Got a new toy yesterday that I can’t wait to try it out!
No, it’s not new speakers. Or a new amp. Or a new pre, phono pre, cartridge, tonearm, or turntable. Not cables! Nor any kind of digital source, either. Give up?
Here’s my new baby!
Yes, that’s the new Canon 5d Mark III. I lifted the pic from The Digital Picture, arguably the best Canon camera review site out there, in part because Bryan Carnathan talked me into getting this one and not a cheaper model.
Yes, I blame him. That’s far more comfortable than examining my own impulse control issues.
This camera replaces my venerable Canon 20d, which has been the workhorse I’ve been using to take all the pictures for this site, purchased way back in 2004. I’m stoked. Moving from 8MP to 22MP is a big jump … but that’s not why I got it.
The main reason? Better focusing. My keep-rate is somewhere less than 15%, which means that more than 5/6 pics don’t make the cut. Of course, this is for various reasons. Number one is: I suck. Moving past that, there’s other reasons too. I have two of the same subject, but one has less hard shadows, a distracting reflection, or is washed out. I get that. It’s the soft focus that bugs me. I’ve moved to shooting more with a tripod, which helps significantly, but that only edges my keep rate up to 1/5. Anyway, the 5d Mk III has a much more advanced focusing system over the outgoing (and much less expensive) Mk II.
The second reason has to do with low light. The vast majority of the rooms I shoot at shows are all … challenging … from a lighting perspective. Sure, I could cart around umbrellas and a light box to every room, but apart from the flash, all that extra crap means that we’ve now gone far beyond “portable”. I mean, the tripod is bad enough, but that extremely useful extra gear would make show coverage painful. So, no. Anyway, I do have the option of a portable flash, it’s true, but … natural light is way more interesting to look at. If you can get it. That means fast lenses and high ISOs. The lenses I have, but it’s the crisp quality coupled with high-ISO sensitivity that the 5d Mk III does better than, say, a Canon 7d.
Last but not least is picture quality. The 5d series crushes all the lower-tier Canon products by a country mile. Skadoosh.
So, what does this mean for you? Better pictures. The hope is that a higher keep-rate will mean more pics hitting the Part-Time Audiophile site. Seems reasonable to me.
See the things I do for you? That’s love, folks. Pure and simple.
If you’re heading to T.H.E. Show at Newport, feel free to tell me how awesome it is. I might preen a bit, but that’s okay.
Skadoosh. Nice KFP ref. Perfect, actually.
One of the greatest movies of all time. Can you tell I have little kids and all I get to watch are animated movies?
So you wouldn’t have loved KFP even if you didn’t have kids? Fess up.
Didn’t say that. Just that I have a built-in excuse. Of course, it’s also a built-in limiter …