Canon EOS 1D Mark III review

The new top of the line Canon camera has arrived. The 1D Mark III is an awesome camera for sport and nature photographers - it offers an unpreceded 10 FPS continuous shooting speed with a 10 megapixels APS-H (1.3x) sensor. Other major innovations include a new autofocus system with 19 cross-type AF sensors, ISO 50-6400, anti-dust system and 3.0" LCD with live view. Does it delivers what it promises? Here, I'll analyze the features that I consider more important for my work - for an in-depth description of the camera, I recommend to download the detailed Canon 1D Mark III White Paper.

Camera Specifications

The body

The 1D Mark III all around. Click for larger view.

Every Canon 1 series is built to last - and the new 1D3 is even more rock solid than its predecessors. The body, even though it is 220g lighter than 1D2, is made mainly by magnesium alloy and it incoporated 76 rubber O-rings for weather sealing - the 1D3 is made to be used enven in the most harsh conditions. The shutter unity durability has been increased from the 200,000 cicles of the 1D2 to 300,000 cicles. Other improvements includes the new battery - Canon has finally dropped the old Ni-Cd battery in favor of a smaller and ligher lithium-ion battery pack. The new LP-E4 (3 cells, 11.1V, 2300 mAh) lasts for 2200 shots, vs the 1200 shots on the old battery pack of the 1D2: an huge improvement, made possible by the low power consumption of the new electronic components of the 1D3. In the menus, you can even check the percentage of charge - I really like this feature, it is much better than the small "three steps" battery icon of the 20D, that many times is not as precise as it should be.

The user interface is an enormous leap forward compared to the older 1D series - in my opinion, it is a so big improvement that it is worth itselft the price of the upgrade from the 1D2. The previous 1 series had really an "unser-enemy" UI, the menus were slow to navigate and you always had to keeping pressed two buttons to change a setting...by far the most aweful interface that I had ever seen in a camera. The 1D3 had been completely re-designed and now it is a joy to use! It has less buttons than the 1D2, but it is far more intuitive; the navigation between the menus is fast and easy, thank to the joystick and the quick control dial. The screen is big, bright, sharp, easy to read and it has an extremely wide angle of view, so far it is the best screen that I've ever seen in a DSLR!

The entry-level Canon EOS 400D was the first Canon camera with anti-dust - a system that shakes off dust from the sensor. The new flagship now has the same technology, with some improvements to make it even more effective. I've never considered the dust a serios problems - even with my old 20D that has not anti-dust, I've never had particular problems, and I've had to clean the sensor just few times. Anyway, the new anti-dust is a welcome feature :-)

Technology

The camera has a 10 megapixel CMOS sensor. For me the biggest surprise has been its size: it measures 28.1x18.7mm, that is the same APS-H format of the previous 1D Mark IIn (1.3x focal length multiplier). Canon has been pretty clear about it consumer lineup - the APS-C sensors (1.6x crop) are here to stay, in the consumer market (400 and 30 line). But in the professional arena, I expected to see the fullframe sensor (24x36mm) as the standard: instead, the APS-H size is still here, al least for this generation. Honestly, I'm not a fan of APS-H, I photograph both wildlife and landscapes so I'd have preferred a fullframe sensor to get the best from  wide-angle lenses. Anyway, even with the APS-H size you can use the Sigma 12-24mm as a "16-32mm equivalent" - not as wide as it could be, but still pretty good. On the left: the 10.1 mp APS-H CMOS sensor and anti-dust unit.

The 1D3 has a big, high resolution LCD screen, that makes easier reviewing the photos and browsing between the menus and the camera settins. The new screen has a wide-viewing angle (140° both vertically and horizontally) and it has a quite unusual feature: Live View. The Live View is the standard into digicams, while it is rare in DSLRs. With the 1D3, you can use the big LCD screen to frame the photo; you can judge in real-time the exposure and the depth of field, and you can even magnify up to 10x a portion of the image for a more accurate focussing. In Live View mode you can not use autofocus - still, it is very useful to photograph landscapes, macro and other subjects from awkward positions. I had never used a camera with live view before and I've been amazed to see how useful it is...the dream of every macro photographer!

Live View in action: in the first photo, I framed the test target; in the second photo I focussed at 10x magnification.

I often use the Sigma 180 Macro with 2.0 TC, that gives a very dark 360mm f/7.1. The AF of course does not work, so you are forced to use MF: it is far from easy and, unless you have a very good eye, you will get many out of focus photos (with the 20D or other cameras without live view). The 1D3 is another world! You frame the photo through a big, bright, sharp LCD screen, then you zoom at 10x and you fine tune the focus on the subject. You can even stop down the lens to the effective aperture (with the DOF preview button) to check the depth of fied, both on the entire image or in a 10x magnified area...it is fantastic to see in real time the effect of different apertures! And remember that while the viewfinder becomes extremelu dark if you press the DOF preview button, the LCD always maintain the same brightness...I love it!

You can even use live view combined with a PC, using the EOS Utility 2.0 software provided by canon. With the wireless transmitter Canon WFT-E2A (that is much smaller than previous versions, and it is weather sealed), you can stay at up to 45 meters from the camera, watching in real time the scene recorded by the sensor, and you can change every setting and take the photo when you want! This is an amazing technology, never seen before in a DSLR.

Last but not least, with live view you no longer need the Angle-Finder. Nowadays I use a lot the Canon Angle-Finder C for macro photography, it is very useful when you have to frame a subject from weird angles, but I don't like it a lot: the built quality is average, it makes more difficult to find the subject, it makes the viewfinder even darker, and it has a crappy diopter adjustment system (you have to change the diopter every time that you switch from 1.25x to 2.5x). The live view is so much better! If I had the 1D3, I'd sold the angle-finder in a heartbeat.

The menu system is another huge improvement, in comparision with previous Canon cameras. The navigation is easy, fast and intuitive, thanks to the clear icons and the excellent interface - you can navigate between the option using the joystick and the main control dial, and you change the settings with the "Set" button. There is no longer the crappy two-buttons system of the previous 1 series cameras...the 1D3 interface is so much better! The custom functions are now ordered into four categories; there are 57 functions, so you can really customize every aspect of the camera! Another feature that I love is the new "My Menu" (the last menu page, marked by the green star icon). In this page, you can record every setting that you want, to have fast accesses to the setting that you use most often. For example, I added Live View and Mirror Lock Up in My Menu - now, when I want to use one of these functions, I no longer need to navigate though various menus, I find them immediately in the My Menu page. On the right: the Canon 1D Mark III custom functions menu. The fonts are large and easy to read, and the new colored icons makes more intuitive the navigations between the various menus.

The Canon 1D Mark III is built for speed. This is the first digital SLR camera capable of the blazingly fast drive speed of 10 FPS for 110 JPEG or 30 RAW. This extraordinary speed is achieved thanks to two Digic III processors (yes, a dual-core processor in a camera!) and 1GB of DDR SDRAM. Such speed is important for wildlife and action - at 10 FPS, you can capture every step of the action! Of course, you need a large memory card to hold tens of high resolution files; I'd recomment at least 4GB. The Mark3 has 1.3x faster write speed on CF cards than the 1D2, and is is twice as fast with the SD cards. In my Compact Flash cards write speeds you can see the CF speed test of the 1D3 and other cameras; the 1D3 is noticeably faster than the 20D, but it is not able to take advantage of the Extreme IV CFs - I'd recommend to get the Extreme III, that are cheaper and offers the same performances.

As it predecessor, it has a range of shutter speeds between 30" and 1/8000, but now it brings the X-sync to 1/300 with EX flashes, as the brand-new 580EX II (that has shorter recicling time than the 580 and it is weather sealed.)

The autofocus

The AF is one of the most talked features of Canon 1D3: while it promises big improvements, many users have reported AF issues, in particular with fast moving subjects in bright light.

The Mark 3 has a "new" 19-areas autofocus system, with 19 high-precision, cross-type AF sensors, plus 26 AF-assist sensors (hidden). Actually, it is similar to the old 45 point AF sistem of the previous 1 bodies, but 26 points are no longer selectable, and the remaining areas should have been improved, with f/2.8 or brighter lenses. These 19 AF areas still work as linear (horizontal) AF points up to f/5.6, and with f/8 lenses (e.g. 600 f/4 + 2x TC) it is still possible to focus with the center AF area. The camera has two CPU to track the subject in focus even at the maximum frame rate of 10FPS, both in AI Servo AF or One Shot AF. The 1D3 includes even an innovative function called "AF Micro-adjustment" - in other words, you can calibrate your lenses (if necessary) without sending them to a Canon Service Center.

I've had this camera only for few days, so don't consider my words as a verdict - there are just my impression, comparing the 1D3 (serial number: 515xxx) with my 20D and with the cameras that I've used in the past.

- In low light, the 1D3 AF is on par with the 20D AF. Maybe the 1D3 is just a little more responsive, but it would be hard to tell the difference. (the AF of previous 1 series, instead, was worse than the 20D AF in low light, because they had much smaller AF areas).

- The AF point selection is much improved compared to the previous 1 series, thanks to the better user interface and the joystick. Still, it is not as quick and intuitive as the AF system of the Nikon D2Xs or other Nikon cameras.

- The percentage of in-focus shots with moving subject is about the same that I get from my 20D, even though with fast moving subject towards the camera the 1D3 seems slightly worse, in some situations. I've tried to reaplicate the excellent Rob Galbraith's test: I photographed a subject in bright light, using the center AF area and AI Servo. All the photos had been taken at ISO 500, 1/3200 f/4, with the Canon 24-105mm at 105. I've taken a 30 RAW burst at 10 FPS; here I show some of the frames.

	Entire photo (resized)	100% center crop
Photo 01 (sharp)
Photo 05 (sharp)
Photo 10 (sharp)
Photo 15 (slightly out of focus)
Photo 20 (slightly out of focus)
Photo 25 (out of focus)
Photo 30 (out of focus)

This test seems to confirm Rob Galbrait's findings - the AF is not great, for a 1 series camera. I'd rate the 1D3 AF as "average" (for a 1 series camera) - it is not great, but it is still usable, even though I don't recommend to buy a 1D3 if you photograph often fast moving subjects (at least until the AF is fixed - Canon is aware of the issue and they are working on it).

Image quality : noise - ISO Performance

The Canon 1D Mark IIn was 8 megapixel, and the Mark III is 10 megapixel: a minor upgrade? No at all. Of course 10 are good, 12 would be better and 20 would be even better - but with a pixel count of 3,888x2592 pixels it is already possible to make poster-sized prints, and you have some of room for cropping. In the consumer market, the megapixel race has led to high-resolution, but noisy sensors: for the Mark III, instead, Canon has wisely choosen to don't push too much the pixel count, to privilege the overall image quality. The 1D3 promises unparalleled noise characteristics: according to the Canon white paper, it has 50% less noise than the already excellent Mark 2. The standard sensitivity range now includes ISO 3200 and, through the expanded ISO setting, it is possible to select the ISO sensitivity in a 50-6400 ISO range. The pixel pitch of the Mark3 is the same of the 1DsMk2, 7.2 microns, that is smaller than the 1D2 - but the advancements in technology compensates to the slighly smaller pixel pitch. Other than that, the new camera has a 14 bit ADC, and it gives 14 bit RAW files, versus the 12 bit files of the previous cameras: in practice, it is able to capture finer gradation of brighteness and color (16,384 levels per color rather than 4,096 at 12 bits). 

I am very interested in the noise performance of cameras, since I often use high ISO for wildlife. In this test, I compared the Canon 1D Mark III with my Canon 20D (that has the same noise performance of the 1D Mark II). The crops shows a small detail of the full size test photos; I converted the RAW files with my usual ACR settings (see Introduction to Adobe Photoshop), so I did not apply any adjustment of color, contrast or sharpness. The files of the 1D3 had been resized to 8 megapixels before cropping - I did not want to make a "pixel per pixel" comparison, instead I wanted to see how the two cameras compare with the same image size, as if I made two prints of the same size from the 20D and the 1D3. Note: the 20D has a ISO range of 100-3200, while the 1D3 has 50-6400. The crops ar ISO 50 for the 20D are actually 100 + 1 stop, while 6400 for the 20D is actually 3200 - 1 stop.

	Canon EOS 1D Mark III	Canon EOS 20D
50
100
200
400
800
1600
3200
6400

If you expected a night and day difference, I'm sure that you had been surprised to see how well the old, cheap 20D hows up with the new 1D3. That said, the 1D3 has at least a 0.7 stop advantage, but the difference is not just the amount of noise: the 1D3 show clearly a better detail at high ISO, thanks to the increased resolution and the more conservative in-camera noise reduction. At ISO 1600, 3200 and 6400 you can clearly see that the 1D3 has a better fine detail, while the 20D blurs the detail to reduce the noise. For example, at 3200 ISO, in the 1D3 photo, you can still read the name of the writers ("George Orwell - 1984" on the red book, "Irvine Welsh" on the yellow book), while in the 20D photo the noise reduction has take its toll on detail and the writings are unreadable.

If you apply on the 1D3 photos a little of noise reduction, to mare a fairer comparision with the 20D that applies some NR in-camera, the difference is more noticeable; I'd say that the 1D3 has nearly a 1 stop advantage on the 20D.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III, detail at 200%, ISO 1600 with NR	Canon EOS 20D, detail at 200%, ISO 800

The two crops above shows the cameras respectively at ISO 1600 (1D3) and 800 (20D): the noise is nearly the same, and the 1D3 still show a better detail, while the 20D file is a little more "smudged".

In conclusion, I think that the 1D3 is a very nice step foward compared to the previous 8 megapixels cameras; if you had the 20D or the 1D2, you will be happy with the 0.7 / 1 stop advantage of the 1D3 (in comparision with the 5D or the 1Ds2, instead, you would see a smaller improvement, if you print the images at the same size, because the 5D and the 1Ds2 have a resolution advantage).

Image samples

The following samples show the (awesome!) image quality of the Canon 1D Mark III at various ISO sentitivities. The photos had been taken in RAW format and converted with Photoshop CS2; I processed them to optimize the image quality (contrast, color, sharpness), and I saved them as high-quality JPEG for web display. You can download both the processed JPEG and the original, untouched RAW file.

Click on every image to download the full size JPEG sample, or use the RAW link to download the untouched RAW (large files!). Please respect the copyright! These images can be printed only to evaluate the quality of the camera, for personal purposes. All other usages are prohibited.

My camera - 24-105 IS, ISO 50, 1" f/8 [ JPEG / RAW ]	Macro - 180 Macro, ISO 400, 1/13 f/11  [ JPEG / RAW ]
My cat! - 24-105 IS, ISO 1600, 1/1250 f/5.6  [ JPEG / RAW ]	Horse - 24-105 IS, ISO 3200, 1/40 f/4  [ JPEG / RAW ]

Conclusion

Conclusion

Even though the 1D3 (or, at least, many 1D3) have autofocus problem, I can't refrain to say that it is a wonderful camera. Almost every aspect has been re-designed and improved - it is an huge step forward compared to the previous 1 series! The image quality is a joy for the eyes; new features has live view open a world of new photographic possibilities, and the body has been greatly improved with a better user interface, an awesome LCD and a much more capable battery.

Considering the price, I'd recommend to wait until the AF issues are completely sorted out: once the AF is fixed, this camera could be really considered the state of art in the photographic arena. 

Do you have comments or questions?

If you have comments or questions about this article, feel free to ask in the Juza Nature Photography Discussion Forum!