Canon's
EOS-1D Mark IV has been slinking around at retail availability for some time now, and while we brought you plenty of sample imagery from the camera
over a month ago, it's taken awhile for the thing to get the full review treatment.
Digital Photography Review has finally done the deed, dedicating a whopping 33 pages to Canon's low-light, 1080p wunderkind. It's that last new feature, video, that the review finds fault in, with the same jellyvision we've seen on other HD-shootin' DSLRs (seemingly no worse here than elsewhere), but the review feels that the movie mode here doesn't feel sufficiently integrated with the camera. Meanwhile that low-light, high-ISO shooting performance is impressive, but not quite up to the performance of the Nikon
D3S. Everything else, though, seems to be a nice evolution over the older Mark III -- if you have a similarly advanced budget.
posted February 22nd 2010 10:50AM
these days, SLRs are taking the shape of handy cams!
these days, SLRs are taking the shape of handy cams!
@avis And yet engadget still won't let you edit comments
Mine arrived Thursday. I've photographed a night high school lacrosse game, two afternoon lacrosse games, and a football game since then.
Night performance is completely outstanding. It's lust a first-sight.
Daytime performance? I want to pull my hair out. It has a serious tendency to focus about 2 inches behind my subjects all the damn time. I'm continuously tweaking the custom functions to find where the issue may be, but I'm still coming up short.
@TPJ maybe its the Lens? Although it should not backfocus with EVERY lens you have... i would send and back to get a new one ...
@finnschi
If it does seem to be tied to a specific lens you should be able to do micro adjustments for it. At least I can do this on my 50d, I could only image that it would be on this one too.
But what about the 1Ds ? any news on release date ?
@Firesuite It's scary to think that the new 1Ds will probably be pushing close to 30 megapixels. You could take a picture of the earth, and crop it down to your house.
@sidepocket And with the price of it im sure you could pay Branson to fly you into space to take that photo too :)
@sidepocket There are about a dozen a yo mama jokes in there that I'm biting my tongue hard to avoid.
This thing costs something like eight grand. It deserves a 30 page review.
@BdgBill1 $5k, but your point is still made.
Bah, I'm getting the t2i and getting 90% of the functionality while saving my benjamins for glass.
@mullingit0ver Yes, because they are comparable on every level?
Jeez
Still waiting for mine, scrapping the 5D II because of it's slow auto focus.
I skipped the 1D III, still have the 1D II, though the shutter is on the fritz after half a million exposures or so.
In short:
Total: 89%
Good for: Pros
Bad for: Pros working in low light conditions.
@Tullsy
what are you talking about?!
@indeed Go to the end of the article...
@Tullsy I've read the article and looked at the ISO noise comparisons. The noise looked very well controlled until 25600 ISO, I wouldn't say that's bad for low light conditions. But yeah, Nikon performed better from there up.
I love my Mark II best DSLR out there, but I could never afford this. I am more curious as to what Nikon is going to respond with.
In helping with getting rid of that jelloish image I just picked up a shoulder support from Habbycam.com and it solved the problem.
@Dan85
I bet it helps greatly but $250 for a simple SD camera brace? One can probably make one of those for like 20 bucks. I just might.
oh and I just ordered a 5D mk II as well, can't wait to try it! it's taking too long.. damn dutch mail service
@indeed
Well I could have done that, but honestly I wanted something to match the rest of my gear and this got the job done.
@Dan85
haha yes, it won't look that good ;)
I'm planning on making a dolly soon and if I have the time I'll give the shoulder brace a try
Nikon can take it easy. They can still sell the best DSLR currently available, the D700, even if it is already 2 years old. 12mp is enough, it works with all lenses from the seventies till now. AF is decent, speed is decent, low light performance is decent, price is decent. And it has a built-in flash and Nikon CLS.
@blanka
I just wanted them to fix the video! I originally was a Nikon User but I gave up and made the switch to Canon because I wanted the HD Video capabilities. On my old D300s it was grainy, compressed, and completely worthless.
@blanka I agree, the Nikon D700 is an amazing camera, don't know about the auto focus, only used really old lenses.
Some people do need more than 12Mps though, but the 22 mp of the 5D MkII are just too many for me, the files are annoyingly big, the 1D IV is ok though, 1Ds II file size, should be ok.
And best, depends on what you need it for, IMO. A P65+ on any given camera is a lot better image and resolution wise, is that the best in the world?
Not for me, at any rate.
it looks like a 450d on steroids.
all 4 survivors will need to team up to take it down :)
Rob Galbraith (who exposed the 1DS MarkIII af problems) claims the Mark IV is not reliable enough to depend on it in a professional setting.:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10048-10484
and Scott Bourne's rebuttal:
http://photofocus.com/2010/02/18/a-response-to-rob-galbraiths-canon-autofocus-article/