Canon Rumors have confirmed some of the specs and the release date of the long awaited 5D Mark 3. The leak is given their highest CR3 rating.
The 5D Mark 3 is to be announced next Monday, 28th February… Just 6 days away at time of writing. The initial specs look promising but there is a lot we don’t know yet especially regarding the video capabilities.
- 22mp
- 61pt AF
- 100% VF
- 3.2″ LCD
- Dual CF/SD Card Slots *
- $3500 USD
It is great to see the 5D Mark 3 maintain the same megapixel count. This is a sensible move.
How much video has improved will depend on the speed increases brought by both the new sensor and new image processor and the will to give us those improvements on a stills camera now they have the C300 out.
The new Rebel meanwhile is finally getting video optimised AF and a new kit lens with silent AF motors. Not that exciting since these have been around on mirrorless bodies since 2009 but it will also feature the new DIGIC 5 image processor. Little else is known about it. The announcement is expected in early March.
Now the 5D Mark 3 is not a very affordable camera for the masses. $3500 buts it significantly ahead of the GH2 at $800 or even the old 5D Mark 2 at $2000 so my advice is to not pre-order for video use until you see the first proper sample videos.
The 5D Mark 3 is likely however to be a real power house, both in terms of stills AND video. In one body.
I am always reminded when I use the 5D Mark II what a beast it is, despite the obvious shortcomings on a 3+ year old camera body.
Compression wise hopefully Canon will also put the ALL-I compression of the 1D X in there and not be tempted to use a consumer friendly bitrate like 24Mbit, as everyone else seems to want to do at the moment with H.264 and AVCHD.
