Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

Canon's 1Ds series of cameras exists in a class of its own. With pixel counts well above anything else offered in a 35mm-format digital SLR, an attention to detail that addresses the needs of high-end professionals, and a price tag that's thousands of dollars more than the nearest competition, it continues to push the limits of digital photography. The 1Ds Mark III, the latest in the series, brings the megapixel count to a whopping 21.1 and is every bit a precision instrument. It offers a high level of control over all aspects of your images, a body design that gives you fast access to these controls, and can be customized to tailor certain buttons and functions to your shooting style. It's been over three years since its predecessor was announced, so there are a fair number of new features in the Mark III, which bring it up to date with the latest trends in dSLRs. With this latest model, Canon has stepped up to a pixel count that, up till now, was solely the realm of medium format digital backs, while maintaining an edge in terms of physical size and sharpness of available lenses.

Design
Canon's 1Ds series body design, with its long, relatively straight grip, seems somewhat blocky compared with the sculpted designs that Nikon and some other manufacturers use. However, that's partly because the grip itself is longer, with about 3.25 inches of main grip space compared with the Nikon D3, which has about 2.5 inches of main grip space. That means that the Canon might better accommodate people with larger hands.

Both cameras have longer vertical grips. Speaking of which, as in previous models, Canon duplicates the buttons and dials around the shutter button on the vertical grip, though they omit the exposure compensation and ISO buttons. Since you can use the large control wheel on the camera back for exposure compensation, only the lack of the ISO button is annoying, especially if you've come to rely on it as much as I have recently. To Canon's credit, in my field tests I found that the vertical grip's shutter on the 1Ds Mark III was less prone to accidental pressing than the one on the Nikon D3. Both offer an on/off switch to prevent such accidents when using the main grip.

With its upgrade to a 3-inch LCD screen, from the 1Ds Mark II's 2-inch screen, Canon was forced to relocate some buttons that used to reside to the left of the LCD. Menu and Info buttons move above the screen, while the playback button drops to below it. The Select button from the Mark II N is now obsolete, thanks to the Mark III's Set button, which is mounted in the middle of the large scroll wheel, much like the scroll wheels found on the EOS 40D and 5D. Another feature drawn from those siblings is the tiny joystick controller, which is used to navigate between various menus, among other things.


Philip Ryan


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