If you hang out with photographers for any amount of time, you will find many have a love affair with their Canon 5D Mark III. Like a crown jewel straight from the royal house, the Canon 5D is a full frame SLR still shot camera able to shoot HDR video.
The Canon 5D Mark III is the latest in the Canon 5D line up and successor to the 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark III has been seriously upgraded from its predecessor with dual slots for CF and SD cards, locking exposure mode dial and the ability to program a huge number of settings and functions. Other changes are the ISO 50-102,800 expansion, 6 fps (frames per second) for continuous shooting and a 61 point Auto Focus system.
Canon listened to the customers and made changes to the menu system on the Mark III. Not unlike the Mark II or other cameras in the Canon line, the Mark III menu added a tab to help manage the AF system with a variety of pre-sets. The biggest change to the menu is it is more orderly based on that consumer feedback. Items that were often used before like mirror lockup and took digging to get to have floated up to the surface making access to that function easier and natural to find.
The DIGIC 5+ processor is said to be 17 times stronger in the Mark III vs. that of the Mark II. This has made for vast improvements in shutter and viewfinder lag as well as a reduction in operating noise or shutter noise. In addition the 61 point auto system is an extremely welcomed addition. Having a stronger processor has opened a new world of flexibility for taking pictures with more points of focus allowing for greater variety in post processing. The reviews of the new auto focus system are great across the board for portrait and landscape photographers alike.
The dual card system allows for raw images to be stored on one card and jpeg on another, freeing up valuable space for more photos. The battery is the same as the Mark II but doesn’t have the same duration, due to the DIGIC5+ processor. Despite this the Canon 5D Mark III is easily capable of 600-700 photos per battery.
The Canon 5D Mark III is the newest in the Canon 5D line but in reality includes many features of the 7D and 1D X lines. Canon pulled out all the stops and made an excellent professional camera with improvements in menu, auto focus, processor and card storage by listening to customer feedback, making the Mark III a diamond in the crown of Canon products.