Detailed First Look review posted for Canon EOS-1Ds
By
Mike Tomkins
(Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 01:00 EDT)
Well, a week of leaks has stolen some of its thunder, but the camera itself is still plenty amazing - Dave (who's now left to fly out to Germany for Photokina) has just posted a detailed preview of the just-announced Canon EOS-1Ds professional SLR.
With a body and controls virtually identical to those of last year's EOS-1D, the Canon EOS-1Ds concentrates its innovation on the sensor: A *full-frame* 11.1 megapixel CMOS chip! For Canon shooters, this is both the most megapixels they've ever had available, as well as the first time that they can shoot true wide angle, thanks to a sensor that's the same size as a 35mm film frame.
Dave's had a prototype 1Ds for just a few days now, but he's very impressed with what he's seen. Unfortunately, Canon has asked us not to share any of the images he's shot with the camera, due to its prototype status. That's too bad, because they're pretty incredible. As you'd expect, resolution is the highest we've seen yet in a portable SLR, dramatically eclipsing anything we've seen from the current crop of 6 megapixel products.
While he hasn't done any explicit noise measurements yet, the 1Ds' images look very clean, no doubt thanks in large part to Canon's well-established CMOS active-pixel sensor technology. Dave did put the camera through its paces in his power and timing measurement systems, and the results were impressive, particularly given the enormous amount of data the camera is dealing with. Read the review for all the details, and stay tuned for a full report with both standardized and "random" test photos sometime next month when Dave's due to get a production model to test!
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