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Canon 1-D

Part 2

Canon 1D

It's been a little longer than I originally planned to complete part 2 of my review.so here it is.short and sweet!

I must say I'm very impressed! In my opinion, the performance is superb, matching the 1-v all the way. The feel is pretty much the same and built tank tough to handle some pretty extreme conditions. I took it out in freezing temperatures and had no problems. I sat on my deck taking bird pictures in light rain and had no problems. (I did cover my flash with a plastic bag) The bottom line .it's tough.enough said!

I would suggest that anyone purchasing this camera and using a big IS lens, get an extra battery. The camera uses a lot of power to do the processing of images. You add the auto focus and IS to the load and it will use the power. I now turn off the IS when the speed permits to save on power. It makes a huge difference in battery time. This is really the only thing I found to be a problem with the whole overall experience using the camera.

The 'In Camera Settings'

There is a quite a few 'personal choice' settings you can choose in the camera, from Color Matrix (sets hue and chroma) to White Balance to Processing Parameters. I did spend some time experimenting with the various options and then set my camera up with what fit best for me. The time in between this article and the first one helped make the choice even easier. (I'll explain later)

Selecting the Color Matrix

There are 5 choices that allow you to choose the color tone that best fits your taste or need. I chose the 4th one that corresponds to Adobe RGB color space for Photoshop because that's where I work on my images. The others I would rather leave to 'Camera Raw' for adjustments.

Processing Parameters

This allows you to choose a 'Tone Curve', 'Sharpness Level', 'Pattern Sharpness' and 'JPEG Quality'. I tested most of the options and was quite impressed especially with the 'Sharpness Level'. When I made an 8x10 image it was unbelievable.very clean and sharp, yet not over done. But my final choice ended up as:

  • Tone Curve: Standard
  • Sharpness Level: 1
  • Pattern Sharpness: Standard
  • JPEG Quality: low

This ends up just about a default setting for the camera. Why did I choose these settings? I'll explain in a bit.

White Balance

Shoot the standard 5200 k, what you choose may depend on your shooting situation.

There are also 'Custom Function Settings' which enable you set about 20 'personalized' features that fits you best.

One in particular that I changed is the ISO speed expansion set to "L" or "100 ISO".C.Fn-03

C.Fn-02-1 prevents the shutter button from working if there is no CF card in the camera (minor, but important).Forget to put in the card.wouldn't that be awful?

I have mentioned just a few of the many great features and choices this camera has to offer. Setting it up for shooting will depend on one's own style and method of taking pictures.

In the end my parameter choices were really very easy to make.with the introduction of Adobe's "Camera Raw" I shoot with my settings in the camera at default and capture images in the Raw & JPG format. I would rather take the raw image into Photoshop and do any adjustments if necessary such as white point, exposure, brightness, etc. The new Plug-in is an awesome and indispensable tool that I would not be without.

 I like the ability of the 1-D to give me a JPG and a RAW image. It uses more card space, but having the ability to work with a "Raw" image is the only way to go. If you want your printed output to be the best.you have to start with the best! Don't get me wrong, a high quality JPEG capture will give you excellent results, but I want total control of using an unprocessed image. Once again it becomes a personal choice.

The current CompactFlash I use is Lexar's 40x-2GB card. If I shoot all JPEG's, I can capture over 1000 images. When I shoot JPEG (small file) and RAW, I get 349 images, that's a quite a difference! Even in the RAW, that's almost (10) rolls of film.I can live with that.

All in all this camera has what it takes for the nature photographer, speed, quality, and built tank tough. For my printed output I use Epson's Stylus Photo 2200 with unbelievable results.

With the introduction of the 1-Ds and the 10-D, (both awesome cameras). the 1-D is still the best in terms of speed, and remains my camera of choice. for now! J

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