20.05.10
Canon EOS 1D MkIV Review
The Canon EOS 1D MkIV is the much-awaited replacement for the much-maligned MkIII. Sports photographer Steve Pope has been working with his MkIIIs for the past few years and has not been happy. So will the MkIV bring a smile back to his face or leave him frustrated by Canon’s latest professional offering?
Good news: Canon has at last brought out a permanent fix for the EOS 1D MkIII – it’s called the MkIV. The bad news is that it’s not a free fix: it will cost you around four grand! Just 80 minutes using the MkIV at the recent Wales v France Six Nations international match is all it took for me to get my enthusiasm back for sports photography after several years in the MkIII wilderness.
As a Canon digital user since the DSC 520, then the subsequent EOS 1D, the MkII and the MkIII, my attitude – along with that of many pro sports photographers – was that I would be skipping this update in protest against the unacceptable performance of the previous flagship body. I had not read any reviews about the new model and, to be quite honest, was not interested. If I hadn’t been given this opportunity to test drive the MkIV, I’m sure my protest would have been much more resolute. However, after only just a couple of frames, my protest was beginning to waver.
The first frame I took was of nothing special, just a general shot at a corporate awards dinner, but it brought a smile to my face immediately. I had forgotten what a really sharp image looked like, and boy was this sharp. Throughout the evening, the camera continued to impress, in particular the accuracy of focus. I haven’t used the much-heralded EOS 5D, so I can only compare the MkIV with the MkIII but to see such detail in the images and precision of the focusing points is a completely new experience. The exposure using on-camera flash is really nice and evenly lit and the option to increase the ISO and still maintain quality allowed me to photograph a large hotel function room as a record of the event without the need for a tripod. I’m not a photographer who studies the finer details of a camera or its specifications; I just use one to make my living and try to use the best camera to get the best images for my clients.
I can’t explain the technology that makes the MkIV better, I can only tell you how it performs day in, day out when being used as a tool of work. The feel is the same as with previous models, the buttons are in the same place but with a more definite feel when pressed and, apparently, one of them lets you shoot high-definition video. You see immediately how the new anti-glare screen gives a much clearer preview, with the ability to zoom in even closer than before and check the razor- sharp focus. I only had the camera for two weeks but managed to get a lot done with it, testing it on a variety of jobs, and it ticked all the right boxes.
On PR assignments, the MkIV gets the job done straight away – no more shooting frame after frame just to make sure you have at least one sharp image. The ability to move through the ISO range and still get great results gives you so many more creative options. And if you like to move your focusing point around, you have 45 to choose from that all now work! Used at a conference, the camera focused on the speaker and not the microphone in front of their face. Again, the quality of images at the higher ISO range allowed for faster shutter speeds with low stage lighting and candid audience shots without the need for intrusive flash. I didn’t get the chance to use it at a concert, but music photographers are going to love it.
For a commercial shoot that involved photographing a large disused factory and country mansion, the detail in the images, although not the most exciting subject, was stunning. A quick PR portrait using two speedlights also produced 100% pin-sharp images with amazing detail. It’s at sports events, where you don’t get a second chance, that the MkIV really shines. At the four rugby matches where I used it, I was getting shutter speeds I could previously only dream of. I’m now seeing individual blades of grass in focus flying up behind players, that in the past appeared as dirty marks. The quality under poor lighting was something I have never seen before at anything above ISO 800, and the hit rate of sharp images on a burst – so disappointing on the MkIII – was up around 8 out of 10 as opposed to 1 in 5. The all-new cross-type focusing used on 39 of the 45 focusing points makes really precise focusing easy, and when I say precise, I mean bang-on, even at a distance from your subject.
In A1 Servo mode, the camera picks up your target extremely quickly and stays locked on, and the ability to expand the focusing point either side to side or around the selected point means that, if your subject sells you a dummy and sidesteps you slightly, you still get a sharp one. Using previous 1Ds, the ability to crop and still have a usable image was limited. The MkI and MkII, although good cameras, produced relatively small file sizes, and images produced on the MkIII were rarely sharp enough to crop. But with a 45MB file generated using the large file setting on the MkIV and dramatically sharper images, you have much more scope to pull an image.
The MkIV produces slightly warmer images than the MkIII using all white balance settings. The tungsten option was a bit inconsistent under normal room lighting, but I found auto white balance produced great results in normal daylight and under floodlights. As someone who uses the Canon Wireless transmitter when at a sports event to transfer images from the camera to my laptop, another small improvement I’m pleased to see is a rubber cover for the transmitter socket on the side of the camera. Anyone who has a MkIII and still has the small screw cap has done well!
Until getting my hands on the MkIV, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to a summer of sport that, for me, means lots of golf, including the Ryder Cup in Wales, and the Commonwealth Games, which start in Delhi the day after the Ryder Cup finishes. Now I’m looking forward, not just to those events, but any event where I can use the MkIV – and, at last, stop blaming the tools instead the bad workman for any missed shots.
This camera has given me back my enthusiasm for sports photography, not for the events themselves, but for the images I now have the potential and confidence to capture. The bottom line is the MkIV is by far the best digital SLR I have used, and I will be upgrading. It’s everything we were expecting the previous model to be and wasn’t. However, I have just finished watching a MkIII auction on eBay that failed to attract any bids. So I now have three MkIII bodies that could be worthless. Perhaps Canon could launch its own scrappage scheme for owners of the MkIII who want to upgrade to the MkIV?
www.canon.co.uk
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