You Don’t Really Need a New Camera: This Old Canon DSLR Just Won a $200,000 Photography Prize

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You Don’t Really Need a New Camera: This Old Canon DSLR Just Won a 0,000 Photography Prize

The world’s most lucrative photography competition has awarded the top prize – an eye-watering $200,000 – to China’s Liping Cao for his monochrome image of a remote wind farm on the shores of a freshwater lake in Australia (see below).

The judges of the HIPA Sustainability, now in its thirteenth year and which this year offered a record-high prize pool of $1 million to be distributed among the winners, chose Silent powerdepicting a 2021 wind farm on a then-parched Lake George in New South Wales, Australia, as the overall winner.

The most surprising thing about Liping’s achievement is the camera he used to take his winning photo: a Canon DSLR.

The camera in question isn’t even one of the best DSLRs, but a 12-year-old Canon EOS 5D Mark III – a full-frame DSLR that you can buy second-hand anywhere $300 from companies like KEH in the US or round £325 from MPB in the UK, although you’ll pay a little more if you want one that’s in excellent condition.

A black and white image of a remote wind farm with a large cloud above it — (Image credit: © Liping Cao)

Liping paired the EOS 5D Mark III with the EF 24-105mm F4L IS USM, a versatile zoom lens that could previously be purchased with the camera as part of a kit – a combination that is easily affordable for enthusiasts.

The winning photo was taken in color and then converted to black and white because it “shows more detail and is better suited to experiencing the impact on the environment,” Liping said.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III in hand with black background — The Canon EOS 5D Mark III with EF 24-105mm F4L IS USM lens, Liping’s winning equipment combination (Image credit: Future)

DSLR for the win

Canon confirmed some time ago that it is no longer developing DSLR cameras, going all-in with its mirrorless cameras, but Liping’s winning photo, taken with a Canon camera that is a thing of the past, reminds us that you don’t always need the latest and greatest cameras to achieve top results.

The full-frame EOS 5D Mark III has a 22.9MP sensor, which in terms of detail is pretty much on par with Canon’s modern mirrorless equivalents, such as the EOS R6 Mark II, which takes 24MP photos and is much more expensive.

And while I recently came to appreciate the advancements in mirrorless camera technology when I used my old Nikon DSLR for the first time in years, this win for Liping shows that there is still life in the old DSLR.

If you’re interested in the best DSLR options, check out our guide to the best DSLRs. And if you’re a newcomer confused by the jargon, you’ll want to read our mirrorless vs DSLR explainer.