Canon 1D mark iv – checked it out

by Sebastian WöberJanuary 24^th, 2010

So I went to Arri rental the other day cause they had the 1D mk4 in from somebody for an hour.

I took the chance to squeeze some footage out of the baby and do the basics test we’re usually missing on those photo review sites.

I really lost track on wether the mk4 is out yet or not. Mine is still on hold, I ordered it last year. Anybody know?

I did a short rolling shutter video and checked out hdmi and menu settings:

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Ok, keep in mind I had one hour, I did all this really quickly.

trying to test moiré:

(moiré is the coloured effect that appears on hard contrasted hairlines. Basically it sucks and we don’t wan it.)

This is a 100% screenshot of a video shot with a Zeiss 28mm 2.8 @ 4.0 in both cases. I had a shutter of 50 at ISO200. The problem you see is that this footage isn’t good for comparing moiré. The test objects would need to have the same size, sorry people. The sensor size difference makes the 1D footage wider than the 7D.

Unfortunately I think the 7D also had different user settings than the 1D. I think I had the 1D lens pretty sharp but the image looks blurred compared to the 7D. I cannot say wether a different user setting would have resulted in the same amount of moiré or not. What we see is that there IS moiré in the 1D footage. I tried to film hair, but it wouldn’t moiré at all. Sorry.

With a different user setting it is hard to say anything at all about the footage. I should have thought about that before. I think I have noticed a better dynamic range and cleaner quality though.

trying to test rolling shutter:

(rolling shutter is the effect that appears on fast moving objects. They get squeezed. Less is obviously better)

I’d say it’s slightly better, not removed AT ALL.

That was a video shot at first at shutter 200, later shutter 50. Zeiss 50mm @ 4.0.

Bitrate is the same at around 50 mbit/s

Then I tried the hdmi output. Unfortunately everything is very much the same as on the 7D. Same output, same size, same size while recording, no lcd while hdmi connected and no lcd while video is connected. Why Canon why???

Also checked all menu settings, like ALL of them, there’s nothing that would turn the lcd on during hdmi or video out.

I almost forgot: Did you know that the 1D is so high rails can’t go underneath it? That means to use a shoulder mount or ever extend / retract rods is impossible unless the companies come up with a whole new design dedicated to this cam.

What’s the conclusion? For me that is: If you need the better low light performance and wanna spend 3000 additional €uros or dollars or whatever your currency is on that. Ok. But apart from that not much has changed. I’d say there’s slightly better picture, slightly better dynamic range (guess), slightly better rolling shutter performance, slightly bigger sensor. But the 7D will do almost as good.

Cheers,

Sebastian

Tests done with a smallHD DP-1 monitor:

Nice, a 7D with BNC mount: