DJbs EOS 1Ds Mk II Review

[djg]

Irakly, if you can read this you must be OK

. I do hope you fully recover soon and are feeling no pain, or at least getting good drugs - anything that affects your vision is a real bummer.

In the past year or so my sight has been reaching the point where I'm needing glasses to read, and it's driving me nuts when looking at the LCD displays on the camera (the viewfinder has diopter adjustment - why can't they do the same with the LCDs

?)

Dirk, the 400KB will hopefully let us display better tonal reproduction with less JPEG compression - thanks! I'll be posting something in a bit.

My 1Ds Mk II working TIFFs coming out of Photoshop are in the 90MB+ range at 48 bit color. I'm getting ready to upgrade my harddrives in January / February

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When I post to the test gallery it will probably be a test image good only to show some technical aspect - something I could care less if somebody downloaded it and used it. What I'll probably end up doing is posting one total image and one or more others showing full-scale portions of particular interest.

On a side note, I'm travelling to China on Jan 11 so I'm trying to get as familiar with this camera and my travelling environment and workflow as I can before that.

Marc, what's your take on the 17-40 f4 vs. the 16-35 f2.8? I'm looking for better image rather than faster speed, but sometimes the fater lens has the better image. Is that the case here IYO?

Cheers - DJ

 

[fotografz]

I understand the 17-40 is a good lens. Can't speak from direct experience. I have the 16-35 which is visibly better than the 17-35 which it replaced (we tested it). Barrel distortion is the hobgoblin of the Canon wide-angle lenses. I don't know how well the 17 to 40 has corrected this. Irakly has a discontinued 20-35/2.8L which is the best Canon wide zoom I've seen. But he just won't sell it to me ; -(

 

[fotografz]

Test image:

800 wide @ 130K

 

[fotografz]

Test Image 2.

800 wide @ 348K

 

[djg]

The most immediately obvious difference is the ear lobe's edge - check out the red fringing on the 130KB. We should do a comparo at 600KB for reference - what do you say Dirk? 600KB limit for 24hrs?

 

[djg]

OK, here are two at ISO 200 followed by two at ISO 800 of what Nature had to offer Sunday.

 

[djg]

1Ds Mk II - ISO 200, 24-70/2.8L @ 25mm, f5, 1/60. The flare was better controlled than I was expecting - nothing like low expectations to boost morale

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[djg]

1Ds Mk II - ISO 200, 24-70/2.8L @ 70mm, f4.3, 1/60.

 

[djg]

Here's a 100% size detail from that one.

 

[djg]

1Ds Mk II - ISO 800, 24-70/2.8L @ 24mm, f6, 1/90. Notice the redish chromatic aberration on the branches at top right (not an ISO thing). Unfortunate in every sensor I've had so far. I had hoped Canon had gotten a better handle on this, which is unfortunate for the high-contrast edgy type of shots I like

. Hmm, I could say they're cheries ...