I'm tossing around the notion of getting a full frame body. Right now the 5D series is outside my budget but the 1Ds is within reach.

Simply put, is the 1Ds a good choice? Any cons on this camera? I'm lost when it comes to the 1Ds series but is the 1Ds like the 1D in performance? Great images, poor battery life?

Or would I be better off waiting a few months and getting a 5D? The camera would be used primarily for studio and landscape work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

The 1Ds is a great camera and in my book (for my needs) better than the 5D, but I wonder on what planet the 1Ds is cheaper than the 5D - or have people lost their minds?

You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. Above ISO 400, the 5D wins by a considerable margin. Also, the 1Ds has a clunky interface, poor LCD and odd controls in general. But those things don't bother most of those who use the 1Ds.

- Steve

veroman wrote:
You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. - Steve

As long as you never underexpose, don't have the banding problem, don't do exposures over 1 second, don't mind noise in the sky at any iso and don't miss the extra resolution and easier to work with colour.

I've never missed it once and I shot a year of weddings with it plus a photographic trip to Iceland. Only thing I miss on my 5D's is the zero shutter lag and 100% viewfinder. The rest....not a chance.

even if you find 1D's less than a 5D its not going to be by loads so for general use the 5D will the better bet

A used 1DS runs in the neighborhood of $1000. I'll check out the link and thanks for the thoughts.

Beni wrote:
veroman wrote:
You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. - Steve

As long as you never underexpose, don't have the banding problem, don't do exposures over 1 second, don't mind noise in the sky at any iso and don't miss the extra resolution and easier to work with colour.


1) Why would anyone intentionally underexpose?
2) Never had a banding problem with my 1Ds
3) I've exposed as long as 15 minutes with the 1Ds; long exposures are not an issue; you can read Fred Miranda's own review of long exposures with the 1Ds here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_longexp.html
4) Noise in the sky at any ISO? Here's Fred's take on that as well: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_noise.html
5) There's no perceivable difference between 11.1MP and near-13MP (5D Mark 1)
6) The color from the 1Ds is a non-issue; the color from the 5D has been well-documented as an issue, particurly skin tones

I'm not defending the 1Ds against the 5D. I own the 5D as well as the 1Ds II. I sold my 1Ds well over a year ago. The 5D, overall, is the better tool. But the 1Ds has VERY special qualities (IQ-wise) of its own that Canon has never duplicated in subsequent models. It is still a fine camera, but it demands a level of technical expertise that the 5D does not. The 5D is much more forgiving.

- Steve

veroman wrote:
Beni wrote:
veroman wrote:
You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. - Steve

As long as you never underexpose, don't have the banding problem, don't do exposures over 1 second, don't mind noise in the sky at any iso and don't miss the extra resolution and easier to work with colour.


1) Why would anyone intentionally underexpose?
2) Never had a banding problem with my 1Ds
3) I've exposed as long as 15 minutes with the 1Ds; long exposures are not an issue; you can read Fred Miranda's own review of long exposures with the 1Ds here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_longexp.html
4) Noise in the sky at any ISO? Here's Fred's take on that as well: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_noise.html
5) There's no perceivable difference between 11.1MP and near-13MP (5D Mark 1)
6) The color from the 1Ds is a non-issue; the color from the 5D has been well-documented as an issue, particurly skin tones

I'm not defending the 1Ds against the 5D. I own the 5D as well as the 1Ds II. I sold my 1Ds well over a year ago. The 5D, overall, is the better tool. But the 1Ds has VERY special qualities (IQ-wise) of its own that Canon has never duplicated in subsequent models. It is still a fine camera, but it demands a level of technical expertise that the 5D does not. The 5D is much more forgiving.

- Steve


+1, one of the best IQ cam in portrait application - very sharp file

veroman wrote:

Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. Above ISO 400, the 5D wins by a considerable margin. Also, the 1Ds has a clunky interface, poor LCD and odd controls in general. But those things don't bother most of those who use the 1Ds.

- Steve

+1
When I got the 5DmkII I thought I would sell my 1Ds, but I still have it for the wonderful images that I can get in good light.

veroman wrote:
You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. Above ISO 400, the 5D wins by a considerable margin. Also, the 1Ds has a clunky interface, poor LCD and odd controls in general. But those things don't bother most of those who use the 1Ds.

- Steve

+1
the AF on 1ds is very accurate, even on the outer part where its not cross type, its still much more accurate than 40d/50d which all cross type

veroman wrote:
Beni wrote:
veroman wrote:
You might want to read through this recent thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/803419/1#7415290
Bottom line: it's still a great camera. In my opinion, it beats the IQ of the 5D at ISO 400 and below. - Steve

As long as you never underexpose, don't have the banding problem, don't do exposures over 1 second, don't mind noise in the sky at any iso and don't miss the extra resolution and easier to work with colour.


1) Why would anyone intentionally underexpose?
2) Never had a banding problem with my 1Ds
3) I've exposed as long as 15 minutes with the 1Ds; long exposures are not an issue; you can read Fred Miranda's own review of long exposures with the 1Ds here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_longexp.html
4) Noise in the sky at any ISO? Here's Fred's take on that as well: http://www.fredmiranda.com/1Ds_review/index_noise.html
5) There's no perceivable difference between 11.1MP and near-13MP (5D Mark 1)
6) The color from the 1Ds is a non-issue; the color from the 5D has been well-documented as an issue, particurly skin tones

I'm not defending the 1Ds against the 5D. I own the 5D as well as the 1Ds II. I sold my 1Ds well over a year ago. The 5D, overall, is the better tool. But the 1Ds has VERY special qualities (IQ-wise) of its own that Canon has never duplicated in subsequent models. It is still a fine camera, but it demands a level of technical expertise that the 5D does not. The 5D is much more forgiving.

- Steve


I know what I saw after a year of shooting wedding professionally with it, couldn't give a flying **** about the opinion of a hobbyist landscape shooter even if he does own this site.

1) To preserve the whites. There was far less DR with the 1Ds than the 5D. If you wanted to hold a white dress then you had to pull the shadows up in post. Oh and not every photo is perfect out of camera or perfectly shot however much some here might love to believe possible.
2) It's well documented, some cameras had it some didn't. I went to a rental store to test mine against their 3, all of them had it. Lots of info on this forum about it if you search.
3) Anything over a second started getting very noisy at any iso.
4) I'll believe what I've seen, what I have in real files and ignore every other opinion.
5) Nonsense.
6) Profiling the 1Ds has been notoriously difficult, I still can't get decent skin tones and I've been using ACR pretty much since it came out for 100,000's of frames over 5 canon DSLR's.

Beni wrote:
1) To preserve the whites. There was far less DR with the 1Ds than the 5D. If you wanted to hold a white dress then you had to pull the shadows up in post. Oh and not every photo is perfect out of camera or perfectly shot however much some here might love to believe possible.
2) It's well documented, some cameras had it some didn't. I went to a rental store to test mine against their 3, all of them had it. Lots of info on this forum about it if you search.
3) Anything over a second started getting very noisy at any iso.
4) I'll believe what I've seen, what I have in real files and ignore every other opinion.
5) Nonsense.
6) Profiling the 1Ds has been notoriously difficult, I still can't get decent skin tones and I've been using ACR pretty much since it came out for 100,000's of frames over 5 canon DSLR's.


1) The DR of the 1Ds and the 5D (Mark 1) is nearly identical; it's within 1/10 of a stop; even so, what you're describing can be attributed to 99% of the cameras out there, with the possible exception of the Fuji S5 Pro ... but then we're talking about other problems.
2) I'm aware of the banding. I never saw it in mine. Being random means it can be fixed.
3) Again, my long exposures didn't exhibit serious noise, although I did run into hot pixels from time to time. Easily remedied.
4) Those are YOUR shots, YOUR files. The camera doesn't create the quality, you do. What you're looking at and judging is the result of your own work.
5) Again, there is no perceivable difference between the resolution of the 1Ds and the 5D Mk 1. Anyone who claims to see a dramatic difference is seeing things.
6) I've been using PhotoShop since V1.0 (1990). Has no bearing on anything. I got nice tones out of my 1Ds and, when I didn't, I adjusted as needed. Big deal. I adjust with every single camera and every single file I shoot that I intend to print. Of course, if you're talking about out-of-camera JPEGs, I can't comment. I only shoot RAW.

- Steve

This is a fun pissing match

As much as I love my 1Ds, the banding was severe and long exposure was insanely noisy no matter what one did. Ideally, with long exposures I would get both banding and insane noise, which was double fun.

But as for resolution - the 11MP of the 1Ds look consistently better on my 24x36" prints than the 13MP of the 5D, simply because the 1Ds had way less of an AA filter than the 5D, so you got sharper images out of it. Not sure how big you print your wedding pictures, and I know that you don't care about my big landscapes (or space shuttles or anything like that), so we can simply disagree on that one.

Here's info on how to set up the 1Ds, and lot's of 100% crops showing the (wonderful) output you can get out of it: http://home.earthlink.net/~ladlueck/

skid00skid00 wrote:
Here's info on how to set up the 1Ds, and lots of 100% crops showing the (wonderful) output you can get out of it: http://home.earthlink.net/~ladlueck/

What a great find. Thanks for posting.

- Steve