>>3470077I'm an amateur photographer that works in technology. I shoot both film and digital and picked up the GRIII so I had a more powerful pocket camera.
My initial impressions were that I was disappointed in the auto-focus system in low-light. It was REALLY bad. For a camera that advertises really good low-light performance, I was kinda mad and was considering reselling it. That soon changed.
When they released the 1.10 firmware, it significantly improves the low-light auto focus system to be actually usable. Since that update, I have little complaints about the camera.
People seem to be upset about the battery life but really if you're doing a whole day's worth of shooting just bring along extra batteries. They're really small and you can easily fit more than what you would need into a pocket.
Furthermore, I really recommend all digital photographers to try film for awhile. It really slows you down in the amount of pictures you take. It makes you heavily consider the frame more and as a result you will end up taking better pictures as a digital photographer (as long as you're still following all of the elements and principles of art).
As for the complaints about flash... how often do you use the on-camera flash on your DSLR? You know that off-camera is the way to go for better lighting; avoiding red-eye and hard shadows. I recommend checking out the Flash Q - a small wireless tether for off-camera flash and it works great with the GRIII. Plus they're pretty cheap.
