Earlier this week the phone rang - (818) area code. Hmm... Caller ID shows Canoga Camera. Oh shit.. I knew why they were calling - my number was up. The call went to voice mail and I decided to wait a day before calling back; if the camera was still there, then maybe it was meant to be. As you can see from the picture above, the 1Ds3 was still there.

Feeling like a Jeff Foxworthy skit (“You know you’re gear slut when...”) I rattled off the credit card number. Twenty-four hours later the UPS truck delivered a Canon 1Ds Mark III. The Mrs. caught a glimpse of the camera, so before she asked any questions I reminded her I borrowed the 1Ds2 a couple weeks - duh...!... Note to self - hide the box ASAP!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Lets get this out of the way - the 1Ds3 is no medium format killer. Am I going to return the 1Ds3? Probably not. Pulling the 1Ds3 out of its box the first thing I noticed was how light the camera felt. With the smaller battery the balance is different too. To me it feels nice, but for people who shoot super-tele’s such as the 300mm L F2.8 IS or 500mm L F4 IS, they may miss the NP-E3’s counter balance effect.

The next surprise was how large the viewfinder felt. The 1Ds Mark II’s viewfinder is .70x magnification, the 1Ds Mark III is .76x. The numbers sound like a minor improvement, but in real-life the difference is quite noticeable. And the viewfinder is very bright. After the battery charged  the next series of “wow’s” began:  the LCD - huge; the shutter - instantaneous and extremely well dampened; cleaned up menu system; hidden diopter switch (no more blurry viewfinder because the dial moved); more info in the viewfinder; and the list goes on... In general the body just feels up to date with lots of small improvements.

With progress comes trade offs, so not everything is roses. Some of the buttons feel shoe-horned due to the larger LCD screen (less room for buttons). Focus point selection is lame - the joystick control does NOT select the AF points. The 5D does, the 40D does - but not the 1Ds3?!?! And as others have noted in their reviews - only 17 of the AF points are selectable. That doesn’t bother me much, but it does take more dial action to select a point. If Canon wanted to, it seems like these could be easily addressed with a firmware update. Right now it doesn’t bother me, but we’ll see how that plays out in 12 months. In contrast the Nikon D300’s AF selection method is brilliant. (Update - Canon did fix via a firmware update!  See 1Ds3 Blog.)

LIVE VIEW

Initially I thought it was a gimmick, but after trying the Nikon D300 and Canon 40D, my opinion changed. After playing around with the 50L at F1.0 - it’s a pretty damn cool feature. Live view is tricky handheld because the image is bouncing all over the place (at 5x and 10x magnification), but on a tripod it will be wonderful with manual focus lenses. Cameras with a stabilized sensor will have an advantage. For people who shoot with manual lenses, live view can only help the keeper ratio. In another 2, 3 or 4 years Canon and Nikon will have refined live view into a very slick feature. It’s still a bit crude on the 1Ds3, but I’ll use it for sure.

1Ds MARK III VERSUS MEDIUM FORMAT

When it comes to clean shadows, shadow detail and over all sharpness the Phase One P25 wins - and by a good margin too. While image quality is apparent, the key difference in my opinion is the camera bodies. I came to this conclusion last month after playing around the 5D and 1Ds2. The Canon 1Ds Mark III adds more MP and the body is even more feature rich than before, but pixel for pixel - the P25 wins. In terms of everyday usability the 1Ds-anything shoots circles around medium format. I have been considering selling the P25, the 1Ds3 will speed up that decision process.

LENSES

Since most of my Canon gear was sold 2-3 months ago, the only lenses on hand are the 50L F1.0 and a Contax 100 F2 Planar. The 50L looked ho-hum, so I tried the Contax 100 F2 Planar and it did brilliantly. The Canon 50L F1.0 has low contrast to start with, so it is not a good test lens. In comparison the Contax 100/2 really shined. It is too soon to make any judgments, but Canon really needs to update some of their lenses to keep up the 1Ds3. The 1Ds2 already pushed some lenses to their limit, and the 1Ds3 seems even more demanding. Some initial images were added the 645 gallery.

UPDATE - MARCH 9, 2008

On the left is an image from the 1Ds3 (50mm @ F4), the right is the P25 (80mm @ F5.6). Color matching the images is impossible - Canon has their color mapping, Phase has theirs. I spent about an hour trying to get these as close as possible - match the blues, and the reds & yellows are wrong. Match the reds and the greens and blues are whacky... The 1Ds3 coloring looks flatter, less vibrant - possibly truer to the original scene. The P25 delivers a more pleasing color, but has magenta tendencies. Again, nothing new here - this has been consistent with the 1Ds2 and 5D too.

The 1Ds3 images was cropped to match the 80mm FOV. The P25 images was down-sized to match the 1Ds3’s resulting image size. To be as fair as possible to the 1Ds3, it really needs a lens closer to 55mm-60mm to match the Mamiya 80mm’s FOV on the P25.

For this type of general shooting, the P25 doesn’t have any significant technical advantages. I do find the feel of a 80mm lens more pleasing than 50mm. I like how the P25 handles the coloring the grass, etc., but I the Canons deliver better sky colors. I’m looking into custom 1Ds3 profiles for the C1. I do not think the P25’s color is better or more correct, but I want the option to emulate its color and tonality. The P25 has its “look” just as Canon has its look. If I can replicate the P25 color mapping on the 1Ds3, it will be easier to part with the P25.