Going wireless with the 5D mark III - the WFT-E7

 Regular readers will know I'm a big fan of shooting wirelessly to a laptop. My post on how to set up the Canon WFT-E4 is the most read on this site and has over 100 comments. The WFT-E4 fits the 5D mark II like a moulded battery grip providing dual controls for shooting verticals. This is an excellent design, with the only drawback being the transmitter is specific to the mark II. It simply won't fit on any other camera.

So the new 5D mark III takes a new transmitter - the WFT-E7. To their credit, Canon have tried to design the new one so that it fits all their cameras - you don't need to buy a new one every time you upgrade. Unfortunately, in the process thay have made some design decisions that make it almost useless for the way I shoot.


Instead of being a moulded grip, the WFT-E7 is a simple oblong block that attaches to the bottom of the camera using the tripod socket. While this means it can attach to any Canon camera, for me this is where thing start to go wrong:


- the transmitter is wider than the camera and sticks out the sides, making it very un ergonomic to handle
- the camera can no longer be attached to a tripod, as the tripod thread is now blocked
- the transmitter has to be connected to the camera using a USB cable!

These 'features' makes the WFT-E7 almost useless to me:


Firstly, I often use the WFT on a tripod. Sure you could have the WFT attached to something else as it now has a cable, but in that case I might as well be tethered directly to the computer. 


Secondly, the rest of the time I use the WFT handheld. The new WFT is so unergonomic it makes the camera awkward to hold and gets in the way. It also precludes the use of a battery grip if you do want dual controls for vertical shooting - it would have to attach to the tripod thread under the grip, which is exactly where your hand would go to hold it.


Finally, by connecting to the camera using a cable, it defeats the whole purpose of going wireless - avoiding having to have wires!


So I sent it back within an hour of receiving it.


Unfortunately the 5D mark III has not been designed with the small connection port on the base that the mark II had. This means Canon will NEVER be able to release an integrated grip type transmitter like the WFT-E4. Oh well.


Thankfully the mark III takes Eye-Fi wireless SD cards and they seem to work quite well. A full report on how to set them up and how well they work will come soon in a follow on post.

Canon 5D mark III - initial impressions

Sorry for the technical hitch - I posted this a couple of weeks ago before disappearing on a shoot and no words showed up! Here's trying again....

The Canon 5D mark II is one of the most highly anticipated cameras of the last few years. Mine arrived on Wednesday. While I haven't had much chance to piut it though it's paces yet I thought I would post my initial impressions here.

First of all, a quick reminder of the headline features:

- 22MP full frame sensor

- 6FPS

- ISO 25600

- Improved AF

- 100% viewfinder coverage

- 1040k dot 3.2" LCD

- Dual memory cards

To be honest, when I read the spec sheet they had me at 'improved AF'. While an excellent camera in so many ways, the achilles heel of the 5D mark II has been its autofocus. My EOS 3 film cameras from 1999 had far superior AF than a 2008 mark II, and my cameras were permanently set to use only the central AF point as it was the only one that could reliably lock on to anything.

So I ordered a 5D mark III body the moment I read it included the same AF system as the new flagship 1DX. There are 61 auto focus points spread across a large section of the viewfinder, and they are customisable to your heart's content. You can choose different modes depending on what you are shooting, configure the camera to cycle only through 15 or 9 points for greater speed, choose AF or shutter priority etc.. In this way it is similar to the 7D.

Fortunately there are other things that have been improved too:

Overall build quality feels extremely solid, and Canon claim the weather sealing improved over the mark II. In fact the build quality and control layout are very reminiscent of the 7D. It inherits the same ON/OFF switch located beside the lockable mode dial, the larger buttons and a dedicated movie/live view button to the right of the viewfinder. A new 3.2" screen produces contrasty images. The shutter sound is decidedly tinny however, and makes you feel like you are using a toy camera. I understand this is the price we pay for 6FPS and reduced shutter lag and vibration, so I can live with it but it does sound very cheap!

Two new buttons are the Q "quick menu" button, that brings up all the cameras settings on the rear screen and adjustable using the rear joystick, and a new 'Rate' button that allows you to rate images during playback from 1 to 5 stars. This one seemed pretty useless to me, who rates their images in camera? But my friend Toby who I share a studio with claimed he would use this all the time on his documentary shoots, so YMMV. In any case, many of the buttons are programmable and can be set to other functions if you choose - this is a great move on Canon's part.

Another nice feature is the viewfinder which now has 100% coverage and, like the 7D, incorporates electronic overlays such as grid lines and active AF points. Along the base there is now a +/- 3 stop exposure scale rather than the previous 2. All useful stuff.

The body can now take dual memory cards. You can set the camera to switch automatically when the first one is full, record RAW files to one and JPEGs to the other, or write every picture to both cards simultaneously. But unlike the 1DX which takes 2 CF cards, the 5d mark III takes a CF card and an SD card, which is somewhat less useful unless you have a collection of high capacity SD cards lying around, which I don't. It will take an Eye-Fi SD card however which may replace the need for the WFT wireless transmitter in some cases.

And finally we come to image quality. Like in the 1DX, Canon have resisted the siren call of higher megapixel counts and the 5d Mark III receives a very modest increase to 22MP. In my initial very basic tests high ISO quality is greatly improved, with ISO 6400 shots looking cleaner than ISO 1600 shots from the Mark II. I haven't yet had a chance to test colour rendition and dynamic range, but initial results are very promising. If general improvements are in line with the 1DX I was shooting with last month then I will be very happy indeed.

The new DIGIC 5 processor adds the ability to process RAW files in camera, as well as blend multiple exposures and create HDR images. I would normally choose do do these kind of things on the computer where I have much more control, but can understand that it might be useful to be able to do this in the field occasionally. I haven't yet had a chance to test these functions yet so stay tuned.

Overall the 5D is feels rather like a 7D with a 1DX sensor inside, and that's no bad thing. With improved frame rate, ISO and AF the Canon 5D mark III has truly become a 'do everything' camera. All of the weaknesses of the mark II have been addressed. Unless you need the blazingly fast frame rates of the 1DX then this is all the camera you will ever need.

Retailing at £3000 including VAT the mark III is not cheap - a mark II can now be bought new for half that amount. So is it worth it? If you need good AF, shoot at high ISOs or need higher frame rates then the new camera is a big step forwards. If you are a landscape shooter typically shooting on a tripod at ISO 100 and manually focusing then maybe not. As for me, I've replaced one of my mark IIs and I'm sure I'll replace the other before the end of the year.

New work from Jerusalem

I saw the new year in with friends in Jerusalem, and managed to spend a couple of days wondering around the old city with my camera. Jerusalem is one of the few truly medieval cities remaining in the world, filled with winding streets and guarded by giant stone walls. Of course the history and religious significance of the place is everywhere, but I tried to stay away from that somewhat and focus on capturing some scenic views that showed the beauty of a place that is often in the news for all the wrong reasons.


These were all shot with a single prime lens at 35mm equivalent field of view. Food for thought next time you are loading up the camera bag with 'just one more lens'...

See more in the Recent Work section of the the website here.

Portfolio video

My friends over at Wonderful Machine have a copy of my portfolio which they take around the US on their visits to ad and design agencies.


It's hard to put together a book for WM as they visit  whole range of clients, whereas normally I tailor the contents of my portfolio depending on who I'm going to see. If it's a hotel group for example then I put in lots of my interiors and lifestyle images, whereas If it's a travel magazine then it will be landscapes, food shots and environmental portraits. So for the book they hold in the US I have a bit of everything, and hope clients will come to my website to see more of the particular genre they like.


Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago they were visiting some agencies in Minneapolis and as part of the trip made a video of my portfolio, which you can see here:

You can read about their visit on the Wonderful Machine blog, here.

What to do if your pictures are stolen

I'm sure many of you have found instances where your pictures have been used without your permission. Simon Crofts, a lawyer turned photographer, has given an excellent introduction to what to do if you find one of your images has been used without a license. Required reading for all UK photographers.

London interiors

I shoot interiors quite frequently as part of my travel work. But over the last month I've been shooting quite a few for the peeps over at One Fine Stay, a luxury rental company here in London. I've blogged about how to approach shooting interiors before. Here are a few from the last month.

Lightroom workshop with Martin Evening

Friday was a gorgeous sunny day here in London but I managed to spend most of it locked inside a blacked out studio. Why? Because I spent the day on an Adobe Lightroom workshop with none other than Mr Photoshop himself, Martin Evening.

Martin is a London-based fashion and beauty photographer who was part of the first wave to embrace digital imaging back in the late 1980s. Having cut his teeth on Photoshop 2.5 (we're now on version 12!), Martin has become one of the world's leading experts on digital imaging. His books on Photoshop and Lightroom are bestsellers and have become the "go to" books for using these complex pieces of software.


I use Lightroom 3 almost every day to manage, edit and print my images - so I like to think I know my way around the program pretty well. But I knew there was probably a lot more I could get out of it, and I wasn't wrong. Spending a day with Martin and 4 other photographers was a great experience and I learned an enormous amount about how to get the most out of my images - I took 12 pages of notes!


I'll share a few of the most useful tips on the blog over the next few months.