VIDEO!!!
It’s been two weeks since I got my hands on a Canon 5dIII camera – and just as I said in the video, I thought I could wait. I was waiting for other photographers to start giving their reviews – I didn’t want to be in the first wave of users. And suddenly, I couldn’t wait any longer. So I called up Competitive Camera in Dallas, and I had it in my hands 30 short minutes later. That day, I took pictures of my cats and I was instantly enamored with the shutter sound, as a new shutter somehow just sounds doubly sweet. I only changed a handful of settings including turning off the beep sound and disabling shoot without card. I quickly found that shooting with all focus points on wouldn’t work for me (honestly, that was just for fun, there was no way that was going to work since my subjects are not consistently in the middle of the image). The cats weren’t phased by the new camera, as you can see.
(Tech notes | The first couple days I shot all of my images in jpg as my copy of Lightroom and Photoshop do not support the raw files out of the camera and Lightroom 4.1 Beta had not been released. Files are basically straight out of camera (SOOC), with maybe a tiny brightness boost here and there. Shot with 70-200 f/2.8 @ 2.8, jpg)
A few days later, my super awesome friend Erinn and her family came into town from California. I was now playing with the 62 focus points and I was moving the focus point with the use of the joystick. The process was slow, but I was getting quicker and quicker at it with each shot.
(Tech note | Shot with 35 f/1.4, jpg, SOOC)
A few with Nathan 🙂
And then I sat down with the manual. And I went through it page by page and customized every setting to my liking. I couldn’t believe all of my options and how each new setting felt “like home”. Honestly, I set the camera to work much like it’s predecessor, the 5DII, because the muscle memory was already there and I wanted to have the least amount of fumbling at the wedding that I was about to photograph. I was second shooting with Joe Prezioso, who not only happened to be coming in from Boston to shoot a wedding, but happened to be shooting a wedding at Marty Leonard Chapel! O yeah, I’ve been there!
(Tech note | all 62 focus points were still on, but I was trying the zone focus with four neighboring points – this worked well in a variety of situations, but not at close distances and while it was faster it wasn’t the answer for me on a wedding day. The following were shot with a variety of lenses: 35 f/1.4, 24-105 f/4, 70-200 f/2.8 in mRaw : converted & edited in Lightroom Beta 4.1. I love the skin tones and colors, even SOOC).
(Tech note | I only pushed the ISO slightly at the reception. The cake was shot without additional lighting at ISO 2000 , 70-200 f/2.8 lens. ISO wasn’t my biggest concern with the camera (I’m not an ISO pusher/peeper).
From there, I had an engagement portrait session and a wedding of my own and I was incredibly pleased time and time with those sharp little files that came out. Both images were shot with the 24-105 f/4 and the camera just rocked my world both times!
