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Author Topic: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?  (Read 67263 times)

BJL

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5D3: excels in many respects, fails compared to the alternatives in some?
« Reply #20 on: April 29, 2012, 01:19:54 pm »

I am no expert in sensor design. I was only speaking in general terms.
Expertise in sensor design is not needed: the advantages of the D800 over the 5D3  (or any Canon DSLR to date) in both maximum dynamic range and resolution, and the fact that these are not merely abstract lab results but have visible, practical consequences for certain types of photography, are well established. Saying that the 5D3 "excels in every respect and fails in none" borders on denialism, unless qualified that this is judged only by your needs, not everyone else's. Hence my revised version of your comments in my subject line above!

I was being flippant about your mini-review: I was just indicating that if enough of this forum's highly competent and demanding participants try a camera like the 5D3 and report on their experiences, a formal hands-on review from a not-so-interested Michael would not add much. I prefer Michael to give a thorough shake-down of gear that he is sufficiently interested in to use extensively and scrutinize carefully, leaving the more dispassionate and technical testing reviews to others.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2012, 01:22:04 pm by BJL »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #21 on: April 29, 2012, 02:07:50 pm »

To continue with Michael's metaphors about girls and dancing floors, 5Dm3 reminds me of the one who sits in the corner all evening, waiting for someone to ask her to dance. Don't believe me? Check this out:

Peter Le

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #22 on: April 29, 2012, 05:53:37 pm »

Owning a 7D for the past 2 years or so and playing a bit with the 5D3 I could not agree more. I did not like the 5D and 5D2 concept (great sensor in a mediocre body) but this one is a complete package which excel in every point and fails in none. I actually consider it the mythical 3D we've wished for, for so many years.
       Unless you shoot landscapes in difficult light....
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Peter Le

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2012, 05:58:35 pm »

I don't think so. The sensor of the 5D2 was simply so good that only minor modifications were necessary.
         Unless you shoot landscapes in difficult  light.....then it doesn't  come close to the new Sony sensors   :(
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FMueller

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #24 on: April 29, 2012, 06:25:49 pm »

Went back to one of my recent images taken with my new 5dm3.

Sure enough, when I tried to push the hell out of the shadows, it really looked like crap, at least until I did a little NR in LR 4, then it looked ok. I'm sure from all the reports that the d800 would handle the push better.

My conclusion? I don't care. I have the choice to either clean it up in LR or not push it to start with.

All the Nikon fanboys will now be doing extreme push in the shadows of every pic they take and then print it at least 20x24, well, if they wish to differentiate their prints from all those clearly inferior non d800 captures.

Y'all have fun with that.  ;)
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Yakim Peled

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #25 on: April 30, 2012, 12:08:38 pm »

         Unless you shoot landscapes in difficult  light.....then it doesn't  come close to the new Sony sensors   :(

No camera/lens/system is ever perfect. It always a matter of which compromises you are willing to make. For me, given unlimited funds a 5D3 + 17/4 TS + 24-70/2.8 VC + 70-200/2.8 IS II setup is my dream setup. However, before that could happen I have another dream. To find a job.    :'(
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Yakim.

Yakim Peled

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Expertise in sensor design is not needed: the advantages of the D800 over the 5D3  (or any Canon DSLR to date) in both maximum dynamic range and resolution, and the fact that these are not merely abstract lab results but have visible, practical consequences for certain types of photography, are well established. Saying that the 5D3 "excels in every respect and fails in none" borders on denialism, unless qualified that this is judged only by your needs, not everyone else's. Hence my revised version of your comments in my subject line above!

Indeed it relates to my personal preferences.
Camera wise: Better high ISO is more important for me than better dynamic range in low ISO. Also, I prefer the spatial distribution of the cross type AF sensors in the 5D3 to the D800.
System wise: I prefer the EF mount to the F mount due to it's friendliness to old MF lenses and better lens lineup (for me of course).

Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to say that the 5D3 is better than D800 or that Canon is a better system than Nikon. I do say however that for me, and given that prices of similar items is similar, the 5D3 is better than D800 and that for me, Canon is a better system than Nikon.

I was being flippant about your mini-review: I was just indicating that if enough of this forum's highly competent and demanding participants try a camera like the 5D3 and report on their experiences, a formal hands-on review from a not-so-interested Michael would not add much. I prefer Michael to give a thorough shake-down of gear that he is sufficiently interested in to use extensively and scrutinize carefully, leaving the more dispassionate and technical testing reviews to others.

I think that a formal hands-on review from Michael always add much. It's actually the main reason I enter LL.
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Yakim.

KevinA

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #27 on: May 01, 2012, 06:48:45 am »

From a none 5D user point (I'm 1DsIII) of view the 5DIII was built around video, but so as not to upset other plans Canon has for video they did not go to town on that either. So we have a camera that fails to deliver what the market expected and wished for on many fronts.
The 5DIII now does what you wanted from the II and ignored the fact the World is moving forward with others like Nikon and Sony. I have little faith in Canon even seeing the 800 as a wakeup call, they looked to be obsessed with what other Canon depts plan for their products. The result is they tiptoe around the fringes of greatness. I will wait and see what the "X" delivers before buying into the Nikon system, but honestly getting a 800 and a few lenses is not much more of an investment than the "X".

Kevin.
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Kevin.

KevinA

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #28 on: May 01, 2012, 12:39:02 pm »

To continue with Michael's metaphors about girls and dancing floors, 5Dm3 reminds me of the one who sits in the corner all evening, waiting for someone to ask her to dance. Don't believe me? Check this out:
Drink more beer and wait for a slow number, then drink some more. Going to look pretty dam beautiful any moment now.

Kevin.
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Kevin.

fike

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #29 on: May 01, 2012, 02:30:54 pm »

The D800 has to be considered a disruptive technology.  It will reorder the market and our expectations and as such it has made what would have appeared a great camera--the 5DMKIII--into a mediocre entry. 

This is all lost on people who are invested in one brand or the other.  With my Canon investment, I have considered whether I could sell out my lenses and move to the Nikon, but I honestly believe that in 18 months, the landscape could be reverse. I don't relish jumping back and forth between systems and the loss of my photographic productivity that would result. 

...and great pictures can be had by all.
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indusphoto

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #30 on: May 06, 2012, 02:38:40 am »


The 5DIII now does what you wanted from the II and ignored the fact the World is moving forward with others like Nikon and Sony.

Kevin.

+10. Canon has finally come through and delivered competent AF in 5D body, but the world has moved on. So it is a case of too little and definitely too late, and to boot it is priced significantly higher.

People mention that 5D Mark III has awesome AF, but forget that D800 has all that and more, and at lower price.

Nikon has its own share of deficiencies, but it has captured the though leadership crown. In 2007, it swayed the whole world of Digital Photography with crazy high (at that time) ISO while keeping the MPs low. They unleashed a high ISO competition which Canon was forced to follow (mostly by improving its NR in jpeg). Now Nikon has captured the attention again with crazy high MPs while keeping the Noise level low and improving on DR. This is significant and why everyone is gungho. It shows how Nikon has been able to sway the industry from right to left, and then back to right.

MatthewCromer

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #31 on: May 06, 2012, 07:51:41 am »


This is all lost on people who are invested in one brand or the other.  With my Canon investment, I have considered whether I could sell out my lenses and move to the Nikon, but I honestly believe that in 18 months, the landscape could be reverse.

The usual release cycle is 3-4 years for a new FF sensor / camera.

18 months would be unprecedented.
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BJL

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #32 on: May 06, 2012, 10:43:49 am »

The usual release cycle is 3-4 years for a new FF sensor / camera.

18 months would be unprecedented.
+1

The recurring speculation that Canon either
 - will respond to the D800 by whipping up a fundamentally improved sensor technology by Photokina this year, or by next year, or
 - has another top of the line camera coming in the spirit of a 1Ds Mk 4, and so is just lying when it describes the 1D X as _the_ new top model

is clearly baseless. I would call it wishful thinking, but perhaps some of it is the opposite: fearful thinking due to doubts about where Canon is going with respects to the needs of "high quality, low ISO" photography. To which I say: just be a bit more patient, and wait till about Photokina 2014.
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Glenn NK

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #33 on: May 06, 2012, 11:42:03 am »


In 2007, it swayed the whole world of Digital Photography with crazy high (at that time) ISO while keeping the MPs low. They unleashed a high ISO competition which Canon was forced to follow (mostly by improving its NR in jpeg). Now Nikon has captured the attention again with crazy high MPs while keeping the Noise level low and improving on DR. This is significant and why everyone is gungho.

It shows how Nikon has been able to sway the industry from right to left, and then back to right.

Does this mean that Nikon knows where it's going?
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JRKO

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #34 on: May 11, 2012, 07:05:28 am »

I wonder what Nikon were doing all those years when they said 12Mp was enough ;D ;D?  Canon have led the way for some time and seem to have slowly succumbed to Nikon's advances.

I'm no pro but am happy with A2 (23.4 x 16.5) or the occasional A1 (33.1 x 23.4 in) prints from my poor old 5D.  I would love to know how many users will actually print at the size the D800(E) is capable of.

   
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fike

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #35 on: May 11, 2012, 08:27:49 am »

I don't shoot full frame.  

I am not sure if the three-year cycles are more function of manufacturers inability to release Si that fast or them wanting to maximize their ROI.  Nikon has clearly been hungrier over the last few years, but Canon can't wait another three years to fix this imbalance, and they know it.  

This is my 800th post. It only took me seven years at LL Forums to get there.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2012, 09:25:10 am by fike »
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BJL

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #36 on: May 11, 2012, 09:13:07 am »

I wonder what Nikon were doing all those years when they said 12Mp was enough ...
When did Nikon say that? At the release of the 24MP D3X? Offering one 12MP camera adapted to high frame rates and controlling the high ISO dark noise encountered with the sensor technology availablenin 2008 is very different from saying that 12MP is all that will ever be needed by any users and regardless of technogical progress.
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BJL

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How close is Canon to its "next generation" sensor technology?
« Reply #37 on: May 11, 2012, 09:20:23 am »

I am not sure if the three-year cycles are more function of manufacturers inability to release Si that fast or them wanting to maximize their ROI. ...
You could be right that, as a "Sputnik moment", Canon could be forced to get the next sensor out more quickly, though my sense is that Canon needs a fundamental change, to on-chip ADC, and that is not a one-year crash project.

But it could also be that Canon is already working on some such next generation technology, and just did not quite have it ready when the time came for this round of product updates. It is very unusual for Canon to announce a new DSLR far in advance of availability as it did with the 1D X, which could be a hint that Canon knows it is scrambling to keep up with competing products and announcements right now.


Aside: as I mentioned in another thread, Panasonic is also using column-parallel ADC in the sensor for the GH2, and I have also seen numerous research papers on this, and have read that Samsung uses it in some video sensors at least. So it looks like an industry-wide trend, not a Sony/Nikon exclusive.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2012, 09:23:40 am by BJL »
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Ray

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #38 on: May 11, 2012, 09:35:41 pm »

Without inside information all this is mostly speculation. However there are a number of general assumptions and observations one can make which seem reasonable to me.

(1) The major manufacturers, Canon, Nikon and Sony etc, probably have a fair idea of the type of product the competition is going to release next, unless secrecy is as tight as the weapons' developments of the US army, which I doubt.

(2) It seems reasonable to assume that Canon, with its own in-house sensor research facilities, will have various ongoing projects at different stages of development.

(3) They will have a road map of future releases and that road map will have a certain built-in flexibility, allowing for changes in priority according to changing market circumstances. For example, a 46mp sensor scheduled for release in 2 or 3 years time could be brought forward and released a year or two earlier, as a result of the great popularity of the D800.

(4) It would be naive to assume that Canon would have to start from scratch to develop a 46mp sensor. They've probably got currently a number of sensors with an even higher pixel count than 46mp, in various stages of development.

(5) Although the D800 has an impressively high pixel count which exceeds the pixel count of the 5D3 by a worthwhile margin of 60% or so, its high-ISO performance is no better than the 5D3, and if anything, slightly worse.

(6) For those who don't use a wide-format printer, 24" wide or wider, the 22mp of the 5D3 in conjunction with the 18mp of the 7D or 60D for long telephoto shots, is probably sufficient.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between the 7D and the D800 in DX mode, both cameras using the same focal length of telephoto lens of equal quality. The increased pixel count of the 7D, at just 3mp, would be insignificant in itself, but perhaps not insignificant when combined with the slightly longer reach of the slightly smaller 7D sensor.

In other words, using a 400mm lens on both cameras, the comparison would be between a 15mp image with an effective 600mm lens as opposed to an 18mp image with an effective 640mm lens. After cropping the DX image to the same FoV as the 7D image, we end up comparing approximately a 13mp D800 image with an 18mp 7D image.

(7) The undoubted advantage of all the recent Nikon cameras is the very significant 2-full-stops increased DR at base ISO, compared with Canon. However, to get things in perspective, those extra 2 or 2.5 stops of DR are not necessarily the solution for all scenes with a high contrast. If you are trying to capture an outdoor scene through a window and also want to include the interior of the room, you'll probably need more than an extra 2 stops of DR. You'll need to either use flash or take multiple shots for merging to HDR, whichever camera you use.

Nevertheless, I'm certainly glad I don't have to agonise over issues of whether or not to change camera systems. My modest collection of both Canon and Nikon equipment bought during the past 15 years or so, probably amounts in total to no more than the cost of a new, medium-priced automobile, but without the ongoing expenses of maintenance, fuel and road registration etc.

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BJL

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Re: Michael, have I missed your 5D3 review?
« Reply #39 on: May 11, 2012, 10:12:51 pm »

Without inside information all this is mostly speculation. However there are a number of general assumptions and observations one can make which seem reasonable to me.
...

(4) It would be naive to assume that Canon would have to start from scratch to develop a 46mp sensor. They've probably got currently a number of sensors with an even higher pixel count than 46mp, in various stages of development.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between the 7D and the D800 in DX mode, both cameras using the same focal length of telephoto lens of equal quality. The increased pixel count of the 7D, at just 3mp, would be insignificant in itself, but perhaps not insignificant when combined with the slightly longer reach of the slightly smaller 7D sensor.

In other words, using a 400mm lens on both cameras, ...

(7) The undoubted advantage of all the recent Nikon cameras is the very significant 2-full-stops increased DR at base ISO, compared with Canon. ...
Ray some good points there, but
(a) Though I am not ruling it out, I would not say that it is "probable" that Canon currently has a sensor of over 46MP under development. For one thing, Canon might simply have decided along the lines of your point (6), that there is not enough of a market for more than 22MP for it to be worth investing in that direction. Another distinct possibility is that substantial dynamic range disadvantage: Canon might have decided that it needs to overcome that before pushing resolution so far forward in 35mm format, to avoid facing some very unfavorable comparisons in DR and such against Nikon/Sony alternatives.

(b) comparing at exactly equal focal length and then somewhat claiming a "victory" of higher pixel count for the camera with fewer, smaller, and in most respects lower quality pixels (ignoring the possible per pixel advantage of the larger photosites of the D800) seems a bit like choosing the rules to influence the outcome. With the bulk and cost of these cameras plus 400mm lenses, it would be little extra burden to use a TC to increase resolution from the D800 if needed, so exact equality of focal length seems overly rigid.

I much prefer comparisons where a practically relevant performance goal or measure is set, and the users of different tools are alllowed to choose different paths to the goal according to the strengths and weaknesses of the particular tools. (You know, like allowing that different combinations of ISO speed and f-stop might be chosen with cameras in different formats, rather than comparing at equally ISO speed and so implicitly at equal f-stop.)

Finally, it always seems a little strange when people make hypothetical comparisons between an actual available, thoroughly reviewed product from one company against speculated possible future improvements of another company in its product offerings. At the very least, do you care to speculate on what Sony and Nikon might be working on, and have to offer at about the same time as these imagined new Canon sensors arrive? Since you now own and use a mix of Canon amd Nikon gear, surely you can speculate about what both have under development?
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