Canon 5DIII: It has Arrived!

As you can guess by the title, my 5D has arrived. So to christen my new camera I took it out to Vitruvian Park and shot some portraits and sports at high ISO. I've got to say, wow, it's pretty amazing.

A little bit of wear on the bottom of the grip, a small scratch on the rear screen, but other than that, not a scratch anywhere else.

Look at that nice big beautiful screen. Tiny little scratch, but oh well. Handling and build quality are excellent. The viewfinder is incredible.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, 85mm, 1/125th, f/1.2, ISO 12800.

Portraits at ISO 12800, never thought so until today. Details are pretty well preserved and noise is handled pretty well. Colors depth is pretty good as well, and that's usually the first thing to really show at higher ISOs. Met these lovely people as I was walking through the park and took a photo.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, 85mm, 1/800th, f/1.2, ISO 25600.

Sports, yea, it handles that too. AF is a huge improvement over the original 5D and the 5D Mark II. Can you guess that ISO? It's 25600. That's right. No miss-print, and taken with the 85L, which is notorious for bad AF. With the 5DIII's AF system however, it did an amazing job tracking the subjects across the field. It was a pleasure to see these guys playing soccer in the park. They were all quite good.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM, 24mm, 1/100th, f/1.4, ISO 6400.

Flags in honor of Veterans Day, November 11th. ISO 6400 looks really quite nice. The colors are beautiful, and the noise performance is quite good.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, 85mm, 1/80th, f/1.2, ISO 25600.

Met a very cute 8 week French Pug in the park. It liked to chew on leaves. The grain pattern on the 5D Mark III is pretty nice, even at ISO 25600. The detail is amazing even at high ISOs.

Headed to the Arts District of Dallas this weekend to play the Fisk organ at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas with some of my classmates. It is quite a beautiful instrument and room.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM, 35mm, 1/100th, f/1.4, ISO 3200.

The 5D Mark III and the 35L paired together for some beautiful environmental portraits. ISO 3200 is stunning. Almost no noise, which is brilliant. Had the ability to use the silent shutter mode while some of my colleagues were playing. The sound barely noticeable, and it did not bother them while they were playing. This camera is one heck of an event camera with it's AF performance, ISO performance, and silent shutter.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, 85mm, 1/1600th, f/1.2, ISO 100.

The reflection pond outside of the Meyerson Symphony Center. Low ISO performance is beautiful, as expected. Detail is amazing. I used the outer focus points on the 5D Mark III for this photo and even with the 85L, the focus is spot on. No micro-adjustment needed for the auto focus system. It just works, and it works beautifully.

Processed RAW: Canon 5D Mark III, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, 14mm, f/8, 1/1600th, ISO 100.

Unprocessed RAW: Canon 5D Mark III, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, 14mm, f/8, 1/1600th, ISO 100.

The Ross Tower in downtown Dallas. Taking a look at the dynamic range, it's actually pretty good. It's not as good as the Sony sensors, but its not too far behind. There is still some noise issues when you push the shadows, but take a loot at the original, and see just how much you can push the file. The unprocessed file makes it look like there is nothing in the shadows but somehow there is data there. Supposedly with the Magic Lantern hack you can achieve Sony like sensor performance by shooting dual ISOs and interlacing the file. I haven't personally done it yet, but I look forward to trying that. Either way, pretty great sensor performance, and much better than the original 5D and 5D Mark II.

Some of you might notice that the photo above was taken with the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and think; "Hey, that's a crop sensor lens on a full frame camera. How does that work?" Well as it turns out, it 14-16mm covers a full frame sensor. I'll be posting a review on the Tokina with more details and example images later in the week.

To view other photos from this camera and view photos in high resolution, head over to my Flickr page where I have the photos posted in full resolution, and check out the results for your self!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottscheetz/albums/72157661192360592

Well, that's about it for this blog post. I'm excited about the 5D Mark III, and I'm looking forward to sharing more images and thoughts as I spend more time with this camera. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a response below.