This is an exciting day for us. We have a brand new Canon 5d Mark III joining the Sparkfly team.

Look out spring and summer shoots!

After a few test drives, this new friend will be soaking in all your lovely goodness.

“So, why the 5d Miii?”

You may ask. Here are the top two reasons:

(in order)

[drop_cap style=”2″ bgcolor=”#dddddd” color=”#787882″]#1[/drop_cap]Better Auto Focus. The mark III has more auto-focus points and faster response which means it’s quicker and easier to nail the focus. On the mark II, the center focal point is MUCH quicker than the sides, causing us to have to focus in the middle and then reframe every shot. It’s not a big movement, but when you’re dealing with an ultra low depth of field from a wide open prime lens (more on what that means to come), it’s really easy to move ever so slightly and loose the crisp focus you’re looking for. The 5d Mark III allows us to focus fast without having to reframe, which means the time between the focus and the photo being taken is decreased significantly. It’s really fast and accurate, and I love it.

[drop_cap style=”2″ bgcolor=”#dddddd” color=”#787882″]#2[/drop_cap]Low light performance. The mark III has steller low light performance, meaning we can take photos in very dark conditions and they look great. When it’s significantly dark, the camera’s sensor has to be very sensitive to capture what little light there is. The more sensitive it is, the more noise gets captured. The noise shows up by giving photos a grainy quality. Though that quality can be a nice effect, it would be nice to be able to produce a more clean version as well. The mark II (our current model) does amazingly well in low light– making clean images in candle lit rooms. The mark III though (this new machine), practically has night vision. The Sparkfly Team is more than ready for— say: a candle lit barn wedding, or: an outdoor Texas reception under strings of lights *wink wink*. Darkness can’t keep light from this thing. It needs an inscription, “This Machine Kills Darkness” (you know, kind of like this one).

The few frames we’ve made have been a blast. We may post a follow up and let you know how the newcomer is fitting in— if you’re interested in knowing.