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Canon 5D MkIII versus 5D MkII
When going on vacation and visiting my family back home, I had the opportunity to use and test my father's new Canon 5D MkIII camera which he bought as upgrade of his cropped-sensor based 40D camera model. I read many reviews about the 5D MkIII, but nothing is better to explore myself this camera and get my own opinion if it is worth to upgrade especially when you already own the predecessor model. I won't go into too much details, but will point to some major pros and cons which I became aware of when using the MkIII in comparison to my two existing MkII full frame models.
PROS:
AF: the biggest strength of the MkIII. The camera offers many options to select areas or single AF points out of 61. The AF system is copied from the professional 1D series obviously. I tested it in combination with the Canon 50/1.4 EF lens, and was surprised to see that even without previous microfocus adjustment and in difficult light situations the center of the focus was edge on at f/1.4. One shot was enough to get it perfect - something which was very hard to accomplish with the 9 AF point system of the MkII. I also like that the 5D III has AF points in the corner of the frame which is ideal for portraits. I did not test the AI Servo mode, but I believe that it tracks much better moving objects than the 5D MkII does.
- High ISO quality: this advantage of the MkIII is mentioned many times in reviews, and I have seen it at ISO 6400 when a friend of mine used his MkIII at this high ISO number. I personally prefer shooting at low ISO, so I didn't go up higher than ISO 640. Up to ISO 640, I didn't see a difference in IQ between MkIII and MkII.
- Electronic level: Fantastic! I really like this new feature in the MkIII which is displayed on the LCD display. Since I was mainly shooting with my tilt/shift lens, I relied a lot on accurate leveling of the camera on my tripod. Normally I am doing this with my MkIIs by using the bubble levelers on the tripod and the head. But the electronic leveler is a bit more accurate and allowed me to get the parallel and vertical lines of structures lined out correctly much more easily.
- 100% viewfinder: Finally, Canon! I always wished to have a semi-professional camera with 100% viewfinder coverage! It is real "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" without using LiveView. I got used to add 2% to the 98% viewfinder in my MkII cameras, but it is easy to forget to do it when you ahve 100% viewfinder coverage anyway! Just to go back to the 98% is not so easy....in my opinion another big plus of things to have in the MkIII.
- In-camera HDR: People were raving about this feature in reviews, and I was excited to test it myself. Well, I spent several hours with automatic and semi-automatic in-camera HDR modes in the MkIII, and overall I was personally disappointed with this feature. I decided to use the in-camera HDR first (up to 7 single shots which can be automatically quickly fired with different exposures and which are adjusted by the camera) and then to to it manually in the way I am used to do HDRs in my MkII. The MkIII provided me with an instant HDR in JPG file format to see how it can look. So far I didn't see a convincingly good in-camera HDR JPG file! I recommend using professional HDR software and post-process the photos accurately at home for good looking HDRs (I prefer the natural HDR look rather than the overcooked tonal one). You can simply use the created HDR RAW files saved in the automatic in-camera HDR mode - they were obviously the same as in my manually taken HDR files. Yes, the in-camera HDR is faster, but it saved me only a bit of time. It can be advantageous if no tripod is on hand, and shots have to be fired quickly out of the hand. A maybe nice to have feature which some will use more often than others I guess.
- Silent shutter mode: I can see this as an advantage for photographers who want to take photos in churches or in concert halls. To me - I couldn't care less. I realized later that the camera was in silent shutter mode all the time, I didn't even realize this during my shooting. As I said, okay to have, just that I have normally no need for it.
CONS:
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Biggest drawback of the 5D MkII was its limited AF capability which was exactly the same as in the older 5D classic. Now we got an excellent AF in the MkIII, but....the main drawback is the lack of new sensor development! This is where Canon cut back in this model - for some it is not a big issue who don't want to deal with larger file sizes or just with more MP. Others like me miss an upgrade of a new sensor, something similar to the Nikon/Sony Exmor sensor which has better resolution and higher dynamic range. I would love to have bigger files to be able to crop photos in case of wildlife shots on full frame for example. It didn't happen, for me it was disappointing news when I saw the sensor specs of the MkIII. Still the MkIII comes with new Digic5+ processors for more processing power. I am sure some processing algorithms also were improved compared to the MkII. But other than this, the IQ (especially at lower and normal ISO numbers) is the same as in the MkII. RAW file sizes are about the same as in my MkII what is expected.
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Ergonomics: I added this point underneath the cons because one major drawback compared to the MkII is the way to magnify photos on the camera screen - in the MkIII you have to press the zoom function on the left camera side first and then use the wheel on the right top camera side to zoom in or out. Something you get used to, but I didn't see it as an ergonomic improvement. The MkIII was sitting in my hand as well as the bit smaller MkII body - both are equal in handling otherwise.
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Price tag: the camera is simply expensive. It has come down now a bit to more reasonable numbers, many purchase it in the US via the Canon refurbished program. Some justify the price because of its professional AF system, but since it is copied from the 1D series, and I can't see why it makes this camera so expensive.
Overall the 5D MkIII would be my dream camera if it had a better/newer sensor in it which I consider the heart of any digital camera. I am not a wedding photographer or photo journalist who relies on quick and accurate AF. The expensive price tag makes it a bit unattractive against other options out there - the entry model full frame 6D camera for example or compared against the Nikon D800E for example. It really depends on the main usage of your camera(s) and your style in photography - I am more a scenery, landscape, architecture, macro, and fine art photographer, AF is just not so important to me. I decided to stick to my MkII camera models until Canon hopefully announces a successor model with (much) better sensor.
Film vs. Digital
Coming from the 35 mm film days, I was still an early adopter to the new digital photography age around 2001. I was eager to see the result of the taken shot instantaneously and to be in charge myself with the post-processing of my photos. I started first with a Sony CyberShot DSC-P5 point&shoot camera (3.2 MP but came in a nice Aluminum housing and with an excellent lens, I still have this little camera!). I lacked the option to have interchangeable lenses and manual modes in this camera, so later in 2005 I switched to my first DSLR, the classic 8 MP Canon Rebel XT. I was always wishing back the full frame 35 mm sensor format (I never felt really comfortable with the cropped APS-C sensor), so I finally upgraded to full frame with the Canon 5D MkII in 2009 which I am using since. The 21 MP image quality is excellent especially at lower ISO numbers. Since about 8 years I didn't touch my film camera and always assumed that the digital sensor can deliver at least very similar results.
Until now: a friend of mince convinced me to test out the 35 mm Fujichrome Provia 100F slide film which supposedly enhances the color saturation. I re-activated my older Canon EOS500 film SLR camera with this 36 slide film (surprise, when I added both of the two removed eight years old Lithium 3V batteries into the camera, they were fully charged and functional!). I took my SLR camera on several trips to shoot with it in parallel to my 5D MkII DSLR camera - often I even composed exactly the same motive for later comparison.
This blog describes my findings in regard to differences and similarities comparing side by side my film and my digital photos. The slide film was developed in a professional photo studio and the negatives scanned via E-scan and saved as medium-sized JPG files (3-4 MB size), good enough for some minor post-processing. For a higher resolution scan I would have been charged a lot more, about $3 for each photo to be scanned and saved as Hi-Res TIFF file. Since I didn't know the outcome and quality of the final photos, I decided to stick to the cheapest E-Scan option. Overall I paid for film development, scanning, photo CD and shipping plus tax $34.51.
People watching my postings on my website here might be already familiar with some of the photo motives which I present here in this blog. Be aware that I used the same lenses for the presented photos, same apertures and similar exposure times at ISO 100 to allow valid comparison.
Beginning of November last year we had a bit of early snowfall in East NJ, so I used the opportunity to take a few landscape photos in my neighborhood. I will always post here the digital photo on the left and the film photo on the right.
You can instantly see that the red and brown color tones appear more saturated in the film photography whereas the original digital file came out a lot more blueish. I had to change to warmer color temperature to get close to the snow in the more original looking film photo. The digital photo is a notch sharper but this can be also due to the lower resolution scan of my film photo.
In the second scenery photo below I tested the high contrast performance - purposely I did not want to create a HDR here but stick to the original shot only.
Main difference is the difference in the sky color - more dark blue in the film photo, also we see more saturation in the remaining fall foliage and in the water reflection. Overall the film photo has a stronger contrast, too.
Both cameras were with me on a trip to visit a few lighthouses at the NJ coastline. It was a clear and sunny late fall day, so I had an ideal situation to test the film performance in the settling afternoon sunlight which is richer in yellow and red tones. The first comparison shows the Cape May lighthouse below:
Again we see stronger orange/reddish color saturation in the film photo on the right with a different blue in the sky. The digital photos on the other hand expresses better the green foliage which appears more as a brown in the film photo. The film photo appears warmer while the digital one has a colder touch. We can see this trend consistently in all photos here.
Afternoon sunlight at the East Point lighthouse showed an even bigger difference especially in the reed in the foreground. I even had to reduce the saturation of the film photo to make it more realistic.
The Red Mill in Clinton/NJ offered another possibility for testing with a lot warmer tones in the film photo:
Interesting also the difference in the photos of the old quarry building next to the mill which includes a bunch of colors on the outside:
More examples revealing differences in the saturation are shown in the following examples:
An indoor shot taken inside the St. Augustine lighthouse in Florida also reveals differences in the color saturation. The film exceeds a bit in the reddish tones here: and the higher contrast does not reveal the details in the stairs as much:
The color of the water reflection is not as nice and blueish as in the digital photo on the left, but this is likely the result of having a higher saturation grade in the red which makes the water look more grey:
Overall the color is expressed much more saturated in this film as also seen below in the cathedral in St. Augustine, FL. I can definitely confirm that the film saturates strongly the red and yellow colors and has much more contrast in dark areas.
Who is the winner - film or digital? The simple answer is that there is no winner at all, it is like comparing apples and oranges. It all depends which kind of film is used and also which kind of setting provides the best effects for the available light. I did not expect to see such big difference here, but the confirmation of the effects of this high color saturating Provia film makes sense. I am sure that the development process of the film played another big role here, but this was out of my control.
For me at least it was a good experience to trust my manual film shooting skills which I learned more than 28 years ago with my first SLR camera. I can recommend shooting film even if you just started out in digital - it helps you focusing on the essence of photography and to be quantitatively and qualitatively selective before releasing the shutter of what to shoot.
Tilt Shift Lenses
Tilting and shifting either lens and/or film plane was commonly used in the old days with large format cameras (Ansel Adams camera for example). In today's market, the film or sensor plane can not be moved any longer in the DSLR or medium format cameras. Photographers need to rely on so-called manual focusing tilt/shift prime lenses which allow up and down or sideways movement of the lens plane as well as tilting it. Common focal lengths for tilt/shift (T/S) lenses are 17, 24, 45, and 90 mm for cropped and full frame DSLR cameras. But who can make use of T/S lenses, what are they good for?
Wide angle T/S lenses are commonly used in architecture and landscape photography, but also with longer lens focal lengths for closeup photography of jewelry, even sometimes for portrait work. Architectural photography commonly makes use of the shift function in the T/S lenses: Falling lines of tall buildings can be reduced or fully avoided. The image plane and therefore the focus are kept parallel to the subject. There are post processing programs out there which correct falling lines in photos taken with regular lenses, too. This gives a more natural look very similar to a photo taken with a T/S lens, but it will crop the photo without keeping the regular film or senor proportions of the negative or RAW file.
Shifted vertically, lines can be kept parallel to the subject which leads to a more natural look as seen in the central University building at Princeton University below. This was taken with Canon's 24/3.5 T/S lens where the lens was shifted 10 mm up.
Instead of shifting the lens vertically, sometimes it is useful to have it shifted horizontally to create a distortion-free panorama photo. The crosswalk photo is a stich of three single photos - one shifted horizontally fully to the left, one center one (not shifted), and one shifted to the right. Have a look at the pillars - they are all straight, only the one far left is bent a bit due to the lens angle towards the subject. By stiching three 24 mm T/S photos together, the field of view is similar to a 14 mm lens! Landscape photographers apply this technique to create a natural looking super-wide angle view.
Lens tilting can create the "miniature effect" - focusing on one specific subject in the frame, and making the surrounding area blurry. The photo below taken at the Red Mill in Clinton, NJ shows this effect - I used the few mm tilted 24/3.5 T/S lens in combination with a 2x teleconverter making it a 48 mm f/8 lens. The shallow depth of field surrounding the fisherman in the middle of the photo was only created by tilting the lens out of its focal plane following the Scheimpflug rules.
The lens was also shifted a bit up to have the sensor plane parallel to the corner wall side of the Red Mill behind. Combination of shift and tilt can work nicely, but it takes a bit trial and error to get used to. A camera equipped with LiveView is very helpful here since it allows you to see instantly the final composition of the photo.
Instead of creating more shallow depth of field, tilting the other way allows much deeper depth of field at a fairly low aperture number (more wide open aperture). The photo with the old barn in Valley Forge Park, PA is an example for this: To have both the brick wall in the front and the building in the back in focus, normally you would need a small aperture like f/22. This shot again was taken with my 24/3.5 T/S lens, but at an aperture of f/4.5. Tilting and shifting the lens in the right directions allows to focus both background and foreground reasonably sharp and keeping the sensor plane parallel to the structures. If you look closely, you will see that the plant branches in the middle are unsharp - the result of the Scheimpflug rules since the depth of field is no longer horizontally aligned when the lens is tilted!
T/S lenses take some patience and experience to get used to. You always need a tripod to work with a T/S lens. Also they do not come with AF. In case the lens is shifted and tilted, I recommend checking the focus confirmation with the enlarged area finder in LiveView. Exposure also changes with the shifted direction of the lens. But main disadvantage is the price - they still cost about $1K as used and older lens versions. Latest new T/S models are at least double this price. They have less vignetting and a better rotation system of tilt and shift being parallel or perpendicular. I am still using the older (first) version of Canon's 24 mm T/S lens, and so far I am fine with it, too. If you once get used to T/S lenses, you will always carry one with you if composition allows to use it for.
Bokeh Effect Explained
There is this weird thing in photography called "Bokeh" - often misunderstood as synonym for shallow depth of field. Yes, it is related to depth of field, but it is by far not the same. Bokeh is a Japanese word which means blur or haze, and is here in photography related to some artistic quality of the blur. The appearance of the bokeh effect mostly depends on the lens construction itself and the form of the lens aperture shapes. The more wide open the aperture, the better the bokeh normally - it is visible as circular patterns in the highlighted blurred background of a photo. The Christmas Light photo below demonstrates this effect with the circular pattern in the background. The photo was taken wide open at f/2.0 with a 135/2.0 lens.
It is mostly a matter of taste to like this effect or not - I personally love a beautiful and especially colorful bokeh effect in photos taken with a wider open aperture. Bokehs can look fairly unattractive at smaller apertures due to less circular shaped patterns (which means there are more edges visible leading to polygonal shapes and hard-edged bokeh). The more aperture blends a lens contains - preferably even with rounded edges - the better looking is normally the bokeh effect. The photo on the right was taken purposely to create this out-of-focus effect (135/2.0 at f/2.0).
How can we explain this effect from a technical point of view? In out-of-focus areas each point of light displays an image of the aperture of the lens, normally a round disc. Depending on the lens construction and the aperture used for the photo, you might see big full circular shapes, oval ones, or donut-like discs. The brightness of this disc largely depends on the lens correction, too (it means how they are corrected for spherical aberration). Some modern lenses use so called apodization filters to even enhance a smoother looking bokeh effect.
Often bokeh effects appear in the photo unexpectedly. When I took the shot shown below of a mockingbird (which was fairly aggressive against me when I disturbed it), I later found the nice looking bokeh discs on the left which fitted perfectly to the overall composition. This photo was taken at 400 mm focal length at a smaller aperture of f/7.1.
In my experience, the best bokeh effects can be often achieved by highlighted backgrounds, sun reflections from the side hitting foliage/leaves, light reflections on water or other shiny surfaces. You might see that some of your lenses are better than others in your collection to reveal a beautiful looking bokeh.
Prime versus Zoom
An old but often repeated question in photography - which kind of lenses are better, zoom or prime lenses? In my blog I share my experience by using both kind of lenses and where one is better than the other type.
When I first started many years ago in film photography, I herited two simple M42 thread based simple prime lenses with 28 and 50 mm focal lengths. I am still convinced today that starting out with a simple 50 mm prime lens (no need for a super fast lens copy at this point!) is the best way to learn about composition and photography. It still amazes me today what you can do with this focal length on full frame (this is the 35 mm film format). Just go a few steps forward or backward and voilà, you get the perfect composition even mostly distortion-free. It is a decent portrait lens to do either head shots at closer distance or family portraits from bit further away. And with a simple close-up lens or extension tube between lens and camera, the 50 mm lens can be converted into a decent macro lens, too - only to name a few examples. Recently I took this infrared photo below with my 50/1.2 prime lens - I had to walk to the right spot to frame it the way it is seen here, but no further processing was necessary in the composition!
Later in life I switched mostly to zoom lenses for several reasons: (a) Price: Decent zoom lenses are still quite a bit cheaper than faster prime lenses in a similar focal length.
(b) Convenience: the zoom lens covers a broader range of focal lengths which avoids changing lenses too often and having the risk of dust getting inside the camera and on the sensor. This can speed up the "snapshot" effort to capture something quickly - in case a prime lens needs to be changed first, the critical moment will have vanished for sure.
(c) Weight: Instead of carrying a bunch of prime lenses, one single zoom lens is easier portable which is a big advantage for travel or on hikes for example.
Seeing this, why would anybody bother with much more expensive prime lenses? Well, there are a couple of good reasons: (a) People often claim quality of primes having the edge over zoom lenses. This was definitely true in the past, but needs to be a bit more elaborated for more recent times. When comparing excellent prime lenses with newer zoom lenses at the same applied aperture, you will not see a difference easily. All big photo gear brands have now new top quality level zoom lenses which compete easily in photo quality with prime lenses in the same focal length. There is a different story for cheaper and slower zoom lenses, especially so called super-zooms which extend over a broad range of focal lengths (e. g. 28-300 mm) plus having some macro capabilities. I recommend to avoid super zoom lenses - their performance is very weak towards the long end (loss of sharpness and especially in contrast), and they tend to show more distortions at the wide end. A super zoom lens is an optical compromise to make the best of covering a broad focal length range. By knowing its limitations it can be still used sometimes in a decent fashion under good light conditions - I also own one of those fairly cheap super zoom lenses, and I used it a few times for short travels where I couldn't take a lot of gear with me. I was lucky enough to get this close up photo of a sea lily done with my 28-300 macro zoom lens from a distance!
(b) Speed: In my opinion the biggest unbeatable advantage for a prime lens - the main reason why I went back using mostly fast primes. Prime lenses in general have the same speed or are faster than zoom lenses. My prime lens setup consists of the 35/1.4, the 50/1.2 (and 50/1.4 which is also very good), the 85/1.8, and the 135/2.0. Together with a 1.4x teleconverter I can convert the 135/2 lens into a 189/2.8 lens which covers the medium tele range. Speed is important for taking photos under low light conditions, for night photography, for portrait shots, and for better auto focus (AF) accuracy. More light can get into a fast lens at its widest open aperture still providing a focused image with a shallow depth of field (DoF). A good example is the night shot in Holmdel Park below which was taken without tripod support under very dim light conditions with my 35/1.4 lens at f/1.4.
(c) Weight: This claim really depends. The faster the lens, the more and also bigger glass is built into the lens body which increases the weight. My 24-70/2.8 lens is heavy, but adding the weight of my 35/1.4, 50/1.2, and 85/1.8 lenses, I am nearly at the double of the weight of the zoom lens (950 g for the zoom, 1600 g for the set of primes). So the weight argument is a bit vague here in case somebody wants to cover the range of a zoom lens with several very fast prime lenses. It makes sense on the other hand when comparing two sort of prime lenses with each other - the 50/1.2 weighs 590 g, while the 50/1.4 (one third stop slower) weighs only 290 g. That's why I am keeping the 50/1.4 - ideal to reduce weight if needed and still having a fast lens!
Personally I often mix up both of the worlds - depending on the situation, I sometimes choose my 50/1.2 in combination with my 70-200/4 IS lens. For landscape shots I always take my 17-40/4 and my 24/3.5 T/S lenses accompanied again by my 70-200/4 IS. For far tele ranges I only have a slower zoom lens, the 100-400/4.5-5.6 which was so far always sufficient to me. For close-up and macro studies, I often only take primes like my 100/2.8, 105/2.8, or 65/2.8 macro lenses. I also managed to take fantastic close-ups with my 24-70/2.8 and with my other tele zoom lenses by using extension tubes or a reversed lens setup (this setup will be described in my future macro photography blog). The dragonfly photo below was taken with my 70-200/4 IS lens, 1.4x teleconverter, and 12 mm extension tube.
Overall, there is nothing wrong using a good zoom lens! It provides more flexibility and often reduces weight. For more creative photography, I recommend using prime lenses. Just because the depth of field effects are so much better with fast primes. My photos are taken with a broad mix of different kind of lenses - in the end the final photo and the composition counts, it is the photographer's job to ensure the most is made out of the wanted effect no matter how this task is accomplished. Tools (related to lenses) are not just tools, some can be applied better for one kind of job than others. This makes photography exciting!