The Canon 1Ds Mark III has been here since early March and made its debut in the 645 BLOG entry. Since then it has racked ~1500 clicks and traveled to various places in the Dallas. Most of the better pictures have been grouped in the 1Ds Mark III Gallery. In the 645 BLOG the 1Ds Mark III discussion concentrated on comparing the 1Ds3 to the Phase One P25 digital back. At this point I want focus on just the 1Ds Mark III and steer away from digital back comparisons.

WHERE TO START?

The Canon 1Ds Mark III is a very broad topic ranging from the camera itself, to lenses, to technique, to software, to processing, etc., etc. Whole forums are dedicated to Canon dSLRs, so the likelihood that these entries will address every aspect of the 1Ds Mark III is very unlikely. Furthermore, what is written here is colored with MY opinions, experiences and expectations. If you are looking for objectivity, this bog is not a scientific study. Nor am I going go recite all the specs and features.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The 1Ds3 is not a piece of alien technology with cryptic GUI and hieroglyphics. It 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 is gone, so many functions are a single button push coupled with a dial movement. 40D and 5D owners will be able to make the transition very easily.

The 1Ds3 feels every bit as good as any other 1-series. It is very solid and feels like it can take a beating. The 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.

The new 3-inch LCD is a nice 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.

After using Live View for awhile, it is indeed a useful feature. Zooming in 5X or 10X while hand-holding can be awkward due to camera shake, so I tend to use it only in conjunction with a tripod. Plus, when zoomed-in I lose sense of the composition. When the 1Ds3 is mounted on the tripod, I frame the composition first, enable Live View, position the focus square over the target area, zoom to 10X and focus. 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. The picture to the left has fairly extreme gradients (click on the image for a higher quality file). 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.

The other hot topic is the 22 megapixels. I borrowed a friend’s 1Ds2 for awhile and shot similar scenes with both cameras. It did not feel like the 1Ds3 was resolving any additional detail. The 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 isn’t resolving less. In terms of resolution, I would say the 1Ds3 is the same or very, very slightly better than the 1Ds2. Long story short, don’t expect the 100% crops to blow away the 1Ds2.

UPCOMING BLOG ENTRIES

Some of the upcoming entries will include Canon’s pictures styles and how to incorporate your own color mapping. There are other positive highlights - such as improved high ISO shooting. In the meantime if you’re hungry for more reading material and haven’t read 645 BLOG before, check out the last 6 to 8 entries. There is some cross-over material between that blog and this blog. Also, there is a fairly decent collection of 1Ds3 images in the 1Ds3 Mark III Gallery and quite a few images in the Medium Format Gallery (taken with a Mamiya 645AFD II and Phase One P25 22-megapixel digital back.