Now to be honest with you all, I don’t consider myself a professional photographer, but rather it just a hobby of mine. I have read many of the reviews and many of the comparisons between other cameras and I have to say my 3 weeks of experience with this camera certainly lines well with the reviews. I have no real way to compare the 5D2 with any of the more interesting camera such as the Canon 50D, 1D3, or the Nikon D3. There are plenty of other reviews available that covers this angle of the 5D2 story. I have not seen much real life reviews of the camera, so I figure I take this opportunity to write a review based on real life conditions. To put things in the proper context, I am upgrading from the Canon EOS Rebel XT. I had considered upgrading to the 40D, but I felt that it was not enough bang for me to upgrade. The Canon 5D Mark II offered the bang I was looking to achieve and I truly believe it was worth every penny.

I view myself as a generalist and do not focus on one area of photography. I have one camera (new 5D2) and a bunch of L lenses for the camera. If there is a picture to take, I take it and so far, I found the Canon 5D Mark II to be able to handle just about any thing. The camera is not just for weddings!

In this review, I will share some photo I have taken so far as well as cover my favorite features of the camera. Most of my sample photos will be JPEG right from the camera with the NR set to standard. In the past, I would shoot RAW and I would post process my RAW with Bibble Pro 4.10. But at this time, Bibble does not support the 5D2 as of yet and the DPP is frankly too slow for me. I have recently considered changing to Photoshop, but I have decided that I rather buy a new L lense then pay for PhotoShop. I have a license for Bibble and it a great product and will just have to wait until Bibble can support the 5D2. Certainly, I have RAW versions of all my photos and plan on experimenting with Cropping and evaluating its NR capabilities with the 5D2 once Bibble Pro 5 comes out with 5D2 support. Lucky for me, the 5D2 is producing awesome JPEG pictures right out of the camera which is allowing me to wait.

First up is Indoor Basketball shoots. I have hundreds of them so far. This one was taken in bad lighting conditions in an old gym. I used my Canon 24-70 F2.8 Lens with an Exposure Time of 1/250Sec, F-Stop 2.8, and ISO 3200. This photo came right out of the camera with no adjustments. The white balance is great and the colors are perfect. It has some noise, but certainly this can easily be clean up.

Here is another shot in a gym where the lighting conditions where much better. I used my Canon 24-70 F2.8 Lens again with an Exposure Time of 1/320Sec, F-Stop 3.2, and ISO 1600. This photo came right out of the camera with no adjustments. The white balance is great and the colors are perfect. Interesting in this gym, I have the camera set to Tv Priority set at 1/320 and auto ISO enabled. What I like about the 5D2 is that the F-stop will float between 3.2 and 2.8 (not sure why) but more importantly, the ISO will adjust down and low as possible (which I like a lot). For this lighting condition, the ISO seems to float between 1000 and 2500. The lighting changes slightly depending on where I am sitting in the gym and how far I have zoomed in or out the lens.

This next shot I had the camera set to full automatic. I don’t always use full automatic, but I wanted to see what the 5D2 would do in this condition. The 5D2 use ISO 100, F-stop of 8, and Exposure of 1/640 Sec. I used my Canon 70-200 F4 IS lenses for this shoot.

DIGIC 4 imaging processor

Comparing the 5D2 with my old Canon EOS Rebel XT (350D), one of the first things you will notice is the imaging processor capabilities in the 5D2. It seemed that just about every picture I had taken with the Rebel XT, needed some adjustments to the photo and why I always shot RAW. I had to adjust the White Balance, noise for ISO 800 or 1600, and at times, even the color was not quite right. However with the new DIGIC 4 image processor, I am seeing the colors and the white balance more under control and even more exciting, it has a built in Noise Reduction capability. Unscientifically of course, if you compare the JPEG coming right out of the camera, you notice a major difference in over all quality.

Being a Full Frame camera, right off the bat, you will notice a 1 F-Stop advantage over a crop camera such as the Rebel XT in respect to controlling the Exposure Time. In addition, using DPP and reviewing RAW files and comparing old basketball photo I had at 1600 and comparing them with the new basketball photo I have with the 5D2, I can notice the difference right away. The 350D at 1600 was not always usable. It depended a lot on the lighting conditions. With the 5D2, I am finding that noise level to be very usable up through 6400. To be clear, I do not have formal comparisons (kinda hard to do that with low lighting indoor action sports), but certainly I have been able to clean up a few 6400 test shots I have taken that simply look great. Many times I struggled when using 1600 on the 350D.

The other problem I had with the 350D, is I would set Av priority to a F-Stop of 2.8 and set the ISO to 1600. Many times, I would get blurry pictures because at times, the Exposure Time would be under 1/160 Sec. I did experiment with the under exposing with result of even more noise to deal with. Hard to get a half way decent indoor basketball shoot with bad gym lighting conditions and getting undesirable Exposure Times. Trust me, been there, done that. The 5D2 now gives me the ability to take great shoots even when the lighting conditions are bad.

Wow, for me, one of the biggest things I noticed with the 5D2 is the battery life between charges. When I had my 350D, it had to always have a 2^nd battery with me especially when I used AI SERVO. With the 5D2 and using AI SERVO, I am taking hundreds of shots and coming home with my battery still having 70% or 80% battery power remaining. I could not be any happier here. I almost bought a 2^nd battery for the 5D2, but the sales guy was very honest and said that I may not need it based on why I had a second one for the 350D. He was correct. I appreciate the honesty I got from them at www.cameracompany.com.

In addition, the 5D2 offers the ability to give you Battery status information such as the percentage remaining and the number of shots remaining. The 350D did not have this ability. In respect to basketball photos I have been taking, I found the Auto Focus with AI SERVO enable to be really fast as compare to the 350D I am use too. Many times with the 350D, I would loose a shot because the Auto Focus was simply not ready and fast enough. For the 5D2, I have yet to miss a picture I wanted; always focused and ready to go.

For a guy like me who is over 40 now, the screen on the 350D was just becoming a problem for me. The 5D2 3” LCD Screen is not only much bigger, but it also very sharp. The two things you need when you’re over 40. So if your over 40, this screen is a must have. Similar to the 350D, it does offer the ability to zoom in and out when reviewing photos, but what different is that the photo remains sharp as you zoom in. Also, it has a very nice button that they call their multi-controller which allows mouse like ability to move your picture up and down or left to right, very easily.

Menu System

Bottom line, it is very easy and simple! Just the way I like it. In addition, I was able to customize my very own screen. The only negative I will say is when I took the Ski photo above, I discovered that the customize Screen is not available if you are in full auto mode. For me, I don’t use full Auto Mode very often, but I do think this is a ridiculous restriction that Canon should consider removing. In respect to the 350D, the menu system is a major improvement with the 5D2.

Continues Shooting

The 5D2 has the ability to take 3.9 Shots per second which is slightly faster then the 350D. The 50D can perform at 6.3 shots per second with the 40D slightly faster. Given that some of my pictures are indoor sports, I debated for some time if I should go with the 50D or the 5D2. At the end, I went with the 5D2 because of the much better sensor that can handle low lighting conditions much better then the 50D. Putting the sensor to the side, simply having the 1 stop advantage being a full frame camera means you can basically double your Exposure time which is important for indoor sports pictures. I have never tried using a 50D or a 40D, but so far, I have been able to get great actions shots without the 6.3 advantage.

Video

So far, it appears to be working very well. I felt it was important to mention it, but at this point in time, I have not spent a lot of time using it in some real world scene.

Black Dots

Given all of the buzz about black dots, I thought it was important to mention the situation. The 5D2 can produce black dots that can be seen when shooting in very low lighting and you are taking a picture of street lights or Christmas lights. Based on what I read, they can be seen when you crop the photo by 100%. If you look closely, you will see a black dot in the middle of the light. Good news is Canon has acknowledged the problem and plans a firmware upgrade at some point to address the problem. My personal view is I have never seen the issue with my camera but then again, I never had an opportunity to take pictures on the conditions required to see this problem.

Final Thoughts

I am sure you can tell that I am quite pleased with this camera. 5D2 is an awesome camera. I feel the 5D2 has a solid control of its noise performance up to ISO 6400. I now have the ability to take much improved indoor sport pictures. I am sure the Nikon D3 or 700 or the Canon 1D3 can take solid indoor sport pictures as well, but given the price point and where I am as a hobbyist today, the 5D2 is a create camera and great option for me.

• 24.5 megapixel in a 35.9 x 24 mm CMOS sensor
• 16-bit EXPEED system
• 5.0 frames-per-second in it’s full size mode, and 7 frames-per-second in a cropped 10 megapixel mode (I guess they want to encourage people who need the extra 2 frames-per-second to purchase the D3)
• ISO 50-6400, which I’m guessing means that, like the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III (highest ISO is 3200), this dSLR is not intended for low light situations as with the D3 is. There doesn’t seem to be any mention of any higher ISO range such as 12,800 or 25,600.
• Same 3 inch 922,000 LCD
• Live View
• 12ms startup time with a 41ms shutter lag
• Dual Compact Flash slots capable of 35MB/second write times

For pictures of the Nikon Pro magazine and how the D3x stacks up against the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, click in to read more.

Comparison of Nikon D3x and Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III

As always, this comparison is only a comparison based on specifications. Colors, performance, ergonomics, and other features are subjective and can’t quite be measured without bias.

Conclusion

Nikon definitely doesn’t disappoint with their high resolution D3x. The D3 was aimed at photojournalist, wedding photographers and sports photographer, much like the D2h and D2hs was. The D3x is aimed at those who need higher resolution such as studio and landscape photographers. This is not to say the D3x can’t be used for photojournalism, wedding photography, and/or sports photography. I’m pretty sure a number of wedding photographers will pick up a D3x to complement their D3.

Canon has certainly fell a bit further behind with their 1Ds Mark III compared to the (yet-to-be-released) D3x. Things such as the outdated, crappy 3.0 LCD screen with a laughable 230,000 pixel and maximum ISO of 3200. The D3x has the same ISO levels (performance will be another thing to be seen) as the Canon EOS 1D Mark III, a 10 megapixel dSLR. I certainly like the D3/D3x’s dual Compact Flash slots, but I can see the advantages of having a Compact Flash slot and a SD/SDHC slot as a) if you are shooting in situations where your memory card can be confiscated, at least with the SD/SDHC, it’s not as easily noticed; b) SD/SDHC has attained (and in some cases surpassed) Compact Flash speeds; and c) more laptops are more likely to have a SD/SDHC built in reader than a built-in Compact Flash reader.

I’ve always liked how Nikon has offered a “cropped” mode, first introduced in the D2x, and has remained in the D3, and now also seen in the D3x. By allowing the photographer to switch to a lower megapixel selection, they can attain extra frames-per-second.

One thing of interest is that the HD video feature first introduced in the D90 does not appear in the new D3x. Does Nikon not feel it’s ready for the pros? So us Canon shooters will now continue to wait and see what is in store with the Canon EOS 1D/1Ds Mark IV. Kudos Nikon, you certainly are listening to your users.

© Engadget.com

© Engadget.com

For a $4,000 difference between the 1D, the 1Ds emblems are gold plated

Sooo, if you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have noticed my mention of a “new toy”. Well, the wait’s over, my new toy is a camera. Not any camera, but Canon’s top-top of the line, the much sought after and highly desired Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II. Up until August 2007, it had been the highest megapixel camera for a full frame (or even cropped sensors) 35mm digital sensor. Introduced in September 2004, it took the photography world by storm offering the most megapixel at the time in a full frame sensor. The Canon EOS 1Ds (mark I) was the first dSLR to feature a full frame sensor with the Kodak DCN-14n following suite.

All this for only eight thousand dollars ($8,000). So, yea. Quite out of reach even for many professionals photographers.

I already currently own a Canon EOS 1D Mark II, which up to this point served as my primary body with a Canon EOS 5D as my secondary/backup body. I’ve been itching for another 1D body, as it makes sense to have identical bodies when shooting fast paced events such as wedding because all the controls, menu layout, and functionality are identical. So when an opportunity arose, I jumped, and now I’m a proud owner of a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II versus Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II

There are more similarities than differences between the 1D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II. Here’s a quick comparison:

The biggest differences are: sensor size, resolution/megapixels, crop factor, and continous drive. You can’t really compare these two SLRs to each other because they serve two entirely different functions. Obviously from the specs, the Canon EOS 1D Mark II is a sport/photojournalist photographer’s camera. At the sacrifice of resolution (8.2 MP versus 16.7 MP), the Canon EOS 1D Mark II can burst up to 8.5 frames-per-second, which was the fastest dSLR until the Nikon D3 and Canon EOS 1D Mark III were introduced. The 1D Mark II also can store more images in it’s buffer (40 versus 32), most likely due to the resolution differences. On the issue of crop factor, it has been my experience, that sport and to some degree, most photojournalists, enjoy the crop factor because of the perceived “reach”. But on the other hand, having a full frame sensor allows all lenses attached to the 1Ds Mark II to utilize it’s native focal length, so 16mm is really 16mm and not an equivalent to 20mm.

So if the 1D Mark II is primarily for sports and photojournalism, then what is the 1Ds Mark II’s primary role? Obviously photojournalism is one area where you need the use of wide angle and super wide angle lenses. That’s one of the reasons why the Nikon D3 is popular among photojournalist: speed, full frame, high ISO capabilities, and in my opinion the Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED N lens (the sharpest wide angle lens currently). Landscape photography is another great use. Although the Canon EOS 5D is used by a lot of landscape photographers and cost considerably less, there are a number of landscape photographers who need or want the extra four million megapixels along with superior weather sealing. But I think one of the biggest selling point for the 1Ds Mark II is portrait photography. The images produced by the 1Ds Mark II when used in portrait photography is nothing less than spectacular. Just look at the images on Flickr taken by the 1Ds Mark II. This isn’t to say you can’t use a 1Ds Mark II for sports photography, but it’s like you wouldn’t use a chain saw to cut carrots. It works, but not quite exactly the right tool for the job.

Conclusion

So how will the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II serve me? Well for wedding photography, the Canon EOS 1D Mark II will be for fast paced action scenes such as bouquet toss, garter toss, first kiss, ring exchange, the dances (father/daughter, mother/son, first dance) and anything else where I might need the 8.5 fps burst speed. The 1Ds Mark II will be for the formal portraits, tender moments, etc. Most likely I’ll be using my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM on the 1D Mark II because I usually don’t need super wide angle and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM on the 1Ds Mark II because I generally don’t need super reach, but I do like the bokeh produced by using a telephoto zoom lens on a full frame body.

The biggest advantage of shooting with a 1D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II is that the menu and camera functionality, for the most part, are identical. Switching ISO is the same exact two buttons. Reviewing images are the same buttons, changing focus, etc. Plus both the Mark II’s use the same NP-E3 Ni-MH batteries which mean I only have to lug around one charger. Also both the Mark II’s use dual memory storage for images so I can easily have a backup of all the images I take.

Be on the lookout for my 1D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II review with pictures coming soon.

The class was quite informative with quite a bit of hands-on tuition from Jennifer. We met at Keeble & Shuchat Photography at 11:00 AM and had a one hour introduction by Jennifer including some information from Jim Rose. Afterward, the group of fifteen broke up and had lunch at Mollie Stone nearby. The plan was meet at Pescadero (Half Moon Bay) at 3:00 PM.

Most of us commuted with each other as a precaution because parking can be some what difficult on a weekend. Jim Rose (Senior Professional Market Specialist for Field Market Support), David Carlson (newly promoted National Manager for the Canon Field Market Support), and Adam I-can’t-spell-his-last name (Canon’s Liaison Rep to stores like Keeble & Shuchat) from Canon brought out thirty something Canon L lenses for us to use and try. I had an excellent opportunity to try many lenses including Canon’s new $12,000 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens, 500mm f/4L IS USM, 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, and a bunch of other telephoto lenses. Jim also brought a pre-production Canon EOS 50D with the new Canon EF 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens. They both garnered good comments. I think the 50D will do well. I had also an opportunity to use Adam’s personal work camera, the 1D Mark 3, which was great. The entire event lasted for some five hours. The weather wasn’t great, but I’m sure a lot of people still got some great shots. Me, being the “people” photographer, spent most of my time shooting people. The cost for this very informative class was $49.

• Full frame with 21.1 MP, certainly quite a bit of megapixels
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System
• Digic 4 with 14 bit A/D conversion
• Max JPEG sizes of 5616 x 3744
• 9-point TTL CMOS AF sensor with 6 “Invisible Assist points” (a bit disappointing that they didn’t roll the 45 point AF sensor into the new 5D Mark II)
• ISO 100-6400 with 50, 12800, and 25,600 with expansion (YES!)
• 3.0″ TFT LCD with 920,000 pixels
• Live View with 30 fps
• Movie recording capabilities of 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
• No built in flash (I’m sure a lot of people are disappointed given that Nikon did it in the D700)
• 3.9 frames-per-second continuous burst for 78 frames (310 with UDMA card)

So Canon has certainly heard Nikon’s challenge (but not apparently heard it loud enough), but is this enough to win back some of the pro who switched? I’m not sure. Some of the biggest draw back for photographers who shoot in low light (wedding photography) and/or sports (and the likes) is the weak auto focus (seems like the same exact AF as the 5D) and weak frame rate (3.9). Certainly for landscape photography, 9 auto focus points is usually fine. Also being able to shoot at ISO 25,600 is certainly very, very appealing. I’m not as impressed as I thought I would be and at this point, I don’t think I would purchase the new 5D Mark II. But once we start seeing some actual production model images, who knows. A lot of us are still waiting for a 1D series that actually works right, perhaps this is one of the reasons why it has the older generation auto focus? Read more about the 5D Mark II with sample videos and specs at DPReview.com. You can also read Canon’s press release here.

Also a new Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM lens was released.

Comparison Chart

Looking at the side-by-side comparison, the 5D Mark II certainly looks promising, but can it compete or even beat the Nikon D700? It’s got more megapixels, which isn’t always a good thing. The viewfinder is bigger, which is always nice, but it’s still not quite like the 1Ds Mark III and D3. It can do video, which I’m not sure is a good thing. Only time will tell.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III with Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM

The Canon L Series Lenses

The class started off with Jim Rose discussing about what makes Canon “L” lenses so special from the normal consumer level lenses. He also confirmed that the “L” does, in fact, stand for Luxury. What defines a L lenses is the existence of:

• Two or more Ultra-Low Dispersion (UD) elements (and/or)
• Fluorite Element (and/or)
• Ground and polished aspherical elements

Fluorite is a natural occurring element, but usually not enough in quantity to be useful, so Canon has developed a method to “grow” them. It takes at least two ultra-low dispersion to equal one fluorite element. The fluorite element eliminates almost all chromatic aberrations.

Wide angle lenses and “fast” lenses (f/1, f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2) experience spherical aberrations which causes the images not to be as sharp until they are stopped down to apertures of f/5.6 or f/8. By using aspherical elements, this counter-acts the spherical aberration effect and can also make zoom lenses smaller in size. There are three types of aspherical elements:

• Molded aspherical element: round glass is super heated until near melting and is poured into a molding and allowed to cool thus making a molded aspherical element. This process makes creating aspherical elements cheaper, but not as good quality.
• Replicated aspherical element: a piece of specially created resin is glued to the round glass to create an aspherical element. This types of aspherical element tends to appear in the consumer grade Canon lenses
• Ground and polished aspherical: glass is grounded and polished until they meet the aspherical criteria. Very expensive and appears exclusively in the L line.

The Canon L lenses are designed to be durable withstanding: torrential down pour rain, extreme temperatures, snow, grueling wear and tear. All the L lenses use ring type Ultra Sonic Motor (USM) focus motors. This is the fastest type of auto focus that Canon has. Jim also spoke of the f/4 zooms (17-40mm, 24-105mm, and 70-200mm) and offering customers a choice in lighter weight equipment at a lower price with the same L quality. Jim also spoke briefly of Canon’s “S” line, the EF-S mount lenses specially designed for the crop sensors.

Jim also spoke of the tilt-shift lens and it’s uniqueness in the Canon line. Also someone in the audience had asked why only one of the three tilt-shift lenses offered by Canon is designated as a L and Jim’s response was: 1) L designation is given to lenses who fit the above requirements and 2) not all lenses require fluorite or ultra-low dispersion glass to achieve optimal quality. Thus, the 45mm and 90mm tilt-shift lenses are not L quality lenses because they do not contain fluorite or ultra-low dispersion elements.

Nature’s Elusive Beauty

Jennifer Wu gave a great PowerPoint presentation on capturing Nature’s Elusive Beauty, the one moment in which the scene is perfect, the lighting is just right, the colors are popping, the scene is ready to be captured.

Jennifer shoots with a new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and a Canon EOS 5D. Her lenses are the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. She does very little post processing, usually dodging and burning and does not remove anything from the scene with Adobe Photoshop or up the saturation in anyway. She uses a circular polarizer and neutral density filters.

Some of the bullet point tips she offered:

• Finding locations: Internet, guide books, asking the locals
• Things to consider: seasons, fall colors at peaks, when flowers are in bloom
• Get local advice: call ranger stations (rangers have most likely hiked every inch of the area and done it repeatably where they would know the best times to visit), visitor shops to find the answer to questions
• Scout the area: scenic routes, pullout areas, off the side of the road
• Get off the beaten path. Don’t just come to a pullout area, get out, take a picture, and leave. Walk around a bit, get a different angle.
• Things to consider for photographing: weather, clouds and light (arrive before a storm-clearing storm, fog create mystery, rain-saturated colors, snow-first dusting on mountains (versus white covered mountains), wind and movement
• How to create perspective: lens coverage, distance to subject, and camera angle
• The lens you choose is about the type of coverage you want
• Focus using hyperfocal distance to get things near and far in focus.
• Always use a tripod for maximum sharpness.
• Camera angles: look down, look up, get low. Create depth with wide angle lens by getting up really close.
• Use ND and Polarizers. Polarizers for foilage, water, and midst
• User manual with spot metering on 18% grey of red or blue. Aim for exact exposure, not under or over. Shoot RAW and aim for f/16.
• Foreground elements: fill the subject with the foreground element.

One of Jennifer’s other favorite types of photography is star photography. Here are some great tips she offered for photographing stars:

• To avoid star trails and get points of light: Take 500 divided by focal length of the lens (if you are using a crop sensor, you have to take that into account and get the actual focal length) will give you the seconds to set your camera to get points of light. Anymore and you will have star trails
• Use wide angle lenses at 30 seconds or less.
• Shoot at wide open aperture (f/2.8, f/1.2 if you can)
• For moonless night, set ISO to 3200, with moon (depending on how bright), set ISO to 200-400
• Use your ISO to change exposure and not aperture or shutter
• Turn your camera’s noise reduction on which is great help
• After you take a night shot, let your CMOS sensor cool down for at least 30 seconds or you may have additional noise in your picture because of the heat on the sensor
• Set your white balance to custom kelvin from 3200-3800 to give the nice bluish sky
• WB custom 4200 works really well at the beginning of sunset, but not at 3 AM
• Try focusing on the brightest star and not on a tree or foreground element. If nothing to focus on, set to infinity and back off a bit.

Conclusion

This was a very informative free seminar sponsored by Canon. It was also an introduction course for those who signed up for the Canon Field Workshop the next day. Jennifer Wu has some absolutely stunning landscape shots and is able to articulate her technique and give steps and advice and not boring useless technical details.

As an added benefit, we were able to try all the twenty four lenses and four bodies and all the participants were given a free copy of the newly updated EF Lens Works III book that includes the new Canon Mark 3 bodies and new lenses. Awesome.

Gallery

Here are the specs as reported by DPReview.com:

• 15.5 megapixel CMOS sensor
• Digic 4
• 9 point AF sensors (still nothing compared to the Nikon D300′s 54 point AF)
• ISO 100-3200 with 6400 and 12800
• Different focusing screens
• 3.0″ LCD with 920,000 pixels
• 6.3 frames-per-second for 90 JPEGs with UDMA support

On paper, it looks like Canon is back. This renews my confidence that the new 5D (Mark II?) will definitely be a force to reckon with. Hopefully this will also potentially spell a new Canon EOS 1D Mark III(n?) with an autofocusing system that performs like a 1D and high ISO performance on par with the Nikon D3. Hopefully this signifies a paradigm shift at Canon where they are no longer afraid to put the best of what they have in some of their lower line SLRs like Nikon (D3 versus D700 versus D300).

Canon users rejoice!

Image courtesy of DPReview.com

While 4 megapixels certainly does not sound even remotely professional or cool, let me assure you that the Canon EOS 1D will amaze you.

Specifications

Released in 2001, the Canon EOS 1D is Canon’s first sole professional digital SLR. It’s primary focus is aimed at the photojournalists sacrificing megapixels for speed. The Canon EOS 1D has been out now for eight years and has numerous of reviews. Instead of focusing on the same thing that others have already discussed, I’ll focus on how relevant the 1D is still today. Let’s glance over the specs of this guy.

• 4.15 megapixel CCD sensor (JPEG pixel dimensions: 2,464 x 1,648)
• ISO 200-1600 in 1/3 steps (with ISO 100 and 3200 as a custom function)
• 4 sRGB settings with 1 Adobe RGB
• 45 AF points
• Evaluative, Partial, Spot (3 modes), and Center Weighted Metering modes
• 2.0″ 120,000 pixel LCD
• 87ms mirror black-out
• 30 to 1/16,000 sec shutter speeds with bulb
• 3 or 8 frames-per-second (FPS) for up to 21 JPEGs or 16 RAW
• 1/500th second Flash X-Sync

For more in-depth features, you can check out DPReview’s 1D specifications page. The Canon EOS 1D certainly shows its ages compared to the newer 1D line such as the Mark II/n and Mark III, but it’s still no slouch. The Mark II/n and Mark III’s fastest shutter speed is 1/8000th second whereas the 1D Mark I goes up to 1/16000th second, although you may almost never need to shoot that fast. You would have to photograph the sun with an aperture of f/1.0 or f/1.2 to need a shutter speed this fast. One perhaps more useful feature is the faster flash sync speed of 1/500th second. The Canon EOS 1D Mark II and the newer Canon EOS 1D Mark III’s fastest flash sync is 1/250th second. Having a faster flash sync speed is especially useful for flash fill. The 1D has a 1.3x meaning that with a 50mm lens mounted, it would be like a 65mm lens on a full frame sensor.

Build Quality

Canon EOS 1D

The 1D series design has changed very little in the course of nearly 8 years. The Canon EOS 1Ds uses the same identical body with a full frame sensor. The Mark II/n have a higher resolution screen (the Mark IIn gets a 2.5 inch LCD screen), the addition of a secondary card slot (Secure Digital, or SD), and the addition of a dedicated zoom/change memory slot button. The Mark III’s get a larger LCD (3 inch) and a completely different button layout in the rear.

The 1D, 1Ds, 1D Mark II, 1Ds Mark II, and 1D Mark IIn all use the same Canon NP-E3 (12v 1650mAh), which is nice because you only have to carry one set of batteries and a single charger if you have any combination of these 1D’s. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the new Mark III’s use a completely different lithium ion battery.

The build quality of the Canon EOS 1D is excellent with 90 points of weather sealing and the entire body built of magnesium alloy. It can survive being dropped from an elephant, not that you would want to try.

Operation

The biggest disadvantage of the Canon EOS 1D is the processing speed. The 1D utilizes a single Digic processor. While file flushing (time it takes to clear the buffer into the compact flash memory card) does a bit of time, and there is a very noticeable delay from on to ready and from sleep to wake, but once it’s on, it’s ready to go. I would recommend setting the auto sleep mode to something like at least 4 minutes so it doesn’t go to sleep too quickly and is always ready to fire. Auto focus acquisition is fast, especially with the 45 auto focus points. The Canon EOS 1D was the first digital SLR that could do 8 frames-per-second (FPS). The Nikon D2H is the second dSLR capable of the same speed, but was released two years later (2003) and sported a larger buffer (40 JPEGs). While the flush time might be slow, it’s noticeable faster compared to the Canon EOS 1Ds when it comes to image review. With the 1Ds, it would take forever for the image to appear on the LCD, whereas with the 1D, it comes up quicker; granted that the 1Ds has 3 times the resolution so the camera has more data to move.

With 8 FPS, the Canon EOS 1D is clearly aimed at photojournalists and sports photographers whose needs require faster auto focus acquisition and capture versus megapixels and that’s where it shines. Surprisingly despite having only 4 megapixels, it excels in portrait photography. The weaker anti-aliasing (AA) filter means that photographs taken with the 1D are inherently sharper out of camera than the newer Canon EOS 1D Mark II with a stronger AA filter. Having a weaker AA filter on the flip side will cause more moire to appear with certain patterns, which usually isn’t too much of a problem. I can definitely say that the 1D is sharp, very sharp and this is with the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM which generally isn’t that sharp in the edges.

External White Balance Sensor

Also the Canon EOS 1D has an additional external white balance sensor that assists in adjusting and correcting white balance in addition to the sensor. From what I notice, the external white balance sensor hasn’t made any difference. Canon continued to put the external white balance sensor on the Canon EOS 1Ds, but stopped after that.

The second major disadvantage of the original 1D is the LCD. With only 120,000 pixels on a 2 inch screen, the image quality when displayed on the LCD is very poor and not very useful to judge color correctness of a scene. You really have to rely more on the exposure and RGB graphs. This isn’t too big of an issue if you’re shooting RAW, as all data is recorded, but can be very important if you are shooting JPEGs.

The Canon EOS 1D takes a single compact flash card with a maximum limit of 2GB (see Rob Galbraith’s excellent table on CF cards and write speeds). I had no problems using my SanDisk Extreme IV 2GB Compact Flash card. It formatted and wrote to it with no problems. When I tried using a higher capacity CF card, like my SanDisk Extreme III 8GB Compact Flash, the camera would only detect 2GB worth.

In The Field

With only 4 megapixels, there isn’t really any room to crop the image. Framing and composition are much more important when using the 1D versus using something like the Canon EOS 1Ds or the Canon EOS 5D. This can be limiting in situations where you don’t have a longer focal length lens to isolate the subject and would normally crop down. The 1.3x crop factor, in my opinion, is a great compromise between wide (full frame) and reach (1.6x crop factor). It makes this SLR very versatile by being able to retain a majority of the wideness but also have that little bit of “reach”.

The auto focus is exactly what you would expect from a 1D series: top notch and spot on. It’s 45 AF points do not disappoint. It’s not as fast as the newer Canon EOS 1D Mark II/n or the latest Canon EOS 1D Mark III, but it’s slouch compared to entry level (Rebel series) or consumer (10D/20D/30D/40D series) level dSLRs despite being older.

Noise. It’s noisy. Even at ISO 200, you can see the existence of noise in the shadows. Compared to the 20D, 30D, and 40D, it is noisier at the same levels. The noise exhibited is the chroma type of noise, which is similar to film grain, like the Canon EOS 1Ds. The noise doesn’t bother me too much because I think it gives the image a nice “feel”, nostalgic feel almost. Just check out wedding photographer Joe Buissink’s work. He shot with Nikon D2h’s (4 megapixels) for years and produced some stunning photographs. Just goes to show you that megapixels aren’t everything.

Battery life sucks. The CCD sensor definitely drains more battery power than the CMOS sensors. I’m getting about 500 or so shots on average with a full charge. If you’re using an Image Stabilizer (IS) lens, then the battery will drain slightly quicker.

The only other issue, for me anyways, was I was finding I was missing shots because of the slow start up times. It was getting to a point where I finally set the camera to fall asleep after 4 minutes as opposed to 1 minute that I normally have my Canon EOS 1D Mark II set to. When I’m using two bodies and when I know a crucial shot might be coming, I tend to periodically half depress the shutter on the 1D to keep it from sleeping so that it’s ready to fire.

I also tend to find that I was using longer focal length lenses on the 1D because of the megapixel limitation with cropping. The Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM would be primarily attached to it with the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM on the 1D Mark II. The images taken with that lens comes out great.

Conclusion

The Canon EOS 1D is an excellent camera which is capable of great shots despite the shortcomings in megapixels. It has the fast frames-per-second and superb auto focus that all future 1D series will be based off of. The images produced by this camera are both sharp and natural looking and reminiscent of prints made from film. It obviously has some issues with noise, but those can easily be combated with a noise reducing software such as Noise Ninja.

It’s a great camera to have in any one’s arsenal, especially since the average price for a used 1D is around ~$800. By using a camera such as this, you can improve your photography skills because you learn not to rely on things you take for granted everyday such as major megapixels and excellent in-camera noise reduction. With 4 megapixels and virtually no possibility of cropping, you learn to better frame your shots instead of just firing off random shots and heavily cropping later.

The 1D is an excellent tool for the photojournalist and sport shooters. With 4 megapixels, you can make images to about 8×10 without any major issues. Images for the web or newspaper, 4 megapixels are plenty. The photographers who should consider the Canon EOS 1D are ones that don’t need the lowest noise but need a fast focusing and fast shooting SLR.

To see the sample images, please click here.

Canon EOS 1D Image Gallery

The Canon EOS 5D is pretty much about as professional of an digital SLR as you can get. It is one of the few full-frame sensor digital SLRs on the market. It feels very well built and handles like a charm. Plus a CMOS sensor of 12.8 megapixels definitely make for a lot of pixel details, so on paper it sounds quite promising, so how does it shape up in the field and in reality?

First, I must say I’m a bit biased against full-frame SLRs. I know there are a number of people who relish the fact that there are now a couple SLRs (both Canon) that are full-frame sensors similar to the ones found on film cameras. So what are the advantages of a full-frame sensor?

Advantages

1. The focal length of the lens attached to a full-frame slr, such as the Canon EOS 5D, is precise versus the same lens being attached on a smaller sensor that results in a crop factor. So if I was to attach a 24mm focal length lens on a full-frame slr, it is precisely 24mm. But if I was to take that same 24mm focal length lens and attach it to, say an Canon EOS Rebel XTi/400D, the 24mm focal length becomes ~38.4mm because of the 1.6x crop factor.
2. Bigger sensor will resolve higher quality because there is more surface area to gather more light. And in relation to how closely or loosely packed the pixels are on a given sensor, there will be less noise on a full-frame slr versus a non full-frame slr given the same amount of megapixels.
3. Lower noise. This relates to #2, with a bigger sensor that can gather more light because of its larger surface area, less amplification is needed to boost signal thereby producing lower pixel noise.

Disadvantages

1. Cost is considerably higher. More raw materials are needed to produce a larger sensor and a larger body is necessary to house a larger sensor.
2. The weaknesses in cheaper and poorly produced lenses are much more apparent and blaring.
3. Similar issues with the full-frame film sensors: vignetting and softness in the corners.

So what are my thoughts after using the Canon EOS 5D for two weeks so far (which I must warn is no where near enough time to get an accurate feel)?

Weight and Dimension

The Canon EOS 5D is definitely not a light digital SLR. It weighs 810g (892g with the battery), which is about 1.78 pounds. It is quite large in your hands, not quite as large as the Canon EOS 1D line, but definitely bigger than the Canon EOS 20D/30D and hugely bigger than the Canon EOS Digital Rebel line. The exact dimensions are 6.0 x 4.4 x 3.0 inches. Because of the huge grip, it is comfortable to hold and use.

Construction

Much like its younger brothers, the Canon EOS 20D/30D, the entire body is made up of magnesium alloy right down to the EF mount. It is not weather sealed, unlike its bigger brother, the 1D line.

In the tradition of professional level SLR, there is no built on pop-up flash (partly due to the huge viewfinder), so an external flash unit would have to be used. The buttons are slightly different than the Canon EOS 20D/30D. The four buttons (Menu, Info, Jump, and Preview) that are left of the 2.5″ LCD is slightly raised higher than on the Canon EOS 30D. The On/Off switch is also more pronounced. The two buttons on the back upper right hand side is also different than the 30D. The Auto Exposure Lock/Zoom Out button is larger than the Zoom in button whereas on the 30D, it is the reverse being that the Auto Exposure Lock/Zoom Out button is larger and the other is smaller. And the final major difference is the jog dial doesn’t have the Picture Style selection that the 30D has.

Field Test

It’s definitely wild to be able to have a wide angle lens really be a wide angle lens. My walk around lens, the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM is amazingly wide allowing me to capture more than I was able to capture before. The catch-22 to having no a full-frame sensor is that while my lenses are all now wider like it should be, I don’t have the same focal crop I had before. At times I am finding the 70mm focal length on my walk around lens to be lacking that extra little field of view I used to have with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D. I find myself switching lenses back and forth more often with my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM.

I also do find that both my lenses are better counter-balanced on the Canon EOS 5D because of its weight than when the two lenses were mounted on my XTi. I don’t find my trigger finger and hand to be as sore because I’m not having to support all the lens weight through the smaller grip. I do find myself garnering more attention these days because everything looks so big now. Before the lens was intimidating for people, but with the 5D now, everyone is just surprised by the sheer size.

Having the extra megapixelage is quite nice. It allows for some amazing crops that I could never have achieved with my Nikon D100. While the Canon EOS 5D only has a 2.8 megapixel advantage over the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D, the differences in the pictures is quite evident. This also further proves that megapixels do not mean everything. I would have personally preferred a faster burst rate (3 frames-per-second), but it has the highest buffer of all the other Canon dSLRs, except for the Canon 1D Mark III, with 60 JPEGs. The XTi could only manage 27 JPEGs at best before slowing down to 1 frame-per-second. The 3fps is quite adequate for most and many occasions, but having an additional 2fps would be great for sports photography.

The ISO noise suppression on the 5D is amazing. When I have to use ISO 800, there is less noise in the pictures than my Canon EOS Rebel XTi/400D at the same ISO level. ISO 800 on the Canon EOS 5D looks equivalent to the XTi/400D’s ISO 400.

Final Thoughts

The Canon EOS 5D is very, very nice, but I wouldn’t buy it. It is three times as much as my XTi/400D and double the price of the Canon EOS 30D, but doesn’t offer enough over the 30D and the XTi/400D to be worth it. But then again the 5D is a very specific niche dslr. It has a full-frame CMOS sensor at about a third the cost of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II with a few less megapixels also. I would rather spend the extra $200 and purchase the Canon EOS 1D Mark IIn or Mark III over the 5D. But if you need full-frame and top notch ISO noise control, then the Canon EOS 5D is your choice. Full-frame is nice, especially when you need wide angle, but I personally need more reach than I need wide and the 1.3x crop factor of the 1D is a good compromise between full-frame and 1.6x crop factor.

[rating:4]