Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II

Last updated: Friday, October 21st, 2005

Canon 1DS Mark II

Declan McCullagh gave Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II 8.9 out of 10 at CNET and wrote:

“The Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II’s image quality is superb. The original EOS 1Ds delivered superior performance, but Canon managed to best itself with the Mark II. The difference is especially obvious in low-light situations. Noise remains extremely minimal at ISO settings below 640–comparable to the Canon EOS 20D’s noise levels–and even photographs taken at ISO 1,200 are surprisingly smooth.

The 1Ds Mark II’s true rivals are 22-megapixel digital backs for medium-format cameras from companies such as Phase One. Those digital backs do seem to offer better image quality. But they aren’t as convenient to use as a small-format SLR, and they sell for around $30,000.

The downside of the 1Ds Mark II’s image quality is that your lenses must be up to the task. There’s little point in spending so much for a camera and shackling it with inferior glass. I found that my 2X teleconverter wasn’t up to the demands of the Mark II. Using the camera to its fullest also means exacting photo technique and large memory cards. Anyone shooting raw images should have at least two 4GB cards.”