Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) by Canon
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Our Price: $5,500.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Digital Camera See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
Digital camera Review: Amazing camera.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best 35mm digital SLR I have ever used. The portability of a DSLR with the image quality of P22 maybe even P32 back and with out the hassle. Highly recommended for the Canon user that can afford to make the jump. Kudos on shipping as well, got it a day early, was one of the first - thanks.Digital camera 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!!!
Digital camera 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.
Digital camera Review: Camera design has serious flaws for the price
Summary: 2 Stars
One would reasonably have expected an $8,000+ camera to be well designed and well engineered. Sure, it is "Ok" but "ok" for a much lower price.
Specifically:
1. It has an unacceptably high incidence on "Err99" error codes which disable the camera altogether until it is sent back to Canon for repair.
2. It has an unacceptably high rate of viewfinder misalignment incidences where the viewfinder shows the horizon to be horizontal but the horizon in the image taken isn't.
3. It fails to operate the programming of Canon's own 580 EX flash (the non-version-II).
4. Resolution may well be 21 megapixels, but that is only 25% more in each the two linear dimensions compared to the 5D that costs a fraction of the cost. (square root of 21/13).
5. The image "noise" at high ISO settings is much higher than that of the much lower priced 5D. This is inevitable since the imaging array of the 1Ds has more pixes within the same area, so each pixel is smaller. For high ISO settings I have to revert to the 5D. This limits the camera's usefuleness to bright light situations only.
6. The artificially inflated price (by limiting supply, in the classical supply and demand argument) is outrageous. Canon needs to be taught some humility and customer-relations as soon as other brands offer similar full frame resolutions.
Digital camera Review: Canon EOS 1Ds MarkIII
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent tool for the professional photographer. As a pro with years of experience using 1D series cameras, moving up to the 1Ds was effortless but extremely rewarding. Was making money off of prints from the camera within 72 hours. Build quality and image quality is exceptional. Responsiveness for action sports is accurate, fast and very reliable. Even in low light situations where I am using it at ISO 3200 and f2.8 and wider so that I can use shutter speeds at 1/500 and 1/1000 in high school gymnasiums and pools. So far, studio shots have been blowing me away with the image clarity, contrast and color - especially with L series lenses. Just wish I didn't have to pay the price of a used small car for it and it's impact on increasing my equipment insurance.