Michael:1DS MK II for what size over 1DS?

The 1Ds MKII isn't really about increased resolution, as I pointed out in my review. Yes, the jump from 11MP to 16MP is a 23% increase in image area, but that's not what the camera offers as its main advantages.

The big news is the handling. The MKII is fast, almost instantanious and intuative in its responsiveness compared to the 1Ds. It also has about a one stop improvement in noise, so that ISO 800 looks like 400, and so on.

The rear LCD is much brighter and higher res, and the RGB histogram is very welcome.

Anyone looking to switch to a MKII just for the increase in resolution is missing out on what's really of greatest importance.

As for lenses, I use all of my zooms as well as primes. The point of photography is to capture meangingful images, not to count lines / MM. Buy and use the best lenses that you can for the type of shooting that you do, and then concentrate on image making, not technical analysis.

Michael

[subrata1965]

Michael,

          On your "Canon 1Ds Mark II - A Hands-On Field Report", you said

         "I expect to be able to publish a comparison with the original 1Ds, and also against the Phase One P25, in the next couple of weeks, and will update my thoughts and experiences with the 1Ds Mark II once I have a chance to use it more extensively in the field".

         But till date, I don't see any detail comparison between original 1Ds and 1Ds MK II on your site.

         Would appreciate if you can please let us know your opinion on followings:

          1) For what print size, one should consider 1ds MK II over original 1Ds?
          2) What are the lenses you will consider to resolve resolution of 1ds MK II?
          3) For RAW shooters (landscape / wildlife), apart from resolution, is there anything better in 1ds MK II than original 1Ds?

          Thanks.

Subrata

[BJL]

As for lenses, I use all of my zooms as well as primes. The point of photography is to capture meangingful images, not to count lines / MM. Buy and use the best lenses that you can for the type of shooting that you do, and then concentrate on image making, not technical analysis.

A great point, a bit like something I have been thinking: increasing the quality of the sensor or film used will not make any lens perform worse than before (judged on displayed images of the same size viewed from the same distance), so if a lens worked well for a given purpose before, it still will. Indeed, you will probably get at least a bit of improvement in sharpness/constrast/resolution and such too, since these are always the combined effect of lens and sensor, even when one or the other is the more important limiting factor.

The more relevant question is what to do in the cases where your old gear was not giving results as good as you would like to get. Probably the best thing to do is try out your current lenses with the new camera, find their limits if any, and decide if and when you can benefit from getting and using a sharper lens (be it a prime or just a better zoom.)