Canon 1dmkIV UPDATE

For all those who are interested I received my 1dmkIV on the 23rd dec and here is a short summary of what I think of the camera. You can see pictures at the FM site. I have a full size file 24mp at 12800 for download there.

Firstly I am very impress with the high iso, there is almost no noise at 3200, some at 6400 and to me 12800 is still usable. I just love the new LCD, it is slightly better than the 5dmkII and heaps better than my 1dmkIII and 1dsmkIII.

The new auto iso is an excellent feature and it works in Manual, TV, AV and P mode.Beaing able to use this feature in manual mode is a real bonus.

Tested the Video mode on Christmas day and it works well. I am no expert with video. I guess most of the Bird photographers are not interested in Video here

Now the all important ai servo mode. I went out to shoot BIF but I did not get many chances to check out this feature. So I went home and my son reluctantly worked with me to perform the running test. I had 4 goes at it. I used a tripod, wimberley head II, 300 F2.8 IS lens set at F2.8 and shot using S Raw. Shooting S Raw allowed me to take about 44 shots without buffer on card getting full.

In the first 2 attempts, I had about 2 blur shorts out of 44. The blur ones seem to occur when my son slowed down to look at cross car traffic. In the next 2 attempt I had 4-5 blur shots out of 45. The sharp shots were really sharp and that impressed me even more. I have posted one of those shots in another post as well in FM.
In summary I am very impress with this new camera. I am not a BIF expert so I leave that to the experts here.

Hope this is of help

Cheers

Perry

Update
Since Christmas, with the help of my son I did a video recording of him singing and playing the guitar. I used a tripod and 24-70 lens and zooming in to him while he was singing and then zooming out again when he was playing the guitar. I was never a video guy but I am converted. The video result was awesome and sound was great too as we recorded via mixer and then connected it to the mic input of the camera. I have uploaded onto my Mac Pro and exported the movie files to my iphone. What a beauty as I now have a few recordings of him singing.

update
I have an update here and you can download 44 files of the 44 running shots as well as a gif sequence of the 44 files. The more I use this camera the more I am impress with it.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/849276

Please the exact address for :".. the FM site"

Thank you.

Thanks for the update Perry, the images look great at the high ISO's.

FM site is Fredmiranda.com.

So I wonder when they will ship in the states? Anyone have info on that?

Some sample shots: http://www.coldsiberia.net/1d4_night/images_night.html

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/848861/0

Paul

"The blur ones seem to occur when my son slowed down to look at cross car traffic."

this is not the cameras fault - had you engaged custom function 44-3-7 set -
your subject would know to throw caution to the wind because they are being photographed by a camera whose history dictates that every photograph ever made with it must be in focus regardless of subject or operator

just funning with you Perry
thanks for the test and sharing your findings

Jim

Thanks for sharing.
Looking forward to see some more images in the future.

Jim Roetzel wrote:"The blur ones seem to occur when my son slowed down to look at cross car traffic."

this is not the cameras fault - had you engaged custom function 44-3-7 set -
your subject would know to throw caution to the wind because they are being photographed by a camera whose history dictates that every photograph ever made with it must be in focus regardless of subject or operator

just funning with you Perry
thanks for the test and sharing your findings

Jim

Hi Jim,

I almost believed you

Perry

A question to pcho, thanks!

IMO runners are too complex a target; the family car is a better (read ... much more repeatable) test target. How does the AI Servo AF hold up when you are shooting a constant velocity car coming towards you at say 25 to 30 MPH? Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

jkurkjia wrote:A question to pcho, thanks!

IMO runners are too complex a target; the family car is a better (read ... much more repeatable) test target. How does the AI Servo AF hold up when you are shooting a constant velocity car coming towards you at say 25 to 30 MPH? Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Hi Joe,
I would do it but I am back at work so I wont be able to do it soon but I will try and do it a a later date but most probably some else work have performed more stringent test

Cheers

Perry

pcho wrote:

jkurkjia wrote:A question to pcho, thanks!

IMO runners are too complex a target; the family car is a better (read ... much more repeatable) test target. How does the AI Servo AF hold up when you are shooting a constant velocity car coming towards you at say 25 to 30 MPH? Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Hi Joe,
I would do it but I am back at work so I wont be able to do it soon but I will try and do it a a later date but most probably some else work have performed more stringent test

Cheers

Perry

The constant car test is like shooting fish in a barrel "if" AI Servo AF is working properly with the camera set at its defaults. There is nothing complex (i.e. stringent) about the car test ... nothing subjective like the runner's hands or jersey flopping around that "might have" interfered with the servo. The car test is extremely easy to perform and can be used to quickly determine if a body is worth keeping (or not) during the time when the seller's exchange and/or refund is in place.

I've tested AI Servo AF using the 10D, 1DmkII, 30D, 40D, and 50D with a 100 percent keeper rate. The only Canon camera model that didn't deliver a 100 percent keeper rate for the constant velocity car test was two copies of the 1DmkIII. It would really be great if the 1DmkIV is capable of doing the obvious ... i.e. track a constant velocity target like a moving car.

Anyway, thanks for considering performing the test if your schedule allows.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Speaking about the new 1D MKIV, anyone see this write-up?
http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... =&ie=UTF-8

Bran Mangin on the 1DIV:

This camera [1DmkIV] performed flawlessly.

To be brutally honest, I found the Canon EOS-1D Mark III to be a complete disaster. I consider it to be the biggest lemon professional 35mm camera in modern photographic history.

http://manginphotography.net/2009/12/fi ... h-mark-iv/

Thanks for posting that Neil - that is a really encouraging review of the 1D4 from somebody taht really knows what they are doing and somebody that would not be shy in reporting a problem if there was one!

Here was the final line from that review:
"I look forward to going to the ballpark and being able to relax knowing that I can keep my head in the game and not worry about cameras that can’t focus. 2010 is going to be a good year for Canon users."

Outstanding news! Now maybe we can all just focus on making images and not quibble over this or that camera body nuance.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Thanks for posting that Neil - that is a really encouraging review of the 1D4 from somebody taht really knows what they are doing and somebody that would not be shy in reporting a problem if there was one!

Here was the final line from that review:
"I look forward to going to the ballpark and being able to relax knowing that I can keep my head in the game and not worry about cameras that can’t focus. 2010 is going to be a good year for Canon users."

I agree with you E.J. Glad that Bran Mangin finds the ai servo to be great in his style of photography. For my kind of events photography and horse racing events, even the mkIII works for me. So anything better will be a bonus for me
What I find with my simple running tests is that the focus files were nice and sharp and the files look really nice. I also find the auto iso to be excellent especially when the high iso results are so good. So far I am using this feature an awful lot just for general family photos over Christmas and I am most impressed with it. I guess Canon is just playing catch up with nikon on this feature and good high Iso files.

Perry

For me the most important quote from the entire article is this one:

"To be brutally honest, I found the Canon EOS-1D Mark III to be a complete disaster. I consider it to be the biggest lemon professional 35mm camera in modern photographic history."

Given that he admits the above (and is not in denial) and yet is thrilled with the Mark IV is a big deal to me.

Well disaster ? maybe for his uses. My Ds Mark 3 has been fine for the shooting situations I have been in. That said, I am happy to hear about the AF performance of the Mark 4. Let hope the higher iso 800-1600 is on par or close to that of the Nikon D3. If it is, I will be $5,000 poorer.

c.w. moynihan wrote: Let hope the higher iso 800-1600 is on par or close to that of the Nikon D3. If it is, I will be $5,000 poorer.

That would be a huge accomplishment with pixels that are half the area of the D3's pixels and without smearing fine detail to make noise go down.

Greg Downing wrote:For me the most important quote from the entire article is this one:

"To be brutally honest, I found the Canon EOS-1D Mark III to be a complete disaster. I consider it to be the biggest lemon professional 35mm camera in modern photographic history."

Given that he admits the above (and is not in denial) and yet is thrilled with the Mark IV is a big deal to me.

+1 regarding "it's a big deal."

While looking at the many responses to Brad Mangin's Blog I noticed one from Arthur Morris. While strongly defending the 1DmkIII in his response to Mangin, Arthur Morris also writes: "I made many sharp flight images but wished of course for more consistent AF performance." I wonder why Mr. Morris didn't say the AF performance was not consistent when the camera first hit the street? Note, my comments are not meant to blast Arthur Morris, I greatly admire both him and his work but find the time-frame associated with his "AF performance" comment interesting.

I didn't bother to pre-order a 1DmkIII because the AF issue surfaced after about two days after the camera hit the streets; in fact it was reports at this site that convinced me to hold off for a couple of weeks. During the "two week time-frame" of waiting RG published his findings; well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and like a lot of folks out there I've been patiently waiting for the 1DmkIV.

Unfortunately I may have to wait for a long time before ordering a 1DmkIV (wife's approval is required). Shortly before the 1DmkIII was released I bought my wife a new car to grease the skids in advance for approval of the camera's purchase ... and it worked. During the first two weeks of the 1DmkIII's life my wife kept telling me to quit fussing about where to order the camera from and just order the camera from B&H. Well, a lot of time has passed and today my wife claims no knowledge of telling me to order a camera that I didn't buy; in fact, she doesn't even admit to ever getting a new car. You photographer types know how it goes ... "attaboys" from the spouse are written with disappearing ink and therefore have very a limited shelf life ... so now I'm stuck with the sad memory of a plan gone bad.

Let's see, the 1DmkII cost me a sewing machine ... the 1DmkIV a car ... darn it, I'm totally out of financially realistic ideas regarding how to grease the skids for the 1DmkIV.

BTW, I hope everybody has a very Happy New Year!

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian