Canon's new professional DSLR, the EOS-1D Mark IV, enters a much more competitive and difficult market than the one that greeted the EOS-1D Mark III in February of 2007. More manufacturers are serious about competing in the professional segment and long-time favorite brands of pros have upgraded their offerings. The world's economy has been in turmoil for more than two years, causing distress for dealers, distributors and manufacturers as well as for their customers. How does a distributor or dealer order an inventory of cameras when its traditional lines of commercial credit have dried up? And certainly, any individual's purchase that can be described as discretionary must take its place in line behind life's necessities.
Canon understands that the EOS-1D Mark IV has to be prepared to answer all questions, vanquish all competitors and appeal strongly to any and all who would use it to make their living. This is an epic challenge. Canon's vast R&D staff has worked furiously to produce just such a camera. As you read in detail about the many aspects of the EOS-1D Mark IV's excellence, it becomes apparent that Canon's engineers, designers and scientists have indeed succeeded.
For whom is the EOS-1D Mark IV designed? To begin with, it is for the EOS-1 Series' traditional constituency: professional photographers in virtually every category from photojournalism and sports through nature, wedding, portrait and fashion to commercial, industrial and law enforcement. There is a great deal here to appeal to all of them in its new AF system, refined image quality, advanced workflow, customizable controls and incredible responsiveness. But there is a second camera inside the body of the EOS-1D Mark IV, an HD video camera with amazing low-light performance, outstanding portability, a huge sensor similar in size to the Super 35mm motion picture film format and a level of durability unheard of in most HD video cameras. Professional videographers will recognize it immediately, the way they identified the video potential of the EOS 5D Mark II. Still photographers at a wedding, at a runway show, at a fire, will realize that they have with them an extraordinary tool with which to capture the events before them and to distribute those results on the rapidly growing universe of web video sites (YouTube.com™, Vimeo.com™ and so many others) plus all the other media providers, such as newspapers and magazines that routinely offer video as part of their online mix.
Then there's the value argument. The EOS-1D Mark IV will have an estimated retail price of $4,999 at introduction, a highly competitive opening price for a state-of-the-art, go anywhere, do anything professional DSLR with great speed, outstanding image quality and remarkable convenience. Now, throw in that Full HD video capability. It's hard to say exactly how much this is worth because there is no direct equivalent in the world of pro video -- but it's fair to say that the EOS-1D Mark IV's video functionality alone is worth several thousand dollars at least. If you are a still photographer, you've paid nothing whatsoever for this incredible video capability. If you are a videographer accustomed to spending five figures or even higher for a professional camera, it will be well worth it to buy at least several EOS-1D Mark IV cameras for serious production work; the images are that good and the price is so appealing.
This paper details the ways in which the EOS-1D Mark IV has been designed to produce terrific still images and videos, afford its users a tremendous range of configurability, be a precise and rugged companion, and be a pleasure to use. Follow the discussion and see if you don't agree.
Canon 1D Mark IV White Paper (Download PDF here) Photo Album: Canon 16 Megapixels 1D Mark IV DSLR Camera with With HD Video and High ISO
1D Mark IV Sample Photos on Flickr
| DCR: "Canon's newest 1D model has no pretenses about being anything other than the high performance leader of the Canon DSLR fleet. You can pay more for the 1Ds Mark III, but not shoot nearly as fast, and with not all that much more resolution than the Mark IV. No built-in flash, no scene shooting modes,..." - Mar 07 2010 More » | |
| dpreview: "Canon's 1D series have always been the results of carefully considered evolution but in this instance the evolution is so subtle that you can almost think of the Mark IV as the EOS-1D Mark III Mark II. The body and handling are essentially unchanged, which is to be expected, as the Mark III's ergon..." - Feb 22 2010 More » | |
| Michael Willems: "The big disappointment is the absence of so many of the 7D's focus system improvements. I suppose the Mk IV was developed prior to the 7D, so we will have to wait until the 1Ds Mark IV to see these. Thus, the 7D's excellent new internal LCD viewfinder screen is absent, as are several of the various..." - Feb 10 2010 More » | N/A |
| TrustedReviews: "The other major improvement for the EOS-1D Mk IV is the new 45-point autofocus system, which features 39 of the more sensitive and accurate cross-type sensors, which unusually are positioned around the outside of the focus area, with the six conventional strip-type sensors in a line across the midd..." - Oct 30 2009 More » | N/A |
| DPI: "The Canon EOS 1D Mark IV powers on pretty much instantaneously and auto focusing is snappy as ever, even on a pre-production unit. I tried out the camera in AI Servo mode with an EF 70-200 mm f2.8 lens and took several sequences of continuous shots of moving subjects in rather hot and humid conditi..." - Oct 22 2009 More » | N/A |
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