Should I get the Nikon D3s or the Canon 1D Mark IV?

[Derrel]

I think Canon's executives will cringe when they read the conclusions of a one-month long test and review from one of the web's most-respected authorities on sports journalism and education and training seminars, ROb Galbraith and his staff, including Mike Sturk, who side-by-side compared the Nikon D3s with the Canon 1D Mark IV.

Rob Galbraith DPI: An analysis of EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance

After a solid month's testing, largely with lenses calibrated by Canon, these are some of the conclusions the site reached:

"Add it all up and the conclusion is inescapable: the EOS-1D Mark IV has an AF system that is capable of greatness but is also so bewilderingly variable that there's no way to trust it, especially for outdoor sports. Indoors, EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance has been less variable, but our results from speedskating and basketball are simply not up to par. If this is the best the company could muster, after the autofocus debacle of the EOS-1D Mark III, then it's official: Canon has lost their autofocus mojo."

And, near the conclusion of the article:
"It's worth noting one other fundamental difference between the AF system in the D3S and that of the EOS-1D Mark IV. When Nikon focus is out, it doesn't tend to be way out. More often than not, peak action frames that are not perfectly focused aren't that blurry, making some of them still viable. That is, if you're of a mind that it's better to have a slightly soft frame of a great peak moment than a totally blurry one. The EOS-1D Mark IV, on the other hand, produces many more frames that are too soft to use for anything, no matter how sweet the moment."

"To sum up, our experience with the D3S' AF system is that it's trustworthy and dependable enough for us to be confident using it for peak action sports. Not perfect: it needs to be a bit faster off the line, in addition to the other quibbles we've mentioned. But it does work as needed most of the time, which is in stark contrast to the experience of the EOS-1D Mark IV in the last month."

For those who wish to actually SEE for themselves, the good and the bad, Rob is graciously hosting a huge collection of actual Canon 1D Mark IV files.

Rob Galbraith DPI: Seeing for yourself

Here, you can download apprx. 900 EOS 1D Mark IV files,shot with
• EF 85mm f/1.8
• EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (focus calibrated by Canon service)
• EF 300mm f/2.8L IS (focus calibrated by Canon service)
• EF 400mm f/2.8L IS (new and supplied by Canon USA; before shipping its focus was checked by Canon service)
• EF 400mm f/2.8L IS (borrowed briefly to compare to Canon USA supplied 400mm)
• EF 400mm f/2.8L II (used briefly to compare to newer IS version)

Nearly all of the downloadable pictures were captured with the calibrated EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, calibrated EF 300mm f/2.8L IS or focus checked EF 400mm f/2.8L IS. These large, high-quality photos are spread over 5 large zip files ranging from 176 megabytes to 868 megabytes, and 139 to 344 camera files in size.

 

[Montana]

Whats funny is that he is the only pro shooter with these issues. Many shooters are shooting the exact sports he claims that the camera falls on its face. What is even more funny is all the Nikon ads on his page. And for an even better laugh, many pro sports and BIF shooters are questioning Rob's custom function settings pertaining to autofocus. LOL

I say take everything you read there with a huge grain of salt. Not saying he didn't have issues, but there are some discrepencies already shown.

However, if Canon did flop again, it will be a serious kick in the rear end. The only flaw in the testing of my mkIV thus far has been me. LOL I have just started dialing in my autofocus settings. I have one lens yet to test, the 600 f/4 IS.

I am curious what the post olympic photogs will have to say.


Where is the popcorn munching smiley?

 

[inTempus]

 

[Montana]

I am not saying Rob didn't have issues, but I am also a firm believer that its human nature to be biased. I am sure that there is some bad blood between Rob and Canon. I can only hope that he is not right.......or that I don't ever have to shoot a soccer match. LOL

I still question his use of some of the default settings that he didn't change. I know it'll be more than a few months before I have my settings figured out. Too bad there is so much snow and nothing to shoot.

 

[inTempus]

I am not saying Rob didn't have issues, but I am also a firm believer that its human nature to be biased. I am sure that there is some bad blood between Rob and Canon. I can only hope that he is not right.......or that I don't ever have to shoot a soccer match. LOL

I still question his use of some of the default settings that he didn't change. I know it'll be more than a few months before I have my settings figured out. Too bad there is so much snow and nothing to shoot.

Yeah, if you recall the whole 1D3 flap that he helped to uncover, he never updated his article once the fix was made available. Some speculate bad blood between him and Canon since he dropped it after so much ta-do and never commented once things were resolved.

Every independent review I've read (e.g. people that don't take money from Nikon or Canon for that matter) has shown the 1D3 significantly beating the D3 in AF performance. The D3s and the D3 share the exact same AF system.

 

[inTempus]

There are others out there (pros) using the Mark IV who seem to disagree with Robs findings (and settings).

Example

Another remark from my experience... After spending month and half on (more or less well lit) hills shooting mainly skiing (with pretty much linear and quite predictable movement of athletes), I was shooting handball Champions league match today... sport even worse then basketball, when it come to focusing (at least for me basketball is piece of cake, while handball is not).
If on skiing mk4 is a bit better then mk2, in this pretty dark (yeah everything is pretty dark if you are used to shooting on snow with iso 400 f3.2 and 1/2000sec

) hall with whole bunch of players squeezed together moving completely unpredictable way, mk4 worked a whole lot better then mk2, not just a bit better. Settings are ***** and they work totally different way then on mk2 (even same functions), so af quality depends a lot on these. But once you manage to get it right (afterall it's not rocket science, and after first 5 mins of match, I had things sorted out), there's really no comparison against mk2.
So once again... no matter what others did or will say about this, I'm happy with mk4... even if it's not suppose to work for sports like basketball or handball.

And there are reviews that take a different view point as well.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV Digital SLR Camera Review

As always, what matters is reality - how the design works in real life. And in real life use, the statement I am continually telling myself while reviewing my 1D Mark IV shots (especially those taken in AI Servo mode) is ... I'm impressed.

Canon's DSLRs typically perform very well in One Shot AF mode. Like the 1D Mark III, the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV One-Shot-focuses very fast and very accurately. I don't perceive any differences in AF lock timing between the two.

Far more challenging to a DSLR is AI Servo AF with a subject rapidly approaching the camera at frame-filling distances. This scenario is exceptionally challenging - and this is a DSLR capability that separates the best from rest.

When the Canon EOS 1D Mark III hit the streets, a great controversy surrounding its AI Servo performance erupted. Some encountered few problems, others experienced a significant number of OOF shots. Some (myself included) were pleased with the performance after updates were provided by Canon.

The bottom line is that the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV is delivering a higher percentage of in-focus AI-Servo shots than any DSLR I've used to date. No, it is not perfect (I don't know if perfection can be achieved with a human behind the viewfinder), but, at 10fps, it delivers a VERY impressive number of sharp shots from a burst. For example, in the 21-shot sequence shown below in this review, only 2 or 3 shots are even slightly out of focus - and even these are very close. Very unusual is that nearly all 1D Mark IV AI-Servo AF misses I've seen have been front-focused - usual is for DSLRs to be trailing the action when they miss focus (As I'm writing this review, Canon has issued a firmware update that addresses the specific front-focusing issue I'm experiencing).

So, I don't put too much weight in a single review by a guy that likely has an axe to grind with Canon... not to mention one that takes paid advertising from Nikon.

 

[IgsEMT]

Shouldn't we be talking about "Suk Mi" rather than these two cameras?

I thought I heard her name to be Fuk Mi and was looking for twin Fuk Yu

 

[Montana]

Shouldn't we be talking about "Suk Mi" rather than these two cameras?

I thought I heard her name to be Fuk Mi and was looking for twin Fuk Yu

LMAO:lmao:

 

[schumionbike]

Shouldn't we be talking about "Suk Mi" rather than these two cameras?

I thought I heard her name to be Fuk Mi and was looking for twin Fuk Yu

It's Phuc Mi and Phuc Du not your Americanized spelling

 

[inTempus]

Another shootout by two professional sports photogs including a SI shooter.

Unique Photo: A Unique Photo Shootout Featuring David Bergman and Robert Caplin: Canon 1D Mark IV Versus Nikon D3S

Seems to disagree with Rob's findings, they make no mention of any of the issues he brings up. RAW files provided at the link above.

 

[inTempus]

...and another SI photog that says Canon gets it right:

Baseball Stock Photography: Finally, Canon gets it right with Mark IV :: Mangin Photography Archive

I have been waiting for over two years to be able to shoot with a Canon camera that I could really depend on, so this test was going to be a real confidence-builder for me. It might sound obvious, but I really need a camera that is capable of delivering sharp pictures. To do my job as a sports photographer, I can’t be distracted by paranoid chimping all the time, worried if my pictures were sharp or not.


This camera performed flawlessly.

 

[epatsellis]

Of course you do realize for those of us who learned to focus manually and anticipate (gasp!), this entire conversation borders on the absurd.

While I can understand the need for AF in some situations, I can count the number of times I used it in my own work on one hand. Granted I don't shoot sports but c'mon, are you really willing to let your ability to make a compelling image depend on the focusing system above all else?

 

[Derrel]

Of course you do realize for those of us who learned to focus manually and anticipate (gasp!), this entire conversation borders on the absurd.

While I can understand the need for AF in some situations, I can count the number of times I used it in my own work on one hand. Granted I don't shoot sports but c'mon, are you really willing to let your ability to make a compelling image depend on the focusing system above all else?

That's a good question epatsellis. But, if you don't shoot sports, you're probably not aware of how amazing the newer AF bodies and lenses actually are. I grew up in the manual focus era,and the biggest difference there is that the viewfinder screens were coarser, and film SLR's reflected almost 100 percent of the light that hit the mirror, upward and to the viewfinder screen and then the pentaprism. The viewfinder images were HUGE compared with the crop-body Canon 1D-series bodies (the 1.3x models) and the Nikon D1 and D2 series bodies. Now, one HUGE difference is that the newer AF cameras siphon off as much as 40 percent of the incoming light: the mirrors are now roughly 60/40 reflective/transmissive. The AF systems receive their smaller amount of light right THROUGH the mirror, and that is how the AF systems get their input, when the mirror is down; the other 60 percent or so of the light goes up, to the screen, and to the prism, and then your eye. TO compensate for the 40% loss of light to the AF sensors located in the bottom of the mirror box, at the bottom, the camera makers have gone with viewfinder screens that are HUGELY brighter than in the F2/F3 era you and I grew up in. It's not just "the focusing system" one decides upon here in the D3s vs 1D mark IV--it is the lenses, the flashes, the sensor, and the entire imaging chain---a d-slr is film and camera all in one. Unlike film shooters, once you buy the camera, it is permanent. No "different films".
This discussion is not about the focusing system, except for those who want to shoot op to 21st Century expectations, and not those of the 1980's or 1990's.

Let's put it this way: if you've shot sports on assignment, and I have, for any publication within the last few years, you'd be a fool not to buy an AF camera. The days of manual focusing are basically over for the most part--the cameras are worse than 1970's and 1980's bodies for manually focusing, due to the partially-transmissive mirrors. The viewfinder screens are optimized for rather slow lenses, so the coarse, contrasty SNAP! in- or out of focus of an old Nikon F2 or F3 is long-gone. The viewfinder screens now show depth of field equivalent to around f/4.8 (this is a fact, and I have stats and quotes from Canon's Chuck Westfall,and other experts). You're old enough to recall the Olympus OM series vs the Nikon F series "wars"; a brighter viewfinder screen,even a magnified one is not always easier to achieve focus than a darker, dimmer screen that has just the right optimization. The Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 had larger,brighter viewfinder screens than Nikons and Canons for over a decade--but the Canon and Nikon cameras had coarser focusing screens that were darker, lower magnification, but much more contrasty, and which were actually easier to manually focus with accuracy and repeatability. One thing the human eye and brain are superb at, is spotting something that is *different*. Coarser,more-contrasty viewfinder focusing screens in older bodies, like Nikon F3, were about the very pinnacle of manual focusing. The FE-2 series had a nice finder too.

So, where is this going? Well, I'll tell you. If you use manual focusing lenses, which have rather long focus throws, manual focusing is reasonably easy on the best of the best bodies, like the Nikon D1-D2-D3 series. But consumer bodies today have lower-grade finders. And ALL AF bodies have much light lost through the mirror, with anything mounted. The viewfinder screens on AF bodies are optimized for automatic focusing and so are the newer AF lenses, which have extremely short focusing throws from Infinity on in to about 2 meters; that makes modern AF lenses extremely hair-trigger when focusing at typical sports distances of 200,150,100,75,50,40,30,20 feet; a modern AF lens traverses the Infinity to 2 meter distance in as little as 20 degrees of focusing ring travel. A mere human can not focus an 300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor by hand and eye on an autofocus body with anywhwere NEAR the same degree of speed,accuracy,and repeatability of the much-older 300mm f/4.5 ED-IF Nikkor of the 1980's--I know. I shot the 300/4.5 ED-IF as a 20-something sports shooter in the later 1980's, and re-bought one a few years ago; it is a great manual focusing lens on an F3,and it is a pretty good manual focuser on a modern d-slr. The same with the contemporary top-gun, the 1976-designed 400mm f/3.5 ED-IF Nikkor, the world's fastest 400mm when it was premiered at the Montreal Olympics. On a top-level Nikon DX body like D1h or D2x, this old lens still focuses pretty well by hand and eye--because the lens has the perfect focusing system, designed to be focused by hand and eye; the throw is long and slow from Infinity to about 60 feet, then gets faster and faster, but it was designed as a spots/action lens, designed for a HUMAN to focus it. The modern 300/2.8 AF-S-II has a focus throw that goes from Infinity and immediately in to 5 meters, before you know it....the thing is damned near impossible to get reliable,accurate,repeatable MANUAL focus on a modern AF body--because it is optimized for a machine to focus!

Now seriously epatsellis, I've seen your 35mm lens collection photo. I own a lot of the same old Nikon Ai and Ai-S lenses you do. I've been a Nikon 35mm shooter since the early 80's. Autofocus since the mid-2000's has become much better than it was in the early 2000's. For daylight baseball, I have no issues shooting the 400/3.5 as a manual focus lens, and it's actually pretty good for track and field and daylight football too. Frame rates in manual focus are slower, but today's autofocusing lenses, even the big pro glass Nikkors and Canon L's, are NOT designed to manually focus--the lenses are optimized for a computer and a motor to focus, and 40% of the incoming light is being siphoned off on an AF body, and the viewfinder screen is now so smooth,and so bright, that there is almost no contrast!

The "effective" aperture of the most-recent viewfinder screens like that in the Canon 7D, is in the f/4.5 range. Do the test yourself with a wide-aperture prime: mount it and look thru the finder and stop the lens down: the "apparent" depth of field shown on the viewfinder screen, in a modern AF body, is that of the lens stopped down to around f/4.5 to f/4.8. That is a huge departure from manual focusing cameras designed decades ago. In a word, todays modern AF bodies from all manufacturers are sub-optimal for manual focusing. In a word, they "suck"; an F3HP or an old Canon F1-n from the mid-1980's has a BETTER viewfinder for manual focusing than a new top-tier d-slr that costs $5,000. Why? I've gone over it all above. Different eras. Prop plane. Jet aircraft. But why are crop-dusters old-school bi-planes?

I used manual focusing Nikon's for two decades. But today's AF bodies allow a sports shooter to shoot a pole vaulter running down the runway, and will autofocus and track the runner as he plants the pole and as he moves upward at an angle, and over the bar, and down. In the 1980's, the same type of focusing was achievable with only the ED-IF Nikkors; the old, helicoid-focusing, straight-tube 300/f 4.5 Ai Nikkor can NOT follow focus anywhere near as well as its Internal Focusing stablemates. Old manual focusing MF cameras can not deliver the same focusing speed on moving subjects as a modern d-slr. A jet is faster than a prop plane. If manual focusing lenses are used, manual focusing is easier on AF bodies than it is with an AF lens switched into manual focusing mode--because MF lenses were designed for manual focusing. I am intimately familiar with manual focusing 35mm,6x6 and 645--but those were all built with fully-silvered mirrors, not 60/40 reflective/transmissive mirrors. Cameras had viewfinder focusing screens,focusing helicoids or Internal Focus mechanisms, and pentaprisms--all were optimized for manually focusing with hand and eye.

You say you don't shoot sports. Well, today, "waiting and timing" is no longer good enough, because well, a new Canon or Nikon can shoot more than 36 frames at a go, and the cameras fire faster, and it's simply possible now to have very high hit rate AND sustained firing rate, where back in the 1980's on sports/long lens work you had to focus and frame and shoot, and as focus drifted you had to re-acquire it, shoot, focus a bit more...you know the drill. But that was the--this is now. Prop-driven DC-3 versus Boeing 737. The equipment is different. AF lenses are designed to have the fastest,often sloppiest, loosey-goosey AF travel you can imagine; the lowest degree of mechanical resistance is the goal of most AF lens designers. Why don't more airlines run propellor-driven, 50-passenger aircraft instead of small jets?

Sorry epatsellis, but the conversation does not border on the absurd for those living in this century,and who shoot action/sports/news/remote camera/remote trigger/high-speed photography where 21st century technology is in the hands of moms and dads. The days of the Nikon F3 and the Hasselblad 500 C series for action work are long,long over. Manual focusing lost its grip on the entire 35mm style camera industry in the early 1990's. Lenses changed. Camera viewscreens and mirrors changed. AF bodies, especially the lower-end pentamirror ones with 1.6x and 1.5x bodies are REALLY quite inferior as manual focusing tools. The old silky-smooth,long travel manual focusing lenses I (and you too!) learned and grew up on are long,long gone. Today's new AF cameras operate as fundamentally different tools than 1950's Medium format designs, or 1970's 35mm designs, and so on. It's hard to understand maybe if you do not shoot stuff where the priority is modern, digital images, shot with what are currently state-of-the-art tools. The slow,contemplative medium format and large format tripod-based stuff you're so good at is pretty different from people doing sports/action stuff. The old-style manual focus cameras, lenses, and viewing/focusing systems have been replaced.

If tomorrow I had to shoot a track meet on film, I have OLD lenses,50,85,135,180,200,300,and 400mm Nikkors from the 1980's that I would take and put on my F3-HP and MD-4 and an FE-2 and feel pretty confident I could get "usable shots" by using 30 years' experience overall and 15 years' uninterrupted use of those two camera models and their associated Motor Drives. I could do baseball with those cameras as well.
But I could NOT get as good a result using modern AF lenses on a modern d-slr--the OLDER manual focus lenses work best for manual focus. If I wanted to get the most good shots, with the highest chance for success on each and every race and event, on each and every shot opportunity, I would take a modern flagship d-slr, Canon or Nikon,and modern AF lenses, every single time. There is only "one heat" of the 100 meters at a dual meet, and it is over in less than 11 seconds. Less than 11 seconds, and most of the best shooting occurs in the last 5 seconds. AF kicks butt in the last 20 meters.

It's all well and good to talk about the absurdity of something that's not important to us, personally. But the cameras and lenses of the 60,70's,80's are long gone now. People used to telegraph. Then the phone was invented. Then the FAX machine. Then e-mail. Then texting. Cameras??? Manual focusing is so,so 1980's! As an aside, I was watching a 2003 MMA fight with Noguerra and another fellow in Japan,and the ringside press guys were shooting film Nikons! I watched as one guy unloaded an F5,magic-markered something on the film can, then reloaded as fast as he could! That brought back memories of feeling terrified at frame 30 that something "big" might happen just after shot 36 was tripped!

 

[MrLogic]

Every independent review I've read (e.g. people that don't take money from Nikon or Canon for that matter) has shown the 1D3 significantly beating the D3 in AF performance. The D3s and the D3 share the exact same AF system.

How many independent reviews have you read?

The one you posted here some months ago may have been "independent" by your definition, but was in fact written by (what appeared to be) a Canon fanboy. (He listed all his L glass in his sig (on that website), the vast majority of his posts were about Canon, didn't seem all that familiar with Nikon, etc.)

Another shootout by two professional sports photogs including a SI shooter.

Unique Photo: A Unique Photo Shootout Featuring David Bergman and Robert Caplin: Canon 1D Mark IV Versus Nikon D3S

"Autofocus performance is excellent on both cameras, with the Canon being slightly more responsive."

Hmmm. So... if the D3s and the D3 share the exact same AF system, and the AF performance of the 1D4 is only slightly more responsive than that of the D3S, then how can the 1D3 be significantly better than the D3 and the D3S when it comes to AF performance? That doesn't make sense.

 

[Montana]

Every independent review I've read (e.g. people that don't take money from Nikon or Canon for that matter) has shown the 1D3 significantly beating the D3 in AF performance. The D3s and the D3 share the exact same AF system.

How many independent reviews have you read?

The one you posted here some months ago may have been "independent" by your definition, but was in fact written by (what appeared to be) a Canon fanboy. (He listed all his L glass in his sig (on that website), the vast majority of his posts were about Canon, didn't seem all that familiar with Nikon, etc.)

Another shootout by two professional sports photogs including a SI shooter.

Unique Photo: A Unique Photo Shootout Featuring David Bergman and Robert Caplin: Canon 1D Mark IV Versus Nikon D3S

"Autofocus performance is excellent on both cameras, with the Canon being slightly more responsive."

Hmmm. So... if the D3s and the D3 share the exact same AF system, and the AF performance of the 1D4 is only slightly more responsive than that of the D3S, then how can the 1D3 be significantly better than the D3 and the D3S when it comes to AF performance? That doesn't make sense.

What is hard to understand about that? It appears that once Canon fixed the issues, most folks are very happy with the 1DmkIII. And I think the mkIII may be a tad more forgiving.