1D MKIII upgrade from 7D?

andyjayh

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I am thinking about buying a second body so I can have a second lens on hand more rapidly. Since going 300 prime I find it a bit of a pain if I suddenly have a close subject to capture. My main subjects are aviation based either at airshows, low-fly or model flying. This problem is especially true with model flying as the better pilots tend to come down very low and close and I have to run away with a 300 prime :bang:

Been pondering what a second body could be and have seen that the 1D MKIII prices are coming down now. Therefore my question is would the 1D be an upgrade on the 7D in IQ and AF and become my primary body? I understand the 1D has a lower MP count at 10 and it has a crop of 1.3x so in that respect it is a step in the wrong direction as with air shows I need focal length. However I have read many times the 10M sensor produces better IQ than the 18M 7D? Also been told the AF of the 1D is still faster than the 7D although the 7D is the latest design?

So is the 1D MKIII a step up or sideways from the 7D? Anyone else gone either way on these two bodies?
 
get yourself a 1d and sell me your 7d for 600 quid job jobed
 
get yourself a 1d and sell me your 7d for 600 quid job jobed

Then I would be out of pocket and still have the same lens issue :lol:
 
I hope it's OK to post a link to a post I placed on another forum but it compares the 7D and 1D using model aircraft when I first got the 7D. Now, I'm using TCs on both lens options so the IQ is already down, I just wanted to really make them work. Since shooting this I can safely say shooting without a TC gives much better AF accuracy and also speed so with your 300 it will be great with both but better with the 1DmkIII. The 10mp issue isn't one as the per pixel IQ is great!

http://photocamel.com/forum/canon-forum/96751-putting-7d-test.html
 
mark your talking your self into it
you know my view already lol
 
Thanks Mark, that's really helpful especially as it's based around the same subject, RC aircraft. I didn't see you next post and thought it's a shame the pics aren't there and then found them on the second page :)

Interesting as a lot of similar kit used there also. I have a Sigma 120-300 2.8 also, although probably selling to a mate now I have the Canon 300 2.8. I also have a Canon 1.4 and Sig 2x TC and have found with the 120-300 the 1.4x worked well but did slightly slow the AF but only slightly. However it wasn't useable with the 2x tc. With the Canon 300 2.8 the 1.4 has no effect on performance and the 2x is very usable with little performance impact although IQ is lower.

Back on subject, I guess your results are that the 7D is very good for the money and a great blend of technologies but the 1D3 is better IQ and AF?
 
Great :) Just out of interest, you tried a MK4 yet?
 
That's a very good point :lol: :lol:
 
Should be able to answer this question myself soon. Went to look at one at my local dealer and somehow it is now sitting on my table at home :D Credit card is feeling a bit abused though :lol:
 
Great :) Just out of interest, you tried a MK4 yet?

I have and it is superb i also have the 7D and i had the 1D mk2 for a long time both excellent cameras. I had the 1Dmk3 for a while but we won't discuss that you get good ones and bad ones and mine was awful. Not all of them are i have a friend who has one and it is superb and its a early model with no mods the difference to mine was like light and day when you tried them side by side.
Regards
Richard
 
I have and it is superb i also have the 7D and i had the 1D mk2 for a long time both excellent cameras. I had the 1Dmk3 for a while but we won't discuss that you get good ones and bad ones and mine was awful. Not all of them are i have a friend who has one and it is superb and its a early model with no mods the difference to mine was like light and day when you tried them side by side.
Regards
Richard

Thanks Richard, very interesting. Could you expand on the differencies that should stand out on a poor one? As I'm new to the MK3 I would like to know what I should be looking for to check the camera is performing to the level of a pro body.
 
Thanks Richard, very interesting. Could you expand on the differencies that should stand out on a poor one? As I'm new to the MK3 I would like to know what I should be looking for to check the camera is performing to the level of a pro body.

The AF in servo mode never worked well on mine 3 visits to canon no noticible difference the initial first shot was always good it was the following shots in the sequence 2 soft 1 sharp then soft again but not really umph just a tad off in most cases but just enough to cause you to bin the image. Clives one when i tried it was so different when i shot with that with my settings i was up around 7-8 images out of 10 sharp even the 1d mk 2 i was getting 7 sharp the best with my 1d mk3 was 3 in 10.
You never really knew what you were going to get till you got them on screen. I did get my money back because we proved it was the camera under the sale of goods act that was the beauty of having 2 cameras available.
Get a good one and you will be a very happy man :thumbs: just take a laptop with you and ask to try it on moving subjects
Regards
Richard
P.s i think mine was just a very bad copy i have tried a few since and only found one other that was'nt good
These were taken with the 1Dmk4
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Thanks for the info Richard, now I know what I'm looking for with mine.

Went out today and put it through it's paces with a very hard subject to track, an RC petrol buggy :thumbs: Now I didn't expect this to be 100% perfect as this was a stupidly fast object to track but there were a lot of misses. Now some I am quite happy to say were operator error, ok, quite a few actually but I though this sequence was interesting as it obtained focus lock, then lost it and then regained again. Expected AF performance?

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Plus I had quite a few what seemed like front focusing, couple of examples;

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My 2 year old 1d Mk3 has just let me down badly.
The autofocus thinks it has locked on and lets me take the shot, but is wildly out of focus, and I'm talking blurred.
This is not the well documented AF Servo problems this model was blighted with from launch (mine is a 'yellow dot' issued after all the carry on) I'm using normal, spot focusing.

It's about to go away for repair and I was looking at the 7d as a backup second body.

The files from the 1d Mk3 are lovely. I shoot exclusively concert photography so am always pushing the ISO and it produces files acceptable to agency picture desks. I no longer can trust it though. :|
 
From my experience the 7D is a great camera but the 1D3 does produce better IQ from higher ios settings. Although I was initially disappointed by the noise produced by the 7D this is easily sorted with NR within LR or probably other production software.

Shame about your mk3, I hope to have a better experience once I get used to the settings. Resisting trading it back for a mk4 as I can't afford one of them…… :lol:
 
Andy, I think the focus problems with the RC car (even though this looks like a 1/5th scale) are due to fast changes of direction, also as it moves around the frame the camera will find that what it was focusing on has gone and so needs something else. Give it a bash on something more stable (real car, runner etc) and see how you go.
 
Yes this was a tough test to be honest, not helped by my lack of skill and knowledge :lol: It was totally unplanned and I went to take pics of aircraft but when this came out of my mates boot I thought this would be ideal as a workout. I think with a few setting changes like winding the shutter speed down from 10fps to 6 or 7 might of helped. Next time I will note which series of shots I have which settings enabled so I can review properly. However I have a better understanding of the custom functions now so will be better prepared next time.

The shots I took of the rc aircraft on the day all came out well so I think I will be happy with the 1d3 performance here. I want to get over to Wales and the Mach Loop asap to try it out on some proper fast moving subjects :cool:
 
I started off with it on one below middle and then set it to the slowest whilst trying to tract the buggy. There were a lot of cones that were getting in the way and by turning the tracking speed down it really helped keeping the AF locked on the buggy :D
 
Ideal, I usually keep mine on the lowest or 2nd lowest and seems to be about the best.

Thanks Mark, does seem best to slow the tracking down a tad :D
 
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