Canon EOS 1D Mark IV Initial Thoughts: ISO and Image Samples

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV Initial Thoughts

We’ve gone through a whirlwind of testing ever since our review unit of the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV arrived, thanks to the tremendous efforts of B&H Photo. I don’t know how they did it, but they got us a copy in short order, and we of course want to give you some results ASAP. We’ve spent a good deal of time lately with the Nikon D3s, and wow, I’ve just been really impressed with its low light abilities. So naturally you and I are both curious as to how the EOS 1D Mark IV compares so let’s hit a couple of points, then get to some image and ISO samples.

Availability

For photographers looking to get their hands on the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, it’s going in and out of stock at B&H Photo. The best thing to do if isn’t in stock, is do their email notification, it doesn’t look like it’s taking very long for new shipments to come in, so you likely will get your copy soon. For all your camera gear we strongly recommend B&H Photo, but especially for a camera like the 1D Mark IV, you don’t want to trust your $5000 purchase to retailers with less than stellar reputations. Shopping at B&H Photo helps to support this site, so by using the links below you get the best deal, and great reliability and service, while supporting Neutralday.com

• Canon EOS 1D Mark IV camera body at B&H Photo: $4999.95

Impressive In the Hands

First up build wise, nothing’s changed from the Canon EOS 1D Mark III. the Mark IV is a well made camera, solidly built, with a great feel, and obviously a substantial heft in the hands. It’s big and heavy, but not too heavy. The grip is, for those unfamilar with the 1D series, very much like the 5D Mark II’s, it’s beefy, but not as nicely nuanced as the EOS 7D’s. Comparisons here with the D3s are tricky, on any given day I could say one over the other, and in may ways the cameras are quite similar. I think the Mark IV wins on looks, but the D3s has a better feel in the hands. Another difference, the D3s relies more on switches, the Mark IV more on buttons. I like the D3s’ switches for certain functions like metering and focus modes, it’s a bit quicker to adjust, but the Mark IV wins with better button placement, (like ISO for instance).

Image Quality Looks Good

Next let’s address image quality. The Mark IV has a 16.1 megapixel sensor, but unlike the D3s, this one isn’t a full frame. Instead the Mark IV uses an APS-H size sensor with a 1.3x crop (approx.). Right away you know the Mark IV is putting more megapixels on a smaller sensor ( the D3s uses 12.1 megapixels on full frame sensor (1x crop), yet both cameras feature top end ISO settings of 102,400. So how is the IQ? Well it’s very good, images seem to have a bit of punch to them even at the default settings and noise is pretty minimal, even at higher ISO settings. I’m impressed with overall detail and sharpness, not to mention overall exposure quality. If you compare it to the D3s though, well the Mark IV looks quite a bit noisier, even at ISO 1600 the D3s looks quite a bit better to my eye. Minus the D3s, the Mark IV looks slightly better than the 5D Mark II and likely in-line with D3 and D700 offerings. To be clear–captures look great and ISO characteristics are very good, but the D3s is clearly superior at low light.

Much Improved AF

Finally a few thoughts on the newly improved 45 point AF system.  You get 45 manually selectable points, 39 of them being the cross-type. Even in AI-Servo you can select any point, and the Custom functions allow for scaling up or down the number of points to choose from. We tried the new AF out a local high school basketball game and found the new AF to be fast lock onto focus, while also being very effective at tracking and maintaining focus on moving subjects, even if temporarily blocked by another player. The whole thing felt pretty fluid focusing on one player, and switching to another was easy, and results from either a single point or a point assisted with surrounding points were very good. I’m fairly certain of the OOF (out of focus) shots we got most would be from user error, the likely result of not being able to track the subject with the selected AF point, or picking a bad “point of entry” (trying to focus on a player not visible). I can’t guarantee it, but I think most professionals are going to be much more happy with their results from the Mark IV, versus the Mark III.

ISO Comparisons

Camera set to aperture priority, set to f/8. Noise reduction is disabled and dynamic range enhancers are also disabled. A quick note, I generally run these tests through Adobe’s Lightroom, however the files looked so poor in 2.6, that I instead have used Canon’s included Digital Photo Professional (DPP) for these files. Noise Reduction sliders were adjusted to “0″. Also of note, at times the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV will render a “bad” image at high ISO, a image that will typically have a very heavy cast of yellow, sometimes in a gradient across the image. This can happen for several attempts in a row, it’s odd, but waiting a moment with the camera and then trying again usually alleviates the problem. Use the image below to orient yourself to the positions of the crops, and each crop can be clicked for a 100% view of each crop. The full set of uncropped, full sized ISO samples can be found here. The low light examples are here.

Crop Source

Crop 1

ISO 100	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 12800
ISO 25600	ISO 51200
ISO 102400

Crop 2

ISO 100	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 12800
ISO 25600	ISO 51200
ISO 102400

Low Light Crop Example
Same as crop 2 above but with much less available light.

ISO 1600	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 12800
ISO 25600	ISO 51200
ISO 102400

AF Samples

Taken in less than ideal indoor light, with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. Click each crop for a larger view or explore the “original size” link for the full sized file.

Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 195 mm ISO Speed: 5000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 180 mm ISO Speed: 5000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 125 mm ISO Speed: 4000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 175 mm ISO Speed: 5000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 200 mm ISO Speed: 4000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 190 mm ISO Speed: 4000 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 120 mm ISO Speed: 3200 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 115 mm ISO Speed: 3200 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size

Image Samples

Click each image for a larger view, or explore the “original size” link for the unedited original.

Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1600) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 185 mm ISO Speed: 800 Exposure Bias: +4/3 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 70 mm ISO Speed: 800 Exposure Bias: +4/3 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 185 mm ISO Speed: 800 Exposure Bias: +4/3 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 195 mm ISO Speed: 1600 Exposure Bias: +2/3 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320) Aperture: f/7.1 Focal Length: 73 mm ISO Speed: 100 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 150 mm ISO Speed: 800 Exposure Bias: +4/3 EV original size
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125) Aperture: f/2.8 Focal Length: 185 mm ISO Speed: 3200 Exposure Bias: +2/3 EV original size	Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160) Aperture: f/9.0 Focal Length: 95 mm ISO Speed: 100 Exposure Bias: 0 EV original size

We’ll have more on the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV when our review is published, and stay tuned for ISO comparisons with the Nikon D3s.

Order the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV now at B&H Photo

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1. 

   Kev says:

   January 18, 2010 at 4:16 pm

   Well i am very impressed but i have been with the last two 1 series canon’s (1D and now 1Dmk2n) this is the sort of camera ive been waiting for, better focus tracking (i like motorcycle racing) OOF shots are a bain of my life! but with the new 1Dmk4, OOF shots should be halved or even better. I recently took on a few weddings, and using hi ISO’s has been a nightmare with the noise, most i converted to B&W but with the ISO performance of the new mk4, im sure i could get much better results.

   It sounds like my prayers have been answer (along with a lot more professionals) sadly its out of my price range, i really wish i could afford one. I suppose i will have to wait for a used mk4 to become available.

   Awesome camera, thanks for the review.

   Kev

   reply
   • 

     Patrick says:

     January 19, 2010 at 8:30 pm

     Kev,
     You’re welcome and thanks for stopping by.

     reply
2. 

   Michael says:

   January 20, 2010 at 9:32 am

   Hi there,

   question: ISO 12800 from fist testfoto ist worse than 5D Mark II (on this side http://www.neutralday.com/canon-eos-7d-vs-canon-eos-5d-mark-ii-iso-comparison-2/)???
   I cant estimate them.

   With best regards
   Michael

   reply
   • 

     Patrick says:

     January 21, 2010 at 12:08 am

     Michael, that comparison is done in normal lighting conditions, where as here the lights are essentially off, the ISO 100 shot here for example is around 5 seconds, so yes, they look different.

     reply
     • 

       Michael says:

       January 21, 2010 at 5:09 am

       @ Patrick,
       Thanks for answer.

       Michael

       reply
       • 

         Patrick says:

         January 23, 2010 at 1:42 pm

         You’re welcome.

         reply
3. 

   Michael says:

   January 20, 2010 at 9:34 am

   Sorry, try this link:

   http://www.neutralday.com/canon-eos-7d-vs-canon-eos-5d-mark-ii-iso-comparison-2/

   reply
4. 

   muyiwa says:

   January 24, 2010 at 11:47 pm

   Hi, thanks so much for the super in-depth review of the ISO capabilities. I’m a wedding photographer and I currently shoot the 1d Mk 2. I’ve been quite impressed with the high ISO capabilities of the 5D Mk 2, but I prefer the pro body because of ergonomics, and the dual card capability among a couple of other reasons. The review makes the high ISO performance not look a LOT better than my current rig. Of course its better, but I’m just not seeing $5k worth of improvement. Now I’m torn.

   reply