1D Mark IV Review

Canon Rumors
1 Min Read

Review of the 1D Mark IV
I have commissioned Justin Gryba and his great review of the 1D Mark IV to become part of the Canon Rumors team. You may have read his review before on his own blog. However, he has already updated his findings on the review posted here, and will continue his updates here as he gains more experience with the camera and I’m going to add my impressions as well. This is not a finished review!

The review will be parked under “Camera Reviews” in the main menu at the top.

https://www.canonrumors.com/canon-eos-1d-mark-iv-review/

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56 Comments
  • First!

    I find it strange that this camera is not that much better in terms of ISO noise than the 5d mk2. So it can go up to 102,400 whatever. It is not even useable. The real juice is when the 3200 and 6400 ISOs are cleaned up.

  • Thanks for the review. It just reinforces my belief that the 1DMkIV is a special-purpose sports camera for use with long primes. That’s not a camera that I want to buy.

  • wuck, i think your being naive.
    its all nice wonderfull to believe you can overcome a camera’s limits with talent and sometimes you can and sometimes you cant. you camera can and will always be a factor in your photography.
    not being able to capture that one special shot in the evening because your camera’s iso range maxes out at 3200 has nothing to do with talent.

  • You’re being charitable in calling him “naive”. The reviewer mentioned being rattled at spending nearly $6000 to buy a camera that wouldn’t do what he most wanted to do. Then again, if Wuck wants to buy me a 1DMkIV, I’d take it.

    Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Nikon has better marketing people and engineers than Canon does.

  • So you base your judgement on one review? Awesome. Being narrow-minded and lazy in doing your own research is worse than being naive. Please shift to Nikon and choose from their 10 12mp cameras.

  • Actually, in most other reviews i’ve seen, the 5D MK II came out a little better. The test images were made at F11, which has quite a bit of difraction affects and might make the Noise look slightly different. Its very difficult to change distance, lenses or zoom to get equal sized images without also affecting something else.

    Like the reviewer, I’m suprised that they limited the spot AF. What were they thinking?

    I’ve always known that my 5d MK II had extremely good AF in extreme low light, I found it hard to believe it would focus in near darkness, but it does. I’d have expected the 1D MK IV to do better.

    The 1D MK III right now is a bargain at around $2,000 US used, it performs extremely well for a few dollars more than a new 7D. I went ahead and bought one and am spending the difference in price on new lenses.

  • Good review, thanks! Canon upped their game with 7D and 1Dmk4, those are both fine cams. Lets see if Nikon can match/beat them this year.

  • What, so now we’re letting Canadians write camera reviews, eh? Keep this up and they’ll start thinking they’re as good as Americans… I’m just sayin’…

  • Great review, but please, take out the HUGE photos of the camera itself! One is more than enough. And then the article will be much shorter and much more readable.

    Thanks

  • Why can’t they just make a camera that switches from 1x to 1.6x crop? It’s not that hard. Just have the pixels move from the outter point of the sensor to the inner, and voila. You’ve got a 1.6x or a 1x if choose to.

  • Yes, no voicing of dissatisfaction allowed here. Only group-think and fanboism is allowed.

    Thanks.

  • I Didn’t understand actualy. If you want to crop you can do and in a better way, with your PC. It is better because you can compose again. The IQ would be the same. A Canon FF can’t mount EF-S lenses (they could damage the camera) so how can be useful to have a 1.6 crop on camera itself?

  • On the average i find that a lot of Americans are still arrogant and are racists just like you. Your past History is full of it. You give good Americans a bad name. Respect is earned and you have none.

  • Actually, you can modify some EF-S lenses to fit full frame cameras, without too much butchery:

    http://www.pbase.com/lightrules/efconv

    But I agree that basically Nikon DX crop mode is a gimmick. Basically it’s there to pacify all those that invested heavily in DX lenses before Nikon came out with FX cameras.

  • Hey.

    No offence, but I think the EOS 7D would have been a better comparison than the EOS 50D. I do believe you own one, no?

  • Thanks for the review.

    I realise that video isn’t your forte, but perhaps we could see some notes on the video? It isn’t your thing, but ultimately the video will be a big lure to many.

  • Interesting! :) But Canon will not support this hack I think!! :)

    I agree with you on Nikon. I was trying to say the same. Nikon did it for a reason. There is no reason for Canon to do the same.

  • Canon rumours IS a Canadian Website, why are you reading it?

    I’m a US citizen, but have lived in Canada, and visit frequently. My son was born in Canada.

    The Canadian residents I’ve met and worked with are no different from US residents, except that they seem to be friendlier and perhaps harder working.

    Canadian Photographers, and in fact, photographers from all over the world are talented and knowledgeable about their craft. Judge a photographer by his work, not by where he lives.

  • I think he did but got rid of it. He didn’t like the files very much if I remember. He called them mushy… or something like that.

  • I (Justin) did the review, and not CR Guy. I actually do not own a 7D, nor do I own a 50D. However, I have had experience with a 50D (and therefore could compare it against more than first impressions) and had access to one to test with.

    I agree a 7D would have been a better comparison, unfortunately it couldn’t be arranged at the time. But that might be something to add to in the future. Thanks for the suggestion

  • Justin, Thanks for the review. It’s great…well written, and very thorough.

    Of course no review will ever be perfect, or perfectly complete. It’s very difficult to evaluate complex equipment like these dlsr’s, and utlimately much comes down to opinion and judgment.

    Let’s also face it: there will be some people who will not be pleased with any review unless the equipment reviewed is declared to be the holy grail plus the greatest thing since sliced bread.

    The bottom line is that the 1d4 is a fantastic device. The hard part is just finding one at a reputable dealer.

  • The 1DMk4 small grains reminds me of the old 400D. All the reviews I have seen to date shows the 5DMk2 beating the 1DMk4 in IQ the latter is soft in comparison. Has the reviewer tweaked the 1DMk4 images or shot them in different settings because that is the only way he could get better result.

  • yes, I heavily tweaked the images. I mentioned in the review that I had placed my personal and typical ““real-world” processing settings” because nothing I give to a client is SOOC. I will update the review to include the exact settings I used.

  • I find it strange that anyone would find it strange that a smaller APS-H sensor would be expected to be much better than a recent FF sensor.

    Also the reviewer wonders why he found worse grain from the 5D2 compared to the 1D4 than some other reviews. Well it appears that he is comparing pixel to pixel instead of doing a normalized comparison, the only fair way to compare (although it is hard to be quite sure how the samples were taken, it doesn’t mention anything about resize normalization).

  • just wondering CR guys do you know anything about he inclusion of SPOT-AF assignment to standard buttons in a future firmware release similar to the 7D?

  • such an assignment is what I atleast hope Canon does through a firmware upgrade if enough awareness and outcry is caused. I can’t understand the reasoning behind it, I just hope they can fix it.

  • The cropping is done by not using the outer pixels. the result is the same as crop it in the computer. you will loss ore than half of the pixel. Cropping in the camera does not buy you anything. It will only get rid of the u-sharp corner and more than half of the pixel.

  • You’re right, the lightrules conversion was meant for the 10D as well -should have looked a little harder. It does raise the question of the mirror size on 1.3x crop bodies and whether it would collide with EFS-EF converted lenses (probably would). All a little bit moot anyway as it would be pretty pointless, I have never heard of anyone regularly using third-party crop frame lenses on their 1.3x or FF bodies. Doubtless this last comment will drag someone out of the woodwork who does!

  • Yep nice review and slr. To sum it up, pretty much confirms what we all already know which is that this camera was designed specifically for shooting sports. Most likely better performance could be had from nikons range of slr for shooting weddings and events etc due to full frame, that is until the 1Ds IV becomes available. Nothing to get excited about here, will wait for the next 1Ds.

  • It seems the high priced 1Ds will be a Canon shooters only option if they want a Full Frame Pro body. I myself think its a F__King disgrace and a ripoff. I have a 5D 1&2 which i use to shoot weddings & Portraits etc and would love a FF probody with Pro autofocus. Is it just me that thinks charging 4 or 5 times the amount of a 5D2 for this extra privilage is justified?????

  • I do not want in camera cropping nor to mount EF-S lenses on 1.3x camera, but there are several advantages (maybe useful to somebody else):
    * faster in camera processing of an image
    * faster saving an image to memory card
    * later image sequence buffer fill

  • No it’s not just you. I think that’s what the 5D3 rumor is trying to suggests is going to change in a year’s time. We’ll get the full frame performance paired with a pro, or at least (more) pro autofocus system. The 1Ds4 is going to be a beast of a camera, but it comes with a beast of a price. The current 1Ds model is getting long in the tooth.

  • dear wucky,

    nobody stated anywhere that we base our opinions on one review, thats you assumption
    please stop embarrassing yourself

  • Get it right

    * Name CR Guy
    * Location Canada
    * Web http://www.canonrumors.com/
    * Bio You Gotta Know

    It’s Canadian, don’t like it? don’t believe it?
    go to top of the page and click twitter look to the right, above all the pics.

  • From a new review by Michael Willems:

    In general, even an amateur-level Nikon camera offers more customizing settings than a 1-level Canon body, and alas, that has not changed. It seems to me that Canon controls their market by leaving functions out; Nikon expands its market by including extra functions.

    This seems to be exactly what this reviewer has found but not outright said. Leaving out features like spot af, and many other updates from the 7D, and much customization in general in their lineups (auto iso still comes to mind)

    Planning to switch to the dark side

  • In the update to this article near the bottom in pros and cons
    and under the cons it says “Spot-AF and Spot AF can only be activated on the select 7 lenses that have an AF-OFF button”
    Anyone know which 7 Lenses he speaks of?

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