You don't really need a new camera – a $200,000 photo prize was just won with this old Canon DSLR

The most lucrative photo contest in the world has awarded its top prize – an eye-watering $200,000 – to Liping Cao of China for his monochrome image of a distant wind farm on the shores of a freshwater lake in Australia (see below). The judges of the HIPA Sustainability, which is now in its thirteenth year, and which this year put up a record-high $1 million prize pot to be shared among the winners, chose , which depicts a wind farm in 2021 on a then-dried-out Lake George in New South Wales, Australia, as the overall winner. What's most surprising about Liping's feat is the camera he used to take his winning photo – a DSLR.

The camera in question is not even one of the , but a 12-year-old – a full-frame DSLR that you can pick up secondhand from around or around though you'll pay a little more if you want one that's in excellent condition. Liping paired the EOS 5D Mark III with the EF 24-105mm F4L IS USM, a versatile zoom lens that back in the day could be purchased with the camera as part of a kit – a combination that's easily affordable for enthusiasts. The winning image was shot in color and then converted to black and white because it "shows more levels of detail and is more suitable for experiencing environmental impact,” said Liping.



DSLR for the win Canon confirmed some time ago that it's no longer developing DSLR cameras, and is instead going all-in with its , but Liping's winning photo, taken with a Canon camera that's been consigned to the past, reminds us that you don't always need the latest and to get top results. The full-frame EOS 5D Mark III packs a 22.9MP sensor, which practically matches Canon's modern-day mirrorless equivalents for detail, such as the , which shoots 24MP photos and which is much costlier.

And while I recently came to appreciate the advances in mirrorless camera tech , this win for Liping shows there's still life in the old DSLR yet. If you're interested in the best DSLR options you can check out our . And if you're a newcomer who's confused by the jargon, you'll want to read our .

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