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

For yesterday’s meeting, our agenda was about a product called AutoMate and Camera Insurance.

AutoMate by The Gadget Works

AutoMate is a really cool hardware and software from The Gadget Works “CEO/CIO/CFO/Janitor” Don French. After spending nearly four years developing AutoMate, he has a great potential tool for photographers. AutoMate are two separate things: a hardware device that is mounted in between the camera and tripod and software that is loaded onto either a laptop or PDA communicating via Bluetooth that allows you to program the hardware and/or trigger manual commands such as firing the shutter or panning horizontally. What AutoMate offers is a much, much simpler way to create extraordinary panoramas like the gigapixel panoramas like Max Lyons. By using a WindowsMobile 6 PDA, you can upload, save, and create “profiles” for the AutoMate hardware to execute. You put in how wide (in degrees) of horizontal panning you want, if you want the images to have any overlap and by how much (in percentages) and then let the machine do all the work of panning horizontally perfectly and vertically while automatically photographing each frame and saving it to the camera’s memory card.

AutoMate isn’t just a panoramic assist, it is also a programmable intervalometer allowing for complex custom programs to create time lapse pictures. One of the cool features of using AutoMate as an intervalometer is that the system sends a wake up pulse at a pre-programmed time that wakes the camera and then fires off the shutter. All the other intervalometer hardware and software require the camera to remain on at all times! Don showed us the intuitive GUI and how easy it is to program custom programs for a variety of uses from panoramic shots to time lapses. AutoMate is relatively easy to setup. There are three sockets: one socket is designed to send a wake up trigger to other items such as strobes (not currently an available option), the middle socket is to trigger the camera’s shutter, and the last socket is to plug in a manual wired remote. AutoMate is powered by four Double AA batteries and also has a DC socket to allow for an external battery source to be plugged into the AutoMate while the main batteries are being changed to save the pre-programmed options. The software is written in VBasic. AutoMate is currently still in beta testing and is open to those interested in being beta testers at a discounted cost of $499. According to Don, after the Gizmodo blog post, he received over 150 beta test request applications in 1 day!

Don demonstrated the AutoMate using his Canon EOS 20D with Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM and it looks and works fantastic! Very, very smooth panning. Don has definitely put a lot of thought and details into this and it shows. Some innovative features is the ability for micro adjustments in case the panning is slightly off. The software looks like there are thousands of combination.

I personally do not do landscape photography, so I’m not that interested in AutoMate, but I do applaud the hard work and the exceptional product that, while still in beta, looks very promising! Thank you for showing us this wonderful product Don! Good luck!

Camera Insurance, A Discussion

The highlight of the night was the discussion on camera insurance. Having camera insurance is important; but having the right insurance is even more important. There are a couple choices depending on what kind of photography you do. If you are a hobbyist or amateur and make no money (not even a cent from time to time), then you can usually add a rider policy onto your home owner or renter’s insurance to cover the cost of damage, lost, or stolen equipment. If you are a hobbyist or amateur who receives money (no matter how little) once in awhile or a professional who is paid, in the eyes of the insurance company, you are considered pro and must get pro insurance, which means higher premiums. One thing that should be mentioned about insuring your photography equipment, especially very expensive equipment, under your home owner’s or renter’s insurance is that you should consider it can be a risk if you make a big claim for loss, stolen, or damage, it can be clause for the insurance company to cancel your entire home owner’s or renter’s policy. $30,000 or less of photography equipment, in my mind, is not worth loosing your home insurance over. Best to get a separate policy just to be on the safe side.

In the meeting, a few people gave examples of what kind of insurance they have relative to what they do. Two professionals have professional insurance, one being Hill & Usher, a company that a lot of professional photographers use. One of the women in our group is insured through State Farm and she recently received a check for the repair cost of a damaged Canon EOS 20D and a hosed Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM from when she accidentally dropped them together on concrete. She said the experience was pain-free, just called them up and explained the situation and they took care of the rest. The one pro who has Hill & Usher let us see his insurance paperwork and contract. His premium is ~$750 annually ($30,000-$50,000 worth of equipment insured) with liability insurance (a big important thing to protect yourself against lawsuits). This being only the base policy, it also comes with rental equipment, pays out for loss profit, etc; seems to be a very good deal for peace of mind. What’s great about photography insurance such as this is that it’s very easy to file and get stuff taken cared of and in a lot of cases, there is no deductible either.

Now for a horror story of why you should never let any insurance lapse. One of the members was detailing back in 2005 when he was shooting a baseball game, somehow someone managed to steal his camera bag (a Domke J-2) from the press area inside which contained several expensive Canon L lenses, lots of compact flash cards, strobes, and other accessories such as backup batteries. Fortunately, he still had his camera body, a Canon EOS 1D, and a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L USM, which was mounted all on a monopod. Unfortunately he was in-between insurances at this point, and had let the other one lapsed, so $4500 worth of equipment just evaporated!

I’m going to start researching Hill & Usher and price out what it will cost to insure all my equipment under a separate policy and will post details once I’ve got it all figured out.

AutoMate Gallery Images

So how does something that is 6 years old like the Canon EOS 1Ds compare to the 3 years old Canon EOS 5D? It’s a tough call, but let’s see why anyone would choose an older SLR over a newer model. It’s worth noting that the only reason we can or even should compare the two cameras is because of the full frame sensor. Also you might be wondering why compare the original 1Ds rather than the newer and better Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II? The Mark II’s price (~$4000) is still significantly above the 5D whereas the original 1Ds’ price (~$1800) has fallen to be right on par with the 5D. Other than that, these two cameras are completely different and serve different purposes.

Comparison Chart

It’s clear that in 3 years, Canon has certainly made improvements: bigger and brighter LCD, better buffer, slightly more megapixelage. While the figures of the Canon EOS 5D certainly *look* better than the old outdated Canon EOS 1Ds, don’t discount the later as being useless. During the time I had the opportunity to try out the 1Ds in many various conditions, I’ve found the 1Ds to be quite a formidable camera that holds its own to the newer models as long as the user was aware of the limitations.

Canon EOS 1Ds Limitations

Let’s examine the limitations of the Canon EOS 1Ds in regards to Canon EOS 5D. One of the biggest differences is the LCD screen size and resolution. The 1Ds sports a 2.0 inch LCD screen with 120,000 pixels making it vastly inferior to the 5D’s 2.5 inch LCD screen with 230,000 pixels. This makes reviewing images for colors and sharpness very difficult to do. You can also scroll the image and there is 10x only zoom. Likewise, there is no orientation sensor, so any images taken in portrait orientation will appear as shot in the LCD and will not be auto-rotated as it is with the 5D. Of course all this is a relatively small issue, because it matters more how the camera takes and records the pictures rather than how it looks on the back of a little LCD screen.

The max ISO setting on the 1Ds is 1250. Meaning you only want to use 1250 for emergencies because the noise usually present at the max ISO setting tends to make an image pretty unusable unless for cases where you absolutely have no other way to get the shot. The 5D, on the other hand, is capable of images up to ISO 3200 meaning you have more room to up the ISO to get a sharper shot. The noise on the 1Ds at ISO 100-400 is decent. After 400, things start getting really bad. As some photographers may know, the trick to keeping noise to a minimum is to nail the exposure. If you have to photograph at ISO 400 and above, it’s imperative to not underexposure. Underexposure will cause noise in areas like blacks, dark greys, etc and will be become very apparent when you try to raise the exposure in post processing even by 1/3 or more. If you want to keep noise as low as possible when shooting at higher ISO, Expose To The Right (ETTR). Also using noise reduction software such as Noise Ninja can help dramatically reduce the noise, at the cost of some sharpness of course. Here are some 100% crop sample pics of our cat, Stripes, to show the noise on the 1Ds:

• JPEG, AWB, no sharpening or post processing: 1/25th second, f/2.8, 35mm, ISO 1000 with flourescent lighting (Noise Ninja applied)
• JPEG, AWB, no sharpening or post processing: 1/20th second, f/2.8, 26mm, ISO 1000 with flourescent lighting (Noise Ninja applied)

As you can see from the two samples, noise can be a bit problematic, but fortunately the noise produced by the Canon EOS 1Ds has a film like kinda noise. I was a bit put off in the beginning, but grew accustomed to it after long term use of the 1Ds.

The limited buffer of the 1Ds can sometimes be problematic. Having only 10 frames in JPEG or RAW means you have to time your shots and make them count because having a limited buffer is not the only concern, but the slow flush rate also. I’ve tried two different types of compact flash cards: a SanDisk Extreme IV 2GB and a SanDisk Extreme III 8GB, both are slow with the 1Ds. When shooting formal portraits and formal wedding portraits, the buffer isn’t a problem. I found myself running into buffer full when I was shooting fast paced events such as parades and sometimes when shooting our cat, Stripes who moves erractically and fast.

Another huge limitation is the response time, it is slow. From power off to on it takes about 1.2 seconds and review time of JPEG or RAW takes about 3.3-3.4 seconds (figures from DPReview.com). If you’re not prepared, it’s easy (and frustrating) to miss shots. I’ve had this happen multiple of times because the 1Ds was asleep and it takes a bit for it fully wake up to the point where I can fire off shots. You could always disable the sleep mode at the cost of draining the battery. The Canon EOS 5D, in contrast, is near instant from power off to on and from sleep to on. It also takes about 1.2-1.3 for record review of JPEG or RAW (figures from DPReview.com). Huge differences. Obviously the 1Ds uses the first generation DIGIC processor. It wasn’t until the Mark II models did Canon start putting in dual DIGIC processors.

The final major limitation of the 1Ds is ease of use. As anyone who has used a 1D series (prior to the Mark IIIs) will know, it takes a combination of two buttons pressed simultaneously to make setting changes. Want to scroll through images you’ve taken? Hold down the Display button and turn the Quick Control Dial (QCD). Want to change from single shot to continuous shot, hold two buttons down. The 5D certainly is quicker and easier to make changes especially with one handed. Change ISO? Press the ISO button and turn the top dial. While the concept of having to press simultaneous buttons to effect change is a good concept, in practice it is annoying and time consuming.

Canon EOS 5D Limitations

Now let’s see what the 5D limitations are when compared to the 1Ds. First, it’s quite apparent that the build quality isn’t nearly as tough and solid as the larger 1Ds, but it’s no where cheaply assembled either. The Canon EOS 1Ds definitely feels like it can take and give a beating.

While the sensor of the Canon EOS 5D is full frame, the viewfinder view isn’t; it’s only 96% of the frame. This can be frustrating when you are trying to frame a shot, but not quite sure how much or how little to include of a subject or background because you obviously can’t get a visual idea of what will show up in the final picture. Of course you could always crop and some people have learned to adjust to that 4% issue, but there is something about being able to see exactly what you are going to get.

The Canon EOS 5D has the “typical” nine-point AF diamond that the Canon EOS 20D/30D/40D and Canon EOS Rebel 400D/XTi/ and 450D/XSi but slightly modified to include 6 additional “hidden” cross-type sensors in the spot metering circle for better AI Servo tracking. For many cases, 9 AF points is plenty, but it’s certainly a whole new world when you have 45 AF points. 9 AF points becomes in adequate when you are trying to frame a subject in the upper or lower left and right hand corners where there are no AF points. This isn’t a problem is the subject fills the entire left or right hand size, but let’s say you’re trying to get a bird that only fills the upper left hand corner. This is an extreme example that obviously doesn’t happen on a daily basis, but worth noting. It’s kind of like insurance, you don’t really appreciate having it until you need it. Although I should mention that sometimes having too many AF points can be annoying if you just need 1 and not all 45.

One thing I’ve found particularly annoying about the 5D is accidental setting changes. Because I use two cameras when on assignment, I usually have one camera slung over one shoulder while using the other. With the 5D, I experience this more often than I would like is when I had the 5D slung around my shoulder and when I reach to take a quick shot, turns out I’m in Shutter Priority when I had been in Aperture Priority. Or I had set Program Mode but manage to end up in Full Automatic mode. This is certainly a disadvantage of being able to easily change settings.

Conclusion

As you can see, despite being nearly 6 years old, the Canon EOS 1Ds is still a very capable dSLR. On the other hand, is it worth spending ~$1800 for something that old versus something newer? It depends. If you already have a or used a Canon EOS 1D series camera, you can certainly see and feel the appeal. Here are some points of consideration for choosing the 1Ds over the 5D:

• If you already own a Canon 1D/1D Mark II/1Ds Mark II, getting a 1Ds may be beneficial because it uses the same exact batteries meaning you only have to carry 1 set of camera batteries. Same batteries mean same charger and the 1D series battery charger has a dual slot plug.
• The 1Ds is very rugged and built to handle, if what your photographing calls for a camera that handle some abuse, then this might be the choice for you.
• 100% viewfinder view might seem like a small point, but for some people it’s important.
• 45 point AF can’t be beat.

But on the other hand, if you’re looking for something that is small (small being a relative term here) and easier to carry and conceal, then the Canon EOS 5D maybe the better for you. Full frame in a body only slightly larger than the 20D/30D/40D maybe desirable to some. It’s build quality is definitely a bit more superior to the consumer-grade level of the xxD series, but definitely nothing compared to the 1D series.

The 5D is Canon’s lowest noise producing camera next to the new Canon EOS 1D Mark III and is right on par with the Mark III. It’s takes post processing sharpening very, very well and resolves a lot of data and prior to the 1Ds Mark III, was second only to the 1Ds Mark II. Although, noisier, the 1Ds has a certain nostalgic film feel to the images that the newer cameras seem to lack and appear a bit digital.

If I had to choose, because the type of photography I do is very dependent on low light with no flash, I would have go with the 5D. But otherwise, I would probably choose the 1Ds over the 5D.

Canon EOS 1Ds and Canon EOS 5D Gallery Images

Specifications

Released back in 2002, the Canon EOS 1Ds was Canon’s flagship model and first digital full frame sensor (35.8 x 23.8 mm) SLR on the market with a cost of nearly $8,000 (which is about the same price as the new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III when initially released. So what did you get for $8,000? Here’s a brief preview:

• 11.4 megapixel CMOS sensor (JPEG pixel dimensions: 4,064 x 2,704)
• ISO 100-1250 in 1/3 steps (with ISO 50 as a custom function)
• 4 sRGB settings and 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 1/8,000 sec shutter speeds with bulb
• 3 frames-per-second (FPS) for up to 10 JPEGs or RAW

For more in-depth features, you can check out DPReview’s 1Ds specifications page. Even by today’s standards, some of the features are obviously dated (such as the 2.0″ LCD screen), but it can still hold it’s own at 11 MP with 45 AF points (still the same number of AF points on the new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III). The only other cameras that has more AF points is Nikon’s recently released D3, D300, and just announced D700. Also worth mentioning is that Canon started the full frame digial sensor with the 1Ds whereas the Nikon has just started with the D3 and D700.

Build Quality

Solid like a tank; it is a 1D series after all. The button layouts next to and under the LCD are identical to the Canon EOS 1D Mark I. So are the buttons on top and the LCD readout panels and also the menu layout.

Here is an example of a very well used and still functioning Canon EOS 1D Mark II by humanitarian photojouranlist, Karl Grobl when he accidentally dropped his 1D with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM from about 9 feet while seated on an elephant.

Operation

The Canon 1Ds is certainly not designed to be a sports camera like it’s brother, the Canon EOS 1D; evidenced by the huge difference in frame rates (3 fps versus 8 fps). That is not to say that it can’t be used in sports, it just takes more patience and timing. People who generally purchase the 1Ds are more interested in maximum quality and thus the resolution is hugely different (11 MP versus 4 MP). The 1Ds definitely shines when it comes to landscape photography, studio work, portrait photography, weddings (formal pictures), etc.

From the moment the camera is turned on to when you can actually take a picture, it usually takes about a second; it’s only marginally faster from sleep to wake. This is horrible if you expect to capture shots quickly when the camera is turned off or asleep. But once awake and during operation, it’s much more responsive. Unfortunately for someone who is used to using a Canon EOS 1D Mark II, the 10 image buffer on the 1Ds fills up quickly. The flush time (the amount of time it takes to write the data from the buffer to the compact flash card) is decent, but definitely shows its age when compared to newer cameras like the Canon EOS Rebel XTi/400D and Canon EOS 1D Mark II.

Like the Canon EOS 1D Mark I, the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark I also features an additional external WB sensor. On future 1D/1Ds generations, Canon did away with the external WB sensor. So far I have not noticed any additional benefits of having an additional external white balance sensor or any ill effect, but one person on FredMiranda reports that the external WB sensor can actually have a negative effect:

In my experience, the AWB sensor affected the colors in a bad way as in most cases the light falling on the subject has a different color temperature than that at the camera position. For instance, if you have the sun behind you, the subject is in the sunlight while the sensor is in the shadow. It was a good move from Canon not to continue with it. I find the AWB on my 1Ds2 much better than the 1Ds.
edwardkaraa

I wonder if Nikon’s external WB sensor helps on their D2x and D2xs?

Forgot about being able to review images on the LCD right after you take them. It usually takes a few seconds from when you take the picture to when it actually displays on the rear LCD. Also because the LCD is only 130,000 pixels, you can’t really judge sharpness or colors. It’s best to rely on the histograms. Plus another major disadvantage of the 1Ds LCD is lack of zoom. You can’t zoom in on any images you take. One good thing about having a crappy SLR LCD such as this is that it makes you more reliant on reading histograms (a good thing) and learning to better judge your settings. The more I continued to use the Canon EOS 1Ds, the less I found I was relying on the LCD to tell me whether or not I was taking a good picture, but rather checking histograms for blown highlights and good exposure. The camera LCD isn’t the best thing to judge sharpness, exposure, or colors because of many factors. For one, the image that is displayed on the rear LCD isn’t even the actual image you took, but rather a low resolution JPEG that is created in camera for the purposes of LCD viewing. That’s why when you try to check sharpness of an image you took and it looks jagged and not quite sharp but later extracted on a computer, it looks perfectly fine, that’s why. Another reason is the color discrepancies between the different models of the same brand! For example, the Canon EOS 5D has a slightly greenish hue to it’s LCD, making images appear a bit more green than let’s say the Canon EOS 30D. While I’m not saying you shouldn’t use the rear LCD, it’s a great feature, just make sure you’re using it for how it works best.

In The Field

During the couple of weeks I had the Canon EOS 1Ds, I did quite a number of photojournalism work such as our office’s employee appreciation day and most notably, the 2008 SF Pride Parade. For the 2008 SF Pride Parade, I was using the 1Ds with the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM and the 1D Mark II with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. Having full frame on a super wide angle lens like the 16-35mm allowed me to get shots like this.

Having a full frame SLR allows for some great wide shots especially when in tight situations such as close-up crowds, in small rooms, etc. It’s definitely refreshing when a 16mm lens is actually 16mm and not 20.8mm (1.3x crop factor) or 25.6mm (1.6x crop factor), which may not seem much, but when you get to longer focal lengths like 70mm, on a 1.3x and 1.6x crop sensor becomes 91mm and 112mm, respectively. Although on the flip side, having full frame may not always be advantageous such as when photographing birds or birds in flight, wildlife, and so forth. A full frame SLR requires a longer focal length lens than a 1.6x crop sensor to achieve the same crop.

Noise is problematic for the 1Ds. At ISO 400 and above, noise is quite apparent and gets very bad at ISO 1250. Proper exposure is paramount to keeping noise as low as possible. I highly recommend the technique of Exposing To The Right (ETTR). Software can be used to clean up noise quite well, although at a cost of some sharpness. I personally use Noise Ninja, and would highly recommend them. Here is a 100% crop of a shot of Stripes (our cat) with the 1Ds at 1/25th second at ISO 1000. Here is the same image and crop with Noise Ninja applied using the default 1Ds profile. Here is another example at 1/20th second at ISO 1000 and with Noise Ninja applied.

The 1Ds, shooting in JPEG with sharpness set to level 5 is very sharp; more so than my 1D Mark II, the most likely reason is a weaker AA (anti-aliasing) filter which allows for sharper images at the cost of increased moire. I have noticed that moire is more apparent on the 1Ds. The 1Ds produces very pleasing JPEGs that require little post-processing, provided you get the exposure and white balance correctly. I find at sharpness set to level 5, I rarely have to apply Unsharp Mask in Photoshop whereas on the 1D Mark II at the same sharpness level, I do have to apply Unsharp Mask.

After having used the Canon EOS Rebel XTi/400D for more than a year, picking up a full frame camera with its large and bright viewfinder is a revelation of how truly small and inadequate the 1.6x crop factor viewfinders truly are. The 1Ds, unlike the 5D, has a 100% viewfinder (VF) coverage (the 5D has a 96% coverage) meaning that what you see in the viewfinder is what you get. It’s amazing what a difference of a full frame viewfinder compared to a 1.6x crop sensor viewfinder or even a 1.3x crop sensor viewfinder. The best analogy is with a 1.6x crop viewfinder, it looks like your standing at the beginning of a long tunnel and looking towards the end where there is just some light, but mostly darkness. The 1.3x crop viewfinder feels like you’re in the middle, so the end of the tunnel where the light is fill up more of the darkness and with the full frame viewfinder, you’re right at cusp of the exit, so there is hardly any darkness around.

Conclusions

If you don’t mind the weight (1265g or 2.78lbs), the Canon EOS 1Ds is a great SLR, albeit six years old. Any one who has either used or felt a 1D series camera can attest to the rock solid build quality. These are the kind of cameras that photojournalist use in war zones that can (need to) handle abuse. While it may not necessarily survive a drop, in some cases such as Karl Grobl who dropped his 1D Mark II from an elephant, it will take some degree of abuse, not intentional mind you.

When the 1Ds was first introduced, its asking price was $8,000. Today’s market value is about ~$1850 which is about equivalent to a brand new Canon EOS 5D, the prosumer full frame dSLR.

Noise can be problematic at times, but a noise reduction software such as Noise Ninja can do quite a bit to reduce noise. The camera produces very sharp results because of a weaker AA filter like the Canon EOS 1D Mark I. What is interesting is that normally with a larger sensor (full frame) and decent amount of pixels (~12 MP or less), noise is very well controlled. This is the case with the 5D, but for some reason the 1Ds exhibits quite a bit of noise. Fortunately for the most part, the noise appears in no patterns which makes the images from the 1Ds look like film noise.

So given a choice between a Canon EOS 5D or a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark I, which should one choose? We’ll evaluate the differences and similarities in a future post.

Canon EOS 1Ds Gallery Images

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM on Canon EOS Rebel 400D/XTi.
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Introduction

There are many reasons as to why you would find this lens in virtually everyone’s bag, it’s probably Canon’s best lens for its focal range, build quality, and sharpness. This lens easily becomes anyones favorite after one or two uses. It’s solidly built and very well constructed.

With a 1.6 frame of view (FOV) crop, the 70-200mm becomes a 112-320mm, quite a usable range. Whereas my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM is my carry around lens, I find myself using the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM for outdoor and indoor events such as the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Grand National Rodeo.

Weight and Dimension

This is definitely not a small lens by any means, its dimensions are 3.3″ x 7.6″ at a smudge under 3 lbs making it heavier than the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM. With the 70-200mm attached on small SLRs such as the Rebel line, you find it is noticeably nose heavy. It doesn’t start getting balanced out until you attach it to a Canon EOS 1D line, but by that point, you’re holding onto more than 6 lbs!

As with almost all the other Canon L lenses, the filter size is the 77mm. I’m currently using a B+W 77mm MRC (010) UV Filter which The-Digital-Picture.com exclusively uses. Originally I was going to go with a Hoya Super HMC Pro, but kept hearing so much about B+W filters that I figured why not. If I was going to buy a Ferrari, I wouldn’t fill it up 87 gas.

Construction

Built like a tank, just like the other Canon L lenses. Every piece is so meticulously constructed, you could use this lens thousands of times and it would still look new. Even if you dropped it from on top of an elephant, it still works great! Also worth mentioning, the non-IS version is not weather sealed. Of the four Canon EF 70-200mm (f/2.8L, f/4, f/2.8L IS, f/4L IS), only the image stabilizer (IS) versions are weather sealed.

There is really not much more to mention about its construction that hasn’t already been said by many people already.

Field Test

For day-to-day shooting, I rely upon my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L because of its semi-wide angle and allows me to get close up to subjects and objects and its limited macro capabilities. For events such as concerts, festivals, and what not, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L becomes the lens I use for many reasons, but usually because I need the extra reach.

The picture quality is superb on many levels. The colors are vibrant and jump out at you and the sharpness is next to none. This lens is definitely sharper than my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L and has slightly better colors, contrast, and saturation using all the same camera settings. Very little post processing is needed when using this lens.

The bokeh achieved by this lens is nothing less than fantastic. The background is always nicely blurred out when using f/2.8 or a long focal range (100mm+) on a nearby subject. It is definitely not difficult to get great looking bokeh with this lens.

The AF on this lens is lightening fast and focuses accurately on subjects and objects. I rarely ever have cases where the 70-200mm is “hunting” for focus. Precision is very important, especially when shooting sports, which makes this lens a great lens for fast moving subjects or objects.

Overall Thoughts

There is only one reason I would part with this lens, to get the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. While the difference in the price is quite a bit, it is very much worth it to get the IS version. This lens also attracts a lot of attention, being the trademarked “white” L lens and its size (especially with the pedal hood on).

The lens comes with a very nice canvas carry case, pedal hood, and most of all, a tripod mount which the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L versions do not come with.

Check out these shots (Cherry Blossom Festival and Grand National Rodeo), all made with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM and make your own decision if it’s worth it or not, in my opinion, it is worth every penny.

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