The digital-monochrome worker June 09 issue

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This camera was built for speed and in every respect it does not fail, fire of a 2 second burst and you have taken 20 images, but it will still keep firing without pause, withe a good fast memory card write times are just the same, no pause or waiting, you will never miss a shot with it, not only is it fast at taking pics, the way the whole camera operating system is made and set out, reviewing and deleting images is a doddle. Want to bracket without a tripod, providing shutter speeds are highish, shooting into the light :), set auto bracket, set drive to high speed, steady yourself and fire, in milliseconds you have three shots that register for multi raw editing, for those that like HDR you can set it to bracket 7 shots. There is also a silent mode for the shutter and it really works, take the shot and all you hear is quite mirror up, bring the camera down to your side and let the mirror drop, great for theatre shooting etc. Live view is a great feature, now you will read that it does not AF in this mode, no problem, set the camera so the set button activates the live view, and set the AF button to the back of the camera, you simply press the AF button then press the set button and all is in focus, quick to do and accurate, also the mirror locks up in LV mode, another advantage. All 1D Cameras have a built in hand grip That's part of the main body, its far better than separate ones, easier to keep water and dust out, and is near perfect for holding in portrait format. Build quality is awesome, I had a 5d with grip and its weight was probably more than the MK3, they are lighter than the previous MK2 versions, the new batteries help here, loads smaller but will give thousands of shots before running out, the battery power is now indicated in percentage terms that helps enormously, no guess work as to when its going to die, bodies all water sealed as well, I have used my cams in torrential downpours with no adverse affects. I wont go into all the cameras settings etc, take to long, but there well documented, but all you need with is an hour of reading the manual and you will be up and running in no time, not knocking Nikon here, there also superb, but the Nikon D3 manual is twice the size and ten times more confusing, to many settings IMHO. Now there has to be down sides and here are a few I have found. The 3inch LCD is great, but wish its was sharper, the AF button is a little to far placed, although you can assign other buttons to do that. wish it took two CF cards, instead of CF plus SD. the images straight out of camera can be a little disappointing, they look softish, but sharpen up very well, and thats really my main moans, might be others, but none come to mind and would be nitpicking. My camera came back from Canon UK, [service was amazing 3 day turnround plus full clean up], I have used it at three races and finely it does what it was meant to do, it focuses so fast you cant see it happening, speed was never an issue, the last race i did, I took 340 images with one OOF shot, all moving targets, not a bad hit rate :D. As I said previously, if there had been no AF issue in the beginning, the accolades from pros and serious amateurs would have been great, Canons best, fastest, quality DSLR ever. The other thing for me is this, not only is it primarily designed for fast action, its also now, unlike the MK2 versions, an all round camera, it takes great pictures from portrait to landscapes, with good lens, delivers detailed images, a tonal range that helps in colour and mono work, plus the dynamic range gives pictures with a true 3d look to them. So if you want pure resolution, then the 1ds or 5dmk2 is the way to go, for a camera that does all things very well indeed don't hesitate, you will love it. Camera rating of 9/10 , it would have been 10/10 but don’t want to appear bias

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