James, without wishing to offend you, I think you should test the 1Ds3's focus carefully before you use one in a pay job; Rob Galbraith documents that the focus of the 1Ds3 is like that of the 1DIII still somewhat unreliable. The "fix" didn't really work.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_pag...-8740-9068-9357
Rob has taken hundreds and hundreds of images in each of a number of sports and also lifestyle assignments, and statistically documents the number of in-focus images. What is rather surprising is that the single point one-shot focus which we all love and use is according to him less reliable than a pulse of servo AI AF.
Edmund
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I've owned every Canon digital except the 1d Mark III and except for the mark2N, have found auto focus to be almost a mirror to these findings, even on stationary subjects with slight movement.
I'm actually surprised that it took so long for it to get reported, but like most things with digital it usually is scene and lighting dependent.
Consequently the Nikon D3 is like a sniper rifle in comparison, always sharp with amazing tracking ability. Really amazing in any light.
Still, as of now, (at least until the next round of Nikons are introduced) the Canon makes the best high pixel count/high iso file of anything.
For a lot of work that we do, especially on location, I can't stress enough how much higher iso and a good lcd is important for medium format.
A month back we shot a fashion gig with back window light and HMI fill into 12x rags and cards.
With the P30+ set right on the edge of usability at 400 iso and around 4.5 it was a constant situation of adding light, first for the fill, so we could actually go to 4.5 then for the background outside so we could get back to a natural balance.
Then you find yourself saying for the most part of the day, hold it, hold it, because your always running at 1/60th, locked down on a tripod.
Consequently had I shot them with a higher iso dslr camera it would have easily been a one or two hmi day and I probably could have hand held 90% of the shoot.
Just from a pure business standpoint you increase your production load and time involvement 30%.
Add to the fact we normally shoot some motion video of each session using flash vs. hmi's means another set of lights and this compounds the costs and the time once again.
I know this is a medium format forum and everybody's hot to push the image quality of a medium format camera, but image quality in medium format takes a big dive at higher isos and don't compare medium format to film, because pushing neg film to 800 iso may have been grainy but it was pretty. Pushing a medium format back to 800 iso and all of the converters start smearing the blacks, sometimes so much that on default settings the blacks look like oil stains.
You can change converters, play with settings sharpen in photoshop etc. etc. etc. and make it useable, but once again it's on the edge and now your post production workload has doubled.
And to top it off the lcd's just aren't reliable, so you have to be either hooked to the cart o' rocks or a tripod with a laptop.
I've got the tripod laptop thing down to a science and since our c-1 sessions are done prior to shooting, the setup time is probably only 5 or 10 minutes at best but do that 10 times a day and you lose an hour of shooting. A great or even semi good lcd, would be worth it's weight in gold.
(Now I've done it and road mapped another $7,000 upgrade for medium format to lay on us).
For what my Plus backs do well, they do it brilliantly. With a lot of light and tethered, they are rock stable, the file quality is really amazing and regardless of who likes what proportion, I find the 4:3 crop to be much nicer and though nicer is a broad term it just looks more lavish and not as squeezed as 35mm. I just think 35mm in vertical looks cheap and I don't know how to explain it but that's the way it looks to me and I loathe turning those Canons on their side and shooting a vertical.
Still, yesterday, testing all of those cameras I look at those beautiful contax's and those expensive backs and it's just a heartbreak to think those cameras will sit in a bag.
Packing up the Mark II's to sell, doesn't bother me in the least as I have no emotional attachment to those two cameras, but if I sold my contax bodies, I would be sad.
I can only speak for myself, but my attachment to cameras starts with the lenses, then the body, then the back. Obviously the back is now the film and it must work seamlessly and without it we're shooting nothing, but my heart is with the lenses and the camera.
Maybe that's why I could never warm up to the H series blads. They just look like they were designed by a committee, and the Mamiya also throws me because they don't feel as substantial. Actually the only camera that I would even think about replacing the Contax with would be the Rolliflex and even if I owned Leaf or Sinar backs, I would never write that check for that camera until I was positive that any back would fit on it, because in the digital world things can change.
As much as I hate buying anything else, I just don't understand why there is not a 10 grand p21 that goes to high iso. and has a useable lcd. Heck I'd even live with the 1.26 crop as at this point I'm use to it.
Those two features would keep the Canons off my set 90% of the time or probably make me never need to buy one in the first place.
Maybe the p65+ will give us higher iso, but since that would be all I would ever use it for, $40,000 is just way too much for a high iso camera. In fact . . . well . . . whatever.
Maybe I'm naive, but medium format digital is the only business I know that guarantees that their customers must purchase a competitors product.
JR
