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I honestly wonder if Canon has lost their minds?

fotografz

Well-known member
Well, I have officially cancelled my 1DsMKIII order until a LOT more info is available and a LOT more images are out there for review. My dealer was not happy, but @ $8,000., come on now, you HAVE to be blown away, not left wondering.

I have to be straight up honest, I took this action because I also am NOT thrilled with the images from the 1DMKIII either ... and I've been working with this camera for some time now shooting thousands of wedding images.

In truth, my heart sunk when I got home from shooting my first wedding with it. "WTF" came to mind when faced with so many images that needed so much post attention. "Well", I said to myself, "you need to set this all up better, after all it is a different camera". Many months later, much twiddling with settings and post techniques, I'm still NOT a happy guy. Others may be pleased as punch, I am NOT. The stuff is okay, but not what I've come to expect from Canon. There's just a smeary softness to the images shot in low light with fast L glass. Makes me wonder if Canon over AA filtered this camera also? I don't buy into "all is well" because people post nice shots taken in nice light ... with God knows how much post done ... I don't have that luxury.

I sold my 5D and 1DsMKII in anticipation of these two new cameras, now I have to figure out what to do before next wedding season starts. I need two really fast AF cameras. At least one has to have dual memory card slots for supreme back-up of "one chance" shots.

The thought of switching back to Nikon makes me cringe. All this L glass sitting there begging for a better camera. It's enough to make you lose your mind.

Your thoughts?
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I hear you Marc --- smeary softness and not being blown away by IQ, at least not without a lot of post. FWIW, I'm not all that impressed by the D3 files either, so I'm not sure the switch to Nikon would buy you anything. It's too bad you off'd your 5D and 1Ds2 --- if you had them, at least you'd be up and running until this all gets sorted out.

I'm emailing you a CS aciton to try on your 1D3 files --- it should add some punch at the inter-pixel level. Once you get it tweaked for that camera you can un-check the stops and batch it. It may at least help shorter term, and if so, you could pick up another 5D as back-up to it.

Cheers,
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Never did like Canons.

Play with a D3 if you get a chance.
Maybe that could make you happier.
I am afraid that the rush to claims of high iso at low noise may be causing overly-strong AA filters in all of them.
I have hopes for the D3 though.
Meanwhile, I am very happy with the IQ on the M8, but I worry about them and their inability to provide good service except to the chosen few.

Maybe next time I call it should be "Hello, this is Guy Mancuso and I am staying at a friend's house."

Anyway, I am still waiting and it has been six weeks so far and I have NO information and one body and one lens in New Jersey, and a lens in Germany.

Nikon has turned around one body and one lens in that time for no charge.

We will see.
-bob
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Many thanks Jack. Other than the image quality (duh!), the 1DMKIII camera is amazing ... fast, responsive, stable, etc. But jeeze-o-peezo, all the post work is killing me.

Look forward to your e-mail and trying the action.

What's with the D3 stuff? The spec's are impressive, and I figured a full frame @ 12 meg would be a nice balance. Not so huh?
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Never did like Canons.

Play with a D3 if you get a chance.
Maybe that could make you happier.
I am afraid that the rush to claims of high iso at low noise may be causing overly-strong AA filters in all of them.
I have hopes for the D3 though.
Meanwhile, I am very happy with the IQ on the M8, but I worry about them and their inability to provide good service except to the chosen few.

Maybe next time I call it should be "Hello, this is Guy Mancuso and I am staying at a friend's house."

Anyway, I am still waiting and it has been six weeks so far and I have NO information and one body and one lens in New Jersey, and a lens in Germany.

Nikon has turned around one body and one lens in that time for no charge.

We will see.
-bob
Man, I hear you on that Bob. I have been in technical Hell the last two weeks. I was getting very, very mixed results from my M8s, and finally hired my friend Irakly who reviews equipment for publications to take the whole mess away and bench test everything using his perfect spec M8. Both of my M8 rangefinders were off. 4 of 7 lenses were miss calibrated, and all four were newer purchases. the 50/1.4 ASPH had been back to Leica twice and was worse upon return than when first sent.

I finally sent a letter to my Leica dealer of 15 years who has intervened on my behalf and in no uncertain terms has gotten their attention at Leica. I put the entire kit in a Lowpro bag, put that in a Pelican case, wrapped it in bubble wrap and boxed it as fragile and sent it at my dealers expense to Leica NJ.

Now well see what they can do with what I consider a $30,000. paper weight until they fix it all to professional specifications one would expect from Leica.

To be continued ...
 

johnastovall

Deceased, but remembered fondly here...
I just hope they don't screw up the forthcoming 5Dxx. I have to have a back up to my full frame kit. I thought the 1DsMkIII would be that and a step up but I've not seen it. If the 5Dxx is as soft as the sMkIII and doesn't have a killer 6400, I may just try to get a new old 5D and go with that. i've just got too much L glass to change.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I just hope they don't screw up the forthcoming 5Dxx. I have to have a back up to my full frame kit. I thought the 1DsMkIII would be that and a step up but I've not seen it. If the 5Dxx is as soft as the sMkIII and doesn't have a killer 6400, I may just try to get a new old 5D and go with that. i've just got too much L glass to change.
Same here ... a ton of L glass, and great interest in the new 200/2 IS when it arrives. I may have to revert to a 5D also, but not happy about it since I hated that camera's handling, sound and response ... good images though.
 

dfarkas

Workshop Member
Just think guys... in about a year we'll have a full frame (or larger) Leica R10 with AF. Whether it is fast AF or not is up in the air. Best part is, smeary images is not what Leica is all about.

Dealing with what we have today for FF...

I've played with the D3 a bit, but have not tested it critically or even really taken a good look at the NEF files. One of my customers has been nice enough to loan me his D3 for a little bit so I can get a feel for it. So far I'm very pleased with the camera, but real shooting is necessary to determine IQ.

David
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Marc - I guess it all gets down to canon's implemented philosophy. It seems that they want to push a 'look' down people's throats based on their interpretation of what photographs should look like.
I prefer the more neutral files I get from Leica - and I am very happy to sacrifice some megapixels - especially when the standard print size isn't impacted.
On the other hand - I am very upset to hear of your issues with the M8 and lenses.. I made the decision to stick with an old 50 summilux and a proven 28 - only purchasing a 21mm recently - because of the fact that it will take a while for Leica to get their quality control up to spec - since previous management let so many people go when they were in trouble.

Marc - you use your gear to make money so every issue is a serious issue - right now for you. I am looking forward to the developments that will come from full frame sensors from Leica over the next couple of years - but in the meantime working pros - have some tricky decisions to make I guess. I do believe that we are seeing a peak in technology in 35mm CaNikon land - and all we are going to get from CaNikon is marginal improvements on the same theme.I say again though that the M8 and lenses experience you are going through is pretty scary.
As for My Canon outfit - it is all going. Unlike you, I dont have a pro need for fast autofocus - and that is basically the only thing that CaNikon have over Leica - at the moment... the good news is that you should be able to pick up a 1dsmk11 and 5D really cheap -:)
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
What's with the D3 stuff? The spec's are impressive, and I figured a full frame @ 12 meg would be a nice balance. Not so huh?
Hi Marc:

Here is a review by Lloyd Chambers on his blog showing 1Ds3 files directly with D3 files set up with a mouse-over. I know Lloyd, and think he knows how to test DSLR's --- you can bet these were the best he could muster from each camera. Note that they all aren't in bright, high-contrast light ;) Frankly both sets of images make me shake my head... Scroll down a few entries: http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html

PS: Did you get the actions I sent?

Cheers,
 

AGeoJO

New member
Thank you for the link, Jack. I think the difference between the 1Ds MarkIII and D3 is more than obvious and it was to be expected as the Canon with its 21MP is almost double that of the Nikon. I am impressed with the resolving power of the 21MP camera :D. That A/B comparison shows definitely more than your test did, let's say between the 1Ds MarkIII and the 5D. What could possibly be the cause of that? The 5D is not a better camera than the D3, resolution-wise, is it :D? Easy on me here, guys. I am just asking a question and not inviting any flames.

Joshua :)
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Joshua:

I think there are a lot of possible explanations and I don't know for sure what any of them might be. I think that Lloyd's files show about the same performance from the 1Ds3 as mine did. I also suspect BOTH the 1Ds3 and D3 have stronger AA filters AND more aggressive NR routines to accommodate the high-ISO performance. Given those two factors, I would infer the 5D looks better than the D3 at the same approximate sensor resolution due to the AA and or NR, and therefore the 5D also appears closer to the 1Ds3 resolution-wise than the D3 does.
 

ChrisDauer

Workshop Member
Well, in the last few minutes a friend sent me some exceptional shots w/ the 1Ds3. Full 21 MP of glory. I'm impressed. Very very impressed. I don't know how much work was put into making them impressive, and I was told there was some additional JPG artifacting that wasn't there in the originals, but WOW.

Perhaps compared next to something else it would not be as impressive. But next to anything I'm using; I'm very impressed. If I had taken that test image, I'd be quiet pleased.
 

woodyspedden

New member
Hi Marc:

Here is a review by Lloyd Chambers on his blog showing 1Ds3 files directly with D3 files set up with a mouse-over. I know Lloyd, and think he knows how to test DSLR's --- you can bet these were the best he could muster from each camera. Note that they all aren't in bright, high-contrast light ;) Frankly both sets of images make me shake my head... Scroll down a few entries: http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html

PS: Did you get the actions I sent?

Cheers,
Jack

While I generally agree with Lloyd's competency as a tester, in this case he readily admits that he is at the beginning of his discoveries with these cameras and is changing his mind about the outcomes each day. It will be interesting to get his (final?) views when he has completed both his objective testing and much more of his subjective testing. Owning neither camera I have no predisposition towards either so will welcome his review conclusions.

By the way, for those who have not seen Husbands reviews of the Nikon 14-24 on hia 16-9 website, he used a 5D and raves about the lens. Perhaps equally important for Canon shooters he is going produce his prototype Nikon G lens to EOS adapter so you can control aperture on the 5D or 1Ds. The standard old adapters from companies like Novoflex will not work on the lenses which have only electronic control of aperture.

Woody Spedden
 

woodyspedden

New member
Joshua:

I think there are a lot of possible explanations and I don't know for sure what any of them might be. I think that Lloyd's files show about the same performance from the 1Ds3 as mine did. I also suspect BOTH the 1Ds3 and D3 have stronger AA filters AND more aggressive NR routines to accommodate the high-ISO performance. Given those two factors, I would infer the 5D looks better than the D3 at the same approximate sensor resolution due to the AA and or NR, and therefore the 5D also appears closer to the 1Ds3 resolution-wise than the D3 does.
Jack

I would have thought that the primary reason for the Nikon noise performance is the use of the lower noise CMOS sensor. It inherently should have significantly less noise than the previous CCD sensors. I also would have thought that the AA filters would have been less agressive (particularly for the 1DsMkIII) given the increase in pixel density. The D3 of course has the same pixel density as the previous D2X but on a larger sensor thus bigger photosites ergo better signal to noise

Woody
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Chris, any chance you could get him to post those images here ... or give you permission to post them?

This is a real dilemma for me since I was really counting on the 1DsMKIII for my wedding kit.
 
H

hgmoore

Guest
I have looked at the raw files from the Los Gatos "Ristorante" test shots from DOP, click here , scroll down, three raw files available. I ran them thru CS3 CR 4.3.1 and found the results very impressive.

Granted my experience with digital is all Canon, currently 5D and L primes (except 85 1.8), wish I had the same lens and scene shot w/5D for comparison.
 
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