Canon 5D MkIII first impression

First day shooting with the camera. First impression is very good.

Started out very calm and easy with tripod mounted static shots in the city of Oslo.
Technically camera set for 1920 30p ALL-I mode and picture style - Standard no tweaking, auto white balance. ISO 320 and f between 5.6 and 8
Focus was set on the distant main objects in the attached examples below.

I´m very satisfied with the quality of the shots for this settings, very nice and warm colors.
The dynamic range seem to be much better than my 7D footage.
Details can be viewed both in the shadow and highlights area.

The EF 24-70mm f2.8 L ll lens is razor sharp but quite heavy. I think you need some sort of rail system to handle it during hand held shooting. But for tripod setup it works like a breeze. Had no problem to focus with the lcd without any hoodloop etc. just magnifying the picture at the lcd for focus assist.

I have to admit that I was very unfamiliar with the full frame sensor and the very wide view you get when aiming for the 24mm side of the lens!

Post processing is done on Mac/fcp importing the original footage as ProRes 422. Just made some minor adjustment for contrast and sharpness before uploading as PhotoJpeg.

Examples:

Looks good. The sharpening part was the one thing that was said to be a big difference between the Mark II and III, where you have to sharpen the III to get the same results, most likely because of the moire filter... either way, looks great!

i also have 7D and all i can say i would never go back to 7D right now that i have mark III, totaly great camera, for that price i don`t think you can have anything better for stock footage

did you own the mark ii before MP?

I'm trying to convince myself that I don't need to sell my GH2 and get a MKIII, you guys aren't helping me..lol

I've never shot the GH2 but the MK III is far cleaner than the 5D MK II, 7D or any of the Ti series. Some of those who own the Ti series will argue but the specs do tell the story.

The more I shot the more I like this camera. The 24-70mm f2.8 lens is very clean and fit perfectly on the full format house. I don´t think I need so much other lenses to get stock shots. This set up is also relative light and easy to carry. With a small and light tripod you easily shot a full day without much strain!
In April you will get uncompressed hdmi output (YCbCr 4:2:2, 8 bit). Not sure how much better this will improve the overall quality though?
Here is a new sample; timelapse shot of an art installation called "She Lies" floating on water in front of the Opera House in Oslo. Shot in Raw. The second clip is a crop of the first one.

I really wanted the GH3 to be better than the GH2 but the GH3 moire put me off so I've also just got the 5D3.
To get the uncomressed HDMI output in April won't we need another piece of kit which I think is around £700?

PerJohan are you shooting standard picture style with all sharpening off then sharpening in post?

I´m shooting standard picture profile 3,0,0,0 (default setup). I then add just a little bit sharpness and contrast in post.
Will try some different profile setup this weekend, can report how it comes out!

Yes, you´ll need a kind of external recorder like, atoms ninja, blackmagic hyper deck or nano flash. More setup and wires, so I´m not sure if this will be necessary for stock shooting?

It will be interesting to see if we can "get away" with in-camera sharpening and not encourage anti-aliasing or moire.
I tend to shoot so that nothing has to be done in post as H.264 is better left alone ;-) but I wonder whether 3,0,0,0, is maybe a bit extreme on the in-camera sharpening?

I usually set white balance to "daylight" on outdoor shots so that the video reflects the actual light i.e. if it's warm light - the video is warm, cold light the video is cold.

I haven't had chance yet to check this All-I mode but am excited by it.

Thanks for posting your findings - it's very useful to us brand new 5D3 owners.