I have my hands on a 5D III and 1Dx tomorrow. Questions?

[nighstar]

If you could test and compare the weather sealing of the 5D III vs. 1D X for me that'd be great. Tell me which one gives up first.

maybe this will help re: weather sealing of the Mark III?

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/inside_canon_eos_5d_mark_iii.do

see: Related Links - EOS 5D Mark III - weather sealing

[messus]

Ask about file sizes (RAW) on 1DX, can not seem to find any info about it.

5D3 seem to be (RAW) 32MB-42MB..

And, as pointed by others (HDMI clean out, fixable by firmware?)

[tt]

I stand corrected  Might be possible to get a a car in as part of a private showing?
canonrumors guy links to someone who did get one.
Less likely if you just ask to a normal rep on the stand though I imagine.
If you have CPS maybe you'll get favored?

Paul Ward   http://t.co/XN6oXHpN

http://bertstephani.com/2012/03/02/canon-eos-5d-mark-3-first-review/

[simonhowes]

I'm back. Had a good 10 minutes with 5D III. Q&A didn't go too well with two of the reps, kept on telling me the 5D had Firewire.


So, the sensor. They had memory cards in which was good. Set the camera to RAW, turned off all noise reduction. ISO 800 clean, ISO 1600 getting very noisy, ISO 3200 is very very noisy. No banding that I could see. No weird halos. Any better than the 5D II, not really. I have been trying to think of a camera to compare it with, thinking the 7D, or the 800D, but no. I have to compare the difference as the old 40D and 50D. Take the 40D being similar to the 5D II, and the 50D to 5D III. Technology wise, they are similar, edge to edge micro lenses etc were introduced int he 50D. The Canon 50D was advertised as being better at low light than the 40D, the 50D had a higher pixel count, and in real world shots the 50D was no better. I feel the same with the 5D III. Bad news, pixel peeping, the D800 was cleaner at ISO 1600 and faster. I wouldn't say it was no more than 1 stop better, half a stop at most, D800 1/3 a stop again.

Build quality, didn't feel as rugged as the D800. Would have had a better answer to this if I did a few drop tests, but I didn't do this.

Video out. Same as the 5D II. No RAW out via HDMI, mirrors what's on the rear screen. No crop mode, and no drop frame!

The AF and AE are not unified to work together like the 1Dx, or the D800 and D4. It cannot do some of the more advanced features. AF is good, tried a 85 f/1.2 and 50 f/1.2, it never missed even when choosing an out of centre focus point. At f8, told the AF does not work at all (reps seemed out of their depth to really answer), and certainly no tracking. AE was like the 7D, hit and miss.

In conclusion, the 5D III is a full framed 7D. There was no answer to the price, especially when compared to the D800. I think the reps knew this, but couldn't answer it publicly, I think the look in their eyes said enough. D800 has the edge in all areas, but IQ on the D800 may be just as good, if not slightly better. It is not a low light camera, the same is said for the D800. I was there with my photographer, met some other pros who shoot Canon. They felt bitter about the 1Dx and its price over the D4, and they won't be rushing out to replace their 1D III's.

I can't say much about the 1Dx as I have already had a day with it, not under an NDA but I have to play nice.

[jlev23]

I'm back. Had a good 10 minutes with 5D III. Q&A didn't go too well with two of the reps, kept on telling me the 5D had Firewire.


So, the sensor. They had memory cards in which was good. Set the camera to RAW, turned off all noise reduction. ISO 800 clean, ISO 1600 getting very noisy, ISO 3200 is very very noisy. No banding that I could see. No weird halos. Any better than the 5D II, not really. I have been trying to think of a camera to compare it with, thinking the 7D, or the 800D, but no. I have to compare the difference as the old 40D and 50D. Take the 40D being similar to the 5D II, and the 50D to 5D III. Technology wise, they are similar, edge to edge micro lenses etc were introduced int he 50D. The Canon 50D was advertised as being better at low light than the 40D, the 50D had a higher pixel count, and in real world shots the 50D was no better. I feel the same with the 5D III. Bad news, pixel peeping, the D800 was cleaner at ISO 1600 and faster. I wouldn't say it was no more than 1 stop better, half a stop at most, D800 1/3 a stop again.

Build quality, didn't feel as rugged as the D800. Would have had a better answer to this if I did a few drop tests, but I didn't do this.

Video out. Same as the 5D II. No RAW out via HDMI, mirrors what's on the rear screen. No crop mode, and no drop frame!

The AF and AE are not unified to work together like the 1Dx, or the D800 and D4. It cannot do some of the more advanced features. AF is good, tried a 85 f/1.2 and 50 f/1.2, it never missed even when choosing an out of centre focus point. At f8, told the AF does not work at all (reps seemed out of their depth to really answer), and certainly no tracking. AE was like the 7D, hit and miss.

In conclusion, the 5D III is a full framed 7D. There was no answer to the price, especially when compared to the D800. I think the reps knew this, but couldn't answer it publicly, I think the look in their eyes said enough. D800 has the edge in all areas, but IQ on the D800 may be just as good, if not slightly better. It is not a low light camera, the same is said for the D800. I was there with my photographer, met some other pros who shoot Canon. They felt bitter about the 1Dx and its price over the D4, and they won't be rushing out to replace their 1D III's.

I can't say much about the 1Dx as I have already had a day with it, not under an NDA but I have to play nice.

so, when you say the hdmi out mirrors whats on the screen, does that mean the lcd screen on the camera stayed on when you had an external monitor attached??? like you could see both at once? that would be a big revaluation if so and what a lot of people are waiting to hear, tell me its true!!!

[marekjoz]

So, the sensor. They had memory cards in which was good. Set the camera to RAW, turned off all noise reduction. ISO 800 clean, ISO 1600 getting very noisy, ISO 3200 is very very noisy. No banding that I could see. No weird halos. Any better than the 5D II, not really.

If I understand you correctly, you are dissapointed with what you saw?

[DJL329]

Did they mention if it was a pre-production unit?

[RedEye]

Does it really make sense that they would release a sub part product after waiting 4 years?  I guess we'll have to wait and see

[awinphoto]

So, the sensor. They had memory cards in which was good. Set the camera to RAW, turned off all noise reduction. ISO 800 clean, ISO 1600 getting very noisy, ISO 3200 is very very noisy. No banding that I could see. No weird halos. Any better than the 5D II, not really.

Isn't that like taking a supermodel in the morning before they put on the makeup and do her hair and yell, See, I told ya she's not that pretty, look at all those blemishes!  =)  I guess we'll see in a matter of weeks when these cameras are released and scientific tests are done. 

[WarStreet]

Thanks for the info.

Interesting that staff like video crop, which is available on 2 rebels, 60D, Nikon's D4 and D800, is not available on the 5D III ? As far as I know, Canon was first to release this, Nikon added this feature on it's new top end cameras, and Canon ??

With all respect, I really hope you are wrong on the image quality. This was a big surprise.

[Axilrod]

so, when you say the hdmi out mirrors whats on the screen, does that mean the lcd screen on the camera stayed on when you had an external monitor attached??? like you could see both at once? that would be a big revaluation if so and what a lot of people are waiting to hear, tell me its true!!!

What benefit do you see in being able to look at the screen and a monitor at the same time?  Am I missing something?

[Axilrod]

Does it really make sense that they would release a sub part product after waiting 4 years?  I guess we'll have to wait and see

I think it's kind of hard to judge a camera in 10 minutes of use, I can think of plenty of times that I didn't think much of a lens when I only had a few minutes to play with it.  You have to use it in a variety of situations before you can make a fair assessment.  It's a shame that the OP has a bad initial impression, but I remain hopeful.

[unkbob]

Interesting that staff like video crop, which is available on 2 rebels, 60D, Nikon's D4 and D800, is not available on the 5D III ? As far as I know, Canon was first to release this, Nikon added this feature on it's new top end cameras, and Canon ??

Could the lack of video crop have something to do with the new pixel binning thing? If you start to crop into the sensor might this introduce stuff like moire, which they have obviously tried so hard to eliminate?

[RedEye]

Does it really make sense that they would release a sub part product after waiting 4 years?  I guess we'll have to wait and see

I think it's kind of hard to judge a camera in 10 minutes of use, I can think of plenty of times that I didn't think much of a lens when I only had a few minutes to play with it.  You have to use it in a variety of situations before you can make a fair assessment.  It's a shame that the OP has a bad initial impression, but I remain hopeful.

Right, my point as well.  They could have easily waited a few more months and released a product with whatever technology on the planet they whished to stuff inside - while there is certinally some game theory between Canon, Nikon, and potential entrants such as Sony, the lens 'lock up' issue means that it's not necesary that they immediatly respond to each others sucessive rounds in order to hold the upper hand.  All in all, I just find it doubtful that they would force their own hand unless it added value and demand for their brand, and I think it's pretty clear that the ONLY way for them to do this is if the latest body only camera lives up to the hype, and it likely will. 

For me, I'm really intregued by the idea of software correction.  This could go many ways.... once to correct from the lens, anther to correct from the camera, and then possibly a third way to correct for the printer / monitor the images are being used on.  Honestly, I would preference a software option as I think someone else mentioned on the board here, it allows us to potentially go backward to older model cameras and correct history as well

[pedro]

maybe the demo body was a lemon...