I was at Truro Football Club recently in a howling gale heavy rain trying to photograph their match with Salisbury under floodlights that seemed as about as bright as headlights on a tram.
I had travelled on the coach with the team for more than 4 hours and was really not hopeful of getting many decent shots with my Canon 5D Mk I. I set the camera on ISO 3200 (as high as it would go) opened my 70-200mm f2.8 lens as wide as it would go (f2.8) and went for it. I was getting about 1/60 - 1/125 sec in shutter speed and really struggling to keep the worst of the weather off the camera; which is not water sealed. Needless to say I did not have a very successful night getting few images that were of a high enough quality to use.
I started looking at the options for an upgrade, partly because I knew they were going to be many more nights like that before the end of the season and my 5D was not built for this type of photography or weather, and also because I knew I need to ensure I have the equipment to get the shots I need, especially as I am now supply away match images for the Salisbury Journal and I need to be reliable.
I started asking questions on forums, etc. and the only camera that was being talked about (it had to be a Canon for me) was the 1D MkIV. I have now shot a couple of matches with it and I am really still learning about its many features (which includes video capture) but WOW this thing really does rock.
The images from last evening's match against Halesowen on my blog were shot at ISO6400 and really speak for themselves as far as how good this camera is. I have included below the preview carried out by Will Chueng on ephotozine. More images from last evening's game can be seen on my website
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| Will Cheung gets the chance for a hands-on experience with the Canon EOS 1D Mk IV. Here are this early impressions. |
Nikon with their D3S raised the ISO bar late last year. With a top true ISO of 12,800 and the option of shooting at H+3 giving an equivalent ISO of 102,400, you can almost shoot without any light at all. Almost! Admittedly, image quality at this rarefied speed is nothing to write home about, but film got nowhere remotely close.
It has not taken long for Canon to respond in the form of the EOS 1D Mk IV. In fact, the Canon was announced a week after the Nikon D3S – it is just that the Canon has taken rather longer to come to market. Rumours of the full-frame EOS 1Ds Mk IV arriving later this year have already been around for a while.
Canon EOS 1D MkIV: FeaturesIt has not taken long for Canon to respond in the form of the EOS 1D Mk IV. In fact, the Canon was announced a week after the Nikon D3S – it is just that the Canon has taken rather longer to come to market. Rumours of the full-frame EOS 1Ds Mk IV arriving later this year have already been around for a while.
Like the Nikon D3S, the 1D Mk IV promises an amazing ISO performance, but in this case the camera uses a 1.3x cropped sensor rather than the Nikon FX, near full-frame format of the D3S.
Canon's 16Mp pro level DSLR has a slightly different emphasis and shooting speed is a big selling factor, so press and sports shooters are target users. It is claimed that it can shoot 121 Large JPEGs at its top continuous shooting speed of 10 frames-per-second.
There is also a new AF system with 45 user-selectable sensors, 39 of which are cross-type points with equal sensitivity in horizontal and vertical axes – with a few exceptions, you need f/2.8 or faster lenses to make the most of the system. These 39 cross-type sensors are only available for manual AF point selection. The AF options are truly plentiful (to put it mildly) and the system has its own instruction manual outlining set-up so we will go into greater depth when Canon finally get us a test sample. For this preview, I kept it simple and used default settings.
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| From afar and the logo aside, the Mk IV looks like just like previous 1D cameras. | |
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| The back is bustling with controls but the layout is clear so no problem with handling. | The interface stuff is located on the left end of the camera body. |
In the hand, the Mk IV has a very similar overall lookand feel to older versions of the 1D. Owners of the older cameras will be immediately at home with this model, even though there are more features packed into the body.
For non-Canon EOS 1D users, pick it up and you will enjoy the solidity and robustness of the Mk IV's body. It simply feels like a 'professional' camera. You can imagine it withstanding a drenching on the touchline of a football match, or working in the extreme cold of a winter sports event, or the heat of a safari shoot, and it just continue to whirr away without missing a beat.
The only thing about handling I did find was that a little while with the instructions is strongly advised. Just take custom functions as an example: there are 62 of them with 177 settings.
Canon EOS 1D MkIV: Performance
The exposure system was consistent so no issues here. I had the camera set to its 63-zone Evaluative metering system, mostly in aperture-priority or manual when I was using studio flash.
Shooting into the light in a dark night club still produced acceptable exposures without any help from me. The highlights burned out but that was better than losing shadow details in this instance.
I did find that while the AF is excellent the system set-up does need more thought than just using default if you are going to get the most from it. I managed a few out of focus images when the subject was off-centre, but this was probably more user-error than the camera. Thankfully, there are no signs of any focusing gremlins, ie an inability to produce sharp images, which afflicted early samples of the 1D Mk III.
Automatic white-balance performance was generally okay too, but my outdoor images were slightly on the cool-looking side. Again, this is not an issue and easily sorted with proper set-up. AWB performance in artificial lighting was not great, but the colour temperature of the lights in the club I did some shots was probably beyond the 3000-7000K AWB operating range of the Mk IV.
I did explore the camera's ISO range in a little more detail. As you can see from the sample images, digital noise performance is generally impressive. Sadly, I did not have a Nikon D3S to hand to do a comparison test, but looking at the images in low light I would be happy to shoot with the Mk IV at ISO 12,800 without any qualms. Yes, there is noise in the form of green blotchiness but it is not horrible. At the equivalent of ISO25,600 the colour blotchiness is more evident and, as you would expect, it gets less impressive at the higher settings.
In sum, the proper ISO settings (ie those up to ISO12,800) are perfectly usable but tread a little more warily and manage your expectations beyond that setting. Generally, though, great stuff.
| Canon EOS 1D Mk IV noise test: view high resolution images by clicking on the individual thumbnails below. | |||
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| ISO100 | ISO200 | ISO400 | ISO 800 |
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| ISO1600 | ISO3200 | ISO6400 | ISO12,800 |
| |  |  | Digital noise performance is impressive up to ISO 12,800. |
| H+1 (ISO 25,600 | H+2 (ISO 51,200) | H+3 (ISO 102,400) | Thanks to Kirstyn Moppett for modelling. |
| View high resolution images by clicking on the individual thumbnails below | |
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| Tricky lighting, well handled. | Contrasty light was not a problem. |
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| Good AWB performance in the shade. | The sky appears cooler than in reality. |
Canon EOS 1D MkIV: Summary
So far, so good. I enjoyed my brief spell with the Mk IV. It worked well and felt inspiring to use. I really would have liked the time to tinker with the AF and Custom Function settings to really fine-tune the camera to my preferences (handling and performance) but that is something I look forward to doing when we get a review sample.
For £3734.99 from Warehouse Express, making the decision to buy a Mk IV is no trifling matter and you need to be more than a little certain that you are going to get the most from it. However, even from this preview I can say with some degree of certainty that the Mk IV certainly has more features, ability and performance than most enthusiast photographers will ever, ever need. So if you are in the market and still sitting on the fence, perhaps it is time to get off it.
Canon EOS 1D MkIV: Specification
| Price | £3734.99 |
| Contact | www.canon.co.uk |
| Resolution | 16.1Mp |
| Sensor size | 27.9mmx18.6mm APS-H |
| Sensor type | CMOS |
| Max image size | 4896x3264 |
| Aspect ratio | 3:2 |
| Focusing system | TTL-AREA-SIR with dedicated CMOS sensor |
| Focus points | 45 point sensors of which 39 are cross-type |
| Focus types | One shot, AI servo |
| Crop factor | 1.3x |
| Lens mount | EF |
| File types | sRaw (14bit), Raw, JPEG |
| ISO sensitivity | ISO100-12,800, expandable to equivalent ISO50, ISO25,600, ISO51,200 & ISO102,400 |
| Metering system | TTL full aperture with 63 zone SPC |
| Metering types | Evaluative, Partial, spot (centre-spot, AF linked spot) |
| Exposure compensation | +/- 3EV in 1/3 or 1/2 step increments |
| Shutter speed range | 30sec - 1/8000sec & bulb |
| Frames per second | 10fps for 121 images JPEG, 28 images Raw with UDMA card |
| Flash sync speed | 1/300sec |
| Image stabilisation | Lens based |
| Live view | Yes, 100% coverage |
| Viewfinder | Pentaprism, 100% coverage, 0.76x magnification |
| Monitor | 3in Clear View I I TFT, 920,000 dots (307,000 pixels) |
| Media type | Compactflash I/II, Microdrive, UDMA enabled, SD, SDHC, external (with wireless file transmitter WFT-E2 and WFT-E2 II only) |
| Interface | USB 2.0 |
| Power | Li-Ion battery LP-E4 |
| Size | 156x156.6x79.9mm |
| Weight | 1180g |
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