It's on dpreview:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022208...os1dmarkiii.asp

Some of the early speculations about this being full frame is wrong. It's 1.3x cropped.

It looks like they up the speed and resolution by ~ 20%. They also put in 14-bit image processing, the one feature that I was looking for. Hope that'll be in all their future high end cameras including the 5D replacement, when they get around to it.

Oh Yea, and live view!

It looks good indeed, yes Herb, sunbursts will look excellent in this new camera with the 14-bit image processing. Some more of the very nice new features:

1) -1 to 18 ev, 19 cross-type sensors autofocus system, with sensors spread through the detection area (the top of the line Canon 1Ds mk II has only 9 sensors, all in the central area of detection and a sensitivity of 0 to 18 ev) and the user can make micro-adjustments (no more backfocus?).

2) Automatic, in-camera sensor cleaning system.

3) For the trigger happy people (or for those who don't like to change cards between dives), it can take 2, yes, 2 memory cards at the same time, one CF and one SD. With this feature you can also for example record RAW files on the CF card and JPGs on the SD card, save the same images on both cards for backup or use one card at a time.

4) 1/300 flash sync.

I must confess, this camera is looking awfully good, especially at an MSRP of US$ 3,999... Here is the official Canon site:

http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/eos1dm3/html/top.html

The first thought that popped into my mind when I got an email about it from the old Rob Galbraith forums can be succinctly summarized as:



And then I found myself thinking "That is a remarkably flexible, remarkably capable body, and the price is really pretty competitive. And look, they seem to have kept the form factor constant from the 1D, 1DMkII etc etc."

I think the Canon camp has reason for a warm inner glow tonight.

Wow - very nice indeedy.

I also think that the price will be a benefit to non-canon users in the long run.

Alex

Here's a link to the official propaganda

http://www.robgalbraith.com/public_files/C...White_Paper.pdf

The auto focus is disabled in the live view mode.

Lost in the all the attention on the 1DIII is the new 16-35mm lens which they claim to " ... specifically designed for improved peripheral image quality in wide-angle shots...".

I am not familiar enough with the 1D series to answer this myself, are all the controls in the same place as the old body so it will fit in existing housings?

Alex

are these features really worth more than double the cost of a D200?

I for one see $4K as rather pricey...

No. they are not in the same place as the old bodies.

I think this is targeted towards the PJ's, especially the ones covering sports. Those making a living with a camera can work out the dollars and sense of the $4k price for their own business. For those who's got this expensive hobby, it cost less than a D2Xs.

"No. they are not in the same place as the old bodies."

BUT... the original 1D and 1DS share an identical body, the 1DMkII and DSMkII also share an identical body which is fractionally different from the original MkIs. However (speaking about Seacam) I can run MkI bodies in a MkII housing with little adjustment and Seacam can upgrade a MkI housing to take a MkII with little loss of controls (ie nothing that is desperately required). The last version of the 1DMkII (larger rear lcd is also different but simply requires a modified housing back - also supported I think. It looks like this new body is somewhat differently shaped and whilst controls are shifted I don't see a new housing being a fundamental rethink - it may even be possible to offer some form of conversion (with loss of controls) but this will depend on the precise sizing and alignment. Canon are not going to be at focus unfortunately or they might have had one as a taster!

I agree - this camera is cheap. And is aimed at the sports photographers. I am sure many of them will already be putting orders in.

Alex

The good news for the Canonites are that most of those new technologies (14 bits, 19 cross type AF, in-camera sensor cleaning and AF adjustment, 1/300 flash sync, etc) will eventually be implemented in other bodies...

this will be the third best canon camera or so (after they complete their 5D etc... new models) and it seems that it will be better than nikon´s best model... . I think nikon needs something from their side

It also has "Highlight Tone Priority" that can be set:

http://www.jirvana.com/pdfs/EOS_1D_Mark_III_WP_070221.pdf

Cool, now we can expect all these features in a Nikon body soon also The highlight tone priority sounds cool for sunburst shots.

Cor

I think the main significance is what this means for what is to come.

$4k for a pro body is not too bad.

If Canon is implementing a sensor cleaning system then everyone will have to--that means Nikon too. It probably means that all new models will include it.

Live preview looks like a promising addition. Unfortunately, if it means sacrificing AF then I don't see the point. The (even at 3") screen isn't good enough to judge focus and its hard to use MF underwater anyway. I'd rather look through the peephole than try to focus manually. If I'm focusing manually its for extreme macro and the screen won't help and I won't even get focus confirmation.

I'm most ambivalent about the 1.3x crop. Why? It seems to me to be neither here nor there. To begin with you can't get decent WA with this camera. With a 1.6x crop canon you can use the Tokina 10-17 or the host of 10-24mm range zooms. On full frame you can use 15mm fisheyes, 16mm zooms or 14mm rectilinear primes. With the 1.3 crop you are relegated to full-frame lens choices but you can't get the full benefit from them. I thought this interim solution was dead with the advent of the 5D. I think they should have either added or deleted $500 and pushed it to either cropped or full frame size.


Now 10 frames/sec and 14 bit are nice additions.

This is a 1D replacement, the 1D has always been 1.3x and is designed for photo-journalists and sport photographers. I don't think this camera will be a good choice for underwater photography, I am just hoping that they transfer these technologies to the 1Ds and 5D replacements and that Nikon eventually adopts similar features...

Here is a paragraph from the specs of the new Canon that makes you appreciate the new features more: "The EOS-1D Mark II N digitized its sensor output to 12 bits of resolution, allowing 4,096 levels of gradation from each pixel. The 1D Mark III digitizes to 14 bits, allowing 16,384 levels." Yes, 3X more levels of gradation, think sunbursts...

a video presentation in french.

http://www.focus-numerique.com/news_id-38.html

That looks very promising! Although enabling it does constrain the ISO to 200+, which is not ideal for sunballs.

I'm excited for the new 16-35 lens. One of my friends has already promised to buy it, and I'll give it a test once he gets it (whenever it ships).

The 1D Mk X series cameras are overkill for underwater use -- no one needs 10fps underwater unless they're shooting action in available light!! But the new technology embedded in the camera is really exciting, and once it trickles out to the rest of their line I'm hopeful that we'll see marked improvements in image quality across the line-up.

If I understand Canon's comments on this camera, all that is happening is more levels of gradation per color within the same dynamic range. This will decrease the need for interpolation or increase it's accuracy either in camera or in converter, but I don't see why it will cure an ill whose major cause is close dynamic parameters.

That's not to say it isn't a vaulable evolution for other reasons though.

Check out page 12 of the linked White Paper for the 1D MkIII - it shows an example of a bride in a white gown, and the increase in highlight detail is remarkable when Highlight Tone Priority is used.

There are two problems related to photographing sunbursts in digital, one is blown highlights (due to low dynamic range) and the other is a bad gradation from highlights to shadows, eg. lines of sharp color difference instead of a smooth transition. If you look close enough (or in some real world examples) you will see what I mean. The 14-bit conversion will at least improve the transitions, and the high contrast option does increase the DR by one stop, but it's minimum ISO is 200...

Here's my guess at what the high contrast mode does:

1. meter exposure at ISO 200 setting
2. process the sensor output at ISO 100
3. apply a tone curve to bring the mid tones and shadows back up to ISO 200

This has the net effect of reducing blown highlights at the expense of more noise and banding at the mid tones and shadows. Since the sensor has very low noise to start and now has a 14-bit A/D, the higher noise probably will not be noticed. The two extra bits will give smooth tones to the under exposed and pushed up parts. This essentially the technique for getting a good sunball.

The dynamic range of the sensor is (maximum signal captured before clipping)/(noise level). The new 14-bit A/D does not change that. It just divides the signal into more levels and let you brighten the underexposed regions more and still have smooth tones.

1.3 crop is a problem! Using FF fisheye like sigma & canon 15mm becomes less fishy. Anyone tried with tokina 10-17 FE on 1DII or 1DIIN?

Here is the link with tokina 10-17 on a 5D:
http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/review/2...11/17/5039.html

I think you are right about the high contrast mode, which essentially automates what photographers currently do. I know that when I am shooting a bright scene I apply an exposure compensation of -1 stop to prevent blowing the highlights and then add a contrast enhancing S curve after the fact.

Your comment about the dynamic range is also correct. I think that a lot of people think that dynamic range is the max/min signal (where min is 1 bit), which would be correct for a noise free sensor. In real sensors, the dynamic range is limited by the sensor noise, which is a combination of well depth and readout noise. Canon claims that the noise is lower due to their improved microarray which leads to better light gathering efficiency. However, this remains to be seen. I suspect that the noise performance will not be much different than the 5D which has pixels that are 8.2um. The new sensor has pixels that are 7.2um with the improved microarray. Therefore the wells are shallower, but get more light. It is probably a wash.

One place they might have made improvements is in the readout noise. I know that my 5D shows patterned noise in the shadows, which must be a flaw in the readout circuitry.

But with the improved low-light focusing sensitivity and supposedly low-noise high ISO settings this may be just the camera to get the most out of ambient light and filter photography. In particular, it may allow the use of somewhat longer focal length lenses to capture the action of fish behavior. I experimented with a 135mm F2 lens in January. Results weren't too good due to motion blur and too shallow depth of field but I wasn't clever enough to boost ISO (still had it set to 100). Because I did this on my last dive I couldn't see what ISO800 or 1600 would do to prevent motion blur and improve depth of field. I think it could work with a Canon 20D at shallow depth and, of course, a 5D or the new 1D Mark III should do a lot better.

Here is an example of a close-up of a longsnout seahorse shot with a magic filter at about 10-12m depth. I have to check the camera settings but probably shutter 1/120sec, aperture 2.8. This shot is still not really sharp and you do a lot better with flash but I think with a low-noise high-ISO camera and a bit more ambient light interesting opportunities exist.

Click to view attachment

Longsnout seahorse, Bari reef, Bonaire
JPEG straight from camera, no cropping or adjustments (just rotated 90 degrees and reduced resolution)

Bart

Ditto both points.

I've got both a 16-35 and 17-40, and although they're both "good" lenses, I'd love a "great" wide angle zoom for FF!

I have a 1D MkIIN, and it's 8fps are great for topside action (e.g., moving cars, motorcycles, sports, etc.), but have little application underwater. As someone said, the 1D Mk X cameras are really designed for professional sports photographers. It will appeal to those who make their living shooting "on the margin" where even the slightest increase in FPS is of value. For the rest of us, the marginal utility (if you'll pardon the economics jargon) of an extra few fps just doesn't exist.

I read that, but I also read the sentence about increased noise and you cannot have both. Stretching left data and compressing right data will deliver better highlights but generates a noiser image. You can do that in post now.

Because they don't talk about actual capture advances, I suspect HTP is really just a metadata tag generated by the camera software rather than a true expansion of the camera's capture ability. It's probably a very nice adjustment for the given example but white dress highlights doesn't quite replicate the drastic contrast of an underwater sunball/sunburst.

Please keep in mind that my comment was in response to suggestions that 14-bit would be of some cure to sunball/sunburst ills. And there doesn't seem to be anything in the available literature to indicate that blooming and then the resulting visible fringing have been mitigated.

I understand why we get what we get, but here is my thinking: why would 14-bit processing eliminate or mitigate blooming and the resulting visible fringing? Or why better defined and gradated color fringing (which probably won't be the reality anyway) is an improvement. As we know better defined errors or failures are one of the pitfalls of digital capture.

I just notice that Canon has made no claim to the effect that the sensor has been enabled to bucket more charge. And that is what we are really looking for, at least those of us who do find sunballs/burst on current digital systems displeasing. I recognize that Herb, Paul and a few others disagreed with my earlier assertion that sunballs/bursts from current technology are bad (I may have said crap ).

It's often necessary to underexpose to keep from blowing out a sunball. The rest of the pic can be brought back up to a proper exposure at post processing. A low noise sensor gives you the good signal-to-noise necessary to push the underexposed water and subject a couple of stops and still not be noisy. The limit in the 5D in this process is not the noise of the sensor but quantization of the dark parts when brighten 2+ stops. Going from a 12-bit to a 14-bit A/D will make this quantization/banding problem much better.

In summary, it takes a high dynamic range sensor (large charge bucket and low noise) and fine quantization levels(more bits).

The lens does look interesting. Disappointing that it's designed with an 82mm filter thread. That means a new set of filters for topside and if anyone wants to experiment with diopters.....I'm not sure if there are any out there. Maybe the lens performance will be so good we won't need diopters.

I don't have a lot of hard fast rules when shooting digital, but one of them is that I don't underexpose by 2 stops for the purpose of bringing it back up in post. Expanding thin (left) data just doesn't work. My preferences is to always compress thin data and stretch fat (right) data. Plus my suspicion is that 14-bit processing will accentuate the problems inherent in stretching thin data. It's going to let you really see how little data was applied for the lower levels.

I agree with you that coupling greater than 12-bit processing with a sufficiently hi dynamic range sensor is the holy grail for these really high contrast shots, but in the case of sunbalss I don't see any benefit from 14-bit processing alone.

Well I can think of at least 3 places where 10fps would be trés useful esp with a mustard filter But I'm not happy about the Li-Ion battery. It may save a few grams but environmentally and lifespan, it sucks.
At $3500 or less at street, it'll be interesting to say the least. I can imagine the 1DMk2N just dropping in value.

14-bit A/D does no good if the sensor it's sampling does not have enough dynamic range. I thought that was clear from my last message. I think you developed your rule from using sensors with insufficient dynamic range.

I'm actually glad the new 16-35 is a new filter size, and hope that means dramatic new design, rather than a subtle tweak of existing 16-35. I'm excited to try, for sure. Other thoughts:

1. Looking at the back I see it is substantially different (from robgalbraith.com). Seacam is making a MKIII housing, details to be determined shortly:

Click to view attachment

2. The need for 10-frames per second comes up more often than I would have thought, and is nice to have. With the enhanced chip performance of new MKIII, this should be a very capable camera, even with the 1.3 crop.

Click to view attachment

Perhaps it wasn't you who said 14-bit will appreciably improve sunbursts. My apologies for the inaccurate cite.

That specific rule or determination is the result of how the software applies the collected data. Your example of underexposing would be fine if the cameras applied data to lower levels using the same protocols they use for upper levels. And at the risk of stating the obvious: if the camera applies half of captured data to the highest exposure, half the remaining to the next highest, half the remaining to the next highest, and so on down the line it is clear that if we want to capture most image data at underexposed values we will not be working with anything close to clean or sufficient data. You just can't stretch that thin dirty data in post without ending up with very high levels of noise and other unpleasing results specific to digital capture. That's one of the problems with sunball shots, the sunball itself is using up so much of the total possible data that there is very little left for the more pleasing exposed areas of the image. Underexposing only exacerbates the problem.

But yes, it would be fair to conclude that many of my personal rules for digital capture are the result of the insufficient dr of cameras on the market as well as the data spread currently used. Your Canons and my Nikons are equally guilty of both. No current camera proportions data differently at this point in time, including the mkIII.

It doesn't work because there is very little information in the lower levels with a 12bit image, but this may change for the better with 14bit processing...



I am not sure I agree with that, check the attached figure. The lower levels will have more information (and less banding after post-processing) in a 14bit image. High levels will hold better too.

Click to view attachment

So, this is how I see it (correct me if I am wrong): looking at the table above, say you expose the sun area correctly (exposure zone 1) and want to bring detail back to an area that was 4 stops underexposed. With the 12bit images you will have 256 levels available, with the 14bit image you will have 1024. The 14bit image will look better after post-processing, right?

Nice chart. That's what I've been trying to say.

Not that I care anyways (max ISO that I regularly use is 400), but for those who do, here is a sample of the new Mk3 at ISO 6400:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E1DM...3hSLI6400NR.HTM

Should look much better at 1600 and 3200...

That already looks ridiculously good for 6400...yes, a fair amount of chroma noise, but the preserved detail in the scale on the right is excellent.

Dirty data, whether it's the result of sensor blooming on the high end or underexposing on the low end remains the same. 14-bit processing just places a greater scrutiny (levels/gradation) on it. This is analogous to what happened when we used 10, 12 and 16 mp cameras with lenses designed when 4, 6 and 8 mp cameras were the hi-end. Suddenly what we once couldn't see now came into a sharp focus, and some of it we didn't like much. It changed how we shot and changed what lens we shot with. Example: 12-24mm nik behind a dome.

14-bit.......essentially, in the case of sunballs, it will heighten the evidence of fringing on the high end as well as the evidence of noise on the low end. Plus it will preclude using underexposure as a workaround for the same two issues.

Better processing will require cleaner capture data if the proportional distributions remain the same (Canon has not indicated they have changed). Sunballs or the popular workarounds when shooting sunballs do not deliver cleaner data. I cannot see how greater scrutiny on dirty data makes the image better. I can see how 14-bit and higher processing will make us shoot in a way that minimizes what we now consider acceptable. I can also see why it is better. I just don't believe it will make certain shoots improve without first being captured on a sensor with higher dr. Sunballs is one of those image types.

I won't bore anyone with further comments on this subject

Most of the lenses we've been using were designed for film cameras. I don't see what the lens resolution and distortions have to do with the discussion on dynamic range and sunballs.

Better dynamic range than what? Have you used a Canon 5D? As I mentioned earlier, I think the 5D images are limited by the 12-bit A/D. It would look better with more quantization levels at the dark end. Canon claims to have preserved that with the reduction in the size of the photosites. Of course this claim can't be verified until the cameras are out.

If you check the photographic test results at 5D Dpreview you find that the noise levels bottom out at 1 bit level for low ISO. This strongly suggests that you are correct. For low ISO images, the camera is limited by the 12-bit ADC. Assuming that the 1DMarkIII is similar, it will benefit by the 14-bit ADC.

That being said, my 5D shows patterned noise in the shadows that its certainly not random. I don't know if I just got a bad copy, but I have seen other comments to this effect on various forums. My guess is that it is probably due to some sort of pickup on the video amplifiers. It shows up as rows and columns that are lighter or darker than their neighbors. I think I am going to borrow a friend's 5D to do some comparative tests.

Any vendors going to build a housing?

Did you notice the AF button on the camera back? Click to view attachment

The button to the right of the viewfinder is AF-on, This will achieve the same functuality as Custom Function 4-1, that is, removing AF from shutter release and applyng separately to that button. Very useful for many applications, not the least of which is shoooting the 100mm macro with combination of AF and MF or locking WA focus on a particular part of the frame without need of compose/shift.

Before MKIII it took several steps (buttons and dials) and reading small menu items to make the shift to CF-4-1. Now it is a single click from a dedicated button.

Where's the PRINT button?

And they've not included an auto-composition feature either.....

Hi guys,

I have seen a lot of the information and tech specs online in the recent months. So some of the discussions above are nothing new to me. But to say that I was eagerly waiting for the Mark III release is an understatement... Like Pavlovs Dog I am drooling puddles big enough to dive in to get my hands on it and get it underwater. Any improvements on a Pro Camera will have some chasing that extra edge in producing an image that captures your imagination and to ask yourself... How did he/She do that!. Now if I can only buy one

Cheers!

Terry Moore
www.liquidmotionproductions.com

I am still waiting on my Heliopan circular polarizer for this lens.
Just picked up a Heliopan UV filter but had to wait almost three weeks for it.
Now on my 5th week for the polarizer....

I'm in India and hope to test drive the lens topside tomorrow.

BTW, zoom gears are all new too and the lens is so seriously back-ordered some manufacturers can't even get hold of one to measure. I made a DIY gear in the meantime.