Friday, March 2, 2012

Is the Mark III What I've Been Waiting For?

In the middle of the night last night, those sneaky folks at Canon unleashed the new 5D Mark III.

This is something I expected to see last year at NAB, but folks were saying that development was delayed in part due to the devastation caused when the tsunami hit the island of Japan.

Fast forward a year later.  In the meantime, I have had the opportunity to shoot with a 5D Mark II as well as with a 7D.  Pretty pix, all right, but I had a laundry list of things that would cause me to "dislike" the cameras if they were Facebook friends.  For example:

  • Hate the "clicky" iris control that doesn't allow me to roll my iris around without it showing up as camera shake.
  • Really?  12 minute clips lengths?  I shoot docs.  EVERY interview is longer than 12 minutes.
  • No audio controls or meters?   Really?  
  • Audio input is a stereo mini?  Who am  I, Jenna Marbles?  

So along comes the Mark III.    I haven't touched one yet, but the good news according to Canon is that they have fixed 50% of my gripe list.

  • Mark III has a 30 minute clip length.  Ok.  I can live with that.
  • Mark III has audio controls.  Hello, can you say professional features?  

So I will join the jostling throng at NAB to get my hands on the demo model  for .3 seconds.  Will I buy it?  Dunno.  At $1,000 more than the 5D Mark II, I think Canon just hasn't quite made enough improvements to justify the cost.  If it was the same price or a couple hundred more than the Mark II, I would be buying one of these ASAP.