Introducing the Canon 5D Mark III

[Fleetie]

We shall have to see what the picture quality is compared to the Nikon D800.
So far we are being asked to pay more for less MP, No built in flash and no autofocus during video mode.
The D800 is looking like a tough competitor. Shame that Canon is charging a premium.

I am pleased with today's announcement.

22MP are enough for me at the moment.

I have never used the flash on my 7D in nearly 2 years of ownership.

I am an "available light" person.

I have never shot a single second of video on my 7D, not even to experiment with the "feature".

I am satisfied, having viewed the out-of-camera high-ISO JPGs, that as I hoped, the 5D3 delivers a fairly solid THREE STOPS better high-ISO noise performance than my 7D, when the 5D3 is outputting direct to JPG. The ISO6400 pictures are about as noisy as my 7D is at ISO800. Which suits me very well indeed. I am happy.

I think the £3000 price is not unreasonable. I conditioned myself to expect £2700-£3000 months ago now, so I was already prepared for it.

I will be buying one as soon as I can walk into a shop and buy one. I don't think I'll go as far as to pre-order one, but as soon as it's in the shops, and I can get one that is new in its box, then I shall buy it.

I shall not buy a display model that impecunious tyre-kicking Herberts have been greasily dabbing just for kicks because they "wanted a go on it". If I'm laying £3k on a shop for one, I am entitled to know that I am buying a fresh, new one in an un-opened box.

It's a done deal, as long as I don't lose my job, die, or go blind.

 

[MazV-L]

Actually it does have spot AF and metering, Phew! (check out Necator's link on page 6)

Thanks I missed it. I guess that's +1. It's really +2 becuase I left out the improved bracketing capability in the original post.

This isn't what some of us have been expressing our disappointment about. Yes the 5D3 has spot metering. yes it has Spot AF. Identical to the 7D.

it does NOT however have spot metering tied to the AF sensor: Per the link provided by Necator on Page 6):

·AF point-linked spot metering not provided.

This probably won't be an issue for many people, but for those who use spot metering often it creates issues. The spot meter in the 5D is linked to the center Af sensor only.

Thus if you move to a different sensor while shooting in spot metering mode, your exposure can do all kinds of whacky things ranging from complete overexposure or underexposure. This omission is magnified by fact very inexpensive bodies made by other manufacturers provide AF point linked spot metering.

Not to rant or jump off a cliff or anything but this is a lame decision on Canon's part IMHO. The body is $3500. It is not entry level. But Canon has always worked hard to protect its 1 series and this may well be another example

On other hand the 1D-X:

AF point-linked spot metering (Custom Function)
-Linkable to all AF points.

This sounds like a firmware crippling of the feature on the 5D3 unless it is tied to the metering hardware (which it could because it sounds like the 5D3 is using the 7D metering system).

Am really not bashing the 5D3.. am sure it will be a very good camera. I just cannot figure out Canon's marketing at times but am sure they know what they are doing.

This is from the Nikon D7000 specifications:

Spot: Meters 3.5-mm circle (about 2.5 % of frame) centered on selected focus point (on center focus point when non-CPU lens is used)

An $1199 body and it has this feature.
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Using AEB in combination with non-centre spot-focusing would help in most scenarios though wouldn't it? I usually use centre-spot focus and recompose anyway, although this doesn't work so well for wide apertures.

 

[jdavis37]

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Using AEB in combination with non-centre spot-focusing would help in most scenarios though wouldn't it? I usually use centre-spot focus and recompose anyway, although this doesn't work so well for wide apertures.
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I mostly shoot birds which move rapidly even over very short distances at times. If I am using Spot meter but need to use a different AF spot to get focus on eyes/head very often the center square will go over something of totally different color resulting in bad exposures. No easy to way to get around it other than post. Just seems a feature that should be in a $3500 body. Priced like a BMW 3 series but handles like a Jetta ok that was extreme but hopefully you get my gripe

 

[simonxu11]

Actually it does have spot AF and metering, Phew! (check out Necator's link on page 6)

Thanks I missed it. I guess that's +1. It's really +2 becuase I left out the improved bracketing capability in the original post.

This is from the Nikon D7000 specifications:

Spot: Meters 3.5-mm circle (about 2.5 % of frame) centered on selected focus point (on center focus point when non-CPU lens is used)

An $1199 body and it has this feature.

Even Nikon D3100 has this feature, that's a $600 body

 

[RileyJoseph]

Very happy after several years of waiting but why did they not put in a rotating back display??????

Thankfully they didn't.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Said this over the past 2 weeks that the 1Dx would have the better IQ. 5D3 looks better than the 5D2, but there was no way on God's Green Earth that Canon was going to let the 5D3 surpass the 1Dx in IQ.

The story has yet to be told though since they claim the 1DX is 1 stop better than the 5D3 and that the 5D3 is nearly 2 stops better than the 5D2, but that is all impossible, it would break physics. If the 1DX is a full stop better than the 5D3 then the 5D3 will equal the 5D2, if even. Something is not adding up. My hope is that they are basically just trying to make 1DX users feel better ;D (while also over-stating the 5D3's skills, since more than 1 stop better than 5D2 wouldn't be easy).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Re: Introducing the Canon 5D Mark III: jpeg samples

I'm not sure what's up with those aurora shots. Both just look wrong to me for some reason, even the ISO800 one, I can't explain it.

In the ISO 800 shot, I see the stars are leaving a very slight trail, so that they appear a bit teardrop-shaped (motion diagonally, between a 10-11 o'clock position to a 4-5 o'clock one, roughly). This is likely due to some camera movement (at a wide lens setting, and only 8 seconds, there is not enough time for the rotation of the earth to become visible, I would think...maybe I could play with the Stellarium planetarium software a bit to figure out for sure).

There also appears to be some "chunkiness" or blurring in some subjects, and the blue sky near the waterline appears to have chroma noise blotches.

The tiger picture surprises me a bit for two reasons - one, it doesn't seem as "sharp" as I would have expected from that lens. The shadow areas (the dark greens, at least) appear very good though, much better than I would expect to get at 3200 from my 7D for sure.

the bright stars have black halos, as does part of the snowboarder's clothing and some of the chunks of snow, it looks like the 5D2 black dots problem (eventually solved with firmware update) only about 10x worse....

 

[NXT1000]

what a disappointment. 22Mp, $4300, omg, what a slap on the face from canon, nikon even have a flash on it. usb3, they even have one with no AA. They are even cheaper, and they even came from 12MP, you know when the competition goes from 12-36 and you stop moving, you are in a lot of trouble. I am done with canon upgrade, i going to keep 5d2. Canon never going to see a cent from me until they fix this.

 

[XanuFoto]

what a disappointment. 22Mp, $4300, omg, what a slap on the face from canon, nikon even have a flash on it. usb3, they even have one with no AA. They are even cheaper, and they even came from 12MP, you know when the competition goes from 12-36 and you stop moving, you are in a lot of trouble. I am done with canon upgrade, i going to keep 5d2. Canon never going to see a cent from me until they fix this.

If I had a mkIi and I had no need for a brand new sensor, better af, better dr, better fps, allow me to have more keepers I would do exactly like what you have done. My only problem is if I had not given my money canon I would have to give wayyyyy more money to Nikon to switch. I have seen Nikon d700 shooters complain they need to buy a new computer or spend 1000s on memory and disk upgrades to handle the d800 file. These 2 companies just cannot give us everything we want .

 

[Jamesy]

These 2 companies just cannot give us everything we want .

Or perhaps it is a case 'Careful what you wish for'.....