I received my Canon 5D Mark III's last Monday and have been shooting pretty much every day with them ever since (short review: AF finally works, thank goodness, and the hand grip is deeper, which is nice). In perusing the online reviews, I saw a mention of the Silent Shooting Mode. Having used this on the 5D Mark II, my impressions were that it was a pretty interesting idea, but badly implemented. Basically, on the Mark 2 the mirror would stay up as long as the shutter button was held down, making for an exceptionally long blackout time and having to consciously think about releasing the button every time you took a picture.
With the 5D Mark III, the feature has been improved immensely and essentially just slows down the mirror a bit to decrease the sound of it hitting. You get a slightly longer mirror blackout, but otherwise there's no difference except for the sound, which is ridiculously quiet. Like, quiet enough to proclaim on Twitter that it seemed even quieter than my trusty (read: unused) Leica M6.
So, is it?
In search of some answers (and waiting for some RAW images to be outputted), I set up a little test, placing both cameras on a couch and measuring the sound of their shutters using dB Meter Pro on my iPhone. I initially was going to put a lens on each one, but sadly, I sold my last Leica lens a few years ago, and have for some reason held onto the M6 body thinking that one day I might pull it out again and run few rolls of Tri-X through it. So, I decided to do the test with the shutter caps off (hello sensor dust), and the iPhone positioned about two inches away from each (yes, I measured).
Anyway, on to the test. I did five actuations for each (both at 1/500), making sure the phone's microphone was positioned the same distance away.
Here are the numbers (measured in dB):
Leica M6 : 100, 101, 103, 102, 102.
Average: 101.6 dB
Canon 5D Mark III (in Silent Mode) : 98, 99, 99, 98, 100.
Average: 98.8 dB
Here's an audio file, with five actuations of the Canon, then Leica. As you can hear, the Leica's shutter sound is shorter and a bit sharper, while the Canon is stretched out a bit, but sounds more dampened.
So, what does this all mean? Comparing a film camera that ended production in 1998 with the latest/greatest from Canon doesn't really count for much of anything, except that the Leica has always been held up as the paradigm of quiet-- the camera by which all others are measured. More importantly, this is a killer feature for a camera that seems to have fixed the majority of the issues its predecessor had, and then furthers its appeal by improving a feature that most photographers didn't even know existed.
Meh! I don't care how loud it is...I just wanna know how much better than the Mark 2 it is!!! Particularly the color noise at high ISO's. I know the focusing has gotta be loads better! And if it's so good that it will stop me from selling off all my Canon gear and jumping back to Nikon for the D800 after two decades of being a Canon guy.....
While I don't usually need a quiet shutter there have definitely been times when working in proximity to video crews or at corporate events where it would be really nice. It's one of those things that can make the difference between being hired back again or learning that the CEO thought that your presence was "disruptive". While I will definitely be picking up the camera when the time comes this is something that I don't know that I ever would have thought of using if I hadn't read your tweet and this post. So, errr... thanks!
Brad - Thanks for the comment, I do enough reportage where being quiet is a pretty big deal and can go a long way in helping my subjects relax. As for the ISO noise, I haven't really noticed much of anything one way or the other though many folks online seem to think it's much improved.
Matthew - Well said, sometimes it's just getting a lot of little details right (how you dress, how much you move around) the determines if someone's a repeat customer.
I think that the mic on an iPhone doesn't have a flat response. If you place a lens on the cameras I think the Leica will be quieter and I'm not sure that the Canon is without a lens. They are obviously different sounds, but the canon will be noisy because of all that's going on inside the body AND lens... the Leica will only be quiteter with a lens on it.
Color Noise: I too thought about moving to Nikon's D800. At first I used Canon's software with very bad color noise results, but with the new Lightroom beta it seems the I can get rid of it. I think I might stay with Canon now. More testing needed.
I have used the Canon 5D Mark lll on TV sets and it works great without a blimp. You only need a sound blimp on an extremely silent scene where the cameras are very close to the subject. I have only been told only once to use a blimp. I love this new camera. Miles better than the Mark ll.
Nike - actually not so sure that's true. The Canon is noticeably quieter when I put my 35mm/1.4 on it, and any lens noise (the sound of the aperture stopping down) is nearly indistinguishable. The Leica w/ a 50mm Summicron is not noticeably quieter than without the lens.
This advance seems great to me. I have shot many events where I would love to have had a much quieter camera. Sometimes the sound of my camera and the attention it draws to me have kept me from shooting as much as I would like or need. As has been pointed out, it's not good to be disrupting other attendees.
I'd be interested to see how the Fuji pro performs when it is released.. I've become a serious user of the x100 as a second camera, very quiet when needed, and the noise issue is main reason I stuck with D3 when first released
This is an interesting test and it backs up what I always said (even when I used Leicas on a daily basis) that the Leica shutter is quiet but that the film advance and shutter cocking is actually quite noisy. The MkIII is a very good piece of evolutionary design and I will be getting a pair when I come back from taking the summer off.
The 5D Mark III is very quiet, I've had a few clients ask me if I actually took their pictures on a few occasions. A couple of decades ago, I did a photo shoot at a fairly intimate classical music event, my Canon EOS Elan died, and my back up was the Canon EOS Rebel. (Poor college student) I took ONE shot with the Rebel, and the noise from that camera immediately gave me plenty of unwanted attention. I went to the back of the room, wrapped my camera up with my sweater and then spent the next hour taking shoots without looking thru the view finder . I was able to complete the assignment, and I was thankful for Tri-X 400 film. How I wished I had this new 5D Mark III back then.