For all you tech heads out there, you probably already have a new Canon Mark III or you’ve been lusting after one with drool running down your chin. Me, I didn’t want one. They were rushed into the market last year with WAY TOO MANY problems; problems that, frankly, I didn’t want to deal with. I had my Mark II and the classic 1D, which I used as a glorified lens holder, and that was good enough for me. Yes, a slightly bigger sensor would be nice, a lighter body would be nice, and an expanded ISO would definitely be nice. But the focus issues that were coming out of the Mark III sounded horrific, so horrific that I decided I didn’t need or want one. So when my boss informed me at the beginning of the year that we would be getting Mark IIIs for the two of us remaining staff photographers who didn’t have one, I wasn’t supper excited. I had spent the last year pretending not care about the new body. I hadn’t read any tech reviews, I hadn’t read about the new firmware that has mostly fixed the focus issues. All I knew was that the new body sucked in the heat. As soon as the Mark IIIs arrived in the building, I buried my head in Rob Galbraith’s web page (www.robgalbraith.com) and started learning the pros and cons of the still not quite right Mark III.
Lots of reading and downloading test frames later, I discovered that the new “blue dot” cameras that were shipped to us came complete with the new firmware (v1.1.3) and the “sub-mirror” fix, which significantly improved the focus issues. A few more in camera adjustments’, including a custom function “microadjustment”, and the new body was ready to be taken into the field. The results were STUNNING.
One of my first assignments I shot the body at was district swimming at a local high school. Not only was it dark, dark, dark, it was also hot, hot, hot inside the building. Hot like 90 degrees hot with matching humidity. HOT and STEAMY. I was planning on setting up a small strobe in a corner but when I got there, I discovered there was really no place to put it, so I decided I would test out the expanded ISO. (The old bodies go from 100 ISO – 1600 ISO, with anything over 1000 ISO coming with a heaping side helping of digital noise. The Mark III comes with a standard ISO range of 100-6400) I set up at the very edge of sports shooting parameters 1/320 sec., f2.8 which left me an ISO of 2000. Kind of nervous that I would end up with nothing but grainy, noisy frames I began to blast away. I checked in with LCD screen on the back of the camera a couple of times and the frames looked okay, so I left my settings as they were and crossed my fingers. Turns out, focusing problems or not, the Mark III ROCKS at high ISOs, producing frames with very little noise. I’d shoot it any day and twice on Friday nights.
The Mark III does stellar at strobed basketball, where its focusing issues are negated due to the fact that you can only shoot one frame a second due to the recycle times on the strobes.
And, of course, the expanded ISO makes it possible to shoot at higher shutter speeds and therefore stop action more effectively. (Also stops water splash like no one’s business.)
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