Pardon the horrible iPhone photos of my Canon 5D MKIII. This was an impulse blog.

I have been getting a lot of questions on Facebook so I thought I would post my initial thoughts based on the limited testing I have been able to do with it.

The way the new camera body feels in my hand is great. I love the way it fits in my hand. My MKII fit well but I would get tired of gripping it after hours of holding it. I can tell that this camera is going to feel better throughout long days of shooting.

The shutter is fast. Not any quieter than the previous camera but the shutter sound is snappier and the noise produced is over with faster. This was always one thing I hated about being a photographer at weddings, there is no way for me to be completely silent. Perhaps the new Canon 1D X will have that silent shutter mode I keep hearing about.

The menu system is completely different. There are some similarities from it’s older brother the MKII but it’s quite different and is going to take some getting used to for me. I know the MKII inside and out. I could change something deep in the menu in milliseconds to avoid missing a shot. There are many more menu screens than before. I will have to take advantage of custom shoot modes to prevent having to go through all of the menu screens. Lets take a look at some of the menus.

The first thing that threw me off was the auto focus presets in the Auto Focus Config Tool. There are 6 Cases they give you, I think they make more sense as presets. You can adjust the cases to fit your needs. This is suppose to help you tell auto focus what you want it to do instead of letting it run wild. I know that at weddings this is going to be great, and for those who shoot fast moving sports it will be fantastic. Auto Focus has always been one of those things that I am glad I have but hated using because it was so inconsistant when you needed it. When that moment comes for the groom to kiss the bride, I am locked down with auto focus turned off. I don’t want the camera to even have the opportunity to think about focusing elsewhere. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

The Custom Function Menu in the Canon 5D MKIII is actually easy to use now. Before there was a silly menu that I set and avoided because it was not easy to understand in the moment where my attention is elsewhere. Now you don’t have to remember what 1 or 2 means, you can see what you are changing in the menu. This will get me to what I want to accomplish much quicker

This brings me to the HDR feature of the Canon 5D MKIII. On first impression, I have to say that I am not very impressed with the built in effects. I played around with it outside in the middle of the day and was embarrassed with the outcome. I tried hand holding the camera to take a bracket of three photos. The result was slightly worse than the iPhone 4′s HDR. I set the in camera effect to vivid and I can’t say that is what I got. I know that I need to spend more time with the camera to give it a fair chance but even setting the camera on a flat surface, turning off in camera effects and simply letting it create the HDR image did not present me with the outcome I expected. To be fair, I am used to using PhotomatixPro on my Mac. I understand that a software program on a computer is going to do a better job than a camera could on it’s own.

Overall I am very impressed with the camer and am glad I purchased it. To me, it is worth the extra cost over it’s older brother. The image quality at high ISO is worth the extra money to me. One thing I did notice when trying to take a photo at ISO 20,000 (I know right), is that auto focus is impossible in that dark of situations. Canon actually built a camera that can take great pictures in the dark, but can’t focus for them. This was my other main concern. The 5D MKIII has superior focus over the previous version however it still lacks focus ability in the dark. Perhaps the Canon 1D X that is soon to release will be better in the dark.

Do I suggest you purchase one? That is a loaded question. It really depends on what you will be shooting. If you shoot weddings or fast moving objects, than yes I suggest you get it because it is far superior to previous versions of the camere including the 60D and 7D, both of which I have owned before.

Below I am posting a photo I took in very low light in my room of my son sleeping. I shot this image at ISO 20,000 at 1/100th and 1.6. This image is untouched and fresh out of the camera. I set my camera to capture medium RAW + medium JPG. What you are looking at is the medium JPG the camera produced.

As for video, I have not spent much time playing with it. I simply wanted to see what video looked like with the ISO maxed out. I will continue to play with it and report my thoughts. I will be shooting a lot of video with this camera this year as I have several weddings booked for videography this year. I am very excited to get to shoot wedding videos this year.

Anyhow, I just wanted to post some of my thoughts on the camera so far. I will probably blog more about it later after I get my Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8L II USM lens in. I also have the Canon 1D X on pre-order however I am not sure if I am going to cancel that order or not. I know that I would have to travel at least 40 miles to get my hands on one so it’s almost easier just to order one.

The setup I used was similar to what I use when filming a wedding or doing interviews. In this instance I used a Canon 60D with a SmallHD field monitor, a wireless lapel mic, which you can see in one of the shots, and a monopod to stabilize everything. I shot everything with 50mm 1.2 lens. Everything was edited in Premier Pro CS5.5. Sean Ahrens rough cut the sequence and I finished it off with some final tweaks, text, motion and audio.

Marty Weintraub – aimClear – Author of Killer Facebook Ads

Brad Geddes – Certified Knowledge

Will Scott – CEO of Search Influence

I will continue to post some of the photos throughout the conference of people I get to hear speak. The rest of the photos will be able to be seen on the SMX website, Facebook and Twitter profile.

Search Marketing Expo West

[pinterest-pro type="pinit" pin_url="http://jeradhillphoto.com/a-family-of-four" pin_image_url="http://jeradhillphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cohen-birth-44-web-726x484.jpg" pin_counter="horizontal" pin_desc="Hospital Family Photo - http://jeradhillphoto.com"]

I should have had these images posted weeks ago because their wedding is coming up next month.

Let me explain the story behind the little stuffed piggy. As you can probably guess, it played a part in their engagement. I love creativity and Ben stepped up when it came to being fun and creative. He attached the ring to the little piggy’s nose as you can see in the photo and presented her with the stuffed piggy.

1. Login to your Pinterest account.
2. Go to http://jeradhillphoto.com/ and pin your favorite photos. The more photos you pin the more entries you get.

That’s it. I will choose the winner based on amount of pins, quality of pins and you will get bonus points if someone repins your pin.

Have fun! You have until Monday the 16th, which just so happens to be my 32nd Bday!

Follow me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jeradhill/

Filmed with:
Canon XF100
Gopro Hero2

Ok, back to Courtenay. So, I wish that we had someone there shooting behind the scenes video because we had a lot of fun walking around looking for spots to shoot at. She had a lot of outfits and I wanted to try and make use of them. Courtenay is a Senior at Beyer High School so I wanted to make sure her photos could hang with the best of them. Courtenay came across to me as a very well rounded person who has a wide range of interests. This came out in her photos with her outfits and the different moods we went for. We shot a lot of photos and got some great shots out of it.

Video

View it full screen! I know you want to.

Photo