1D MkIII Personal Review - DPChallenge Forums

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CorySmith

10/25/2007 01:12:26 PM · #1

Ive had this camera in my possession a little over a week now and would like to share my two cents on it.

First Impressions: Solid as a rock, comfortable grip, eye piece doesnâ��t fall off when carrying it on my side (lost at least 4 eye pieces over the course of a few years with my 20D), 3 inch screen, 2 memory card slots (two 4 gig cards in their currently) and countless other small things that make operation a lot easier. A lot of people Ive let hold my camera since I got it had said it looked heavier than it really is too, I havenâ��t noticed, after a few hours of shooting with any SLR, it starts to get heavy. The fact that it inherited a lot of the 10/20/30/40D's control features made transition from my 20D to the MkIII a lot less frustrating. I remember when the MkII was released and i tried to operate it, the holding of two different buttons and then using a wheel to change a setting could cause one to miss a shot if it was a time critical situation.

First Outing: The morning after I received my camera in the mail I had high expectations and was ready to see what this camera was capable of. At this point I wasnâ��t fully familiar with all the custom settings and left most of all the custom settings on default. After a few hours of shooting I discovered that my both my memory cards were full. Shooting RAW+small jpg eats up a lot of space. Canon wasnâ��t kidding when they advertised 10 frames per second. It's almost too fast. I would post examples but I donâ��t want to give away any hints to my photos that are currently in voting. As many know the LCD lies to you, and looking at a LCD screen with sunglasses and sunlight bouncing off of objects and into your eye while youâ��re trying to look at the screen, you have no choice but to read the histogram.

Image Quality: After the first day of shooting I quickly learned that I needed to upgrade my version of Photoshop to edit the 14-bit RAW files created by the MkIII. And I was AMAZED by how much more of a dynamic color/shadow range there is and how much more control you have over your RAW files from the previous 12-bit RAW files my 20D produced. And part of this is the features in CS3 (I assume Light room as well), but one feature I love the most is you can desaturate all but 1 or more colors.
Example:

I did unknowingly change one setting in the custom functions menu prior to shooting that first day. The camera wouldnâ��t let me go below ISO 200. Turns out it was the 'highlight tone priority' setting, which according to

dwterry "It uses the sensitivity between 100 and 200 to spread out the values in order to keep details in the highlights."
As common sense would provide, the AP-H size image sensor provides better images. My 24-70mm f/2.8L lens works a lot better as a wide lens now (not as good as on a full frame camera such as the 5D)
There is a lot of custom functions to accommodate a lot of different shooting styles.
ISO range is stellar and makes the camera combined with a IS lens a great combination for low light photos. ISO 6400 is nice to have in case you ever need it.

Hardware: Battery life is exceptional, shame on me for doubting the capability of this new battery (I bought and extra), its a huge improvement. I cant imagine i will be needing to use it unless im out in the boonies for a days with no access to power.

The weather sealing. Being out in the desert, itâ��s a no brainer. I suppose the same goes for people who live or regularly shoot in rainy/moist environments.

The Hot shoe seems like a big improvement to me. My 20d hot shoe broke more than a year ago and when ever a flash was mounted to it i got an error because the connectors werenâ��t touching. I'm thinking the actual hot shoe is a part of the camera body and not just screwed on (which was the case for the 20d).
Software: The cameras menu is pretty easy to figure out (not as easy as the 20D IMO). But not to the point where its intimidating or frustrating. Another feature the MkIII has that i'm fond of is the ability to write to one card, and when that one is full, you can program it to 'spill' over to the next one. Or, have it write RAW to one card and JPG to the other. Or, write the same information to both cards, I imagine this would be useful when shooting for someone and yourself. Slap their card in your cam, and yours. Both have the same images.
Reduced lag time between pressing the shutter release button and the camera taking the picture is a feature i find to be essential. Makes getting 'the shot' that much easier and more guarenteed.

Live view is in my opinion great for studio photography, in the past I used point and shoots for studio photography, then when i got my 20D, looking through the viewfinder became a pain (Especially when working with animals that tend to run/fly/hop out of the frame).

Combine this feature with a remote and tripod and you really donâ��t have to be behind the camera at all, you can hold a reflector/fan/light/ect. And ever now and then just peer over and look at the LCD. I canâ��t wait to use this feature more in the future. The owners manual states "DO NOT point directly at sun while in live view mode, will damage image sensor". So take heed to that warning, $4500 isnâ��t easy to come by.

Write speeds are near instant when shooting JPG, the duel digic 3 processors and huge buffer makes waiting on the camera to record it to the card a thing of the past. When shooting RAW and small jpg, there were only a few instances where I had to wait on the camera to write the pictures, but I think part of that was my own fault, I had a semi-slow SD memory card in the slot.

Overall: Great camera, takes beautiful images. Stellar performance. Well worth the money.

Forgive me if my grammer doesn't make sense sometimes, I didnt pay much attention in that class in highschool.

Message edited by author 2007-10-25 13:17:46.

MadMan2k

Sony Alpha a6400

Tamron 70-180mm F/2.8 Di III VXD

10/25/2007 01:39:25 PM · #2

Glad you're happy with it. Do you shoot any sports, and do you use AI Servo mode? Some people have reported problems with it in those situations, but apparently there's a fix now and you can send it in if it's not working right.

CorySmith

10/25/2007 02:02:41 PM · #3

Originally posted by MadMan2k:

Ive had the opportunity to shoot ai servo but didn't think too, Ive shot on one shot for ages, ai servo inst my preferred choice of focus mode

dwterry

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

10/25/2007 03:18:06 PM · #4