JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT, THEY PULL ME BACK IN

Two months ago I wrote why the 1Ds Mark III was sold this past December. It now seems ironic that the article was dated April 1, and another Canon 1Ds Mark III is sitting on the desk. I really, truly believed that I was done with Canon. I even went so far as to try the 5D Mark II - and there was no chemistry there. This year we were going to skip the summer vacation and keep the pennies in the piggy bank. I planned to use the Mamiya ZD and Leica M8 and had no concerns. Our best intentions evaporated when Princess Cruise Lines sent a email with some compelling rates. Long story short, we are headed to Alaska in August. This cruise is costing us nearly 50% less than it did in 2005, so if you are in the market for a cruise, it is a good to shop around.

So what does a cruise have to do with a 1Ds Mark III? In 2005 we took our first trip to Alaska and in preparation for that trip I manned-up and bought a refurbished Canon 1Ds for $4400. My innards were frozen for a week after clicking the buy button because I had never bought anything that expensive before - outside of a house, car and wedding ring. I was so young and naive then... Overall the 1Ds performed well in Alaska, but the weather did not cooperate. It was windy, partly overcast with occasional, albeit light rain. Fast forward to 2009, faced with unknown weather conditions, the question is whether or not to gamble on the ZD and M8.

The Mamiya ZD is outstanding when there is plenty of light. Rolling into Anchorage with a ISO 50 camera is a gutsy move. Even if the weather is perfect, as the light wanes, it is time to lay down the ZD for its nightly rest. Maybe the Leica M8 could do the trick? I thought about it, but the M8 files are limited in terms of the amount of Photoshop’ing they can withstand. Its ISO starts to wane around ISO 640. A rangefinder is only good up to about 75mm (for me) because anything beyond 75mm is hit or miss when it comes to framing and focusing. And the biggest strike against the M8 was - potentially sinking another $4000-$7000 on various lenses.

CLIMBING BACK IN BED WITH CANON

While the Canon 1Ds Mark III was frustrating in a couple areas, it was not all bad. The 1Ds Mark III has an outstanding viewfinder, so manual focusing feels pretty good. My favorite aspect of the 1Ds Mark III is its color - often referred to as “vibrance” in the past articles. While the ZD and M8 beat the 1Ds Mark III for B&W images, I feel the Canon wins for color images by a significant margin. Plus, its files can withstand alot of abuse in Photoshop. The images on this page were taken with the 1Ds Mark III and Contax 100mm F2 Planar. For giggles and grins I intentionally pushed the colors too far. The files held together and they could have been pushed further.

A couple months ago I tried the 5D Mark II for a month or so. I do not want to bash the 5D Mark II, but there were several things that did not set right. First, the green LED info bar in the viewfinder completely washout in sunlight. Live view is very simple on the 1Ds3, but when Canon added video to 5D Mark II, Live View became to gadgety. The 1Ds3’s Live View implementation is simple and quick to use in the field. With the 5D Mark II there was more button pushing because of toggling between video vs Live View. The image quality was lacking compared to the 1Ds3; the 5D2’s fine details were obscured, hard textures like brick had odd digital artifacts (mostly in DPP, C1 did a better job). And the color was not my taste.

Before buying the 1Ds Mark III, I did consider a Canon 50D and even a Canon 1Ds Mark II. Those cameras (and the 5D Mark II for that matter) would have done the job. Most likely this is our last trip to Alaska, so I decided to bring the best dSLR Canon had to offer. Between the Canon 1Ds Mark III, Mamiya ZD and Leica M8 - I’m loaded for bear. Not literally, I mean in terms of pixel count and potential print size. The Mamiya ZD and Leica M8 are the king and queen of B&W, and the 1Ds3 is the king of color. I thought about consolidating into a Hasselblad H3DII-31, but leaf shutter lenses and the 1/800 max shutter is a serious limitation. Plus, Hasselblad does not have light zoom lenses. Thus far there is only one zoom lenses - a four pound behemoth. There was the Phase One option, but I have been there before with the Mamiya 645AFD II and P25. That was not nirvana; I had more OOF’s with that system than any other camera system before or after.

A NEW CHAPTER IN THE 135 BLOG

After going through all the options, the 1Ds Mark III ended up as the best overall choice. Before buying the 1Ds Mark III, I made that same promise that we all do, “I’ll buy this and sell that.” That in this case was the Mamiya ZD. Well, that ain’t happening, at least not for awhile. The Mamiya ZD has done really well in bright harsh light the past couple weeks, and those are conditions where the 1Ds Mark III struggles with dynamic range. The 1Ds3, ZD and M8 are all going to Alaska, and  each camera has a specific role / purpose.

The ZD is an ultra cheap way to get the “medium format”, it produces very detailed images (good for landscapes) and its ability to hold highlights makes the 1Ds3 pee its pants. The M8 is good for snap shots and intimate shooting where a large dSLR or medium format rig would be intimidating or disruptive. And the 1Ds Mark III is the “in case of emergency” camera - it is weather sealed, has IS zooms for those times when lens changes are possible, has great high ISO performance - and its colors are really good. The challenge is carrying all that gear and having the right camera at the right time. The past couple weekends I have loaded up the camera bag and shot with all three cameras. During the next couple months I hope to work out an easy system for when to carry which camera. And I may still downsize to just two cameras instead of three. The pictures on this page are when I think the 1Ds3 does best - early evening and sunsets. It’s probably good in the mornings too, but I am not a 4:00 AM trek up the mountain for the sunrise kind of person. No, I’ll do that at high noon and die of heat exhaustion from carry three damn cameras, but I digress... The ZD was used earlier in the day between 2:00-4:00 PM in very harsh sunlight (pictures here). If everything goes right, over the next a couple months we will see some synergies from having three cameras on hand. Or not... :)