What's next? A Canon EOS 1Ds MkIV?

In the last few weeks Canon has caught up with its competitors cameras with the 15MP EOS 50D APS-C sensor body and the EOS 5D MkII 21MP full frame body. Their only problem now is that the new EOS 5D MkII looks so good and so cheap beside the 22 MP Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII that a number of photographers are giving up on the idea of buying a EOS 1Ds MkIII, saving $5000 and ordering an EOS 5D MkII. Canon are certainly going to lose sales of their current flagship camera.

Of course Canon aren't dumb and they must have anticipated that this would happen, so it seems to make sense that they must have an upgrade of the 1Ds MkIII in the wings. The 1Ds MkIII was introduced in August of 2007, so it's just a year old, but it's now suffering some serious competition from not only Canon's own EOS 5D MkII but also the new Sony A900, which has a 24MP full frame sensor and stabilization built into the camera body. While the 1Ds MkIII is a more substantial camera then either the 5d MkII or A900, it's probably not $5000 better, even for full time professional photographers. You'd need to have some serious and special needs to spend that much extra.

Canon have shown that they can put 15MP on an APS-C sized chip in the EOS 50D and so far, from the few test images I've seen, the image quality seems excellent. In fact if you can believe what is being reported, the image quality at high ISO settings is better from the 5D MkII than from the 1Ds MkIII. At the same pixel density as the EOS 50D (4.5MP/cm²), a full frame sensor would contain 38.4MP. If Canon wants to keep its place as "king of the hill", they are going to have to upgrade the 1Ds MkIII to a 1Ds MKIV, with something like a 35-40MP sensor, HD video and all the other bells and whistles found both on the current 1Ds MkIII as well as the EOS 50D and EOS 5D MkII

Update: Today (September 22nd 2008) Leica announced their LEICA S2 – a professional DSLR camera with a custom 37.5-megapixel, 30 x 45 mm sensor built into a 35mm-sized body. However it has one small disadvantage. A price of 20,000 Euros (body only), which is around $30,000, plus it needs all new lenses and I hate to think what they will cost. A 40MP 24x36mm sensor for under $7000 which takes existing lenses would still make Canon the class leader I think. Mere motrals won't be buying the Leica S2 system

As you can see from the table below, the 1Ds MkIII still has a low resolution LCD, is still limited to ISO 3200, has no movie mode and is no faster than the competition in continuous shooting mode. It is slightly faster then the EOS 5D MkII, but not by enough to be a factor in most people's buying decision. The 1Ds MkIII is much slower than the Nikon D3, but them it has twice as many pixels and the 1D MkIII is Canon's high speed high end DSLR (10fps). The 1Ds MkIII does "outpixel" the Nikon D700, but not the EOS 5D MkII or Sony Alpha A900. It's also around $5000 more expensive than most of the other full frame models and still $3000 more than the Nikon D3, though the D3 only has 12MP. It may be built a little more sturdily then the less expensive bodies, but none of the other models are exactly delicate!

What's also evident is that Nikon are now in last place when it comes to pixel count, with both of their full frame cameras having 12MP, about 1/2 that of the competition. While the number of pixels isn't as important as marketing may suggest and 12MP is certainly enough to produce excellent images, I'm sure Nikon aren't happy about not having something that can match the pixel count of Canon and Sony.

Full Frame DSLRs

So I think it's pretty clear that Canon now have to do something with their "Flagship" camera and the obvious thing to do is to bring out a 1Ds MkIV as soon as they can - and reduce the price.

What would be really neat would be if Canon could merge the 1D MkIII and 1Ds MkIII into a high pixel count DSLR which was capable of operating is a high speed mode in a crop mode (or reduced pixel mode), so you could have 5fps at 40MP or 10fps at 20MP for example. I'm not sure we will see that yet, but eventually I'd expect to the 1D and 1Ds to merge when the technology becomes fast enough.

This isn't a rumor, I have no knowledge that Canon are working on such a project and nobody has leaked any "secrets" to me. It's just what I think makes sense. As I said earlier, Canon seemed to be falling behind a little, but with the E0S 50D and the EOS 5D MkII they've pulled back into a leadership spot. The 1Ds MkIII is now the camera that's looking a little old and a little (or a lot) expensive. Canon will have to change that as soon as they can. The first opportunity would probably be PMA 2009. There is no Photokina until September 2010. Announcements aren't always made at big shows, but I think the camera makers like to use shows for such announcements to get a little extra notice.