Ever tried getting that picture of something in motion in low light, without a flash? When I upgraded the 5D Mark IIs to Mark IIIs, I did so specifically for the higher ISO range and the 61 point focus system. The picture below may not look like a stellar professional picture, but once you realize the situation, you will find how amazing it is that this picture is even visible.
Before I give you all the details or you cheat and look to the end, decide what you think the settings were for this picture. I will tell you that the subject is moving at about 15 mph and the aperture was 2.8. As you can see this is an indoor, poorly lit race track.
I suspect that you may be thinking that it was taken at about 1/30-1/60th, f/2.8, ISO around 1600-3200. This setting range would be consistent with many photos of this type of shot. However, take a closer look at the hair and the wheels. You can see that the motion has been stopped......you can even see the valve stem of the rear wheel. So now we know the shutter was much faster than 1/60th, otherwise it would be blurred from the motion.
In fact, I intentionally pushed the limits of this picture by setting the shutter to 1/500th and put the ISO on an Auto setting. This would push the ISO to an extreme. I could have shot this at about 1/200th and had almost the same result with a lower ISO and a much lower noise level. But I wanted to show what pushing the Mark III would do. The 1/500th shutter pushed the ISO to 12,800!
Now, I would normally slow the shutter down a little to bring the ISO down, but for demonstration purposes, I wanted to see the performance. If you would have wanted an ISO in the 1600-3200 range, you would have had to have a much slower shutter and would have had extreme motion blur. The bottom line is that you could not have gotten this fast shutter shot with out the high ISO performance.
So here is one crude example of the high ISO performance of the 5D Mark III. Try taking a picture at ISO 12,800 on a Mark II or 7D and see what happens. Wedding season is just around the corner, in fact it starts next week in Cincinnati for us. This camera is a game changer as most reviews have said. I am very much looking forward to the new creative modes this opens up.
Enjoy.
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