It’s a bit amazing to think that the 5D Mk II was almost 4 years old when the Mk III hit the shelves. I’ll admit that I was expecting the Mk III to be very different than this. I’ll even admit I had some panic when I realized Canon was doing what I’d said for years it was time to do: stop increasing megapixels and work on other things. I thought I wanted that, but then the other guy had this 36MP camera…

What will you notice right away? Autofocus. Leave it on factory settings until you have a bit of time with the menu (because there are pages of autofocus menu options) and it’s better than any Canon camera I’ve ever shot with. Bad light? No problem. Moving subjects? No problem. It hit autofocus on my jet black dog Zeiss (yeah, that’s really his name) running around the back yard in near darkness.

You want more? High ISO performance is spectacular. ISO 6400 is about as good as 3200 was on the 5D II. The LCD is significantly better; you’ll notice it at a glance. I love the “self-teaching” menu: hit a button and an explanation of the menu item your looking at pops up. It’s like having the manual built into the camera. It’s far more customizable than the 5D II was, and it’s easier to customize for what you want at a glance.

The sensor is now heat-sinked, which means no more 6-minute video limit. And I have to mention dual memory card slots, AF select points that automatically change when you go from landscape to portrait mode, side-by-side image comparison, in-camera HDR, JPEG processing that automatically corrects chromatic aberration (Canon brand lenses only), and a much quieter shutter with silent-shutter option.

This is no minor upgrade camera; it’s an entirely new camera using the old camera’s name. And it’s better—in every way. After just a few hours with it (30 minutes of which was a lesson from Tim about using the autofocus system) this camera has grown on me like salmonella on room temperature chicken. I absolutely love it and have set aside my 5D II for good.
January, 2013