Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
Customer Review: The best Canon has to offer
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok, the price of this thing is absolutely ridiculous.
Yes, Canon was now nice enough, only a little over a year later, to release a lower level product with equal Megapixels (the forthcoming 5D mark II), and do serious damage to my asset value (this camera). Thanks.
My previous high end camera is the Canon 5D.
It is clear to me that, other than the improved sensor, which gives the latest chip (DIGIC IV), higher Megapixels (21.1) and higher ISO (6400 natively), a very slight speed improvement (3.9 fps) and a bigger, nicer screen on the back (3", 1 million dots), it's pretty much the same camera as the 5D. Thanks to the Megapixel war, Nikon & Sony have turned up the heat on Canon a bit, so they went higher in those specs than they probably would've otherwise. This is great for the consumer, if those are the only specs you're looking at. And hopefully it will eventually obliterate Canon's ability to put pricetags like the one on this camera on anything (see my first sentence).
Of course, I did BUY this camera, nevertheless. Because I could afford to do that. If you can't, then look at what you can, because a lot of insane specs sit at much lower price points.
With that out of the way, let's just view it from the perspective of a mid-range user that might want to move up - someone with a 5D or a 10-50D, who might be trying to decide what else he will get from this camera versus just going for a 5D mark II instead, because either is a very valid option:
- 45 point AutoFocus. What's so great about this? Let's say you've seen it, and you realize it's a bunch of little points congested in the center instead of the 9 on the 5D mark II and their 6 "assist" points. That's just a lot of marketing - 45 is a much bigger number and makes it look much better, right? No, not really. It really IS that much better. I do a lot of bikini/fashion/glamour photography, and therefore I shoot a lot of shots that are of one very, curvy female (ok, yea, I know, I know - it's tough. But SOMEONE has got to do it, and I'm taking the bullet for you guys on this one, OK? LOL). Anyway, as you might realize, a very or at least somewhat shallow depth of field is frequently, in fact is most often, desirable for these types of shots. Curves create a complicated task, and the truth is, the Automatic choice of focal points on the 5D gave spotty results without VERY strict attention to focusing. Consequently, I gave up on it, and set my focus to the Center point and used focus/recompose. This works great most of the time. If the Depth of Field gets TOO shallow, you have to be VERY precise when using this method, which gets very tiring, on both your concentration and your hands/body. However, with the 1Ds Mark III, the advanced AF can be set to automatically detect, and it gives excellent results, with a very low mistake ratio. In observing the points it chooses while I'm shooting, it appears to me that it is very good at recognizing contours, and subtle depth differences, and this is where it achieves it's greatest advantage.
- Focal performance with high end lenses. L lenses perform better with any Canon camera. Even moreso with this. FAST lenses, in this case f/2.8 or faster, perform especially well with this camera. This still ties into the focusing system, yes, but it is worth noting that the better lenses take yet another performance leap on this body. This is no accident, rather by design. I say you lose part of the reason (not all of it, make no mistake) for having the L glass if you don't have a high end body.
- Dual Memory Cards. Yea, it could just as well be two CF cards instead of a CF and an SD, but whatever. I buy a lot of memory cards anyway. And this is more a convenience than anything. It's nice to be able to write large JPEGS to one and RAW to the other. And if you are shooting with someone who needs the photos immediately and HAS an SD card, this could be a huge plus. It, of course, accepts SDHC also.
- Greater flexibility in writing JPEG files. If you shoot mostly or only RAW, this might not matter. But, the fact is, while the 5D and the 10D-50D models allow to write two different quality levels at each JPEG size, this camera has a separate "quality" level that ranges from 1-10, much like Photoshop's 1-12 range. When you look at Canon's site and see the estimate for JPEG's of 6-8MB (it was something like that), it was only an average estimate. They've since removed it (probably because the amount of possibilities are too great to post). I have set mine at the maximum quality of "10." My JPEG's are generally between 10MB-13MB in size. One note, however, as I attempted to photographer a fast moving stage event, and was taken back that I had problems with lag in shooting quickly, as it is advertised at 5fps. I believe you would need to step down to a 7 or 8 quality, whatever their test for "average" is, to achieve these speeds along with it's buffering ability. I used a Sandisk Extreme III card. Since that speed of card has performed exceedingly well on a 50D that I own, at a pro football game, I think it's safe to say the card wasn't the factor. I was blazing off shots on the 50D at 6.3fps for several seconds and it hardly went into using the buffer it was so fast. The "writing" light was barely ever lit whenever I checked right after a long flurry. And that is a 15MP camera - it was set on Large/Fine, which are about 6MB shots, in this case.
- Best weather sealing is on these bodies. If you need it, it's worth it. I think the others are fairly resistant anyway, but the comfort of not worrying much about conditions is nice.
- The display system on the larger body. Less information is pushed up to the top. The display on the bottom portion is easier to look at, and it's nice to have the memory card info visible down there.
- The LCD changing of shooting modes. This might not be something better to some, because if you're used to the other Canon bodies, it can be a bit off-putting at first. But once you get used to it, it's definitely better. Moreover, the simplicity of having the modes you need and no "dumb user" modes, which the 5D had largely eliminated while keeping the dial anyway, is still nicer on here. (e.g. - why do I need a "Sports Mode" when I can set my focus to AI Servo, and then set a high shutter priority speed, and make ISO adjustments as needed to accomodate light changes - or just shoot Aperture Priority with the lens wide open and make ISO adjustments? Whichever).
- Specifically if comparing to one of the new 5D's, my bet is that there will be a very noticeable lag in the 5D mark II compared to this camera, since it is only running one processor versus two on this camera.
This is definitely the best of the best.
Customer Review: Best camera for *my* needs, but keep in mind...
Summary: 5 Stars
I was lucky to get my 1ds III from Amazon in December, and have pressed the shutter about 5,000 times. (I'm a hobbyist, albeit an insane one.)
Like many others, I abandoned the Nikon camp when there was no sensible upgrade to the D100 at the time the 20D was launched. With the D300 and D3, Nikon now has gotten a lot better, and depending on your needs, one company may be better than the other. In particular, the 1ds III is better at studio photography and perhaps tonal range than the D3. The D3 is much better at low light photography, and is better for sports photography (especially sports photography that doesn't demand the highest resolution).
But, if you're already invested in one manufacturer's lenses, don't switch. Both Canon and Nikon will continue to leapfrog each other for the foreseeable future, and ain't life grand because of it!
Now to specifics:
1. As impressed as I am with the resolution of the 1ds III, I'm even more impressed with the dynamic range. You should absolutely only shoot RAW -- never JPEG! And make sure your workflow is 16 bit Prophoto; I use Lightroom and Photoshop CS3.
2. Spending $8K on a body and using cheap lenses is silly. I use the 16-35 II zoom, the 24-70/2.8, the 135/2.8, and the 100-400. I also enjoy the 50/1.4 and the 24/2.8 Tilt/Shift lenses.
3. Buy a decent tripod and perhaps monopod. Gitzo carbon is my favorite, but they're a bit pricey...
4. Buy a UDMA compact flash card. I got the Crucial 8Gb Lexar Media Professional Udma 300X Compactflash Cf8Gb-300-380, and then the Sandisk 8GB EXTREME III SDHC SD Card Class 6 (SDSDX3-8192, Plastic Case) for the SD slot. For me, the SD card is for overflow. You should also get a CF UDMA reader.
Suggestion for Canon: I'd really like a mode where pictures are striped across the two cards (shot one to CF, shot two to SD, shot three to CF, ...). This would give a strong measure of protection against one card failure (you'd still have half your shots) without sacrificing space. I bracket a LOT, and a typical day of travel photography will fill both cards!
5. The leads to the next point: buy an extra hard disk to take on the road. I use a 320GB 2.5" USB drive. I download shots to my notebook, do a little editing in Lightroom (tossing the undeniably bad shots), then back up the day's work to the external hard disk.
And I'll echo what another reviewer said. If you take a lot of pictures, think of this camera as a three year investment. If you take care of it, you'll get a good resale value -- and instead of an $8K sunk cost, you can think of it as a ~$1500/yr "camera tax." ($8000 - ~$3500 resale - 3*$1500.) Cheap, huh!
Finally, I get a lot of enjoyment out of my 1ds III. It is one of my truly prized possessions, and has greatly improved the quality of my photographs. I bet it does the same for you.
Customer Review: Best DSLR on the market
Summary: 5 Stars
Well if you are looking at this fine piece of Photographic equipment odds are you have been to the Canon website and read the specs. I will touch on a few of the items I have noticed since I purchased mine and have been using it.
1st. The feel, just like the 1D M3, this beast is solid. Not too heavy, but solid in the hand. And here in Alaska, I do put the weather sealing to a test, and just like my trusty 1D M3, the 1Ds passes with flying colors.
2nd. Yes its 21.1 MP, but that should not be your main consideration to buy it. Yah 18x12 @ 300Dpi out of the Camera is nice, but nost people dont print over 16x20, and I have sold a lot of prints from my old 20D at that size or even upto 20x30, as long as you shoot it right in the first place. But this is also a drawback as well. Because of the large file size, esp in Raw, and most, if not all, buyers of this body will/should be shooting in raw, be aware that you will need larger CF cards for it. At least 8gig, I use 12Gig for mine, extreme 3's and they work great! Also be aware if you use the internal high iso noise processing, it slows down the buffering a lot!!!
3rd. Full Frame, just like the earlier 1Ds models its a ful frame sensor. That means 2 things, not only does a 17mm or 14mm lens again be a true wide angle lens, but also with the larger sensor the pixels are more refined and this gives better color and less grain.
4th. The colors of the images in the files. WOW Again the 14bit processors are great!!! Esp for raw, where you can import it in as 16bit for the finer details. One draw back is if you use Photoshop, you will need CS3 to do the raw Conversions, unless you use the Canon program.
5th. You are approaching the image quality of a Dig MF camera, with the portability of a Dslr! Not to mention you can use all the Canon EF lenses, and this camera really should only be used with L series lenses when possible, except for the fisheye as its not made in an L series but the quality is very good anyways. As the Quality of the optics is what affects the quality of the image the most, other than settings in the camera, ie shutterspeed and AV, ISO, etc...
6th. Wonderful Accesories for the camera. I love my wft-e2a. I use it on my 1D M3 a lot and it works great on the 1ds as well. Its a great way to control your camera remotely or to send your files to a remote computer for processing and such while you are still shooting.
This Camera is great. I have used the new nikon d3, and its a much improved camera over the past models, but it does not compare to the top of the line Canon!!!! This camera will not let you down. The noise if shot right is not even noticed until iso 1600 and then you still got to look. ISO 3200 is still great (about the same noise/grain my buddy had on his d200 at iso 400!!!!!)! If you are a Pro and need a camera that can perform the best and give wonderful results, this is it. It kicks butt compared to anything else in the DSLR market!!!
Customer Review: most versatile camera
Summary: 5 Stars
The ultimate purpose for a camera is to take photos. No camera except perhaps the Canon 5D II or a comparable Nikon or Sony DSLR will take better photos in more situations than the 1Ds III.
No other kind of camera will do as much as well. Some, such as medium format cameras costing many times more, will take slightly better photos in a studio and for some landscape or still subject shots but canot be used to shoot anything that moves or needs very wide or strong telephoto. A Leica rangefinder is more portable and competes with about everything for IQ but is only useful for certain shots. A point and shoot is very versatile but lacks a comparable IQ. A good micro four thirds is also very versatile but with slightly less IQ. No other camera will focus faster or offer a better range of lenses. Full frame DSLRs can be used to take very wide landscape shots, great shots of kids at play, sports photos, animals at long distances, flash shots indoors, night scenes with wide or strong telephoto, versatile architectural shots, etc. No other camera offers a better range of filters and accessories. Canon and Nikon offer a range of zoom lenses that can take every kind of shot, not just the ones that fit a fixed lens.
The !Ds III has a lot of positives. Great IQ. Very rugged and reliable, maybe more so than any other camera. Works well with Canon flashes. Unmatched choice of lenses, many best in class.
Here are the negatives I have noted after three years of use:
Canon color is excellent but Leica may be slightly better (I don't know about Nikon -- it wasn't a player in this space until I already owned a set of Canon lenses).
Focus doesn't work well with some wide lenses. It is dead on with the 16-35 and the 15mm fisheye but not with the 14mm f2.8 II (the original 1Ds had better auto focus).
It is heavy. A pack with the camera and a complete set of lenses can weigh 30 pounds. This camera is not made for walking around town.
The comparable 5D II is 1/3 the cost and uses the same lenses. (The comparable Nikon costs $2,000 more, the comparable Sony is about the same cost as the 5D II but offers fewer lenses).
The weakest Canon lenses are the wide zooms. They are very clear in the center but soft in the corners.
It lacks an articulating screen, which is useful for shooting the best candid shots of people.
But these are minor quibbles. If you want the best general purpose camera, the clear choice is this, the 5D II or a comparable DSLR.
Customer Review: SeattleAmateur
Summary: 5 Stars
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
I am an advanced amateur and was using the 5D Mark I for the past 2.5 years. I loved the images but hated the focusing. In any kind of shot that involved focusing on a subject moving at walking speed, (or less) the 5D would fail to snap into focus. The second shot would never be in focus. In lower light situations (typical interior lighting, not candles), the 5D was even worse. Sometimes the focusing would force the lens to go to maximum close/distance as the 5D hunted for focus - even when the lens was basically in focus to start - this was guaranteed to miss the shot.
The 1Ds, on the other hand, is great at focusing. Super fast, subjects snap into focus quickly, and focusing continues onto 2nd shots and more. And it will focus on lenses that are 5.6 and above - something the 5D did not do (try a telephoto with a filter or extender). From what I can read, the new 5D Mark II has basically the same focusing system so it is not improved in this area.
What kind of shots am I talking about? Shots of people,kids, basketball, soccer, bands, parades, candids on the street, street life, travel, animals in the wild or at home - I would include most everything except still life/landscape photos. Generally any shot you would not be making with a tripod is a situation where the 1Ds' focusing is vastly superior to the 5D.
High resolution is great. But out of focus shots are not keepers.
Finally, the 1Ds Mark III is much more solid than the 5D - everything from the controls to the shutter sound. I love this camera. My only wish is that it were the same size as the 5D since most shoulde camera bags don't account for its height. I don't mind the weight since the the weight of the lenses I am carrying is much heavier than the camera.