Canon 1D Mark III Review – Image Quality

The reported Image Quality of the 1D Mark III was one of the major
reasons for me purchasing it. For the past year, I have performed 90%
of my shooting with a Canon 5D which in some respects is still the bar
against which other cameras are judged. So going into the decision my
mindset was that any improvements over the already excellent Full Frame
sensor of the 5D would be very welcomed.

The 1D Mark III has not disappointed.

The 1D contains a couple of "on paper" improvements compared to
predecessors, mostly around a new Digic processing engine and 14 bit
support with Highlight Tone priority. The 1.3x crop is still
maintained, something I always thought was a strange decision but in
reality works as an excellent compromise between extra reach and yet a
large sensor. The additional 2MP that the 1D Mark III incorporates is
not significant but does allow for additional cropping. One of my key
questions was whether the high ISO would really live up to its billing,
particularly given all the attention Nikon’s D3 has brought to the
subject.

I’ll start with Highlight priority first.

Highlight Priority
I had already seen and used this feature in the 40D so I wasn’t
expecting any surprises here. I am a big fan of Highlight tone
priority. The promise of a great dynamic range within highlight
areas should be of great interest to a very large number of
photographers and I use it often. Highlights are often an area which is
the hardest to pull detail back from when you do not
expose correctly (or have no choice but to blow the highlights). The
highlight
tone priority feature can be set through the Menu option and I have it
set as a custom menu option for easy access. When you enable it,
you need to be aware of two things:

1. Canon claims that there will be slightly more shadow noise in the image
2. The minimum ISO you can shoot at is ISO 200

Because
of item #1, I don’t use this feature whenever I shoot at high ISO. However, during the daytime, this is set to permanently on.
Below is an example of how highlight tone priority works in the real
world. These two shots were taken of the same scene, with the same
settings and only a few seconds apart. Everything is identical except
for the second image having Highlight Tone Priority switched to ON. Both images are shot with deliberate over exposure with neither receiving any post processing (just RAW -> TIFF -> JPG).

The first image:

The second image:

 

Even from these web resolution images, you might notice the difference in the whites of on the building structure. You can also see that this is not just an underexposure trick on the second image as the colours in the flag and sky look identical.

Taking a closer look, you can see the differences become even more apparent. The first image, cropped 100%:

The second image, cropped 100%:

Now the differences are very obvious. The second crop shows that Highlight Tone priority gives more latitude to work with in the higlights and this should be of interest to anyone who shoots in normal circumstances. My general rule of thumb is that I leave Highlight Tone priority permanently on unless I’m shooting above ISO 800 or need to use ISO 50 or 100 if shooting wide open on a fast prime (e.g. f/1.4) and the shutter speed would exceed 1/8000s.

High ISO Performance
In many respects, high ISO performance is becoming the yardstick by which many cameras Image Quality are measured, whether or not it’s actually needed or used. It’s become such a hot topic recently that it often becomes over emphasised. Still, it is an important area and shooting in low light is something I do often enough for it to become a critical aspect for my photography. For me, it’s not the actual presence of noise at high ISO that causes me issues, it’s more the drop off in colour and dynamic range that ruins images far quicker (and at far lower resolutions). Anyway, when the Canon 1D Mark III was announced one of the most interesting features was the inclusion of ISO 6400. The big question was whether Canon had just extended the range or really had made improvements. When the Nikon D3 was announced, discussion on this topic became even more heated as Canon’s position as the premier high ISO choice seemed under threat with Nikon’s range extending up to an incredible ISO 25,000.

My conclusion on this area is fairly simple. The Canon 1D Mark III has the best high ISO performance of any Canon camera before it. I have used the 5D for a long time now, shooting thousands of actuations in low light and I would put the 1D Mark III nearly a stop better in terms of high ISO performance. To be safe, I’d called it probably 2/3rds of a stop, but it’s noticeable. Where I would tend to stop at ISO 1600 on even the 5D, I’ll now more comfortably extend into the ISO 2,500 – 3,200 range on the 1D. I do not own at Nikon D3 but from the few dozen samples I’ve seen, I’d put the 1D roughly on a par with it up to about ISO 3,200. Above this, I’d say the Nikon D3 has lower noise, but also less detail (differences in NR coming into play here). This appears to be the consensus from other photographers whose opinions I trust too.

So what does this mean in the real world? Well, I have seen reports of people saying that they’ll use the D3 or 1D ISO settings up to ISO 3200 liberally, saying it’s changed the way they shoot in low light. I would disagree with this completely. I will NEVER use ISO 3200 unless I absolutely have to. While it will print large, there is always a drop off in dynamic range which provides very little latitude for processing or recovery afterwards. It’s ok if you shoot perfectly exposed 100% of the time but I don’t like having that restriction on my photography. I’ll definitely use ISO 3200 but it’s a conscious decision to increase to that level, not a defacto reaction to low light.

In terms of printing, I’ve printed ISO 6400 up to A4. I’m happy with it at this level and would consider it good enough for publication in most magazines. I’ve provided an ISO 6400 sample below:

This is my dog doing his best impression of a smile for me. The image is post processed therefore representative of what you’re left with, not what you start with.

Zooming in, lets take this to 50% which I consider to be fairly representative of what you’ll in print when viewing at regular viewing distances.

You can see the noise here, and also some loss of detail but it’s very usable indeed. As I say, on a high quality printer it comes out great and is actually difficult to tell what ISO it’s shot at. It’s worth noting that this was shot in my living room late in the day with a wide open 50mm f/1.4. Despite ISO 6400, I still only had 1/25s shutter speed so it gives an indication of how dark the room was.

For me however, ISO 6400 at A4 isn’t really the exciting thing. What this means for me is that ISO 3200 and ISO 1600 are really going to be able to produce decent sized prints of 13"x19" and above. An example of a 100% crop of a real world night shot was here:

I shot this with my 135mm f/2L from a distance of 20 – 30 feet. There is very little ambient lighting (it was during a candle ceremony) and her face is essentially illuminated by a single candle. It’s shot wide open with an ISO is 2,000 which was what I needed to give me a shutter speed (1/80) high enough to handhold this. The 100% crop looks like this:

So here, again, you see noise at ISO 2,000 but remember that this is 100% and a very dark scene. It’s not a staged daylight shot with no shadows, this is very real life. The image looks great at 13×19" by the way.

Working our way through the ISO range, I would summarise ISO 50 – 400 as essentially being noise free. For the first time ever, I essentially make almost no hesitation to use anything in this range.

Finally, we get to the middle of the pack – ISO 800, a setting which can be extremely useful for a wide range o shooting. Here, I find images to be almost noise free. If you really look closely or badly underexpose you can see some but otherwise for general purpose shooting, this is superb. Again, its having extremely high quality ISO 800 that is more important to me than a usable ISO 6400 as it’s something I’m much more likely to encounter under normal circumstances. To illustrate the quality of ISO 800, take the following shot:

This is one of my favourite subjects, my dog, tearing through the water at high speed. This was shot in good light but in ISO 800 in order to be able to stop down to f/5.6 and maintain a 1/1500 ish shutter speed. Here, the 100% crop looks like this:

Here, you can see a bit of noise if you look closely but for all intents and purposes, this is invisible in prints.

The 1.3x Crop
The final thing I wanted to talk about with regards to image quality was the 1.3x crop in the 1D Mark III. This sensor choice seemed strange to me at first. It doesn’t quite have the reach of a 1.6x style crop found in the 40D (or other cameras like the D300 @ 1.5x), and yet doesn’t provide the same sensor size (and therefore depth of field) as a full frame 35mm sensor. I have got so used to shooting Full Frame and enjoying the focal lengths of the prime lenses I use, plus the extremely shallow depth of field they afford, I originally thought I’d struggle a bit with 1.3x.

Anticipating I’d need a slightly different set of tools, when I got the 1D I also purchased the 24mm f1.4L. This is a lens that I expected to replace my 35mm f1.4L as my workhorse lens – a piece of glass I rate as the one of the highest quality and most versatile in the Canon range. Fortunately, the 24L has turned out to be more than a match. Stopped down, it gives super sharp images. Wide open, it produces dreamy bokeh, sharp centers and is great for artistic portraits, street, etc. With that core length covered, the 35mm now becoming my equivalent 50mm street lens and having a reach advantage (compared to full frame) on all my telephoto lens, I’ve found myself a quick convert of the 1.3x crop. Canon managed to make it work by ensuring there were no compromises in the viewfinder or image quality (e.g. high ISO performance) and their range of lenses ensured I was able to maintain my existing shooting style. The only people who might find their photography compromised would be those who make significant use of very wide angle lenses.

Anyway, coming back to an important aspect of my photography, if you were wondering how depth of field looks on a 1.3x crop (and if it’s shallow enough), take the following example.

 

This was with the 24L shot wide open at f1.4 on the 1D. Here you see creamy bokeh at the edges, massive and rapid fall off in depth of field (intended) and great amounts of detail at the focal point (despite it not being completely dead center). A 100% crop reveals how much detail is being captured:

So, anyone who had the same concerns as I did about using the 1D for general photography (i.e. performed at shorter focal lengths) or looking for creative use of depth of field, I hope this satisfies those doubts.