I'm pretty sure most of you have already read a review of the Canon 5D Mark III. Well, all the nice new bells and whistles sound nice. But they even feel nicer if you can get your hands on this camera. I must admit that I did never fell in love with my 5D MKII. There is the great image quality on the one hand and the feature set on the other. I switched from a 7D to the 5D MKII and it was a kind of step back in terms of usability and technology. The 5D MKII features an auto focus system which is not worth talking about. The LCD screen is trash and 3 fps is too slow. So I always wished to get a 7D with the MKIIs sensor.
An that's what the 5D MKII actually is. It integrates features from the 7D and the 1D-X. In addition it adds a new high quality image sensor on top. The LCD is astonishing. With the MKII I always thought I had messed up the image since it appears kind of blurry on the screen. No issue with the MKIII. If the image is sharp, I'll see it. Great!
Another great thing is the ability to shoot six frames per second. So it's finally possible to leave the 7D at home if you need to take images quickly. Another feature in this shutter section is the silent shutter mode. You can select it now like you select the high speed mode. If you don't want to pull attention on you this mode is superb.
The third new feature is the new auto focus system. Featuring 61 focus points with tons of adjustments options I like one feature the most. With the joystick you can select exactly the focus point you want to use. No more focusing and recomposing. Just set the focus point where you want to have the image sharp and press the shutter release button. This is extremely fast since there is a dedicated joystick for it. I love this feature especially while using very fast lenses where every millimeter counts.
Of cause there are other improvements. The new Canon 600EX-RT is supported. HDR and multi exposure images are out of the box possible. The second memory card slot helps if you forget the primary memory cart at home. There is now a dedicated button for live view and capturing movies like it's known from the 7D. The mode dial wheel features a lock button now so it'll never switch the mode unintentionally. I guess I'll remember other things after finishing this article :)
So I talked about the good things. But there is also one thing I don't like so far. The image zoom it is. All my prior Canon cameras had dedicated buttons to zoom in and out. The 5D MKIII does not. There is a dedicated button to enable or disable the zoom mode. Once enabled you have to use the thumb wheel so zoom in and out. I'm still not used to this and continue pressing the wrong buttons which I was trained for in the last seven or eight years.
Overall the Canon 5D MKIII is a great camera. After the 7D I can say that I like a camera very much again. As of now I don't miss a single feature. It provides great image quality while featuring the latest technology as well. So is it worth the price? Depends on whom you ask. I would definitely answer with yes.