Thank you again.
The point is, that I guess our needs are comparable. So your pros & cons give me a good help in fixing my decission:
(Your) Pros, in order of importance (and now to me)
Clean high ISO (ISO6400 and maybe ISO8000 is very usable)
Dual card slots to backup image files
Class leading auto focus system
Silent shutter option
22MP is just the right resolution
(Improved weather sealing - not neccessary but always nice to have)
Additional:
usable out of camera JPEGs for most of my clients - saving me much time/money in processing
(Your) Cons, in order of importance (to me)
Inability to see the red flash in the viewfinder in bright light (but there is a workaround) and inability to see the dark focus point against dark objects (for which there is no current workaround, but Canon are aware of). This really is the only serious issue and it should never have happened.
- something I have to check for myself
The auto ISO options are too limited – EC in Manual and options to choose any shutter speed and third stop ISOs are essential (this is only important if you’re going to use Auto ISO, but I recommend you give it a try…)
- not that important to me - I do not understand the restrictions, too. But I guess I will be happy with the new possibilities.
The lower speed SD card slot (only an issue if you shoot large bursts and especially if you want to shoot RAW to one card and JPEG to the other)
- I do not like understand/like this, too. But I do not see any restrictions for my needs again. What I do not like is that (somebody mentioned I think it was Dmitri) if you save to both cards and want to delete an Image, it is not deleted automatically on both cards. That feels stupid to me.
Poor quality deep shadows (only an issue if you push shadows more than 2 stops regularly to increase dynamic range)
- Again no issue (for me). As far I see horizontal banding has gone. That while using ISO 6400 or higher with 5D 2 was one for me.
So for me it looks like there is one important con I have to check for myself: The AF point confirmation and visibility in VF.
I probably should have said something about JPEG quality but I never shoot JPEG so I'd probably just end up taking someone elses word for it..
Yes - the viewfinder is the only "real" issue with the camera as far as I'm concerned. Put it this way, if I was reviewing it, I'd be close to giving it a "nearly perfect" score of 95% or something, but this does knock it down to something like 90%. The other issues together are only worth 5%, but this is a 5% on it's own in my eyes.
Not that I like the idea of someone getting sacked, but it's one of those things where you think "hmm.. someone should really get sacked for not spotting this".
Auto ISO is an interesting one. Give it a go sometime. Fundamentally what it'll do is let you use the minimum ISO possible to capture the scene as you need to do. If they put EC in manual mode, it would be even better - I could set the shutter speed I need for a particular lens (1/60th for 50mm, 160th for 135mm non IS or whatever I choose) and the aperture I want and the camera will choose the minimum ISO for that combination. It makes sense in a lot of ways. It doesn't necessarily make sense if you're going to be changing EC a lot though, but that depends what you're photographing.
I really liked it for the dance shots (no way I could have changed camera settings quickly enough in the changing disco lighting) and the speeches (where the backgrounds were very similar all the time so I didn't need to mess with EC much).
I was very VERY impressed with how the ISO8000 shot turned out. Printed at A4 that will look fine. ISO12800 would be fine at 9x6 I suspect. I'll do some tests on actual prints...
Rent one for a weekend if you can. That's what I did before I decided to buy.
skibum5 wrote:
Yeah the 5D2 is prone to getting banding in the darkest parts of images at really high ISO, while the 5D3, even if it gets noisy of course as any camera does, doesn't have any of that ugly banding at high ISOs, not even at ISO 25,600 in poor lighting.
Definitely. That's a real big improvement over the 5d2. I was surprised how well it held onto the colours in the scene at high ISO too. There were still really nice tonal subtleties once NR had done it's work.
