personally, with the expanded bracketing capabilities, I'm now very happy.
Discussion
7 repliesImages are quite a bit sharper. I’m having to lean on the sharpening slider even less with the 5DIII, and my 5DII was very sharp.
As reported, there is much less noise at higher ISO. I shot a few at 1600 ISO & they were very clean – much more so than the 5DII.
The live view now has on-screen auto-focus. You can zoom to 10x onto the spot you want to meter/focus and press the shutter half-way down. A green box appears when it is focused, and it is deadly accurate!
The live view screen is a higher resolution so when in live view, you can see to manually focus more clearly. You can also zoom in tight on images you've shot to better tell if they are sharp throughout.
The manual exposure compensation while in aperture priority mode has been expanded so I can select up to 5 stops below & above the recommended exposure for any one shot. The 5DII has 2 stops max on either side.
It will auto bracket for 3, 5, or 7 shots (not just 3 with the 5DII).
It has multi shot in-camera processing – I had no idea what this was until I played with it. I can shoot up to 9 images and the camera will average all of them into one shot. So, I can take nine 30 second images, all with the same settings, and they get blended together as if it was one 4.5 minute exposure. Great if you don’t have enough ND filters in bright light! Nikon had this feature already...
I've not played with the HDR mode, & don't really care to :-)
With event photography, the auto-focus was dead on for both my 70-200 2.8 II, and a 24-105 f4 lens.
One downside - this camera body will not talk to my Nikkor 14-24 lens & adapter. It keeps looking for the aperture setting without success. It worked great on my 5DII - hope there's a fix for this! Update 7/13/12 - I was using the Fotodiox adapter from Adorama - it does not work on the 5DIII. I bought one from 16-9 & it works great. http://www.16-9.net/nikon_g/
Update 4/23/12 - I also discovered that if you shoot with polarized sunglasses on, the screen on the back of the 5DIII is also polarized. You cannot see the image review if you hold the camera in the horizontal position - you have to rotate it to look at the image vertically. It has to do with opposite plane polarization (I think). Or you can take your sunglasses off :-)
These aren't scientific - just observations from an amateur landscape photographer that loves ease of use & sharp images! The 5DIII delivers for me.
I am mainly interested in the difference in image quality compared to the 5DII. I skipped the 5D II deliberately, as I owned the 5D I for just two years when 5DII came out. I expected something in 25+ or even 30+ MP range for the 5D III, the MP increase over the 5DII is not that striking. I know, 22 MP are likely sufficient. For my pursposes anyway. But I shoot LF as well and for landscape, detail and resolution can never be enough. I wonder if Canon has something in store to compete with Nikon in the 30+ MP segment.
Just sharing my thoughts...
A long time ago I read about a technique for shooting waterfalls. Basically, you shoot a number of short exposures so the action is frozen in each of the exposures. The the combined exposures result in a lot of action and a tremendous sense of volume in the waterfall.
I wonder if the multi shot in-camera processing can accomplish this technique easily.
That is exactly what this function will do. I shot nine frames at the beach & it smoothed out the low surf to a silky look. I did exactly the same thing with one shot with a polarizer and a 8 stop ND - a pain to have to focus and line up. Some like that look, some don't. But this technique will help with waterfalls, streams, surf, etc. when trying to achieve it.
I have played with the in camera HDR. It does some very nice processing for the right scene. The obvious downside is the processed image is stored as a JPEG. It does keep the original RAW files so you can post process on the computer if desired. Personally, with the expanded bracketing capabilities, I'm now very happy.
Great camera.
For your comparison on sharpness are you using JPEGs or RAWs? I've read some reviews that Canon is getting more aggressive with in-camera processing.
+/- 5 stops of exposure compensation is very, very helpful.
By the way, there are some reviews of the 5d3 that use the 16:9 adapter that seem to work. Is it possibly a different version of the adapter?
All images I capture are in RAW format, then processed through Lightroom then PS. Thanks for the tip on the converter. I'll check it out.
Wick