Here's One Happy Camper!

A couple of days I got a mysterious call from Canon Belgium, asking me if I was available today and if so, could they come by with a case with secret content? I hoped it would be the long awaited 5D Mark 3 and by yesterday all rumors on Twitter and Facebook indicated that I could be right. And yes, this morning Canon officially announced the new camera. So I anxiously awaited the arrival of the Canon guys at The Barn. Erik from Shoot Magazine also joined us and after a brief introduction, we got to play with the camera for about an hour and a half. I asked you all what I should test on Twitter and Facebook and tried to address as much as possible of your input. So here’s what I think:

THE SHORT VERSION

It’s an amazing camera! I’m getting one

I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.

DISCLAIMER

- It’s after 10pm and I had a really busy day. I don’t like to write when I’m tired but I know you are all waiting for this post. So please don’t mind typos and stuff. I will blog more in the coming days.
- The test was done on a pre-production sample with pre-production firmware. So thing can only get even better when the 5D mark3 hits the market.
- I have to base my review on JPEG-files as there’s no support for the RAW-files in Lightroom (or any other RAW-converter) yet.
- I’m not a scientist and don’t do lab tests. This is my point of view, the point of view of a professional photographer that needs an all-round camera.
- We were too exited and had too little time to do a very organized test. It was all a bit chaotic but great fun.
- My friend and pro model Sylviane kindly offered to be our model for the test. She’s so professional, she looked even great with 4 guys geeking out around her.

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HOW DOES IT FEEL?

It might sound stupid, but I think it’s important that a tool that you use all day, feels right in my hands. And the 5D mark 3 certainly does, even slightly better than it’s predecessor. It’s just a bit easier to hold and offers a bit more grip for sweaty hands. All the buttons and dials are in the right place and it didn’t take me long to figure out the menu system.

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AUTOFOCUS PERFORMANCE

Let’s face it, the autofocus on the 5D mk2 wasn’t very good (and I’m being gentle here). So a lot of people hoped it would be better in the new version. Well, good news, the new autofocus ROCKS!!!!! It has 61 AF sensors, of which 41 are cross-type sensors. I did my best to place Sylviane it very challenging AF situations but couldn’t get the 5D mk3’s AF to fail or even hunt. The focus was instant spot-on even in very low light with little contrast.
The AF-system is almost identical to that of the 1DX and that’s very impressive. I did a little bit of testing in continuous focus on a moving subject and it seems like the camera will handle that really well too.
The new autofocus system is already reason enough for me to upgrade.

I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.

HIGH ISO

The 5D2 was already pretty good at high ISO, certainly if you consider the resolution. For reportage-style I usually found iso 3200 the top of the usable range. With the 5D Mark 3 I tried ISO 6400 and it looks perfectly usable, even 12.800 is perfectly fine. Even 25.600 looks acceptable for weddings and events. So I figure you win at least 2 to 3 stops of usable ISO range. I’m very happy Canon didn’t jeopardize high ISO performance by putting a ridiculous amount of megapixels on the sensor.

I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS THAT I LIKE

- I’m not shooting video with my DSLRs, so you should probably look elsewhere for more info about video. As far as I can see, there is no revolution in the video part but definitely an evolution with more options and better controls.

-  The on/off button is now positioned on the top of the camera, which is a more logical place

- There’s a lock-button on the mode dial to prevent accidental switching from for example Aperture Priority to Bulb.

- Dual card slot: You can now have a CF-card and/or an SD-card in the camera. To me this it makes me feel safer to have all files stored on two cards but you can only make the camera switch to the second card if the first one is full.

- Better Metering: I’m a manual shooter but I’m sure that there are a lot of people who can appreciate better light metering

- Six Frames/second: Not something I need very often but sometimes it certainly comes in handy.

- Less Noisy Shutter: The shutter is not as loud as the 5D mark2 and there are some options to make it even more silent.

- I’m sure there’s other things, but these are the most important (TO ME)

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DOWNSIDES

I haven’t found any negative points about the camera so far. Except maybe for the price. Here in Belgium, it will start hitting the shelves at around 3.500 EUR. That is definitely more expensive than it’s older brother. Off-course, I would have liked it to be cheaper but I’d rather have a higher price tag than a camera full of technical compromises to keep the price lower. The guys from Canon also told me that the 5D Mark 2 will stay in production for a while so there’s still a cheaper alternative.

I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.

CONCLUSION

Canon has clearly listened to it’s user base and build upon the still great 5D mark 2. They have improved the good things and fixed the autofocus big time. My 5D mark 2 is nearing the end of it’s life after more than three years of hard use (or should I say ABUSE) and I will replace it soon with a 5D mark 3. I am very impressed with this camera.

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THERE’S MORE

The secret case from Canon contained lots of other amazing goodies like the 1DX, the G1X, the new 24-70, the 24mm IS, the 28mmIS, the WFT-E7 (new WiFi transmitter), the GP-E2 (new GPS receiver) and … the brand new Speedlite 600EX-RT and the Speedlite Transmitter ST-E3. I mainly focussed my testing time on the 5D mark 3 but I had a little play with some of the other toys too. I’ll blog about those in the next days.