*This post is based on a Pre-Production model of the 1Ds3, images and comments made may not reflect the actual production units.
Background
The Canon EOS 1Ds Mk.III was announced on 20th August 2007; Canon has again broke new ground by a camera that has exceeded all the previous models in terms of resolution and a host of other improvements that was seen in the 1D Mark.III released earlier this year.
There were many questions hanging in everyone’s minds when it was announced and I shall attempt to answer them one by one on this preview; this preview will not be a function by function, button by button dissection of the camera as I am sure there will be many others who will do such a analysis later. It will be based on my perspective as a photographer and how the camera functions as an image producing tool.
EOS 1Ds Mark. III with 50/1.2L @ f/4.0, 1/60sec, ISO1600, NR Off
Operation
When Canon introduced it’s 3rd generation of the 1D-series in the 1D Mark.III, they have decided to streamline the interface of this series of cameras by simplifying certain important functions to utilize one button only instead of 2-buttons plus the top dial for changing shooting modes, ISO and among others.
From the short time I had the pre-production 1Ds Mark.III, I say that Canon has done it right on the basis that now functions are more easily accessible and at the same time, with the requirement of pressing and holding a button plus turning the top dial as a control system, it prevents accidental and unintended changes made on the camera.
The menu controls have also been improved, with the main dial and top dial serving different functions, one to select which menu tab to display, the other to select the menu item. This speeds up menu access considerably and it does help in terms of ergonomics as a seasoned user would be able to operate the menu much, much quicker than the previous implementation.
Custom functions are now split into different categories, from Exposure to Focusing and Other Functions. While this makes a lot of sense for someone who is using the camera for the first time, I doubt it would be useful for the professionals who use it day in day out. A welcomed improvement but I believe the old system of lumping all the custom functions under one menu might actually be better for most professionals as most instinctively know that what CF4, CF10 is for and could change those without ever needing to read what is on the LCD. And I think some reviewers would be glad that the Print button is now gone.
With the pre-production hardware and firmware, some of the features of this camera can’t be accessed, notably Liveview and a small shot buffer, so I won’t comment on those.
EOS 1Ds Mark. III w/ 50/1.2L @ f/ 1.2, 1/250sec, ISO3200, NR off
EOS 1Ds Mark. III w/ 24/1.4L @ f/ 1.4, 1/3200sec, ISO100, NR off
Image Quality
Image quality, has there been any doubts or questions from anyone regarding the 1Ds-series of cameras about this? If think not, all of these cameras had the best image quality there is for DSLRs when they were released and some say that the 1Ds (the first generation) still holds the crown on image quality even today, 5yrs after it was released.
Right… enough ranting about the past models, how does this version rate? Well… let’s just say “Amazing” does not do it justice. Take a shot, any shot, on broad daylight, at sunset or sunrise, at night under street lights or indoors with artificial lighting, colors are rich and strong in all those conditions.
This is actually quite a feat of engineering as a lot of types of non-professional artificial lighting actually has a very narrow spectrum of colors; and a camera that is capable of capturing that narrow spectrum and then being able to render even those slight shifts in color to make a rich image, that is really something and I have not seen images like these from any DSLR before this.
Now, I think any preview or review of a 1Ds Mark.III is not complete without the mention of the fact that this is a 21MP 35mm format DSLR. How do the current lenses match up with it? Well… to be honest, I did not test the ISO100 performance this round as my tripod is in the “Tripod Hospital” and this being a pre-production model, the odds are the that image processing firmware would change between this and the release version, I shall revisit this when I get a release version for testing.
As for high ISO performance, I did quite a few test shots using ISO3200 or H mode and found the results completely acceptable and useable when your requirements are not huge prints. If you do require huge prints, a dose of noise reduction software fixes up everything.
Another test I did was the monochrome mode for B&W photography, I find that the B&W mode using the red filter actually gives very pleasant results for off-camera JPEGs and it is highly useable with the only issue being that the camera’s automatic metering tends to overexpose hence giving a very gray image, all that is easily fixed by using -2 exposure compensation during the B&W test and the results came out rather good.
Conclusion
Would I buy this camera? To be honest, I did ask the Canon salesperson if they would sell me the pre-production unit but unfortunately the answer was a resounding NO. Well… I guess like the rest of the world I would have to wait for the actual release to wrap my greasy little fingers around the 1Ds Mark.III.
Though this test was rather short and it is not that thorough, whatever that I tested, I found that this unit has at least matched my expectation of what a professional camera should be like and in some cases, far exceeded them and as an image-making tool, I do not think you can find a camera that performs at this level at this price out there.
Having said all that, I guess the downside of the 1Ds Mark.III would the price that puts it out of reach for most if not all amateurs and maybe even quite a few professionals and I was unable to test out how is the ultimate resolution of this camera with existing lenses I am unable to test the camera with a tripod.
There are faster cameras out there, there are cameras with higher resolution but the combination of high resolution, portability, ease-of-use, advanced electronics and good high ISO performance is what makes the 1Ds Mark.III stand out from the rest.
*This post is based on a Pre-Production model of the 1Ds3, images and comments made may not reflect the actual production units.
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Blog : www-stevenleong-com/blog
Blog : www-stevenleong-com/blog
Last edited by Steven Leong
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