The Canon EOS 1D - (becoming) a classic

by Lex van Oorspronk

I bought my Canon EOS 1D secondhand in the first quarter of 2004. By that time the 1DmkII was already out and with other DSLR's coming out with 6, 8 and more megapixels it looked an old camera to some people. It pleases me to see that even today (december 2005) still a lot of people are buying this camera, sometimes as their first DSLR, but mostly they come from camera's as the 10D and even 20D. So there must be someting about this camera as it can attrack the interest of many people. I try to summarize my thoughts here.

One of the main attractive reasons for buying a 1D is of course its current secondhand price. For this price you get a body with all those nice 1-series features as fast and accurate AF, sturdy body, weathersealing etc... and it also boosts a blazing 8 frames per second, still a performance up to today's standards.

'Only' 4.1MP
When the 1D came out, some people were dismayed because it had 'only' 4MP. Most had expect it to have at least 6MP. But after seeing images and using the camera, most of these people ate humble pie! Because of its pixel size, the 1D does a very good job with its 4 megapixels. To the opinion of many people, the 4MP of the 1D stand up very well to 6Mp of others DSLR's. The images out of the camera are quite sharp already and need relative little postprocessing. I took my 1D to several trips and I'm still very pleased with the images it produces.

Kos, Greece, 2005

About noise
A statement that keeps coming back is that the 1D has a lot of noise on high ISO's. To set one thing straight up front: of course modern DSLR's as the 20D and 1DmkII do better regarding noise. But that doesn't mean that the 1D is 'bad' on noise. On the contrary: if you expose properly, high-ISO images with little noise are very possible with the 1D. I've posted the following image a zillion times, shot with the 1D at ISO 1600. No post-processing, no noise reduction:

Confidence
The AF, the reliability, the predictability (for me) of the metering, the robustness... all of these give me just a lot of trust in this camera; I know I can rely on it for 100%. This all adds to the satisfaction of using this camera.

A small thing is shooting in the rain. With other camera's, I know it is OK if they get some raindrops on them but I'm still careful. With the 1D however, I feel completely confident shooting in the pooring rain.

1.3x crop factor
Well, actually the crop factor is 1.25x. When I was looking for my first DSLR, I wanted full frame, but these camera's were just out of reach for me (even secondhand). And I also found 1.6x too much. After using the 1D for 18 months now, I think the 1.25x is a very nice compromise.

Speaking of cropping: I always try to compose the best way possible, so that I only occasionally have to crop (Robert Capa said: "If you're pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough"). But of course it is a nice thing when you have more megapixels and thus more freedom to crop afterwards.

Long exposures
Long exposures are quite possible with the 1D, although not as good as with CMOS-camera's. Use the in-camera noise reduction setting to get rid of a lot of these hot pixels. However, for long exposures, my expierence is to keep the shutterspeed below 20 seconds. Above 20 seconds, the edges of the frame will start to blow.

Here's an example of a long exposure with a shutterspeed of 8 seconds. There were only a few hot pixels in this image:

Fireworks in Koblenz, with moving boats in the foreground

Battery life

Battery life is not the strongest point of the 1D. But for me as an amateur user it isn't that bad either. Typical is around 300 shots per battery; this also depends on how much you use the LCD to review images, the use of AI Servo and the use of an image stabilizer. I have one extra battery and on regular trips (where I can charge the batteries during the night in a hotel) this is enough (this gives me about 500-600 shots for the day).

 

In low temperatures, the battery life was quite OK by the way. I took the camera to Finland during wintertime and got almost the normal amount of shots from my battery. This was in temperatures ranging from -5 to -28 degrees celcius (23 to -18 fahrenheit). Tip: keep a spare battery in your pocket as close to your body as possible to keep it warm (for more power).

Finally a short summarization of some plus and minuses which I expierenced and read on several places on the web.

Other nice features:

Downsides:

 

So all in all I'm still very happy with this camera. Of course I sometimes think about upgrading (1DmkIIN), but apart from the price difference, this camera feels so good that I don't really feel the need yet.

So, my opinion: the 1D is or will become a classic and for good reasons.

-- o --

Some other articles/reviews:

DP Review:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos1d/

Luminous Landscape:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1d/1d-review.shtml

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1d/1d-nz.shtml

If you have comments and/or additions to this page, please e-mail me at: lex_photo@xs4all.nl

© 2005 Lex van Oorspronk
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