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Author Topic: Canon 5D Mark III official...  (Read 53554 times)

LesPalenik

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #100 on: March 02, 2012, 10:14:32 pm »

I looked at some of those pictures.
The portrait (15_cinc_big) looks quite impressive, but the colorful autumn landscape scene (02_cinc_big), looks like an upsampled 6MP file.
Lot of smudging, unnatural edges on the trees against the sky, and oversaturated colors. Not what I would expect from a $3,500 camera.

« Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 10:43:21 pm by LesPalenik »
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mmurph

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #101 on: March 02, 2012, 10:24:22 pm »

The sharpening on the autumn trees was set quite high, at "4.". The portraits were at "2."

All in sRGB too so that they look good online. Really hard to tell much from those. The trees did look very "crunchy."  :o

Michael
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DaveCurtis

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #102 on: March 02, 2012, 11:06:46 pm »

Yes, the autumn trees look terrible. Must be the processing/sharpening or prehaps jpg/sRGB compression. I would expect way better from my 1DS3.

Early days yet. I would wait for a production model or at least a few more samples before passing judgement.

I have looked at many early Nikon D800 jpg sample shots, these also vary in quality.

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Tony Jay

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #103 on: March 02, 2012, 11:42:13 pm »

I have read all the remarks in several threads running simultaneously.
Some thoughts:
Small increase in pixel count - neutral.
Improvements in focussing and metering - good move.
Improvements in video capture - neutral for me but excellent for those doing serious video capture.
Dynamic range - unknown quantity notwithstanding the HDR mode.

For me the single biggest issue with regards to any camera or camera system is usable dynamic range.
This affects IQ much more than almost any other issue besides difficulties with accurate focussing IMHO (itself a byproduct of the amazing resolution and precision of current sensors).
If dynamic range is much better (than the 5D II) then combined with the other improvements then this is a formidable camera indeed.

I tend not to be so excited about pixel counts > 30 megapixels with 35 mm sensor sizes since realtime resolution will not really improve due to limitations with lenses related to small sensor elements.

My $0.02 worth.


Regards

Tony Jay
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uaiomex

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #104 on: March 03, 2012, 01:50:06 am »

The Canon 5DIII would be a killer camera if it was 2010. This is the camera that Canon missed to make 3 years ago, that's the problem. Canon is late, very late. For the first time since I bought my first dslr, I won't buy the immediate upgrade. Not enough improvements and the price is crazy. Nikon D800 has been the most exciting camera since the original 5D. The Canon 5D3 is the most boring new camera since the Canon 30D.
The best thing: The spell is finished. This is a good opportunity to exercise control and enjoy what we have. I'm not jumping ships but Canon will lose many clients soon.

Eduardo
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Ray

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #105 on: March 03, 2012, 02:00:14 am »

To get things in perspective, an increase in pixel count of approximately 63%, comparing the D800  with the 5D3, is not huge but is definitely worth something.

If one considers an image resolution of 240ppi as being the minimum for critical viewing of a print, then the 5D3 image is good for a 24"x16" print without interpolation, and the D800 good for a 30"x20" print, approximately (actually a bit larger, like 31.5"x21").

If one needs to crop because the lens was not long enough, to get the FoV that a 7D would produce with the same lens for example, then one ends up with an 8.7mp image, hardly better than the resolution one would get from an old 20D.

If one crops a D800 image to the same degree, bearing in mind that the Nikon DX format is slightly larger than Canon's cropped format, one gets a 14.2mp image (36.3/2.56).

I never got the opportunity to upgrade my 20D to 14mp. Canon usually seems to upgrade its cameras in small increments of pixel numbers, from 6mp to 8mp to 10mp to 15mp to 18mp, with cropped format, and 11mp to 12.7mp to 16mp to 21mp to 22mp with full-frame.

Perhaps the most interesting upgrade in the 5D3 is the claimed 2 stops of better DR. If this proves to be two stops of improved DR across the entire ISO range, then that would be fantastic. It would mean that the DR at high ISOs would be on a par with the Nikon D3s, and DR at base ISO on a par with the Nikon D7000.

If the improvement in DR only applies at high ISO, as it does with the D3s, that's still a big plus, but just not as awesome.

According to DXOMark DR tests, the D7000 pixel, although smaller than the 5D2 pixel, has over 2 stops better DR than the 5D2 pixel at base ISO. At equal print sizes, the DR of the D7000 image is only 2 stops better.  ;D
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torger

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #106 on: March 03, 2012, 03:37:50 am »

The 5D mark 3 looks better than I thought it would. For the mass market, I think 22 megapixels is about right. 36 like in D800 is more than most want. Sure I'd like a higher number for my landscape work. But a 22 megapixel good AF quite fast good low light is a nice all-arounder. And improved build quality, yay! If one is waiting around for a D800 response I understand it is a bit of disappointment though.

Don't judge image quality too much based on compressed jpegs. They always look bad. The autumn scene was also shot at 17mm with a 17-40 zoom, not great optical performance, but I think they demonstrated the in-camera CA removal feature for jpegs...

It does seem like high ISO is much improved as well as DR at base ISO. We need RAWs to know for sure.

What most users complained about the 5D mk 2 was 1) poor DR, 2) poor AF, 3) poor build quality. All this seems to be addressed, with some added bonus. I think it will be a hit, even though D800 is the better landscape camera due to its higher resolution.
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Nigel Johnson

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #107 on: March 03, 2012, 06:24:22 am »

Cheers Ginger. I can't find the specs anywhere though. Spot metering has been kept to the central AF point in previous models.

According to the Canon Profesional Network European Site (to which I supplied a link earlier in this thread) the spot metering is central only:


Metering Modes
TTL full aperture metering with 63 zone Dual Layer SPC
(1) Evaluative metering (linked to All AF point)
(2) Partial metering (approx. 6.2% of viewfinder at centre)
(3) Spot metering (approx. 1.5% viewfinder at centre)
(4) Centre weighted average metering

see full specification at: http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/cameras/eos_5d_mark_iii.do
Note that these CPN pages have a tabbed interface with the detailed specification being on the 'Specification' tab.

Regards
Nigel
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 06:34:10 am by Nigel Johnson »
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Nigel Johnson

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #108 on: March 03, 2012, 06:32:16 am »

Not seeing any chatter here about the new flash system. For me *that* is the hot announcement for the day.

See this site: http://pixsylated.com/blog/

There is already a review and the first of two videos about the flash.

There is also information on the Canon Professional Network European Site at:

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/accessories/speedlite_600ex_rt.do
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/accessories/speedlite_transmitter_st_e3_rt.do

(Please note that these CPN pages have a tabbed interface with extra information available on the tabs.)

Regards
Nigel
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Nigel Johnson

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #109 on: March 03, 2012, 07:01:08 am »

The sharpening on the autumn trees was set quite high, at "4.". The portraits were at "2."

All in sRGB too so that they look good online. Really hard to tell much from those. The trees did look very "crunchy."  :o

Michael

It should also be noted that the autumn trees picture was also using the in-camera HDR setting (Exposure setting: HDR Art Vivid) and is therefore a composite from a number of images - I wonder if there was some softness (before the high sharpening) due to subject movement (or camera movement) between the images.

Regards
Nigel
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Bernard ODonovan

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #110 on: March 03, 2012, 08:24:55 am »

I checked these D4 samples out late last night:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/03/03/nikond4studiosamples

The lack of significant improvement over the D3S is good news for Canon.

Digital Rev showed a side by side on the noise improvement of the 5D3 over the 5D2 at high iso in their Video blog

The 1DX and 5D3 will find favor with some. It looks like Canon have made great cameras. The 1DX could be a new king of low light with the 5D3 not far behind.

The D800 looks cheap compared to the D4 given it is almost the same in many ways. That makes the 5D3 look pricey. Canon have played the Marketing segment card by cutting the 5D3 back in areas, so that price difference is all the more obvious. Build not quite that of the 1 series and the flagship new metering not included.

I suspect the 5D3 will be good enough and the missing 1 series bits and increased price will not have that much of a negative impact on potential buyers when people consider what this new camera can do...
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 12:58:20 pm by Bernard ODonovan »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #111 on: March 03, 2012, 09:36:42 am »

What most users complained about the 5D mk 2 was 1) poor DR,

Really? I don't remember seeing many of those, at least not here at LL.

DR seemed to be mostly a non issue for Canon shooters until the announcement of the 5D3. Especially those photographers using both a 5DII and a MFDB were seemingly just assuming that what they were getting with the 5DII was simply the DSLR standard. ;)

Phaseone is going to suffer most from the likely much improved DR of the 5D3 because many of their customers will finally realize that the DR advantage of the backs isn't that great compared to modern DSLRs.

Cheers,
Bernard

hjulenissen

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #112 on: March 03, 2012, 10:20:35 am »

Really? I don't remember seeing many of those, at least not here at LL.

DR seemed to be mostly a non issue for Canon shooters until the announcement of the 5D3.
After the introduction of the D7000, there was quite a lot of noise about Canon DR at base ISO.

-h
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Bernard ODonovan

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III : apparently no support for AF f5.6-f8.0?
« Reply #113 on: March 03, 2012, 12:35:51 pm »

Newb amateur here
Fab new bazillion-point AF, but for the bird-in-flight shooter and others using long teles with TC, it doesn't much matter. The IQ improvement at high ISO would be greatly welcomed by those of us still shooting with f5.6 or f8.0 slow long glass, but without AF at those apertures, the better high ISO IQ goes to waste, at least for BIF or fidgety songbirds. On the other hand, if I don't have a 500 f 4 in the immediate budget, why would I have the 5DMkIII in the immediate budget?

Canon has not rulled out fixing the F8 on the D1X so it could follow the same tweak could be made to the new 5D3

Canon has not confirmed it will no longer make 1.3 crop sensors. It would not surprise me if the 7D2 was moved up from 1.6 to 1.3 Crop with improved AF etc.

Hold out until more news comes of fixes or new bodies to suit your needs...
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Nigel Johnson

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #114 on: March 03, 2012, 12:47:22 pm »

The D800 looks cheap compared to the D4 given it is almost the same in many ways. That makes the 5D3 look pricey. Canon have played the Marketing segment card by cutting the 5D3 back in many areas, so that price difference is all the more obvious. Build not quite that of the 1 series. Distortion correction not included. The flagship new metering not included.

Distortion correction is included, see this extract from the specification on the Canon Professional Network European website (http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/cameras/eos_5d_mark_iii.do note you have to select the 'Specification' tab to see):


Image Processing
                Highlight Tone Priority
                Auto Lighting Optimizer (4 settings)
                Long exposure noise reduction
                High ISO speed noise reduction (4 settings)
                Auto Correction of Lens Peripheral illumination
                Chromatic aberration correction
                Distortion correction
                Resize to M1, M2 or S
                RAW image processing - during image Playback only
                Multiple exposure
                HDR images 5 presets

(Bold text is my highlighting.)

Regards
Nigel
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Bernard ODonovan

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #115 on: March 03, 2012, 01:01:35 pm »

Distortion correction is included, see this extract from the specification on the Canon Professional Network European website (http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/cameras/eos_5d_mark_iii.do note you have to select the 'Specification' tab to see):


Image Processing
                Highlight Tone Priority
                Auto Lighting Optimizer (4 settings)
                Long exposure noise reduction
                High ISO speed noise reduction (4 settings)
                Auto Correction of Lens Peripheral illumination
                Chromatic aberration correction
                Distortion correction
                Resize to M1, M2 or S
                RAW image processing - during image Playback only
                Multiple exposure
                HDR images 5 presets

(Bold text is my highlighting.)

Regards
Nigel

Hi Nigel

Thanks for finding that. I have read so many Canon specs with that very bit missing it seemed intentional. I am very pleased to see that they have included as it would have been a amendment to code already available for Marketing sake. Nice to see they have not done that!

I have amended my text

Cheers

B
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Hans Kruse

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #116 on: March 03, 2012, 01:09:14 pm »

One point many seem to miss when lamenting the lower pixel count of the 5DIII versus the D800 is that the D800 will have to have the very finest glass, focussed with critical precision and with no motion blur for the modest resolution increase to be even visible.  It will absolutely punish any slight misfocus if viewed at the sort of resolution that requires such a high pixel count.  It's likely some landscape/studio photographers will be able to benefit but, for any handheld use in anything but the best light, those extra pixels are a waste of card space.  Sure, 36 sounds more impressive than 22 but, since pixel counts got over 12Mp, the benefits of more pixels have got lost by real world factors in the majority of photographs taken.

Time will tell how good the 5DIII really is versus it's Nikon/Sony/Leica competition.  For now, however, it looks like most real drawbacks of an already very popular camera have been addressed in this new model.

I'm neutral in this debate, not having any modern Canon or Nikon gear.  If I was to go with one or the other, the decision wouldn't be made on the pixel count!

Don

One aspect of the higher resolution of the D800 is diffraction. On my 1Ds mkIII I see a clear difference in 100% details going from f/8 to f/11. The D800 would need to be stopped down to f/5.6 to get all details.

This means for landscape shooters that they either will not utilize the full resolution of the D800 or will have to do focus stacking. I'm certainly not saying that all landscape pictures need to to be stopped down to f/8 but a large percentage of how I shoot need to be stopped down to f/8 or f/11 and sometimes f/16 where a real serious loss of resolution is seen. Less so on a print up to a super A2 which the largest I can print on my Epson 3880. I have tested focus stacking using Helicon Focus and I probably have not quite fine tuned it yet. I see some types of pictures work just fine, but others have serious halo problems.

I'm not trying to defend Canon or saying that the D800 is the wrong product for landscape, but for sure the resolution advantage will not always be seen in reality.

Deep

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #117 on: March 03, 2012, 02:17:01 pm »

One aspect of the higher resolution of the D800 is diffraction. On my 1Ds mkIII I see a clear difference in 100% details going from f/8 to f/11. The D800 would need to be stopped down to f/5.6 to get all details.

This means for landscape shooters that they either will not utilize the full resolution of the D800 or will have to do focus stacking. I'm certainly not saying that all landscape pictures need to to be stopped down to f/8 but a large percentage of how I shoot need to be stopped down to f/8 or f/11 and sometimes f/16 where a real serious loss of resolution is seen. Less so on a print up to a super A2 which the largest I can print on my Epson 3880. I have tested focus stacking using Helicon Focus and I probably have not quite fine tuned it yet. I see some types of pictures work just fine, but others have serious halo problems.

I'm not trying to defend Canon or saying that the D800 is the wrong product for landscape, but for sure the resolution advantage will not always be seen in reality.

I'm sure diffraction will further reduce the theoretical resolution advantage the D800 has over the 5DIII, especially in the important area of landscapes.  I notice, though, that often photos taken with apertures small enough to be affected by diffraction look sharper, simply because less of the scene is out of focus.  It will be interesting to see how images from these cameras compare at, say, f16.  I sometimes stopped down to f19 or f22 in film days and got wonderful enlargements - we simply didn't pixel peep then!

Don
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 02:27:23 pm by Deep »
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Don

DeanChriss

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #118 on: March 03, 2012, 02:17:54 pm »

I'm another who is of the opinion that more than 20-something megapixels in a 35mm full frame format is pretty much a waste. That's simply because of the small sensor format and the huge amount of magnification required to take it to large print dimensions. Lens diffraction, focus inaccuracy, and every other quality issue are magnified equally, so it's between difficult and impossible to get much more than 20-something MP of true resolution out of any 35mm format sensor. You certainly can get more pixels, but they don't necessarily translate into more information or better print quality. I'd think those who truly need more resolution than a good 20+ MP 35mm format camera can provide would be far better off spending their money on medium format. It costs considerably more, but an increased MP count in a larger format makes a difference that can actually be seen. Perhaps 30 MP would be nice, but it's on the far outside fringes of what's usable with the best prime lenses (certainly not any zoom), stopped down to their optimal apertures (say F5.6 or possibly F8), mounted on a camera that's fused to bedrock, or at least a very heavy tripod. Not many people actually shoot like that. Of course all this is just my opinion, and it along with $5 will buy a fine cup of coffee somewhere.
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DaveCurtis

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Re: Canon 5D Mark III official...
« Reply #119 on: March 03, 2012, 02:35:01 pm »

It should also be noted that the autumn trees picture was also using the in-camera HDR setting (Exposure setting: HDR Art Vivid) and is therefore a composite from a number of images - I wonder if there was some softness (before the high sharpening) due to subject movement (or camera movement) between the images.

Regards
Nigel

Thanks for that Nigel. Good spot!
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