Canon Digital Camera Review

• Excellent resolution, not just a step change from the EOS-1D but a leap
• Switch from CCD to CMOS delivers very clean images with no pattern noise
• Maintains EOS-1D's amazing 8.3 fps and increases buffer to 40 frames (JPEG)
• Superbly well built, 'a solid block', fully environmentally sealed, totally robust
• Very fast in use, ultra fast auto focus, extremely short shutter lag, although 0.8 sec startup
• Separate tone / sharpness and color matrix control, all customizable
• Wide range of ISO sensitivities, ISO 50 - 3200 (with 'ISO Expansion' enabled)
• Two different types of white balance fine tuning (blue-amber & green-magenta)
• Large clear viewfinder with 98% field of view and a very low blackout time
• New brighter and sharper LCD monitor is a big improvement over EOS-1D / EOS-1Ds
• Playback magnification up to 10x (the EOS-1D had none)
• Excellent and supremely fast auto focus, 45 point AF and a large AF area for focus tracking
• Very high speed continuous shooting (the fastest shooting D-SLR)
• Very well implemented buffering system backed up by fast media throughput
• Dual storage slots, well implemented 'backup' double-save mode, awkward to switch slots
• Superb Secure Digital performance, over 6 MB/sec
• Support for FAT32 storage devices (greater than 2 GB in size)
• Proper RAW+JPEG with immediately selectable JPEG image size
• Directly selectable JPEG image quality (compression ratio) per image size
• Huge range of custom and personal functions, one of the most configurable cameras
• Three types of bracketing: Exposure, Sensitivity (ISO), White Balance
• Inbuilt portrait grip
• Noise free very long exposures (ideal for very long exposure night shots)
• Extremely flexible controls, lots of options for the photographer
• Interchangeable focus screen
• Firewire (IEEE 1394) and USB connectivity
• Remote tethered capture software for studio work (included)
• Voice annotation feature (built-in mic)
• Battery / Double Charger and AC Adapter all included with camera
• Value for money (considering what you get)

Conclusion - Cons

• Startup delay - on a camera at this level we expect no startup delay
• JPEG images appear a little soft, can be improved by increasing sharpness setting
• Control system can be a little confusing at first, menu operation different to other D-SLR's
• Confusing provision of both EVU and DPP
• DPP moiré artifacts on resolution chart - Canon are investigating this
• Awkward to switch media slot
• No option to write different image formats to different media (eg. RAW->CF, JPEG->SD)
• NiMH battery adds to camera's weight, still no use of Lithium-Ion or Lithium-Polymer
• No GPS (serial) connection

Overall conclusion
The original EOS-1D was a very important camera for Canon, their first home grown professional digital SLR built to EOS-1V standards and carrying that all important '1' label (indicating the best in their range). As such it was a camera which made its way into the hands of some of the most hard working professional photographers in the world and is still seen at the side of high profile sporting events and firing off in the face of celebrities and politicians alike.

As a camera to be used by such photographers it was always going to be the hardest used and closest examined. Thankfully Canon has once more demonstrated that they gather all of this feedback and drive it into the development of the next model. The Mark II is a perfect example of evolution of technology (eight megapixel, CMOS, 40 frame buffer) and also correction of function and usage. It's amazing how many small things have been fixed, things that could only have come out of experience in the hands of dedicated professional photographers.