Hawaii Trip Report: Canon 5D Mark III

The trip to Hawaii was my first major photo trip using Canon 5D Mark III bodies.

The Canon 1Ds Mark III and Canon 5D Mark II were my primary camera bodies on prior trips. On these prior trips, I would typically need to clean each camera sensor (2 or 3 of them) every two or three days - and invariably would end up with dust in most landscape pictures. It was not unusual for me to spend days cloning dust spots out of my images after each trip.

Not this time. I took two 5D III bodies, shot intensely for over two weeks, and had no sensor dust the entire time. I hate sensor dust, I hate cleaning sensors and I find having to clean sensor dust from my images to be a waste of my time (but necessary). To me, the 5D III and other similar recent Canon DSLR cameras are worth the upgrade cost for the improved sensor self-cleaning features alone.

I also made great use of the 5D Mark III's built-in horizon level on this trip. Photographs with water against the horizon are unforgiving in revealing how level your camera was. And rotating an image to correct levelness is destructive at the pixel level. Not all of my images from this trip are perfectly level, but a much higher percentage are.

Two days into my trip, while perched on a high, narrow, very dry piece of volcanic rock to get a better angle for shooting waves, I took a major hit from a rogue wave. The wave came completely over me, the 5D III and the Canon 70-300mm L Lens I was using. A major amount of water was running off of the camera, the lens and me - like a waterfall.

I fortunately maintained my balance, but I was not pleased to see the significant amount of salt water on my gear. I quickly ran to the car and dried everything with a towel (I typically have one along when shooting in such an environment). I didn't expect to have any problems and was relieved to find the camera and lens to be working fine. That camera body and lens continued to work fine the duration of the trip - even after shooting in the rain on a few occasions. Weather sealing has definite value.

That strong wind makes sharp image capture a challenge was driven home on this trip. IS definitely helps, but ... sometimes faster shutter speeds rule. I would seldom trade high ISO noise for subject motion blur. Just sayin.

The Canon 70-300 L and Canon 24-70mm f/4L IS were my two primary lenses used on this mostly-landscape photography trip. Both performed very well.

Posted: 3/12/2013 7:51:34 AM ET   Posted By: Bryan
Posted to: Canon News    Category: Canon EOS DSLR Camera Review News
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