Defective 5D MK III.....

[ozzymax]

No expert by any measure but any issue at this stage is concerning. Would discussing it direct with Canon be any help? Maybe it is a setting or the card/s aren't up to the task. Many have said it looks or should look ok in raw, however I can think of many times when I would want the jpegs. It also has an auto mode and as it does write to jpeg so you would think it should do it well.
Unfortunately there is more than one with issues which is a bit of a concern. Hopefully the guys that do full reviews will look at the jpeg quality also.

[thefixisin]

As a person who generally doesn't bother pixel peeping, I'm actually very curious about where the issue is, since I can't see it. If someone could point it out to me (say with a comparison to a similar image that doesn't have the same problem), I'd be greatly appreciative, so I know what to look for in the future

Maybe I'm missing something here but the sample photos look fine to me.

As someone who is currently waiting for their 5D Mark III to show up at their door this terrifies me. I can't find anything at all wrong with these photos. It would seriously help if you could take the photos in to photoshop and circle what made you return the camera. I'm worried my camera is going to have something wrong with it and I'll just never see it.

Thanks.

[agierke]

if you dont see anything wrong....then there is nothing wrong. i wouldnt worry too much about other peoples concerns and just worry about if you are satisfied with the results of your new camera.

none of the sample shots are really presented in a way that any of us could determine any faults. a raw would be the only way i could definitively tell if the camera was producing soft results.

wickedcombat did post a Raw file that i did take a look at. i actually did think it looked soft but i think that was more a result of shooting at F2.8 and the eyes of the subject falling slightly out of the DOF (which is not uncommon to have happen). i applied a bit of sharpening to the file and it looked fine.

[awinphoto]

As a person who generally doesn't bother pixel peeping, I'm actually very curious about where the issue is, since I can't see it. If someone could point it out to me (say with a comparison to a similar image that doesn't have the same problem), I'd be greatly appreciative, so I know what to look for in the future

Maybe I'm missing something here but the sample photos look fine to me.

As someone who is currently waiting for their 5D Mark III to show up at their door this terrifies me. I can't find anything at all wrong with these photos. It would seriously help if you could take the photos in to photoshop and circle what made you return the camera. I'm worried my camera is going to have something wrong with it and I'll just never see it.

Thanks.

There rarely is any more hard black and white issues with digital photography and mostly it's up to personal taste with exception to OOF and exposure... The jpeg full res images the OP posted looked good in my photoshop CS6 beta when blown up to 100%.  There were some areas in the bokeh that could be argued either way as "blotchy" or whatever but I think it came out allright.  Raws would be the only way to judge and the OP did not provide us with that... What it boils down to is if you liked the sample images he put up for download and find no faults in the image, then you should be happy with your copy assuming there isn't something out of the ordinary.  Dont fret. 

[thefixisin]

As a person who generally doesn't bother pixel peeping, I'm actually very curious about where the issue is, since I can't see it. If someone could point it out to me (say with a comparison to a similar image that doesn't have the same problem), I'd be greatly appreciative, so I know what to look for in the future

Maybe I'm missing something here but the sample photos look fine to me.

As someone who is currently waiting for their 5D Mark III to show up at their door this terrifies me. I can't find anything at all wrong with these photos. It would seriously help if you could take the photos in to photoshop and circle what made you return the camera. I'm worried my camera is going to have something wrong with it and I'll just never see it.

Thanks.

There rarely is any more hard black and white issues with digital photography and mostly it's up to personal taste with exception to OOF and exposure... The jpeg full res images the OP posted looked good in my photoshop CS6 beta when blown up to 100%.  There were some areas in the bokeh that could be argued either way as "blotchy" or whatever but I think it came out allright.  Raws would be the only way to judge and the OP did not provide us with that... What it boils down to is if you liked the sample images he put up for download and find no faults in the image, then you should be happy with your copy assuming there isn't something out of the ordinary.  Dont fret.

Thanks. I get the whole "if it looks good to you, it's good" thing but having just started into being a more "professional" photographer I'm just worried that there is something that may look fine to me but other will instantly notice. I should also mention that to make my paranoia worse I'm also red/green color blind. Maybe I'll post some photos here once I get mine.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The issue is that every image taken with the camera, no matter what ISO, F stop, RAW, JPEG, etc. is coming out very milky/blotchy, almost like the camera is applying heavy NR to every image.

The camera doesn't apply NR to RAW images. Only DPP does that.

I think its how you define NR.  Many of us think of the NR in the digic Processor firmware, but there is more. 
 
All Canon Bodies since the D30 have had on chip NR, and it gets better each generation.  The developers slave away testing tweake and new NR  algorithms to upgrade future sensors.  Then, there is NR in the digic Signal processinf Firmware that is applied to jpeg images, and , of course NR is post processing software.
 
Chuck Westfall interview.
 
CW: Three main areas of image quality-related improvement on the EOS 5D Mark III image sensor compared to the EOS 5D Mark II are:
· Gapless Microlenses: This feature increases the amount of light received by each photodiode compared to the gapped microlenses used on the 5D Mark II’s image sensor.
· New Photodiode Structure: The photoelectric conversion rate of each photodiode has been improved.
· On-Chip Noise Reduction: Canon’s proprietary technology in this area, which was first shown on the EOS D30 Digital SLR in the year 2000, has steadily improved over the years.
The net result of these improvements is a cleaner signal at all comparable ISO speeds for the 5D Mark III, as well as increased sensitivity that is indicated by the expansion of the standard ISO range from 6400 on the 5D Mark II to 25,600 on the 5D Mark III.
We also doubled the throughput speed of image data from the CMOS sensor to the rest of the image processing chain by increasing the number of simultaneous readout channels from 4 to 8. This change has a side effect of helping to improve EOS Movie quality as well by cutting the level of rolling shutter artifacts in half.

[Viggo]

http://masters.galleries.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/1829129.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=14Y3MT0G2J4Y72K3ZXR2&Expires=1332532352&Signature=EVMPTKLctOkeFwVjOjMXKv0GVtU%3d

I flipped through all the images over at dpreview from the 5d3 and it seems there are some blotchyness there also, but the one I linked to above I ran through a tad of unsharp mask, and this image is hilariously fantastic, so it seems it's a lot to do with processing, OP; def not saying your camera wasn't faulty! but this explains the useless images taken by Canon as promo, and it's very easy to f@@k up IQ severely.

Here's another one I liked, focused at the aperture ring of the left cam I think. This is IQ 5d worthy;

http://masters.galleries.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/1829138.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=14Y3MT0G2J4Y72K3ZXR2&Expires=1332532750&Signature=6bgcqDJoycPmM4HqMBr0WN6uVWs%3d

And here's a blotchy one;

http://masters.galleries.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/1829135.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=14Y3MT0G2J4Y72K3ZXR2&Expires=1332532807&Signature=CkNpUh7j3%2fCBPOuAaovzm5i8aD8%3d

[agierke]

not sure if its just me but all the above links are not working

[Viggo]

not sure if its just me but all the above links are not working

yeah, tried another computer of mine, and it didn't work there either, only on my main machine... I'll try again..


EDIT; this is at least to the gallery. Bridge image is the first one and the blotchy one is called "BK6A0201-reconverted"

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/albums/canon-eos-5d-mark-iii-preview-samples

[Viggo]

For those of you who can't see what the issue is, here it is:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III-DSLR-Camera-Review.aspx

[SomeGuyInNewJersey]

For those of you who can't see what the issue is, here it is:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III-DSLR-Camera-Review.aspx

After the soft samples and the fact that they hadnt got Adobe ready for the 5d3 with Lightroom 4 even though the 1dx, d4 and d800 all have their raws openable in LR4. Those and a few other things made me wonder if the 5d3 release was a rush job for some reason... but not even having your OWN software ready...seriously...

I'm trying not to be too critical or judgemental after all I have spent $4400 on a 5d3 myself and it arrived this afternoon... After waiting what felt like forever for the battery to charge I took a few shots with it opened them up in DPP (which I dont normally use... I'm a Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom guy) and just wasnt happy with the quality, everything looked not quite in focus and kind of blotchy.

I was thinking either my copy of the camera had some issue/defect or I was just using it wrong in some unknown way, its my first full frame camera and I was in a hurry doing the test shots because we were about to leave to take the kids to a birthday party this evening at an indoor inflatables play place. When I knew the camera was coming today I thought it was going to be a great place to test it out with low light but after seeing how crap my first shots with it were I left it at home instead. Thinking either me or the camera were defective so itook my 550d instead. Having read the Digital Picture posts hopefully my issues were all down to the fact Canons own software cant display their own images properly? Come on guys... I'm trying not to get judgemental but as I said earlier... seriously? Not only have you sold me several thousand dollars worth of camera without having the worlds largest third party software manafacturer ready for it... but your own software wont work either? So I have paid all this money for a camera and at the moment I cant even use RAWs? I can only edit the over NR'd jpgs?

I'll take a look at the CS6 beta tomorrow with the raws... hopefully that will work with them... but will it work properly? Who knows? Speding this much money on a camera and not even knowing it works properly makes me feel kinda sick....

[pdirestajr]

But isn't this the risk people take when they just NEED to have one of the first products off the boat? I mean, why is this news to anyone?

What's the rush? People have been taking pictures for generations. I don't think a new model 35mm camera is going to change your life, so why not wait a minute? I'll never understand preorder people I guess. There always seems to be a few bugs at the beginning of new tech.

Good luck all!

[bchernicoff]

Okay, I've been playing with mine today and there is definitely something going on with the in camera jpges. I shot in RAW + JPEG today to compare and found all the jpegs to look very muddy as far as detail. As a basis for comparison, I opened the raw in DPP and set it to Neutral, no sharpening, no ALO, no noise reduction and exported a 16-bit TIFF. I then imported that TIFF into Aperture and did a version with sharpening and a version with Niks ColorEfex Tonal Contrast (which does bring out detail). Here are 100% crops saved as jpegs. The neutral TIFF shows more detail than the in camera JPEG. The Aperture sharpened TIFF looks best. The Niks contrast enhanced TIFF looks pretty good too. I suspect a combination of sharpening and the Niks filter applied more subtly would look even better, but I didn't try that.

At this point I am wondering if this is less a sensor issue and more an issue with rushed RAW processing software.

[SomeGuyInNewJersey]

Photoshop CS6 Public Beta wont open the 5d3 cr2's either but the release candidate for Adobe Camera Raw 6.7 opens them and doesnt seem to display the issues that DPP is showing.

Hopefully Adobe will get the LR 4 update that includes 5d3 cr2's released soon.

[bchernicoff]

Photoshop CS6 Public Beta wont open the 5d3 cr2's either but the release candidate for Adobe Camera Raw 6.7 opens them and doesnt seem to display the issues that DPP is showing.

Hopefully Adobe will get the LR 4 update that includes 5d3 cr2's released soon.

That's a great point. I processed in ACR 6.7 RC1 using the defaults. Looks great to me.

BTW, this picture was taken at ISO 100 with 70-200 f/2.8L IS II at 120mm f/4 1/90s with 430EXII/ Gary Fong Diffuser for fill.