User reviews for Canon EOS-1D Mark III: Digital Photography Review

Opinion: Well firstley I must say that this is a fantastic camera. it takes good quality pictures in all diferant lighting conditions and the iso noise is okay. It is fast! and that is what you pay for. if you stick wit an f2.8 lens this camera will not fail. I wont mention the f99 autofokus issues due to that i havent had any. It is the 3'd fastest camera available. And it has all the professional features that a camera should have. It handles all SDHC and Compact flash cards. I realy like the non video function as I dont want to use it. I want to take photos notin els. If you consider the diferances regarding this and the mark IV and the price diferances this is a gr8 buy. It takes aprox 2800 photos on one charge and the battery reloads in under 2 hours.

Problems: Non

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Opinion: fast in every aspect, very good battery life. af marks in viewfinder are way smaller than actual af sensor, so focusing can be tricky. a bit soft a the pixel level, can be solved with careful PP

Problems: too heavy :-)

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Opinion: I rercently purchased this camera off of a friend of mine. It has seen very little use. I also own a Canon Rebel T3I which is a great camera also. I'm a retired GM photographer who just uses these cameras for personal photos like street photography and the ocassional wedding. So they really aren't put to extreme tests. The image quality and the build quality of the Mark 111 is outstanding. I really enjoy the camera. I have also owned the original 1D which I felt was a great camera for its time. After forty years of shooting film which I loved at the time I must say we are really lucky to have these cameras. They should take all of these whiners who complain about every little shortcomming and force them to use some of the old film equipment from years ago. Film was great at the time but you never really new if you got the photo until the film came out of the darkroom and you took a close look at the neg. Anyways I feel its a great camera and I have owned a lot of cameras over the years.

Problems: None

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Opinion: Traded my 21mp Canon 5Dmk2 for this camera on FredMiranda and I don't regret it a bit. The unit is responsive, focus lock is lightning fast and the build ... well, that speaks for itself. You WILL need to do your homework before firing off a few shots as this unit takes some getting use to. This is a "professional" camera, no pop-up flash, no knob, no auto presets .. YOU make it do what it does, and if you KNOW what you're doing it will NOT let you down. RAW images pop, and the focus system compared with my former 5Dmk2 is like comparing apples to oranges. Yes, it's true .. once you do 1D series, you'll NEVER "regress" to a xxD body again. AMAZING!

Problems: None, just takes getting use to. But once you learn the camera and how to operate it ... you will NOT be disappointed.

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Opinion: A superb piece of equipement, designed for rugged daily use. It produces files of an exceptional quality and being only ten mega-pixels it isn't as fussy as some modern cameras about lenses - of course quality is always a bonus! Great in the hands with controls and menus well thought out and intuitive. Love every minute with this camera and I would have great difficulty going back to a xxD now that I've been spoilt! If you can pick up a later model for a reasonable price you will not be disappointed.

Problems: The weight but that goes with the build - otherwise no complaints.

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Opinion: Had the 300D, then 30D. The 1D3, bought 1.5 years ago, is miles ahead in every sense:

- AF is faster than fast. Virtually no hunting.
- feels amazing in the hands. Solid, no empty space inside, no plastic. The material covering the grip doesn't slip even when wet.
- battery life is unbelievable. I don't mind going away for 2 days without the charger.
- portrait grip is fantastic. Helps for verticals.
- menus really great.
- x1.3 instead of x1.6.
- colours, look of RAW files.
- High ISO astonished me at first.

I don't take advantage of the 10fps as I'm more of a PJ kind of photographer, so cannot comment on action photography that much, but for reportage in any conditions this body is tremendous, nothing fails you. Apart from...

Problems: - the size and weight, which are why I'm looking at other options now. A bit of a pain to drag along, not that inconspicuous, and can't have it with you all the time due to the size.
- that said the only real grudge I have against the body itself is its screen. When I bought it I was convinced there was a focus problem as pix on the screen looked quite terrible for sharpness. In fact there was no issue whatsoever with focus, and the screen remained faithful to itself, that is, far below par. Both my previous Canon cameras were better in that respect, and the D700's, in comparison, is mindblowingly good.

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Opinion: Owned this camera 13 months now. My apprehension before buying was the low pixel count and to some extent i can't wait to upgrade to the mk4 for the more than likely increase to 16+ meg pixels. I bought an Epson pro 3800 A2 printer and find A3 is really the limit to the Mk3 after using CS3 to add to the file size. To 99% of people A3 is more than enough and it maybe for me once ive got the idea of big prints out of my system, but i cannot use the full potential of the printer with this camera. I made the jump from a 350D and what a jump it is in regards to handling! I could go and add the 5D mk2 to my bag to satisfy my hunger for big prints but i would hate to move away from the 1D body, put simply it is a dream. Built like a shot putter but handles like a ballerina. The transition from a 350D was a doddle, it is more intuitive and now i can adjust just about everything without moving the camera away from my eye. To a professional these attributes are a must and this camera delivers. With regards to high ISO. I never did film or any early DSLR cameras to compare, but i find that in good light where i require a fast shutter ISO 2000 is excellent and requires little correction and 3200 is still very good with correction. If the light isnt too good and the scene has alot of shadow then ISO 1600 requires little noise correction.I find going any higher in poor light requires aggressive correction which Canons DPP software does a very good job up to ISO 2000 and reasonable at 3200.I was actually dissapointed at first as i had read reviews of awesome ISO performance, maybe i'm hard to please but having seen plenty of Nikon D300 shots i am now pleased with it. On the subject of high ISO i do think we are at the limits on these and full frame sensors, pixels are getting smaller for the higher resolutions so they cannot let anymore light in and software intervention cannot replace something that isn't there.Overall then, image quality for medium size prints are fantastic, exposure is usuall within half a stop of what i want, i always add contrast and sharpenning in Photoshop but rarely add any saturation. The computer side of things is a lot quicker than when i had a hundred images to process with the 350D.To finish, i have added some problems underneath, i will stick with canon as ive invested heavily in lenses so i wait eagerly for the mk 4. I hope canon get things right next time, many pro togs have switched over to nikon and canon have not treated its customers well with problems with the mk3. Nikon have finally started producing better DSLR cameras and canon have responded not well. This camera IS CAPABLE of producing A4 prints that will astound you, and A3 that will make you very happy.

Problems: The exp compensation button on top requires a much harder press than any other buttons so sometimes i go to dial in some compensation and i adjust the apperture/shutter instead because it hasnt registered. This is really annoying. I havent had it looked at because i cannot bear to be parted with it while canon have it.
Autofocus, yes its still an issue with my late model on AI focus. A Ten shot frame of my pooch running towards me will deliver no more than 7 frames pin sharp. I would rather have a 7fps perfect camera than one that can fill a card with many out of focus shots over the course of a days action. Canon should have lowered the frame rate until it was more accurate,i think they were too involved with the numbers game with Nikon.As i shoot mainly one shot and in good light i can live with it for now.

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Opinion: I've used this camera for a little over a year now. Mine was a blue dot version
manufactured after the autofocus debacle. I have had no problems at all with the
autofocus and have to say it is the best autofocus I have ever used. It is fast,
accurate and can be tailored to just about any kind of use. The metering is great
also with its 65 zone system. But image quality is where this camera shines. The
pictures have a special 3-D quality about them that people really notice. The
camera is built like a tank and is one of the easiest cameras to use. The viewfinder
is large, bright and clear unlike those on the crop body Canon's.

Last summer I was doing a photo shoot with a group catching sunrise over a
mountain range. We set up and began shooting while it was still dark. I found the
controls on the camera easy to access in the dark and made adjustments without
any problems. I noticed a Nikon D3 user struggling in the poor light with all the
knobs, buttons and wheels on his camera and it drove home how elegant and easy
to use the 1d Mark III's interface is. This camera has spoiled me and I don't think I
can ever use a non 1d body again.

Problems: I have not had any problems with the camera, but I do feel like Canon could have
been more responsive to those users who were experiencing Err 99 or autofocus
problems.

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Opinion: I have used this camera fairly regularly for the last 18 months, and this camera has
done everything I have asked of it. I previously owned the 5D, but traded that in
for the 1D Mark IIN before moving on to the 1D mark III. Compared to the previous
bodies, this offered me more for what I need it to do; that is to be there for me
when I press the shutter release in low light, in the middle of the street, when you
get one chance to get the shot. Some of these I have posted ( type in Gaijinphoto
in Google) so you can have a look for yourself as to the quality of the
photos. I shoot mainly travel photos and post them to the web so I do not require
insanely huge files. 10MP in Raw gives me enough to wrk with. Even though I
shoot mainly city and streets shots, I opted for the bigger 1D series body for its
toughness, reliability, quality, and redundancy such as the dual card capability
which is essential if you fill your cards and you need to borrow one (everyone has
SD cards). I am a photographer and this is my tool. I am not a techno geek. So my
analysis is reduced to: it shoots fast, the images are clean and crisp, dust reduction
has prevented me suffering from that affliction as I did with the 5D, and everything
usually works. I say usually because my 1D Mark III suffered from the afflictions that
were the bane of this model as it was released from Canon. This leads me to the
problems.

Problems: The problem with this camera has been well documented, but has been nonetheless
disappointing for me when I spent so much money on the camera. From the first
day I owned it the autofocus never worked well when shooting in continuous
mode.
Fortunately I am not a sports photographer so this rarely plagued me. However,
stepping "up" from the MarkIIN, this was not what I expected. Having bought the
camera in Japan right before moving to Korea, I never took it in to be serviced,
especially since the way I shoot circumvents the problem. However, in January
2009, I started getting another problem which was a recurring "error 99" when I
put in a freshly charged battery and headed out to shoot. On every occasion, this
went away by turning the camera off, removing the SD and CF Cards and
restarting. Then one day in February the error would not clear. I took it for service
at the Canon After Service Center in Yongsan electronics market in Seoul. They were
very professional and informed me it was the Mirror group that needed to be
replaced at a cost of $500 (not under warranty). I just got it back on 25 February
09 and it is as good as new (well better than new because of the problem I am now
writing about). But for a camera that was new 18 months ago, is a
flagship model for perhaps the world's most highly regarded camera maker, and
cost nearly 5K new, I expected more. I bought this camera to avoid these problems.
Moreover, I shoot in relatively gentle environmental conditions. Those who rely on
this model for sports, photojournalism, and war photography would lose their
minds (and money) if this happened to them in the field.

I truly love this camera. Being without it made me love it more when I got it back.
When the 1D Mark IV comes out I will more than likely upgrade. But Canon needs
to make sure they get the next camera right - or all those Canon users will jump
over to Nikon, as I nearly did. While all the techno-geeks get caught up in
megapixel this and HD Video that, those of us who actually get out there and take
photos need a reliable piece of equipment to use. That means getting the basics
right first.

We all had film cameras that we abused for years and never had a problem with. We
all know that digital cameras are more sensitive than those old war-horses
and require better care. But we buy cameras like the 1D Mark III to be there when
we need them and to be more robust than cheaper models. It is incredible that my
digital rebel has had less problems with it at one sixth the price. It is not nearly the
camera this is and has its own issues. But I hope for all of our sakes that those of us
who love shooting with Canon cameras will be well pleased with the follow up to
this camera. I still rate it highly as a camera, despite the flaws with my body, and
only detract from "value for money" since the problems with this camera have cost
me time and money beyond the initial purchase. Yet despite the problems, this
camera has given me more joy than any camera I have ever owned. And I have
owned a lot.

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