When a fellow photographer showed me the silent/stealth shutter feature of the Canon 5D Mark III, I decided I needed it because I photograph events that require me to be *very* quiet when I’m taking the photos.

Since purchasing the camera, I’ve discovered additional useful features that I’ll mention here:

1) Dual memory card recording. Like the Canon 1D Mark IV I had previously, this camera has slots for both CF and SD memory cards. You have the option of recording to the cards in parallel (giving yourself an automatic backup card in case one card becomes corrupted) or serially (first one, then the other…giving yourself lots of storage.)

2) Locking mode dial. Unlike the 5D and the 5D Mark II (unless you paid an additional $100 for the latter), you have to push a button in order to change the mode dial. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally bumped the mode dial on the 5D and 5D Mark II, suddenly finding myself in a totally different mode (e.g., aperture priority, shutter priority, manual, etc) than I expected!

3) Extended Auto ISO up to 12,800 ISO. The 5D Mark II only went up to 3200 in Auto.

4) Auto ISO exposure in Manual mode. My 1D Mark IV had this feature too; though the 5D Mark III improves on it (I’ll explain). There are cases when I want to set the aperture and shutter speeds to particular values and let the ISO fluctuate to find the optimal exposure. The 1D Mark IV had this feature, and the 5D Mark III has it too. However, in addition, the 5D Mark III lets you lock in exposure with the “*” button and then recompose and take a photo at that setting. The 1D Mark IV wouldn’t allow you to use the “*” button (when in manual mode + Auto ISO) to lock in the exposure/ISO. The 5D Mark III does, and it can be *very* useful.

5) Finally increased the number of AF points. With the 5D Mark III, Canon finally increased the number of auto-focus points from the antiquated 9-points of the 5D and 5D Mark II, to an incredible 61 points.

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