Canon 1D Mark IV | gear

As a photographer, I do my best to keep up with the changes and evolutions in technology…well, at least those pertaining to my field! (Though I will have to say…twitter and facebook hit me from left field…and I’m still not sure that I’m a fan…but I’m getting there.)

Anyway, if you’ve clicked on this link, you’re here for the noise. And I’ll bring it! I took delivery on Canon’s newest, blazingly fast pro camera on Wednesday, and I’ve been putting it through the paces. In short, I believe that it’s a solid gain of 2 usable stops beyond the 5DII.

Below are some impromptu shots I took this morning. All are handheld (I figure…if I’m using a crazy high ISO, I’m not gonna have a tripod anyway!) and were shot in very dark conditions with 50mm 1.2 lens. I white-balanced one image, and then copied the settings to all. No Photoshop, and no Noise Ninja. I dusted off Aperture 2 to process these. I now realize that LR2.6 will work with them as well, but…that’s another post!

I also shot some video up to ISO 12,800 and was incredibly impressed. Being a Canon user for more than a decade, (and loving the image quality of my 5D’s and 5DII’s, but finding the focus rather lacking) the focusing speed of this camera is quite impressive. I could go on and on.

The bottom line regarding the super-high ISO’s: this camera seems usable up to maybe 25,600…in a pinch. I feel solidly comfortable with 6400, and am cozying up to 12,800. But honestly the 51,200 and 102,400 look like something shot on my Blackberry!

Is this different from what I expected? Not really…just like the 5DII…it goes to 25,600…but I don’t find it usable much past 3200.

I’ll try and post more stuff soon (and maybe some more scientific looks at image quality and iso speed).

Bravo, Canon, for bringing such a great product to market. This camera — with its image quality and speed — shines from daylight to moonlight.