Hi
Take a look at the post about shooting 14,146 frames over four days with the 1Ds III.
http://www.deathtofilm.com/

Denis

I have less than 2000 frames on my 1DS MKIII - and already its the best 35mm camera I have ever used. I love it and its nice to see someone out there writing praise instead of whinning because it doesnt have a direct mirror lock up button.

Edit - that article is also HIGH praise for Lightroom and a wonderful example of the power of workflow in lightroom.

Nice post.

After my first mornings walk it was the best I'd ever owned - such a nice camera to use:)

Mike

I agree - the things are awesome !

I've fully put mine through their paces and I'm very impressed.

Medium format is no longer on my wish list.

The same goes for me.

The only thing is I'm going to send my 5D, 1Ds MKIII and all my Canon lenses to Canon to adjust so that these lenses will focus the same on the 5D as my 1Ds MKIII. Having the ability to micro-adjust is really useful.

add another very happy 1ds3 shooter to the list...but pls note: i still love my mfdb...and won't be giving it up....

wow, just got my 1DS 3 today and man, Its impressive:

please excuse the jpg compression. the original is stunning and this is just a casual shot on my desk with available light. (24-70L at 70mm f5.6)

I'm very happy with the results from the 1ds3.... I don't think I could have done this shot without it.... I know I could not have done it with my MFDB. I only had 5 mins to take the photograph.

1ds3, 35mm f1.4L... available light at iso 1600 f1.4 1/40th sec. Very dark country club, I think those practicals in the background only had 40 watt bulbs in them... chandelier above/front of subject.

The 1ds3 really suits my style, as I like to shoot wide open and I love natural settings. Mind you... in the studio with my hazylight over tabletop mounted behind the 100 macro it also performs very well.

Here are 1Ds3 highlights (highlight prio. enabled) vs. 5D
Both shot in RAW, converted with DPP.


http://www.pbase.com/image/94450947/original

Can I ask a quick question? I was looking at the above link and I navigated over to the link regarding highlight recovery. I have heard that the 1dsMKII and MKIII had more DR than the 5d. Has anyone performed a test similar to this one for the 1dsMKII vs the 5d?

http://www.pbase.com/r_p/image/91789000

1Ds Mk II and 5D both have 12 bit RAW. I'd expect them to be reasonably close. Well, not close enough to prevent a good spirited Internet fight, but reasonably close for a sane person to not really notice a difference

So the extra 2 bits makes that much difference in recoverability? I thought that the bits didn't make much of a difference in DR, or is this not DR?

I'll heap praise on mine when and if it ever shows up ( five months and counting ) - it can only be an improvement on the 1ds2 which I find superb much of the time. I never found the mirror lock up to much of an issue, if you are doing that sort of thing , just set and click twice.
Won't be losing the MFDB either - the resolution might be the same but its a whole different look.

I've mentioned this here before.... My local camera dealer here in louisville has a few 1ds3's on the shelf.... if anyone needs one "NOW" they are there.

Murphy's Camera
1440 Bardstown Rd
Louisville, KY 40204
(502) 485-1500

I'm not associated with them other than spending over 6 digits over the last 10 years there.
Good peeps.... been in biz for a few decades.... and they don't mind my dirty jokes.

Thanks , but I'm down here in NZ . I buy a lot of stuff internationally ( the supply of even standard Canon items here can be awful - four months for a 100mm macro lens? . In that case finally it was B&H to the rescue ) but like to get the bigger items through local dealers in case there is a problem - and there has been with a couple of Canon lenses. I'll tough it out a while longer while we go through the end of our tax year and see how it goes from there.

I've had my 1Ds3 since December and I will simply heap praise onto it! It's just great. It's fast (enough for what I do with it), accurate, snaps to attention and exposes well. More keepers than any other camera I've used - whether that's the camera or learning how to use it I'm not sure and simply don't care as it works for me.

I can now vouch for the weather sealing on the 1DS MKIII as well - I shot for 3 hours in pouring rain last week and the camera performed flawlessly - despite being completely soaked by the end of the shoot. In fact, the camera performed better than I did in the rain - I think I have caught a cold.

Who did you order it from? I place a order with B&H back in December for the 1ds Mk3 and D3 and I got email from them two weeks ago for the 1Ds Mk3 and 4 weeks ago for the D3. Then I place a order from a dealer I never bought from nor heard of in the 1st week of January and I got the 1Ds Mk3 at the end of the month and the D3 a week later, in Febuary. Both cameras are great, but they both have their use in life. So is my P45.

Hi Sean,

Received mine here down in Dunedin NZ mid January. I purchased it locally, so a few are getting through.

Camera works great. Pushes the Canon lenses though and not just the wide angles.

I have just spent three days in the Fiordland rain (and sun). Trekking up to 8.5 hrs a day and the camera performed flawlessly! The battery is still 70% charged.

Lucky you - I am about to do a trip around Queenstown and Otago and was hoping to have it for then. My regular dealer has a D3 on the shelf at last so with any luck the 1ds3 is not far behind. I have seen a couple around - including one at a local rental place. Nice to hear others at least are getting theirs.
I can believe that about the lenses - they are already pushed on a 1ds2. I fortunately seem to have a very good copy of the 16-35mm mk1 lens as it behaves stopped down a little and compares well to some of the primes I own - but it was the second copy of that lens I tried, the first was pretty bad.

I Disagree Totally!!! I have had my 1ds Mark III for thre months. What started out okay went bad fast. And Canon's response to my problem has been lame, lame.

Firstly, I got one of the lovely new gems with the tilted image problem. While that was correcetd, my camera started producing noisy images. Very noisy. That means, even at the lowest ISO and fast shutter speeds I am getting images with 1000's of white specs.

I sent my camera to CPS and was told I "am no lonre a member" because my menbership expired. As ut stands, you now have to seek to renew your own membership, yearly, or it is simplu cancelled.

My camera was returned to me with the same major noise problem. The issue was not fixed.

I understand that soem of the Mark III sensors are going bad. I am one of the chosen ones.

Currently, I am awaiting a rseolution to Canon. I can not use this camera for actual assignments.

Thus my experience, is bad, bad, bad thus far.

I envy you guys in NZ - the place is absolutely gorgeous. I spent a week in the southern island back in 2003 with a Contax ND, which did a nice job for the time thanks to those Zeiss lenses, but I wish it had been my 1DS MkIII (which now has those same lenses ).

As it turned out, the imagery in my Mark III had a problem. I sent my camera to Canon twice for the problem. On the second go round, I demanded they provide me with professional service. I also got my Dealer as well as his Canon Rep involved.

While it took a little over a week to sort this out, I received a brand new Mark III today. Thank you Canon.

Well 2000 frames and my MKIII just died. It will not transfer a file to the computer when tethered and shuts down. It is also creating corrupt images when shoot to the card

Wonderful quality control for an $8000 camera.

Bummer yours has issues.

Your QC comment though doesn't necessarily follow... the law of large numbers dictates that there just will be SOME issues on SOME cameras. If it's 1 in 50,000, still someone's going to have an issue. Unfortunate that it's you. Hopefully they'll take care of you.

Back from the south - a lot of pretty miles and a lot of frames shot and the 1ds3 is waiting to be picked
up !

Typical - have to start planning the next trip.

Good stuff! Autumn colours looking great down here at the moment. I was out with my 16-35L f2.8 ll last week down the Catlins. Great waterfall country. The lens performs rather well on the Mark III but perhaps not quite up to djgarcia's Zeiss !

The 14bit images certainly can be pulled and push more than the old 12bit images. I specially notice this in the shadows.

The 5D also looks like it has more magenta, which I've seen using mine also. I don't like that. The 1DS3 looks like it reproduces better flesh tones--but that may be something else here, and not camera related. I do see the the difference in the highlights, but both versions work for me--the 5D allows the highlights to better backlight the subject, with a nice glow on the edges. These comparisons also show me that the 5D still takes EXCELLENT images.

You sure it's not the card?

Oh yes, I'm sure its not the card.

I figured, but you never know.

My nightmare is to get teh 1DS3 that you got and have problems getting it replaced. For 8, 000US there should be NO PROBLEM getting a fast replacement when this sort of thing happens. It's just unacceptable. That camera cost as much as some nearly new cars.

Bit depth has LITTLE to do with Dynamic Range! The DR is defined by the analog sensor's capabilities and NOT the A/D converter. Why people equate DR to bit depth is beyond me, to be sure.

I called my retailer about an exchange and was told it had to go back to Canon. BTW, the retailer was KEH Camera. BTW, hte camera was less than a month old when I called.

I'm none too happy that my 8k camera is, in the words of the folks at Canon repair, that my new camera "was in pieces on the bench".

I'm going to give Canon a fair shot at fixing the thing. ONE fair shot.

Well, my camera came back today, and according to Canon they don't know what was causing the problems, but they did see the corruption in the files. So they replaced the "D" pcb assembly, replaced the focus sceen, cleaned and did other electrical adjustments and updated the firmware.

I've shot a few frames, and now liveview tethered works and no sign of corrupt files yet. My problem is that I'm just not sure I can trust this camera yet..maybe not ever. We will see.

BTW does anyone know which board is the "D" pcb?

It's the one between the "C" and the "E" one.

sorry .. couldn't resist.

At least they replaced stuff until it worked.

That was a good one Wayne.

I called and found out that the "d" board is the main board.

And looking I see that despite the notation on the work order, the firmware was not upgraded.

I used the camera all afternoon on a studio setup and it worked fine. I'll get to checking it out in depth this weekend. I've got my fingers crossed.

Well, I got my DS3 a few days ago, and as i've stated in another thread i started, it won't--can't--balance plain old household socket type fluorescent lights. It continues to have a very yellow cast in both fluorescent WB mode and AWB. I shot the same scene with the same lens on my 5D and the 5D did a spectacular job with WB in AWB mode.

I've also noticed what I believe is a problem in it's evaluative (main) metering mode--it seems to be blowing highlights that my 5D never does.

I'm going to try and dial in the fluorescent mode manually using manual WB adjustment. If that doesn't work--back it goes because I can't trust it to be correct in other areas either. Not only that, but it would be quite an argument to say that the WB on the 5D outperforms the WB of the DS3 when in AWB or fluorescent when correcting for fluorescent light.

also, when you buy cameras, many stores only give you a 15 day return, such as B&H. However, I'm not sure what the return policy is on the 1DS3. I suppose if I get it back before two weeks, I'll get a replacement from B&H.

But I agree that the warranty for an 8, 000US camera should come with a replacement in the first year--not tear it apart and send it back repaired, when it's something as serious as the entire board being bad. If it just needs an adjustment, I can see that I suppose. Then again, when I build my own computers, if the main board goes bad, I just get a new MB, so I guess that's in line with all things digital these days.

I posted an update to the problems I thought I was having above. Everything is spot on now.

What I like (love) about the 1DS3:

1. Shooting functions option on the BACK LCD screen. Very nice!
2. ISO in viewfinder.
3. Expanded manual focus point by one point either vertical or horizontal, or both.
4. 5FPS RAW, very cool.
5. Exposure safety by increasing ISO.

And everything else. Very nice camera.

oops, meant to post this in another thread...