CANON 5D Mark III - The wait is over - what's the verdict?
The scenery and people are amazing, the whole experience is enlightening. I've decided to shoot this part of the 'Re-Treat Me' on my Canon 5D Mark II my trusted work horse and ultra superb DSLR unit that shoots kick ass high video footage.
As of yesterday Canon have released the much awaited and rumoured Canon 5D Mark III. As a filmmaker I'm eager to get my hands on one of these to see what the improvements are and how the current shot I am on could benefit from it.
For a long time now I've heard and read a lot of rumours about what this camera will come out with which are mainly what people are wishing for really.
The 2nd of March 2012 smashed all the rumours and made it a reality. Here's what the Canon 5D Mark III will offer. Remember this still is a DSLR camera built for photographers so don't get to annoyed if it's not up to your expectations. I'm also merely going off what I am reading on the net and the press release from Canon - also gaining info from DSLR and filmmaking god Philip Bloom.
Canon 5D Mark III features and improvements up from the Mark II:
* New processor, greater image quality - slight improvement on moire and aliasing
* Jello effect from rolling shutter minimal
* Headphone jack so we can monitor sound!!! Oh and levels on screen we can change while recording!! Wowo!!!
* We can now record one continuous clip at just under 30 minutes!! This would be so awesome to have that here right now, as I'm only getting max 12 minutes at a time in one hit while recording speakers at this retreat. I can see this helping doco filmmakers and improving the way I tackle wedding videos now!
* Timecode is now apparent
* Better in low light now
* It still records in H264 whether they have changed bit rate etc is anyone's guess
* 50/60p make an appearance but only in 720p....why?
* 720p also shows up when you want to get a clean uncompressed signal out of the HDMI :/
* Price for body $3500 (US)
I guess if anything is you had a few EF lenses upgrading to the new body would be the way to go, it doesn't seem like a harsh jump in improvements but it's probably some finely tuned ones that we have all been crying out for in the filmmaking world.
Keen to try and buy one of these soon.
Pre-order the camera from here at B&H Photo.
Also sample pics and footage from the Mark III are available Canon 5D Mark III sample footage
Maybe I can contact a Canon representative here in Indonesia and get hold of the Canon 5D Mark III and set it through its paces on this retreat!
All in all this is good news for photographers and filmmakers.
Always shooting - Lucas