Canon 5D Mark III in Scotland

These images would never have looked noise free with my Mark II, a camera that I thought was amazing...after talking to a friend, who does a lot of night and twilight photography, about the wonders of the Mark III in low light photography,  I purchased one and  have never looked back...the camera is absolutely mindboggling. The three night images above are taken at ISO 800...it was twilight and I was able to get amazing clarity and brightness without long exposure at ISO 100...the one that is below of the interior of St. Giles Cathedral was taken at ISO 12800 with a Canon 24-70mm 2.8L lens at 42mm...it was hand held..and it is sharp...the interior of the cathedral was dark with lots of shadow, but this camera was able to hold the dynamic range...in the post processing in ACR, I used the Camera Raw noise reduction lightly...the noise was removed..the Mark II could have never handled this shot at ISO12,800; it would have been unusable...what I really loved in Edinburgh was the ability to walk around and shoot with a full frame DSLR, just as if it were a point and shoot...

Scotland

I have just returned from two weeks of photography on Orkney and Shetland...my recommendation to anyone headed to those two islands is that landscape photography is difficult in May..the true sunset didn't come until approximately 10:30pm and sunrise was somewhere around 3am..Most of the time was spent shooting in bright harsh light and it was hard..I am a true landscape photographer who loves the colors of morning and evening, but it just didn't work out for me.. this trip was a compromise with lighting..a lot of it was night photography;  so I did have a lot of practice in that genre..attached are some images from Orkney and Shetland..remember that these islands also have a paucity of trees..Shetland didn't have any trees to speak of, therefore, you are photographing a stark, open landscape..Edinburgh was fantastic to see and lots to photograph architecturally; but only had two days there..planning to go to Glencoe and Skye on my next visit to Scotland; will have to go later in the season in order to get the morning and evening light...