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04/05/2012 03:38:48 PM · #1 |
Yesterday I had an all day shoot - I took my 5D MKII and my new 5D MKIII. So how did I get on?
Firstly, I have so say that I was fairly surprised at what I found out. I had planned to put different lenses on each body and then just swap between the two systems... But, so good was the MK III that I shot only about 20 out of 950 shots with the MKII. It was pointless to do otherwise.
The noise levels on the MKIII is amazing, shooting at 3200 ISO is like shooting 320 ISO on the MKII - for the sort of work I was doing, that was a really important factor.
After shooting with the MKIII for a while and taking instant focus lock for granted, I as shocked (anew) with quite how rubbish the 5D MKII is at locking onto anything in lowish light. I was working with a model and using the MKII has always been frustrating as they hold a pose while it tries to get its act together.
The 61 AF points on the MK III allowed me to frame much more precisely, I've never been one to use the focus lock and recompose and so my shots have always been framed as dictated by the pickleable focus points, so with the MKIII, I could frame as I wanted and march the focus point with supreme accuracy.
The menu system is much easier to navigate, everything is sequential as opposed to the two-wheeled affair on the MKII - like many things, I never realised what a pain it was until the MKIII gave me something new.
Other nice new features - the lockable mode dial, the on-camera eyefi support - like a slowish tethering to my iPad, the silent shutter - trying that at home, it didn't seem so quiet - but on location it's freaky quiet. I haven't really used the in-camera HDR yet and I haven't touched the multiple exposure - but I will. The rating system would be useful if you had time to do it - I rate in post, so I'm not sure I'll make use of that.
So, is the MKII better at anything? Just one thing - the playback zoom button is in the right place. Perhaps I'll get used to the MKIII's new position in time. RAW support - probably won't be made available for CS4 and not yet available for Aperture, so I had to shoot in RAW + JPEG, do my ratings from the JPEGs, export the corresponding CR2 files from my 5 star images to a folder, import them into DPP, export them as 16bit TIFs, reimport them to Aperture - then edit. Phew. Roll on the Aperture update.
In summary, I did expect it to be better - but not this much better; after using it for a short while the MKII felt literally intolerable.
I know this is a post that needs images but they have been uploaded into various challenges, so I'll hold off with those.
Unless the Nikon 800 can live with the low noise levels of he MKIII, I suggest that 22MP looks like a good move by Canon. My f/4 24-105mm becomes fully useable indoors without a flash, my 100-400mm can shoot at higher shutter speeds - High ISO noise levels as low as this gives your glass a new lease of life. That feels like very good value indeed.
Paul |
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04/05/2012 03:45:51 PM · #2 |
| Quite an endorsement, especially about the noise levels. Thanks for the post. |
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04/05/2012 03:58:35 PM · #3 |
| Suddenly I have an urge to sell my car and buy a camera body. |
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04/05/2012 04:07:06 PM · #4 |
| I would love to see some ISO comparisons to back your impression up Paul. Noise is one of the most important factors for me as I tend to do a lot of night stuff or shooting sports at night (when high ISO is required). I didn't think the $1000+ I would have to pony up for the new body would be worth it, but you might convince me otherwise. |
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04/05/2012 04:10:56 PM · #5 |
Geez dude, you are really throwing a wrench in my plans, LOL. I had myself almost convinced to buy a refurbed MkII and wait on the MkIII, but it is clear that the MkIII is light-years ahead of the MkII in some important areas.
I have yet to play with MkIII RAW files, but I will do so as soon as the Lr 4.1 Release Candidate becomes an actual release. From what I have heard and seen, however, it looks like the IQ is fabulous.
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04/05/2012 05:02:55 PM · #6 |
Good to see you have had a great experience with Mark III, Paul.
There are a few features in Mark III that may not seem all that important, but once one starts to utilize them, they will realize how great they are.
The sd card slot is huge. Now I don't have to buy a laptop (which I was thinking of getting) just to shoot tethered. I can use the eye-fi sd card to tether right into my iPad2 and show the result to the client on the bigger screen of iPad. There are CF to sd adaptors out there, but I have heard reports that they sometimes don't work, do it is good to have a dedicated sd card slot.
The rating system is also great. How many times have you taken a series of shots of somebody holding the same pose, wearing the same cloths, you go over the shots with them on your LCD screen while you are on location, they tell you, "this is the one I like best in this series". Well, now I can go ahead and rate that particular shot 5 stars on the camera in front of the client so when I get home, I know which pictures to work on.
The AF point on Mark II was flat-out embarrassing. Finally I own a camera now that has a real AF system with all the 61 AF points actually working.
I have yet to do tests on hight ISO, so I can't comment on that just yet.
Message edited by author 2012-04-05 17:28:34. |
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04/05/2012 05:38:07 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I would love to see some ISO comparisons to back your impression up Paul. Noise is one of the most important factors for me as I tend to do a lot of night stuff or shooting sports at night (when high ISO is required). I didn't think the $1000+ I would have to pony up for the new body would be worth it, but you might convince me otherwise. |
I'll try to shoot some like for likes. In the meantime, I posted this somewhere when I first got the camera - it's taken at 12800 ISO - straight from camera
(It would be nice to see a MKII image side by side though - I'll sort it) |
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04/05/2012 05:47:22 PM · #8 |
| I saw that before. It's hard to get a good feel because shrinking to 800px is, in itself, noise reduction. But that does look great. I'd need to see a 100% crop. |
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04/05/2012 05:50:50 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I saw that before. It's hard to get a good feel because shrinking to 800px is, in itself, noise reduction. But that does look great. I'd need to see a 100% crop. |
Computer's off now but I'll put one in the workshop and PM you the link tomorrow. |
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04/05/2012 06:18:36 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by paulbtlw:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I saw that before. It's hard to get a good feel because shrinking to 800px is, in itself, noise reduction. But that does look great. I'd need to see a 100% crop. |
Computer's off now but I'll put one in the workshop and PM you the link tomorrow. |
Why PM? I'd like to see it as well! |
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04/05/2012 06:19:51 PM · #11 |
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04/05/2012 06:34:02 PM · #12 |
| Yes. And some pinhole images at H1 & H2 please. :) (Not that I will be upgrading, but I would love to see the texture of the noise.) |
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04/05/2012 07:09:38 PM · #13 |
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04/05/2012 07:47:02 PM · #14 |
That is helpful. To my eye the III looks to be less than 1 stop better than the II. In other words, ISO 6400 on the III does not look as good as ISO 3200 on the II though you could say they are close. OK, let's give it one stop. Probably not enough by itself for me to spend $1500 after selling my II. I'd have to witness 61 AF points since I've used the 5D body for five years now and don't know any different. |
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04/05/2012 11:49:17 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by paulbtlw:
Y
After shooting with the MKIII for a while and taking instant focus lock for granted, I as shocked (anew) with quite how rubbish the 5D MKII is at locking onto anything in lowish light. I was working with a model and using the MKII has always been frustrating as they hold a pose while it tries to get its act together.
Paul |
For several years after shooting with a 5D and 5dMKII, while having other cameras, people scoffed at me when I told them how poor(terrible) really the AF was on those two cameras, when you compared them to a first rate AF system like the Canon 1 series, or the Nikon D3 series. I'm glad to finally see people who use these cameras realize just how good it can be, and how bad it really is. |
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04/06/2012 04:29:59 AM · #16 |
| looks like your prayers are answered the raw compatibility update is out for aperture! |
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04/06/2012 04:33:56 AM · #17 |
Originally posted by mrchhas:
looks like your prayers are answered the raw compatibility update is out for aperture! |
Oh fabulous! Thanks for letting me know. That'll be much easier! |
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04/06/2012 01:29:10 PM · #18 |
Its certainly a good camera so far. I upgraded from a 60d, and its quite impressive a change. Now i have to decide if i m going to sell the old one of keep it as a backup.
I do a bit of indoors sports shooting, and its quite impressive at 6400 iso. |
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04/06/2012 04:53:48 PM · #19 |
It looks I made the right choice - no difference in image quality up to ISO 800. This was one of my questions. |
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