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Canon 1Ds disadvantages and issues.

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..............what I wrote again and not let emotions cloud your judgment :-)

I mentioned that I'm a film user that moved away from digital, and that I'm using digital very rarely for my customers projects. Hence the cheapest camera that feels like camera, 30D. If not for convenience and financial reasons I would not use digital at all. The main problem is that I need full frame and I don't want to spend more than $2500, 5D or 1Ds are my options. Now having used 1D and 5D in the past I really dislike the 5D/30D feel, personal opinion that I think is valid, for me :-) The reason for changing cameras is very simple, I firmly believed that I need latest and greatest for my photography to improve, something I actually caught on this forum :-) After I learned actual photography I realized that all the pictures I've ever taken could be easy done with the first camera I've ever had, D60 :-) At that point I moved to film and never been happier photographically. I hope my post is a little clearer now :-)

Tom
James L Wilson said:
TWPhoto said:
Hello all.

I will tell my story first before asking the question :-)

I'm a film user that moved from digital some time ago and I use DSLR
very rarely, mostly for the photographic jobs I get. I keep the
cheapest DSLR that fit the bill for me as my photography budget is
limited - Canon 30D. My first problem is that I often need to use
ultra wide lenses for architectural jobs and 1.6 crop really limits
me and my second problem is that 30D body feel really bothers me :-)
The cameras I used are Canons D60, 1D, 1D M2, 1Ds M2, 5D and now 30D.
1Ds M2 was perfect for me but I just couldn't keep $7000 camera for
occasional use so I switched to 5D. The image quality was great but
feel of the body really sucked so I sold it too, I'm sure that users
of 1 series will know what I'm talking about :-). I was using only
film for all of my jobs lately but I missed cost effectiveness and
convenience of digital so I purchased 30D. Now the actual question :-)

I can purchase Canon 1Ds in very good condition for $2000 and I think
this would be a good move for me but I would like to ask people who
actually used one or better yet who moved from 1Ds to 1Ds Mark 2 what
are the main differences and tradeoffs when compared with Mark 2 or
even 5D. 5D is my second option as I really need full frame but
prosumer body really really bothers me and I know I will be cursing
it again :-) My budget is $2200-2300 so these are my choices.

EDIT: I want to add that I'm very rarely shooting above ISO400 and I
use LCD only to check the histogram. I know that these are two main
issues of 1ds.

I would appreciate any view or opinion, thanks.

Tom
Click to expand...
Well Tom, the first question that comes to mind is how many wives
have you had.

In your story you've had or used almost every Canon digital SLR in
their lineup,,, and you're now with the 30D; Wow what a conclusion.
Its hard to believe that someone could go from the 5D to the 30D and
think that was a good choice.

Easy to understand that $7000 is too heavy for many budgets. However,
its Hard to believe, that you let the 5D getaway from you, as its the
best-value digital SLR in Canon's lineup, and still is, with the 400D
(Rebel-XTi in the USA) being a close 2nd, for the budget amateur.

Recall that you said that the 5D prosumer body really really bothers
you, but your happy with the 30D; that is a very unusual conclusion,
as the bodies are very very very similar in size, weight, feel,
handling and layout, except that the 5D is a bit more robust in its
construction.

Why on earth, would someone buy a 4 year old 11MP 1Ds instead of
buying a 12.7MP 5D which is several years ahead in technology and
performance?

Sounds like you'll dance with every girl at the party, but you'll go
home with yesterdays newspaper.

Sorry, Can't help much.

JimW
James L Wilson said:
--
... just another amateur who's much in love with photography...
http://www.tomwidlak.com
Click to expand...
--
.
‹(•¿•)›

JimWilson, Boca Raton, FL, USA.
http://www.rumor-page.com
http://www.FAUdigital.com

Click to expand...
--
... just another amateur who's much in love with photography...
http://www.tomwidlak.com
 
is a great tool (I know.. I have it)
the 1Ds is a better tool (I had it)
the 1DsII is a better tool (I have it) but not that much better than the 1Ds

to dismiss the 1Ds because it's old is spreading misinformation. Probably because of a pure lack of experience with it.

A quick look (around) from photographers who actually had or have that camera will make clear what kind of tool it is.

now, when I hear from photographers who never got the chance to shoot with it saying bad things about it then I smile a little.

in any case I am now a proud owner of a 1Ds (got it yesterday) and I am comparing shots with the 1DsII and I can't believe that I let the 1Ds go when I sold it.

Believe it or not, it is the best output (right after the 14n indoors) for me today available.

dunno what to do with the 5D yet. But going out with the combo 1Ds & 1DsII in the same bag makes me feel pretty good (about the photographs I'm going to take) and mostly because of the good old 1Ds. In Jpeg is invincible! eheh

oh by the way.. you know Steve that you are responsible for this new purchase of mine.. LOL you know that...

:)
 
cityphotog said:
in any case I am now a proud owner of a 1Ds (got it yesterday) and I
am comparing shots with the 1DsII and I can't believe that I let the
1Ds go when I sold it.

oh by the way.. you know Steve that you are responsible for this new
purchase of mine.. LOL you know that...
Click to expand...
I had the same reaction when I purchased my second 1Ds. Why did I ever sell the first one? Well, the real answer is I sold it to finance the 5D. So the second question is: what made me think the 5D was going to be all that much better than the 1Ds?

I will take full responsibility for encouraging your purchase. I would encourage anyone to investigate the 1Ds as a possibility among other possibilities. But I think you should take full responsibility for going ahead and buying one ... a self-congrats of a sort :-)

Enjoy. I used mine yesterday on an interior shoot. As usual, I was blown away by the quality of the files....

--
SteveG
http://www.pbase.com/smgarey
http://www.stephenmichaelgarey.com



'When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.'
— Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie.
 
cityphotog said:
in any case I am now a proud owner of a 1Ds (got it yesterday) and I
am comparing shots with the 1DsII and I can't believe that I let the
1Ds go when I sold it.
Click to expand...
I'm keen to know if the extra 5 million pixels on the 1Ds II is really worth the extra money?

Are they beeter pixels than the ones produced by the Mark 1?

The Mark 2 has a pixel pitch of 7.2 compared to 8.8 for the Mark 1, does it show?

--
David Wogan at Zenfolio
http://dwogan.zenfolio.com
 
James L Wilson said:
Hey Steve, did you read his dialog? going from every camera in the
line up and he ends up with a 30D... That is the context of my
response.

The purpose in my writing (to Tom) is not making any factual,
feature,by,feature comparison of the 5D to the 1Ds. I have owned all
of the above including the 1Ds2, which is far superior to the 1Ds it
replaced by the way.

When my students ask me the same type questions, IMHO, the 5D overall
is a terrific value, being FF, and having nearly 13MP, excellent
color accuracy, with excellent higher ISO capability, a wonder for
candid photography. I have over 100,000 test images on our website
demonstrating these cameras and lenses.

So in the context of someone that has "danced" with all these
cameras, and has settled on the 30D, and then wants advice, my
response generally is, from the 30D for a serious amateur or starting
or budget pro, the step up is the 5D hands-down.
Click to expand...
Ok I completely agree with this statement. Why he would have tried all of those cameras and wound up keeping the 30D is baffling to me.
James L Wilson said:
I generally advise, due to the unbelievable positive developments in
digital imaging science and imager design, year after year, I
encourage folks NOT to reach back in time, 2,3,4 years, as there have
been too many improvements you'd be missing, and the investment is
terrible, as one would be much closer to the END useful life of the
product, and I'm not talking shutter cycles...
Click to expand...
However this is the statement I have issue with. What you, and many others fail to realize is that the usefulness of a photographic tool is NOT limited to the "whats new" part of the spec sheet. Many of the things that make a camera truly useful to the working photographer are not easily measured and quantified by a specification sheet. In this way, these qualities often get lost by short sighted people or inexperienced people who just dont know any better (not pointing a finger at you, just saying).

For what I do, the 6 year old 1D is a better photographic tool than a brand spanking new 30D. Take that and chew on it for a while.

Same thing with the 1Ds - which makes an absolutely marvelous studio/wedding/artistic work camera so long as youre not shooting by candle light and pixel peeping the images at 400% on a computer monitor. Lets be completely honest with ourselves here. How many (non-commercial) clients would not be satisfied with the properly exposed/composed/processed output of an original 1Ds? Probably not many. In fact, I've wooed many a client with the lowly 8MP output of my "outdated" (cough) 1DII and i have NEVER had a client suggest that the quality did not live up to their expectations.

Its easy to get caught up in the "latest and greatest trap", with people on this message board being more susceptible than most. Ironically, its often the people who have the gear thats one, two, three steps behind the bleeding edge that produce the best work. Its these people who focus more on actual photography and honing their skill than upgrading to the latest uber camera the split nano-second its released to market.

--



http://archive.jmhphoto.net
 
David Wogan said:
I'm keen to know if the extra 5 million pixels on the 1Ds II is
really worth the extra money?
Are they better pixels than the ones produced by the Mark 1?
The Mark 2 has a pixel pitch of 7.2 compared to 8.8 for the Mark 1,
does it show?
Click to expand...
The Mark II is a better camera. It does show, but only beyond a certain print size and also at 100% viewing on a screen. The Mark II is functionally better as well. It all depends on whether or not you need a camera with slightly higher resolution and can afford it. If you can, I personally recommend it unhesitatingly.

--
SteveG
http://www.pbase.com/smgarey
http://www.stephenmichaelgarey.com



'When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.'
— Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie.
 
Jamie H. said:
It's easy to get caught up in the "latest and greatest trap", with
people on this message board being more susceptible than most.
Ironically, its often the people who have the gear thats one, two,
three steps behind the bleeding edge that produce the best work. It's
these people who focus more on actual photography and honing their
skill than upgrading to the latest uber camera the split nano-second
it's released to market.
Click to expand...
Good point, and well said.

By the way, I recently saw some stunning files and prints from a 1D Mark II (not the "N" version). I never realized it was that good a camera. How old is it now? 3 years? 4? It can obviously hold its own against newcomers....

--
SteveG
http://www.pbase.com/smgarey
http://www.stephenmichaelgarey.com



'When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.'
— Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie.
 
because I'm having problems with the firewire (cable). In other words I'm using the same firewire card (that comes with 2 ports) with one cable to the sII (small connector) and another to the s1 (big connector). But in windows I can't have both cameras installed... It doesn't recognize the last one I connect...

problem is that I have to disconnect the cable ((which is on the back of the computer and hard to reach..LOL of course)

is there some adaptor I can use to connect at the end of the cable? for example to make the small connector bigger for the s? so I can use the same cable
 
in RAW the sII wins

in JPEG the 1Ds (classic) wins (big time)

in RAW:
the sII gives more details, colors more "magenta" oriented
the s (classic) gives better colors, more "cyan" oriented

at 800 ISO the 1Ds (classic) is maybe slightly better. past 800 ISO there is no contest (the 1DsII is the clear winner)

Conclusion:

the 1Ds (classic) gives a wonderful output! hands down. I only saw 14n pictures maybe able to compete....

Like Steve said (and I agree) the 1DsII is the better camera also because it's faster (much faster) indeed.
 
why.. and WHO got the idea of changing the firewire connector on the 1DsII with that little stupid not=working never-stays=on small one used on cellular phones?

who?

who did it?

and why?

why?

WHY????

look at the 1Ds cable.. it stays ON beautifully! it just works!!!!

it cost me a fortune on gaffer's tape ! And the thing to keep it plugged will be hard (for me) to carry on all the time (I'll lose it right away.. I know!)
 
As a veteran photo assistant in NYC, I've worked with a lot of 1DsII and D2X bodies, and I have never once wished I could afford to "upgrade" from my 1Ds and 1D bodies. I do a lot of landscape photography, and the 1Ds is still a stunner. I recently made 20x30 Epson prints on fine art paper, post-processing with PhotoKit Sharpener, and the level of detail knocked my socks off. On a full-length 40' tree, I can see not only every leaf, but also the stem, color gradation, and edge detail of each leaf. The image does not break up when I put my nose right up to the print. The quality of the noise

The foibles of the 1Ds are well-known and have already enumerated in this thread, except for the relatively modest battery life. There are only two reasons to avoid the 1Ds: 1) buffer size and write speed - if you're shooting RAW files fast enough for this to matter, you'd probably be better off with a 1DII/III, and 2) Noise over ISO 800. If you're shooting concerts and other low-light events without flash, you'll want a 5D, 1DII/III or 1DsII.

That said, the 1-series AF is so much better and more flexible that I will not give it up for anything. The only "upgrade" I'd consider would be a mid-size 12MP body with FF or 1.3x crop factor, 5fps, 1-series build quality and AF, and low noise at ISO 1600 for

--
'No matter where you go, there you are.'
 
...................and I can honestly say that 1Ds produces the best straight from camera RAW's I've ever seen, amazing. Knowing the output of 1Ds firsthand there is no way I would choose 5D over it now. The one I got from KEH is damaged, overexposed strip on the side of the frame, but I'll be getting another one right away. I'm still in amazed by my lack of luck, the only one camera I didn't have is the one I like the most :-) I would like to thank everyone who told me to try it and how great this camera is, you really helped. Anyway, here are some images, please read the descriptions:

tweaked BW:



tweaked BW, no sharpening:



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks (some sharpness lost in conversion to JPG):



RAW straight from camera, no tweaks, ISO1000, very poor light, slightly underexposed to see the noise :



tweaked BW, ISO400, tweaked to see the noise in BW:



--
... just another amateur who's much in love with photography...
http://www.tomwidlak.com
 
you know what? I bought it too. And I went out with it today.

http://imagingphotographics.com/fdny246.html
all at 800 ISO, no flash , sigma 15-30

I bet you can recognize the "colors" and the 1Ds "touch" even on those small pictures .. eheh

your reaction makes this passion we have for photography shine. And it is a common reaction when a photographer meets a 1Ds for the first time.

the high ISO shot you posted is great.

congrats

and enjoy the camera!
 
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