Canon 5D Mark III

I've found that photographers fall into two camps: those who use their camera till it drops dead of exhaustion before considering a new model, and those who feel the need to update as often as possible. I think the wait for the Canon EOS 5D Mark III has been killing both those groups. It's been so long that a lot of hard-used 3-plus-year-old 5D Mark IIs are ready to surrender, and the frequent updaters have been buffeted on a sea of rumors and delays. But the 5DM3 is almost here--shipping within a few weeks, in theory--and it looks like it will have what it takes to please them both. While the 5DM3 is obviously big news, Canon's intent to drop of the price of the 5DM2 (to what, I don't know yet) and keep it on the market is pretty important, too: $3,500 is pretty steep for a lot of people who want to go full-frame, and it helps keeps Canon in competition with the newly price-reduced Nikon D700. As you'd expect, the 5DM3 consists of a combination of technologies, features, and design updates rolled out in the EOS 7D and the more recent 1D X. The result is a camera that looks similar to its predecessor but that's otherwise almost completely different. Though a different sensor than that of the 1D X, it uses a lot of the same technology that Canon rolled out for that model, including gapless microlenses and improved quantum efficiency (to improve the amount of light capturable on the photodiodes); better on-chip noise reduction; and faster data readout (dual four-channel readouts). Though it has 6.25-micron sites compared with 6.4 microns on the older sensor, Canon claims that all the other advances, including the better processing in the Digic 5+ engine, delivers overall better noise performance--2 stops better for JPEG and video. Canon does say the 1D X remains about one stop cleaner, however. The camera also inherits the sophisticated 61-point reticulated autofocus system from the 1D X, along with the ability to customize the AF-point groupings. It uses the older metering system from the 7D, however, which theoretically shouldn't matter here: the newer system enables features like face and object tracking to boost burst-shooting autofocus performance, but this camera really isn't for the serious continuous shooters. Incorporating Digic 5+ adds a lot of important features. These include support for UDMA 7 CF; the camera now has dual CF/SDXC card slots, which is a really useful feature. And Canon implements it with the novel ability to configure it to record different sizes/quality of raw or JPEG files saved to each card. There's also three-shot in-camera HDR, but you can save the source images as well as add some effects. (For manual HDR, you get a bump to seven-frame bracketing at +/-5 EV.) Additionally, it offers the same powerful multiple-exposure mode as the 1D X. The Digic 5+ also adds the new video encoders (All-I and IP-B) which appeared in the 1D X, along with 720/60p recording and improved moire handling. The 5DM3 also gets a headphone jack, time code support, and 64 levels of audio control plus a wind filter. One video disappointment: the camera only outputs the display view via HDMI, so you can't get high-resolution video capture that way and it has the display overlay. On the other hand, you're no longer limited to 12-minute clips. Interestingly, although it has a new shutter mechanism with bounce-dampening technology to decrease noise and vibration as in the 1D X, the shutt From: Cnet