Canon 5D Mark III First Impressions Review

Design & Appearance

The Canon 5D Mark III is very similar to the 5D Mark II in appearance and handling, with barely any changes to the size and feel of the camera. There are some big updates to the overall control scheme of the camera, however, actually bringing it more in line with the usability that the Canon 7D offered. The top plate of the 5D Mark III, for example, is nearly identical to the 7D, with a locking mode dial and power switch on the left side of the viewfinder.

The back of the camera is also more in line with the ergonomic updates made to the 7D. The controls are still quite similar to the 5D Mark II, with five keys along the left side of the rear LCD, rear control joystick, large rear control dial, and control keys just below the top readout display. The menu key now sits where the button to engage live view did on the Mark II, replaced with a dedicated "creative photo" button. Where the old creative photo button was now sits a button that lets you immediately rate a photo, a metatag that will carry through conversion to other files and into photo editing programs.

Live view and video recording control is now the same as on the 7D, with a dedicated start/stop record video switch with live view lever. Canon's "Q" quality menu button is also present between the control dial and control stick, a feature that now pops up across Canon's DSLR lineup.

The left side of the camera houses all of the camera's many input and output ports, hidden behind rubber flaps that securely click into place. The right side has the dual memory card slots, which allows for both CF and SD cards to record images, a big upgrade over the 5D Mark II.

Users of the 5D Mark II and 7D will both feel right at home picking up and shooting with the 5D Mark III, though Mark II users will have a few new features to learn. Altogether it's an amalgamation of all the improvements Canon has made to their high-end DSLR lines since the 5D Mark II's release, better designed to accommodate both still and video shooters.

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