25Oct Canon 5d mark III firmware announcement, Clean 4:2:2, 8 bit HDMI out
It looks like Canon is finally unlocking some of the power of it’s Digic 5+ processor in the 5d mark III with the announcement of a new firmware update coming next year. The Nikon D800 was released with the ability to output a clean HDMI signal, however it was reported that the 5d MKIII was not capable of outputting a clean signal due to processor limitations. This no longer seems to be the case.
With the new firmware update, the 5d MKIII will be able to output a clean, uncompressed 4:2:2 8 bit signal via HDMI. Combine that with an hdmi capture device like the Atomos Ninja and you’ll be able to record to a format that uses less compression giving you more data to work with in post.
The strange thing about this announcement is that the firmware update wont be available until April of next year. Why is Canon announcing an update like this 7 months in advanced? To me, it seems like Canon is afraid the MKIII might loose it’s relevance when compared to other offerings. You can see this reflected in the resent $300 price drop of the 5d Mark III.
Canon seems to be attempting a balancing act with their current product line. They want to sell as many DSLR’s as possible, but they don’t want the video capabilities of those DSLR’s to undercut their high margin video cameras like the C100 and C300. Yet they are still trying to squeeze in the 1D C which really seems to be a 1D X with a firmware update to allow 4k.
On the other side of things you have a tiny little Gopro Hero3 with a $400 price tag that can generate 2.7k and 1440p files. That gives you a lot of options for digital image stabilization as well as cropping. If this can be done for $400, it shouldn’t be much longer before 3k footage is possible from a sub $2000 DSLR, which would knock the 5d MKIII and 1d X out of the water in the video department. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like Canon will be leading the movement towards innovation, hopefully companies like Panasonic and Sony will continue to move forward to fill in the void.
November 1st, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Canon has been screwing the consumers since the 5D Mark 11 THAT REALLY DOESN’T SHOOT 1080p. 500 lines of resolution? weak. I wish I could sell all my Canon lens and jump ship.
THE 5D MARK 111 ISN’T WORTH A PENNY MORE THAN $2700.00. PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 2nd, 2012 at 9:32 am
If Sony had better glass, I would consider the A99 in a heart beat. The problem for me is that I own a whole set of L primes as well as a large collection of L Zoom lenses. Once you get to that point it’s hard to jump ship. I’ve considered the metabones solution, but that sort of disables a lot of the focus tracking value the A99 would provide.
December 12th, 2012 at 11:08 am
THey have all Zeiss Lenses with AF. How can you ask for better than that.
December 12th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
As soon as the name Zeiss appears the price jumps up high enough to make Canon L glass blush.
January 8th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
While it’s disappointing that Canon appears to be dropping the ball, let’s not forget that these are digital still camera cameras that have an option for video, and pretty sexy video too. It’s encouraging that they are changing to meet the needs of a small section of their customers, albeit slower than our enthusiasm would like 🙂
January 9th, 2013 at 9:59 am
I might have agreed with that when it came to the 5d mark II, but the 5d mark III had strong advertised aimed towards the video market. If you read the 5d mark III press release , you’ll see that the first 9 or so paragraphs are about how the 5d mark III will Blaze a trail for film makers and so on.
It seems to me that if they call it a race car it should be ready to race.