Liam and a few more observations about the 1Ds3

So I’ve had about 4 days playing with this new-fangled thing and I’ve got some further observations. First, it’s much less forgiving than any digital camera I’ve ever shot with, well, at least if you want to get the most out of it. The past few days, I’ve likened it to being a driver and you get a nice new sports car.  You know it handles better and lets you go faster and ultimately makes you a better driver, but at first it can be a little tough to control.

The amount of detail in sharp shots is amazing, but that means that you’ve got to get sharp shots to begin with.  Camera shake, non-perfect focus, slow shutter, soft glass.  All of these things become your new nemesis.  And even though there are times when the light coming through the lens isn’t up to the sensors standards, the extra pixels still make for a better image.  There is a smoothness to the files which, and I know this sounds like hyperbole, that I can really only equate to medium format film. Just something about the dimensionality it gives.  I’ve been struck by the improvement in this regard from each move, from a Digital Rebel to a 20D to the 5D to the 1D but this definitely meets the highest standard.  I’ll probably spank myself in a couple years for saying this, but except for special circumstances, I can’t imagine needing any more pixels. It’s just beautiful.

Noise is good, and certainly for the resolution it’s excellent.  I try not too shoot at 1600 or higher unless I have to, and you can always use Noise Ninja or such if you have to, or down-res to squash some of the noise for that matter.  However even at low iso, the files are not quite as noiseless as the 5D. This is not a criticism really, since the small amount of texture reduces any sense of the “plastic” look people bitch about. This might be a RAW conversion thing too, I’ll have to do a little more research.  I’m also looking forward to trying out the highlight retention functionality.

More thoughts to come over the next week, but I’ll just post them as they come to me.

Dave

Crazy light

My portrait shoot was moved to next week, so you’ll have to wait a little bit for some nice people pictures.  However I went into town to deal with some bank problems and do a little shopping, and while walking down 6th ave in midtown, saw this crazy evening reflections on the building, so I thought I’d share.  More exciting shots to come tomorrow… hopefully.  ;-P

Arrived.

So, it has arrived this morning around 10, and it’s all taped up and ready to go. I had to wait for a couple hours while the battery charged (always have to treat your batteries right from the beginning), so I just got to play a little while ago.

I’ve got a portrait shoot later today, and so there will be many more interesting shots then, but I wanted to give some first observations.

Weight and size are about what I expected. Definitely heavier than the 5D of course, but this is for serious work, and I’ve always got the smaller body if I want to walk around with it.  The shutter is nice and snappy, yum. And the viewfinder is actually big and bright enough to manually focus for real. Something I’ve never really been able to do on the 5D for some reason.

I know I said a while back that I had posted the ugliest photo ever, well I may have topped myself.  Below are two shots.  One, a really ugly shot of the street about a block away from my in park slope.  I was trying to see how the camera and RAW files dealt with midday sun, some sky and some buildings (the answer is “pretty well” at first blush).

The second shot is a crop from the center of the image, showing the crazy amount of detail.  Clearly defined individual leaves, and hell, even an airplane a mile away is clearly visible.  This was a 50mm/1.4 but it clearly shows that at least some of Canon’s glass can handle 21MP.

Street Experiment

Robert Thomson

Another, for those who happen to read BusinessWeek, this week’s issue has a portrait I took of Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson on page 104.

Here it is on the page, and then below, is the uncropped version as I intended it.

Bibian

Nicky

Charley Maxwell

For those who happen to read BusinessWeek, this week’s issue has a portrait I took of a man named Charles Maxwell on page 75.

Here it is on the page, and then below, is the uncropped version as I intended it.

Another Self-Portrait by Windowlight