Canon EOS-1 Ds

[theo_tan5]

I plan to get a Canon EOS-1 Ds digital camera with 24 mm TS lens. I

will mainly use it for interiors and architectural shots. Can

anybody give me some sort of input of how the quality,

portability,user's friendly this camera is? and since when is this

camera been around? Is there any upgrades, modifications since this

camera was first introduced? Thanks for your input. Theo

[the_macman]

Quality is unquestionable. For portability let's just say it's bigger than most consumer

(D)SLRs and much heavier, but it handles like a charm. Whether that's good for you or not,

it can't be described in words. Go and handle one at a store. User friendly? It all depends

upon your previous knowledge. Devote one hour of going through the manual and

reproducing comands and you'll fall in love with it. It never fails :-)

 

It was announced in September 2002... I guess the first ones were sold around December

or beginning 2003. There have been some firmware updates I believe. Don't worry, they

give you the last one when you get it and if not, updating is a 3-minute operation which

can be done for free by yourself afterwards.

[the_macman]

One more word on portability: it's about 2.3 lbs. The TS-E 24 weighs 1.3 lbs.

 

For everything else: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos1ds/

[todd_west]

<p><i>Quality is unquestionable.</i></p>

 

<p>Sure it is. A 1Ds with a TS lens makes a very bad and exorbitantly expensive view camera. A monorail and lens costing a tenth the price offer significantly higher image quality, far better movements, and weigh about the same. That price point does mean using film, but the 1Ds is not competitive with large format unless you're shooting a roll of film a day or so. Also, there are several digital backs which outperform the 1Ds and would be appropriate for this application. They do, however, cost two to ten times what a 1Ds does.</p>

 

<p>What would be fair to say is the 1Ds is easily the best available sensor under 7.5k at the moment. Strapping it to the back of a view camera with an Apo Digitar L or paying lots of money to put up with the limited movements supported by the TS lenses are not normally attractive options, however.</p>

[the_macman]

I agree entirely :-) But his choice seems to be made and quite frankly I don,t think that the

quality of the 1Ds is questionable. It's a fine camera even though I suppose sometimes

misused.

[ike k]

Theo,

 

I've seen a modified 1DS from Calumet so it becomes a view camera and use large format lenses. Take a look on their website www.calumet.com, might worth and give you other options than the Canon tilt shift lenses.

 

Ike

[dave_wyatt]

<Can anybody give me some sort of input of how the quality, portability,user's friendly this camera is? and since when is this camera been around? Is there any upgrades, modifications since this camera was first introduced?>

 

err....., if you aren't sure on these fairly basic points bearing in mind reviews are easy to find, are you sure that you should be laying down this much on a camera? Its an expensive tool if you aren't sure what you are doing. Personally I would have done a hell of a lot of research before even considering this purchase.

[gary_ferguson1]

"Can anybody give me some sort of input of how the quality, portability,user's friendly this camera is?"

 

I use a 1Ds with a 24mm T&S (and the 45mm and 90mm T&S lenses) for architectural shots. In a word, it's great! More portable and much faster in operation than the view camera I also use. IMO there's two key issues you should think about if choosing between a view camera and the 1Ds for architecture.

 

Firstly, print size. Up to about A3/9"x13.5" I prefer the 1Ds almost every time. Go to bigger prints and the additional resolution of larger format film starts to show through. I've recently done some 20"x30" prints of city skylines taken from the tops of high buildings. I started with the 1Ds thinking it would be more convenient to carry up into cathedral bell towers, but switched to 4x5 as the 1Ds didn't deliver what I was looking for at these print sizes. If I was repeating the exercise I might try the 1Ds again, but this time with a panoramic tripod head and stitch several images together to deliver the required file size for 20"x30".

 

Secondly, I tend to extensively retouch many city centre architectural shots. Removing parked cars, street signs, and all the other visual clutter. Architectural retouching is much easier, and significantly more convincing, when working with digital capture rather than with scanned film.

 

If you click on my name you'll find a folder which shows some matched shots comparing a 1Ds with a 24mm T&S, to a 6x9 view camera with a 58mm Super Angulon.

[peter_phan]

<i>Is there any upgrades, modifications since this camera was first introduced?</i>

<p>

The Canon 1Ds was introduced in November 2002. There is a rumor that the 1Ds may be replaced with a newer version at the end of this year, but nothing has been officially said about what or when it will be available. In the meantime, the 1Ds is still the undisputed king of the hill when it comes to full frame DSLR cameras.

<p>

As for using it with the 24mm TS-E, I would try using the 1Ds tethered to a laptop for optimum reviewing of tilt/shift adjustments. That's one of the amazing things about digital. You can take shots, send it to your laptop screen, see exactly what kind of changes you need to make, make those adjustments, and take another shot. Shooting tethered to a laptop is like the modern version of shooting with a view camera.

[djmorgan]

The 1Ds is wonderful because, in my humble opinion, a full size sensor and it is extremely well made. It also has greater flexibility than other digital cameras but, frankly, I don't find the image quality any better than my D60 (when using quality lenses) and there is some argument the pixels are closer together in the D60. The 1Ds is very heavy due to its high quality construction.

 

My 1Ds has also had sensor and focus problems. It has been in once because the sensor got very dirty so I had Canon clean it (they do one per year, I understand, for free--at least mine cleaning was free at the factory depot). It badly needs to be cleaned again after a long trip to Europe (over 700 shutter releases and probably 25 lens swaps among three lenses).

 

It is so dirty now that it takes fully five minutes in Photoshop to clone or healing brush the obvious dirt on light colored portions of the shots (longest exposures are even worse). It needs to be cleaned again. I can't afford to add five minutes to the workflow over the 100 photos I wanted to send to the client.

 

In addition, in the middle of the trip it suddenly stopped displaying multiple focus points through the view finder. It would display either the single or double focus points when they were selected as fixed points. When set to use all 45 points, however, it seemed to achieve focus fine but it would not display which points had achieved the focus--in fact no focus point is displayed in the viewfinder at all. On the LCD screen it would show that outer ring of points had all achieved focus, which was impossible in the shots I was taking. This is the case with three different L series lenses and a couple of "standard" lenses.

 

Now I have to drag it back to the shop I purchased it at and, I am sure, three weeks later it will come back clean and in fine working order. I'm just not sure I can live with these problems if they continue. If I have to use the D60 as backup I may as well use it as my frontline and live with the sensor size and flexibility issues.

 

I sure hope I don't have a lemmon. I'd love it otherwise.

 

In 8,000 shutter releases on my D60 I never had noticeable dirt on the sensor and I never had a failure.

[mike_daly]

Get The Mark 2, It's fantastic!

[david hacker]

A lot of my images from Thailand on http://www.collarge.com are taken with the 1ds and the 24mm 2.8, I found the lens sharp, compact and very fast focussing, the camera is heavy but it packs a punch, if its quality you want then look no further, if you need a camera for low light situations then the 20d od 1ds mk2 are better. I have printed A1 in my home fine, the only problem there is the cost of paper and inks. There are a lot of functions on the camera but if your doing still architectual work the set every thing to highest level, goto AV mode, use raw and process with C1 Pro