Art Morris in love with 5D III!

[jrista]

Art Morris, a world-renown bird photographer who is well-known for his use of f/8 AF, recently posted an article proclaiming his praise for the 5D Mark III and its AF (despite the lack of f/8 AF.) He indicates that the AF performance of the 5D III in the hands of a skilled Canon photographer is nothing less than stellar, producing an extremely high rate of keepers. Perhaps this will answer some of the questions about the capabilities of 5D III AF, IQ, etc. and whether it really is up to snuff or not:

http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2012/03/28/the-canon-eos-5d-mark-iii-im-in-love/

When I got home and viewed the series of flight images I realized that my 5D III AF predictions were true. Every image was sharp. Even when the bird flew behind a wire or the telephone pole. The files are luscious, incredibly detailed and sharp with natural color.

...

I must tell you, I have never been so excited about a new camera before.

I had headed out even without taking a look at the camera body manual. I had gone through all the Menus and I must say I was mega-confused…. As you can see that did not hurt my images though. As it turns out I was in Central Sensor Expand AF area. I plan on experimenting with all of the AF area selection modes. And I will of course be working hard on the BAA 5D Mark III User’s Guide. I have even figured out how to toggle between the various AF area selection modes. I could not do that this morning  . And it took me quite a while to figure out how to set up rear focus….

[KeithR]

Yep, I mentioned his gushing praise and enthusiasm for it in response to something Wickidwombat posted in another thread, and the example images Art has posted so far back up the words.

[V8Beast]

Good stuff, and great images. If someone told me six months ago that Canon would release a 5DIII that's capable of capturing BIF, I would have told them that they're out of their mind

[RunAndGun]

Glad I looked at the article.  I went for one thing and found something even better that I wasn't looking for.  His "rear focus" technique is interesting and seems to be a good way to pull off what I was wanting to be able to do, more or less switching instantly from One Shot AF to Servo AF without going into the focus/drive menu.  I know you can assign the function of switching Servo and One Shot to the DoF Preview button, but I don't like the mechanics of that, my fingers aren't quite long enough to pull it off smoothly or without pulling my index/trigger finger off the shutter button.