Canon EOS 1D Mark IV

Well well well Nikon was not alone on the top of iso preformance for long. Yesterday 20/10-2009 Canon announced their new press/sport flagship camera. Like Nikon the normal iso mode goes all the way up to 12.800 and there is Hi modes all the way up to 102.400 iso. Results at this level will not likely be noise free for either Nikon or Canon, but still it enables you to take a picture in complete blackness.

Well I guess what you are all waiting for are the specs so here goes.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV specifications

• 16. 1 Megapixel APS-H CMOS sensor (1.3x crop)
• Dual DIGIC4 processors for high preformance, natural colour and noise control
• Continuous shooting at 10fps with up to 121 large jpg’s (even more with high speed udma cards)
• ISO range 100-12.800 with high mode up to 102.400 and low to 50
• 100% High-magnification, wide-area viewfinder
• New 45-point AF system, 39 of which are cross-type points
• Auto Lighting Optimizer and peripheral illumination correction
• Live view mode shooting
• Full HD movie shooting with manual control and selectable frame rates
• 3″ Clear View II LCD monitor with 920.000 pixels
• Environmentally protected magnesium alloy body
• Optional WFT-E2 II Wireless file Transmitter compatible with GPS and HDD
• More ergonomic camera controls for easy operation

Megapixels

As you can see here Canon has not stoped the pixel bumping completely. I talked with a Canon rep. at the press conference and he said that the reports they got back from some of the test persons was that they still could do with a few more pixels.

Personally I could easily have lived with 12mp on a camera like this, but then again if the image quality is there and the noise not worse I will not say no to the extra 4mp.

Looking at the few samples I have got the image does look really nice, but of course Canon isn’t about to release something gone bad 🙂

Dual DIGIC 4

Well with the camera in hand you don’t think much about the processing speed but the camera does feel lightning fast and reacted instantly to every command and dumped at it.

10fps

Well we know this one of course from the 1D Mark III and it is still blasting away on full speed, personally this is speed enough for my use 🙂

ISO

Well the camera surtenly goes all the way to iso 102.400 but I have not seen any samples at that level yet. I have five full ress samples and the highest iso is 3200 but I must say it looks really good. I have also seen a video shot at iso 6400 and that does look damn good also. Time will tell what the preformance will be and the Nikon/Canon war is now firing up again at full power.

Auto Focus

Auto focus was where Canon really did a bad job with the 1D Mark III. Time will tell if this completely new AF system will prefome well in real world action. I did mess around with it when I was playing with the camera and my first thoughts are WOW. This is REALLY REALLY fast and feels very accurate. I pointed it at some dark corners and low contrast areas and the af locked on easily. Tracking also felt really good but I was lacking something fast to test on.

I did however find out that the new 45point af keeps on tracking even while you are shooting at the 10fps. This should boost the number of keepers and ensure loads of images that are tack sharp. Nikon has a good af on the D3s but at this point the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV comes out on top.

Live View

Well we know that one of course and handling is pretty much the same. The contrast af however is in another world compared to the 5D Mark II. It is a lot faster and it might actually be pretty useful know.

Video

Video was a given thing on this camera and of course Canon keeps on with the FullHD solution. You have more control with the 1D Mark IV however. You can choose between 1080p and 720p. The fullHD 1080p is available in 30, 25 and 24 fps. If you choose the low 720p or SD mode you can go all the way up to 60fps.

This increases control and makes sure that you get the frame rate that matches your use.
Canon EOS 1D Mark IV

Well I have not had much time with the camera and I was not allowed to put in my own card to get home some samples. But I do feel that Canon is really back in the game. The new specs with what looks to be a supreme autofocus and metering system complete with a better auto whitebalance and the fully controllable video really makes this camera a very nice tool for the press, sport and wildlife photographer.

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