Compared to the Canon EOS-D60

At this stage in the review I had wanted to compare the EOS-1Ds with the other 'big megapixel' Photokina 2002 announcement, the fourteen megapixel Kodak DCS-14n. Unfortunately Kodak appear to have slipped on their release of this camera and so I don't have one yet for comparison. As soon as we can get our hands on a 14n we will be posting a comparison of it and the EOS-1Ds and will update this review.

In the mean time it's worth comparing the EOS-1Ds with its "little brother" (in relative terms) the six megapixel EOS-D60. This is a worthwhile comparison as it will give us some impression of the improvement in resolution we can expect moving up from six to eleven megapixels.

Camera settings:

• Canon EOS-1Ds: manual exposure, JPEG Large/Fine, Manual WB, Standard Parameters,
  Mirror Lock-up, Canon EF 28-70 F2.8 L
   
• Canon EOS-D60: manual exposure, JPEG Large/Fine, Manual WB, Standard Parameters,
  Mirror Lock-up, Canon EF 28-70 F2.8 L

Studio scene comparison

Canon EOS-1Ds	Canon EOS-D60
ISO 100, 1.0 sec, F11	ISO 100, 1.0 sec, F11
3,526 KB JPEG (4064 x 2704)	2,063 KB JPEG (3072 x 2048)

Immediately it's easy to see the additional resolution delivered by the 1Ds, far more definition in every single element of the image and exposing detail which was simply lost in the D60 shot. There's the slightest hint of moiré visible in the royal seal (first crop) and also the "UMBERTO I RE D'ITALIA" ("Umberto the King of Italy" - third crop). You can see that the 1Ds takes a far more conservative approach to sharpening than the D60 which actually exhibits some slight halo artifacts around black detail.

Here the EOS-1Ds has shone, delivering wonderful amounts of detail without too many artifacts and smooth clean flat color areas. Although of course this isn't the entire story, the 1Ds does almost everything else so much better than the D60 from the speed and accuracy of its AF, superb metering, overall build quality, color balance, tonal balance, flexibility etc.

Things get even better if you increase the 1Ds internal sharpening from level 0 (default) to level 1, those who are interested can download this version of the 1Ds image by clicking here (3,918 KB JPEG).