For the 5D Mark III, you should have engaged Highlight Tone Priority and re-shot the dynamic range samples Nasim. You get a lot more raw headroom in the files with this engaged, and it only limits the ISO range from 200-25,800. When HTP is engaged, it opens up Canon sensors to being much more malleable in post with raw files. Even with this limitation, the ISO range natively is still a full stop more than the D800/E cameras, you lose out on the base ISO setting but this is a near negligible concern.
Pradeep Kumar Panga
May 6, 2023 2:12 pm
Canon 5D Mark III was released in 2012 not 2008.
Richard
February 23, 2023 7:08 am
Found a typo right at the beginning on photographylife.com/revie…d-mark-iii Overview page. The 5D Mark III was released in 2012. The 5D Mark II was released in 2008. Feel free to delete this message after fixing the typo.
M
July 4, 2017 6:50 pm
Hello. I would like to ask a few questions about one of the photos used in the review: the photo of the church interior (on the first page). It’s beautiful, and yet, it looks completely different from the one that was also shot and used in the Nikon D800 review. Do they look that way because you used two different brand cameras? Or is it because you used different post-processing techniques? Or both? Also, from your experience of taking those photos, which shot more closely resembled the actual interior (in terms of colors/tones) in-person? Thank you for your time.
Ed Wolkis
April 9, 2016 1:46 pm
Hi Nasim, great review! I do a lot of architectural photography, and although I love the combination of the Mark 3 with a Canon 16-35 L lens, I have one major issue. When shooting in a situation with bright windows, or for instance a commercial setting with a black ceiling and bright industrial lights, I experience a problem with ghosting and flare. I recently upgraded to the newer version of the 16-35 lens, it helped somewhat but is still a major problem. Any ideas? By the way, interestingly, on one occasion when I didn’t need as much w/a coverage I was able to switch to a cheap 24-105 lens that I got for an extra 100 bucks in a bundle deal, and it was much better!
copajaus
September 4, 2013 3:17 pm
Hi,
I thought I had to share my experience with the 5D Mark 3. From around 1999 to early 2013 I was a Canon user, my latest camera being the 5D Mark 3. I did not experienced the light leak issue, it looked fine to me however: In August 2012 I was at a Sport event with the 5D and a 70-300 L lens using fast burst shooting at 6fps. After a few burst, the camera decided to be 4 stops under in all the pictures… pretty annoying when you have taken a few hundred shots… I never worked what was going on, I checked all the parameters but could not understand this erratic behaviour. The camera in my opinion can become quite unpredictable sometimes with specific lenses. I found as well that the AF system is way too complex to understand, too many options I think. Anyhow, before thr 5D Mark 3 I had a 1ds Mark 3 and I actually prefered the 1ds… easier to understand and reliable. Since then I moved back to Nikon bought a D800 a collection of lenses… and never looked back. For speed I am looking at a D4 as a second body. Looking forwardto read Nasim’s Review…
Cheers.
Dom.
riaan de villiers
May 11, 2013 7:19 am
hi nasim thanks for your great reviews – best on the web in my view. however, you have not yet replied to yves’s comment, which raises a vital point. i shoot landscapes with a 5d mark 2 and have also found that raw images processed with DPP are FAR superior to those processed in ACR. DPP obviously has fewer controls, and those it has are relatively crude, but the base result is so much better than ACR that it’s far better to go that route and perform additional processing in PS. The difference is very marked and actually astonishing – i can only ascribe this to the fact, mentioned by Yves, that Canon knows exactly what its logarithms are, while ACR is only guessing. While I have only eyeballed the difference, I agree with Yves that this should have a marked impact on formal image comparisons. ??? plse comment … thanks, riaan
Debadatta Maharana
April 1, 2013 10:35 am
Dear Nasim, Request you to throw some light on the combination of 5D Mark III with EF 300 mm f/2.8 with an extender II. Will the autofocus work in this combination ? Even though I will be satisfied with 5D Mark III with EF 300mm, some time out of temptation, would like to use the extender to reach out far off objects. Thanks and regards Rana
yves
February 5, 2013 4:20 am
Sorry to still disagree !
For your culture even if old here are some expert speaking :
Enjoy, I cannot talk for ever on that and this is basic optical physic that you seems not to understand somewhere….
Regards y
yves
February 5, 2013 1:45 am
Sorry to say No, optical calculation says no to your assumptions. As well why does the canon 1 DX and the Nikon D4 get pixels size @ respectively 6.9 and 7.2 microns! to get NO Diffraction up to around F:11 and more for the D4, and to have more sensitivity in ISO….This is not only to get fast shooting sequences!!! Remember Diffraction with the D 800 starts at F:8….As well I really want to know what is the tool that you have been using to make your measurements to assess such things, physic is against it, A printer is not resolving enough and a screen can’t show watch you’re saying as well. If you like Nikon that’s alright you have the right to have preferences…
6.9-7.3 versus 4.88µm for the D800 means diffraction will be noticed at wider apertures, that is a given but still, the finer pitch means that at any aperture, even past the point of diffraction will still produce more detail and data per unit of pitch. That is physics, the relationship of aperture edges to size of lens are the only factors in determining diffraction. Even if diffraction at an extreme causing the interference patterns equal to the diameter of the detector, an extreme case indeed, it would still resolve just slightly less than the D4 or 5DIII at their theoretically best resolution, with an infinite aperture. But introduce any diffraction inducing apertures to the D4 and 5DIII and even with their lower resolution, with less acuity than theoretical peak resolution will result. What is so mysterious about this, it is well known over hundreds of years of telescope design and application and is no different with film or digital. Finer grained film even after diffraction was capable of capturing finer detail than courser gain film.
There is a lot of confusion of what diffraction is and isn’t. The fact that a higher resolution detector sees the impact of diffraction before a low resolution detector has little to do with the detector other than it can detect differences in interference patterns created by different lenses and apertures at smaller Airy Disk diameters before a lower resolution detector. Try this analogy: If you measure a board with a measuring tape marked in cm and measure the same board with a tape in mm, the latter tape will show a great deal more data detail than the former tape. The tape did not change the board or reality, it just allowed finer resolving of the data. The board still looks the same from a given perspective. Add diffraction to the both tapes, say 1/2mm. The latter tape will show more ambiguity than it did before, and will be called Diffraction limited. But it STILL out resolves the cm tape by a wide margin. Diffraction impact on a given optics and detection system is based on the best a system can resolve versus what that same system can resolve after diffraction set in. Comparing to another system means nothing. So, sure the ultimate resolving power of a D800 is lowered a little by diffraction, it surely does happen but even at high apertures its 4.88µm diameter detector is going to resolve more than a 7µm diameter detector. The courser sensor just means that to see the impact of diffraction it has to be really bad because although it is there regardless of whether a detector can resolve it, the courser detector only notices it with it is more dramatic. But it is also does not notice fine scene detail either. The diffraction is there, but the lower res camera just can’t capture enough fine detail to notice it. If you care about detail, the mm tape is a better tool regardless of system diffraction. If your understanding of diffraction was correct, we would not need extremely large primary lens telescopes, because they are diffraction limited sooner than a small diameter backyard telescope. Even with diffraction, there is finer resolving power to the larger optical system so luckily, astronomers and physicists do not believe the same as you. Nor do photographers.
For the 5D Mark III, you should have engaged Highlight Tone Priority and re-shot the dynamic range samples Nasim. You get a lot more raw headroom in the files with this engaged, and it only limits the ISO range from 200-25,800. When HTP is engaged, it opens up Canon sensors to being much more malleable in post with raw files. Even with this limitation, the ISO range natively is still a full stop more than the D800/E cameras, you lose out on the base ISO setting but this is a near negligible concern.
Canon 5D Mark III was released in 2012 not 2008.
Found a typo right at the beginning on photographylife.com/revie…d-mark-iii Overview page. The 5D Mark III was released in 2012. The 5D Mark II was released in 2008. Feel free to delete this message after fixing the typo.
Hello. I would like to ask a few questions about one of the photos used in the review: the photo of the church interior (on the first page). It’s beautiful, and yet, it looks completely different from the one that was also shot and used in the Nikon D800 review. Do they look that way because you used two different brand cameras? Or is it because you used different post-processing techniques? Or both? Also, from your experience of taking those photos, which shot more closely resembled the actual interior (in terms of colors/tones) in-person? Thank you for your time.
Hi Nasim, great review! I do a lot of architectural photography, and although I love the combination of the Mark 3 with a Canon 16-35 L lens, I have one major issue. When shooting in a situation with bright windows, or for instance a commercial setting with a black ceiling and bright industrial lights, I experience a problem with ghosting and flare. I recently upgraded to the newer version of the 16-35 lens, it helped somewhat but is still a major problem. Any ideas?
By the way, interestingly, on one occasion when I didn’t need as much w/a coverage I was able to switch to a cheap 24-105 lens that I got for an extra 100 bucks in a bundle deal, and it was much better!
Hi,
I thought I had to share my experience with the 5D Mark 3.
From around 1999 to early 2013 I was a Canon user, my latest camera being the 5D Mark 3. I did not experienced the light leak issue, it looked fine to me however:
In August 2012 I was at a Sport event with the 5D and a 70-300 L lens using fast burst shooting at 6fps. After a few burst, the camera decided to be 4 stops under in all the pictures… pretty annoying when you have taken a few hundred shots… I never worked what was going on, I checked all the parameters but could not understand this erratic behaviour. The camera in my opinion can become quite unpredictable sometimes with specific lenses. I found as well that the AF system is way too complex to understand, too many options I think.
Anyhow, before thr 5D Mark 3 I had a 1ds Mark 3 and I actually prefered the 1ds… easier to understand and reliable.
Since then I moved back to Nikon bought a D800 a collection of lenses… and never looked back. For speed I am looking at a D4 as a second body. Looking forwardto read Nasim’s Review…
Cheers.
Dom.
hi nasim
thanks for your great reviews – best on the web in my view. however, you have not yet replied to yves’s comment, which raises a vital point. i shoot landscapes with a 5d mark 2 and have also found that raw images processed with DPP are FAR superior to those processed in ACR. DPP obviously has fewer controls, and those it has are relatively crude, but the base result is so much better than ACR that it’s far better to go that route and perform additional processing in PS. The difference is very marked and actually astonishing – i can only ascribe this to the fact, mentioned by Yves, that Canon knows exactly what its logarithms are, while ACR is only guessing. While I have only eyeballed the difference, I agree with Yves that this should have a marked impact on formal image comparisons. ??? plse comment … thanks, riaan
Dear Nasim,
Request you to throw some light on the combination of 5D Mark III with EF 300 mm f/2.8 with an extender II. Will the autofocus work in this combination ? Even though I will be satisfied with 5D Mark III with EF 300mm, some time out of temptation, would like to use the extender to reach out far off objects.
Thanks and regards
Rana
Sorry to still disagree !
For your culture even if old here are some expert speaking :
www.northlight-images.co.uk/downl…mits_2.pdf
and
clarkvision.com/image…iffraction
An outside comment for you, that I did not write either
theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_o…ixels.html
Enjoy, I cannot talk for ever on that and this is basic optical physic that you seems not to understand somewhere….
Regards
y
Sorry to say No, optical calculation says no to your assumptions. As well why does the canon 1 DX and the Nikon D4 get pixels size @ respectively 6.9 and 7.2 microns! to get NO Diffraction up to around F:11 and more for the D4, and to have more sensitivity in ISO….This is not only to get fast shooting sequences!!! Remember Diffraction with the D 800 starts at F:8….As well I really want to know what is the tool that you have been using to make your measurements to assess such things, physic is against it, A printer is not resolving enough and a screen can’t show watch you’re saying as well. If you like Nikon that’s alright you have the right to have preferences…
6.9-7.3 versus 4.88µm for the D800 means diffraction will be noticed at wider apertures, that is a given but still, the finer pitch means that at any aperture, even past the point of diffraction will still produce more detail and data per unit of pitch.
That is physics, the relationship of aperture edges to size of lens are the only factors in determining diffraction. Even if diffraction at an extreme causing the interference patterns equal to the diameter of the detector, an extreme case indeed, it would still resolve just slightly less than the D4 or 5DIII at their theoretically best resolution, with an infinite aperture. But introduce any diffraction inducing apertures to the D4 and 5DIII and even with their lower resolution, with less acuity than theoretical peak resolution will result.
What is so mysterious about this, it is well known over hundreds of years of telescope design and application and is no different with film or digital. Finer grained film even after diffraction was capable of capturing finer detail than courser gain film.
There is a lot of confusion of what diffraction is and isn’t. The fact that a higher resolution detector sees the impact of diffraction before a low resolution detector has little to do with the detector other than it can detect differences in interference patterns created by different lenses and apertures at smaller Airy Disk diameters before a lower resolution detector.
Try this analogy: If you measure a board with a measuring tape marked in cm and measure the same board with a tape in mm, the latter tape will show a great deal more data detail than the former tape. The tape did not change the board or reality, it just allowed finer resolving of the data. The board still looks the same from a given perspective. Add diffraction to the both tapes, say 1/2mm. The latter tape will show more ambiguity than it did before, and will be called Diffraction limited. But it STILL out resolves the cm tape by a wide margin. Diffraction impact on a given optics and detection system is based on the best a system can resolve versus what that same system can resolve after diffraction set in. Comparing to another system means nothing.
So, sure the ultimate resolving power of a D800 is lowered a little by diffraction, it surely does happen but even at high apertures its 4.88µm diameter detector is going to resolve more than a 7µm diameter detector. The courser sensor just means that to see the impact of diffraction it has to be really bad because although it is there regardless of whether a detector can resolve it, the courser detector only notices it with it is more dramatic. But it is also does not notice fine scene detail either. The diffraction is there, but the lower res camera just can’t capture enough fine detail to notice it. If you care about detail, the mm tape is a better tool regardless of system diffraction.
If your understanding of diffraction was correct, we would not need extremely large primary lens telescopes, because they are diffraction limited sooner than a small diameter backyard telescope. Even with diffraction, there is finer resolving power to the larger optical system so luckily, astronomers and physicists do not believe the same as you. Nor do photographers.