New 1Ds: First observations
I shoot location interiors -- mostly kitchens -- for a national cabinetry brand, used in color showroom literature, trade ads, large posters, and on the web. This type of shooting is pretty demanding: It requires wide lenses, and almost always mixes light sources: Studio strobes, daylight through windows, incandescent room fixtures, etc. Sometimes there is even some fluorescent in the mix. Depth of field is always an issue, so I have to throw in enough light to shoot at f8 or smaller. And to burn in the ambient, shutter speeds are generally 1/8 to 1s.
The steady dwindling of good-quality drum scanning has prompted me to finally go digital, and I received my 1Ds last week. I had been shooting medium format (6x7) and my hope was to meet or exceed that quality level.
Here’s what my first testing has turned up. I would appreciate any feedback, either corroborating or disputing, to what I have found so far:
Resolution/general quality: The 1Ds can exceed the quality of 6x7 film scanned on a $40,000 drum scanner. In fact, it approaches the quality of scanned 4x5. (I have been buying scans since the mid 80s, and before scanners existed, I did optical color seps on an ancient vertical camera. I have a good eye for a good scan.)
Settings: After a fair bit of experimentation, using a 24-70 f2.8L this is what is emerging:
The 1Ds set for ISO 100-200 exceeds drum-scanned 6x7 for detail, especially shadow detail, and for smooth tonality. ISO 400 with noise reduction on is a pretty close match to my 6x7 scans in terms of detail, color quality and contrast. ISOs of 100-200 have a lower contrast and smoother color character than average scans. I have experimented only a little with ISO 50, but see no appreciable benefit over ISO 100.
The “raw” file format seems clearly superior to any jpeg settings, especially in shadow detail.
I have found color matrix 4 to be closest to my scans. With scanned film, I always have to desaturate images quite a bit, since interiors and wood can look harsh and garish if the saturation is not kept in check. (I also pull the black way back on press.) With 1Ds shots at matrix 4, I still desaturate a bit, but not as much.
Sharpening set at 3/med-fine seems best. I still sharpen in Photoshop, unsharp mask starting at 100/1.0/0.
The “daylight” white balance setting gives the truest color with my Calumet Travelites and the mixed light sources described above.
I am using the Canon software to export raw files to my Powerbook G4 for previewing and saving to disk. I find the Canon software to be a bit clunky and slow, but for my shooting, it will probably suffice. A full-day location shoot will usually only net eight to ten images, so “workflow” is not that much of an issue for me.
So...does what I have found fit with your experiences? Am I overlooking something? Any insight would be appreciated.
Steve Beck
I shoot location interiors -- mostly kitchens -- for a national cabinetry brand, used in color showroom literature, trade ads, large posters, and on the web. This type of shooting is pretty demanding: It requires wide lenses, and almost always mixes light sources: Studio strobes, daylight through windows, incandescent room fixtures, etc. Sometimes there is even some fluorescent in the mix. Depth of field is always an issue, so I have to throw in enough light to shoot at f8 or smaller. And to burn in the ambient, shutter speeds are generally 1/8 to 1s.
The steady dwindling of good-quality drum scanning has prompted me to finally go digital, and I received my 1Ds last week. I had been shooting medium format (6x7) and my hope was to meet or exceed that quality level.
Here’s what my first testing has turned up. I would appreciate any feedback, either corroborating or disputing, to what I have found so far:
Resolution/general quality: The 1Ds can exceed the quality of 6x7 film scanned on a $40,000 drum scanner. In fact, it approaches the quality of scanned 4x5. (I have been buying scans since the mid 80s, and before scanners existed, I did optical color seps on an ancient vertical camera. I have a good eye for a good scan.)
Settings: After a fair bit of experimentation, using a 24-70 f2.8L this is what is emerging:
The 1Ds set for ISO 100-200 exceeds drum-scanned 6x7 for detail, especially shadow detail, and for smooth tonality. ISO 400 with noise reduction on is a pretty close match to my 6x7 scans in terms of detail, color quality and contrast. ISOs of 100-200 have a lower contrast and smoother color character than average scans. I have experimented only a little with ISO 50, but see no appreciable benefit over ISO 100.
The “raw” file format seems clearly superior to any jpeg settings, especially in shadow detail.
I have found color matrix 4 to be closest to my scans. With scanned film, I always have to desaturate images quite a bit, since interiors and wood can look harsh and garish if the saturation is not kept in check. (I also pull the black way back on press.) With 1Ds shots at matrix 4, I still desaturate a bit, but not as much.
Sharpening set at 3/med-fine seems best. I still sharpen in Photoshop, unsharp mask starting at 100/1.0/0.
The “daylight” white balance setting gives the truest color with my Calumet Travelites and the mixed light sources described above.
I am using the Canon software to export raw files to my Powerbook G4 for previewing and saving to disk. I find the Canon software to be a bit clunky and slow, but for my shooting, it will probably suffice. A full-day location shoot will usually only net eight to ten images, so “workflow” is not that much of an issue for me.
So...does what I have found fit with your experiences? Am I overlooking something? Any insight would be appreciated.
Steve Beck
