TRANSITIONING FROM MEDIUM FORMAT TO THE CANON 1DS3

The Canon 1Ds Mark III has been here since early March and has racked-up ~1500 clicks and traveled to various places in the Dallas. In the preview 16 entries in the Gear Talk Column focused on the Phase One P25 Digital back and ultimately comparing it to the Canon 1Ds Mark III. The Phase One 25 and Mamiya 645AFD II have been sold, so the Gear Talk Column will now focus on the Canon 1Ds Mark III and whatever else happens to come along.

The Canon 1Ds Mark III is a very broad topic ranging from the camera itself, to lenses, to technique, to software, to processing and so on. The likelihood that the Gear Talk Column will address every aspect of the 1Ds Mark III is impossible. What will be written is my colored opinions, experiences and expectations. If you are looking for objectivity and scientific study, these pages are not headed in that direction. I am just going to talk about what is working and what is not.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The 1Ds3 is a camera you can pick up and begin to shoot with immediately - especially if you used a Canon dSLR before. The double button press interface from the previous 1-Series generation is gone, so many functions are a single button push coupled with a dial movement. Canon 40D and 5D owners will be able to make the transition very easily. I like the simpler interface. The old interface was not bad either and after several years with the 1Ds and 1Ds Mark II, I was fine with it. Having used the 1Ds Mark III for awhile now, I doubt I would like old interface now. It would be difficult to use a Canon 1-Series Mark II and Mark III side by side.

The 1Ds3 feels every bit as good as any other Canon 1-Series; they are built to take a beating. The new viewfinder is amazing. It is the largest viewfinder on 35mm SLR I have seen, and it might even be larger than the viewfinder on the Mamiya 645AFD II after accounting for the P25’s crop. The viewfinder is big, bright and has no apparent distortion. It is noticeably larger than the 1Ds Mark II’s viewfinder. Manual focusing lenses should be easier.

The new 3-inch LCD is a welcome upgrade. It does not dominate the rear of the camera, but it is large. Zooming in to check focus is okay thus far, but the LCD does not compare the new LCD found on the Nikon D300 and D3. The Nikon LCD is very nice and considering the 1Ds3’s price point, the 1Ds3 should have a similar LCD. Compared to past Mark II, the new LCD is a nice upgrade, but it is not best in class. And given the 1Ds Mark III’s price point, Canon should have used a higher resolution LCD.

Live View is becoming one of my favorite features. Zooming in 5X or 10X while hand-holding can be awkward due to camera shake, but it is still useful. In the studio with a tripod it is very useful. Outdoors it helps, but sometimes the sun washes out the LCD and then Live View is pointless. Overall, working with manual focus lenses is much easier now.

22 MEGAPIXELS AND 14-BITS

For most people the burning question is - is pixel increase noticeable? Does 14-bits improve file quality? We will see many on-line discussions about these topics for the next year or two. 14-bits is an easier question since I used the 16-bit Phase One P25. In certain cases the 1Ds3 raw files do feel more like a P25 file than a 1Ds2 file. The colors and levels in the 1Ds3 files can be pushed very hard - if exposure is good. An under-exposed file with exposure correction plus strong levels editing is a bad move (and pretty much a bad idea with any file). It is hard to quantify the color improvement (or gradients) from the 1Ds2 to the 1Ds3. I will say there is an improvement, but how much will depend on the type of scene. I am happier with the 1Ds3’s color rendering compared to the 1Ds2, but I do feel the 1Ds2 did a better job at producing blue skies. The 1Ds3 tends towards a pastel baby blue or a magenta tinted blue.

As a refresher, I borrowed a 1Ds2 for awhile and shot similar scenes with both cameras. It did not feel like the 1Ds3 was resolving any additional detail. The 1Ds3 files are soft and require more sharpening and processing than a comparable 1Ds2 file. When a 1Ds3 file is downsized to the same size as a 1Ds2 file, the 1Ds3 looks as detailed as the 1Ds2 file, so the 1Ds3 is not resolving less. In terms of resolution, I would say the 1Ds3 is the same or very, very slightly better than the 1Ds2. The resolution increase going from 16 MP to 21 MP is very slight. If considering an upgrade from the 1Ds2 to the 1Ds3, I think the bigger selling points are the improved color, more durable files (ie - the amount of editing they can handle in Photoshop) and the ISO improvement (ISO 1600 is pretty good).