Photo Courtesy Canon USAIf you've never held a Canon 1 Series camera, you likely won't understand the almost visceral charge one gets from handling one of these cameras. They seem to be carved from a solid block of unobtainium. After a few days of use in the studio or on location almost any other camera starts to pale by comparison. These cameras are tough, beautifully made, and as feature-rich as one could want. They also traditionally produce excellent image quality.

The newest member of the Series I family is the 1D Mark II. Announced in early February 2004, this latest Canon DSLR is to start shipping to photographers in early April. In mid-March Canon sent me a full production camera for testing, just a few days before I was scheduled to do a wildlife shoot in Nebraska. What better venue than shooting birds in the wild to test out this new high-speed camera.

GenealogySince 1989 Canon's flagship cameras have been part of the 1 Series. The latest (and likely last) film-based ...