My 5d mark III dilemma

You'll be very happy you did. It will retain it's value fairly well. I'd say use it for two years and you'll still get $1200 for it easily.

So for $700 you get a Mark III for two years. Try renting one for two years and see how much it costs. HA.

Congrats and enjoy it!

If you're getting paid then you will need a back up body.
Cards are only a problem if you remove them before the read/write action has finished- so either use a very big card or lots of small ones, and wait until the red light stops flashing.
Used bodies are nearly always good- I've never had problems with used kit. No guarantees with rental kit once you start using them. You cannot tell when something will go wrong- hence backup body.

If you are going into the business of photographing a wedding you had better know your stuff because there are no re-runs and it is not fair if you produce mediocre results.

Otherwise go for it.

sourcehill wrote in post #17579625
You'll be very happy you did. It will retain it's value fairly well. I'd say use it for two years and you'll still get $1200 for it easily.

So for $700 you get a Mark III for two years. Try renting one for two years and see how much it costs. HA.

Congrats and enjoy it!

That's just the thing. I was going to rent one here coming up for 2-3 weeks to cover two weddings I have. It would have cost $300+ just for the rental and neither one offered a good enough insurance plan. neither rental company's insurance protected against water damage, and one didn't protect against loss or theft. I'd rather just sell it for $1,700 but have it on my insurance from now till then if it came down to it.

tim wrote in post #17477576
Bright light is when you really want lots of power and fast recharge - it goes against intuition but you need more light on a sunny day than on a cloudy day or at night. I use these Pixel battery packs, they work great and have for a few years, better than Canon as they have dual charging circuits. One pack is enough, takes 8xAA batteries.

I use white eneloop with Maha chargers like this and this. With those chargers my batteries tend to last 4-6 years.

Shooting in a tent in the daytime means you get the opposite of the back hole problem - you have to add LOTS of light otherwise you'll have ugly blown out backgrounds.

Thanks for that info on light products. Appreciate it