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Nikon was first into the professional digital camera arena with its D1 in 1999, followed by the D1X (PC Magazine, March 2002) and the high-speed D1H. Canon's EOS-D30 digital SLR, launched in mid-2000, is impressive but not fast or robust enough to be labelled a professional camera.
Canon badly needed a high-spec digital SLR to prevent its loyal EOS professionals from defecting to Nikon. Enter the EOS-1D, a digital camera that's bursting with great features, but with a price tag to match.
Surprisingly, Canon opted for a conventional CCD image sensor over the D30's much-praised CMOS type. As such, it is only a 4Megapixel CCD, compared with the Nikon DIX's 5.47Megapixel CCD. However, the large size of the EOS-1D's CCD means lenses work more closely to their design specification.
With CCD surface areas being smaller than an equivalent film frame, the 35mm lenses used with these cameras are effectively shifted upwards in focal length. Nikon cameras add 50 per cent to the effective focal length, severely compromising the usability of wide-angle lenses, whereas the EOS-1D adds only 30 per cent.
The Canon CCD has bigger pixels so they capture light more reliably, resulting in less noise. Its square pixels also require less processing than the Nikon D1X's rectangular pixels.
Features unique to the EOS-1D include ISO film speed and colour temperature bracketing, as well as conventional exposure bracketing modes. You don't have to choose between recording images in native RAW format or lossy-compressed JPEG format. Both can be carried out at the same time, and at a shooting rate of up to 8fps for sequences of up to 16 frames or 21 frames if you're using only JPEGs.
Shutter speed settings range from 30 seconds to 1/16,000th of a second. Both Type I and II Compact Flash cards are supported, as well as IBM Microdrives.
A 100MB internal buffer ensures the camera is hardly ever tied up, so avoiding lost shots.
The EOS-1D shares the autofocus system of the EOS-1V film camera, and up to 45 focus points can be selected and illuminated in the viewfinder.
In Predictive Servo mode, the AF system can accurately track a moving target. Everything on the EOS-1D is fast and responsive, from the 2in TFT screen, to the controls and the IEEE 1394 interface.
One oddity is the use of NiMH battery packs instead of higher capacity Li-Ion, though battery life wasn't an issue during extended shooting. Canon EX ETTL flash is fully supported.
If there's one flaw, it's an image noise peculiarity. Although digital image noise is low, even in high ISO settings, when it's visible it isn't completely uniform. In extreme situations, the image can appear to suffer from faint noise banding.
However, the EOS-1D is a remarkable feat of digital camera engineering that fully justifies winning back the digital crown from Nikon, for the time being at least.Contact
Canon, Woodhatch, Reigate, Surrey RH2 8BF
Tel 0800 616 417
www.canon.co.uk/digital_cameras/
See also:
All Digital Cameras
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