Digital Features Press the image-size selection button below the rear LCD panel, and you can choose the image size by rotating the quick control dial. Choices include 16.6-megapixel RAW, and four JPEG options—see Table A. You can choose to record RAW images plus any of the JPEG image sizes simultaneously. RAW 16.6-megapixel images take up about 14.6MB each, meaning you’ll get about 50 of them on a 1GB card. The Mark II has two card slots, one accepting Type I or II CompactFlash cards, the other SD memory cards. When cards are in both slots, you can record an image on either card, or on both cards simultaneously . You can also choose the JPEG compression degree, in 10 steps. The default setting is 8. There are eight white-balance presets (auto, daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, white fluorescent, flash), plus custom, and color temperature (2800-10,000 K) settings. You can save and instantly recall up to three personal white-balance settings, handy if you shoot in a particular lighting condition regularly. You can apply blue/amber and magenta/green white-balance correction, and activate white-balance bracketing, which will shoot three images each with a different blue/amber or magenta/green bias. The 2-inch, 230,000-pixel TFT color LCD monitor on the camera back can be set to display the just-shot image for 2, 4 or 8 seconds, or indefinitely, and you can display the last image shot by pressing the display button, then scroll through all images on the cards in the camera by rotating the quick control dial. With 45 focus points, including seven cross-type sensors, the EOS-1Ds Mark II delivers precise results and extremely fast subject acquisition. Photo by Jim Zuckerman Verdict We rated the original EOS-1Ds the best digital SLR we’d ever tested in our March 2003 issue. Now, Canon has increased the resolution by 50%, improved performance, and added cool features—all for the same price! Of course, that price is $8000, which puts the camera beyond the means of many of us. But nonetheless, working pros (and well-heeled nonpros) will be snapping it up even more rapidly than its predecessor, because even at that price it’s a great value—to get more megapixels will cost you another $10,000-plus, and those medium-format-based digital SLRs don’t provide the EOS-1Ds Mark II’s performance. Mega- Megapixels Lots of pixels are wonderful because you can blow up an entire image to huge size, or crop in a small portion of an image and still get lots of detail (this assuming the images are sharp to begin with—it’s always wise to use a tripod when maximum image sharpness is required). But lots of pixels also mean huge file sizes: around 14.6MB for a RAW image, or 5.5MB for a highest-quality (L) JPEG. This in turn means you quickly fill up your memory cards, so you’ll want fast, high-capacity cards—2GB or more. And those 16.6-megapixel images open up to a file size of 47.5MB—you’ll also need a fast computer with lots of RAM to work with those images. We Rate It Camera: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II Category: Autofocus Digital SLR Autofocus Performance 5 Metering Performance 5 Feature Set 5 Ease Of Use 5 Ergonomics 5 Value 5 5 Overall Specifications LENS MOUNT: Canon EF bayonet IMAGING ELEMENT: 16.6-megapixel 36x24mm CMOS sensor MAXIMUM RESOLUTION: 4992x3328 pixels STORAGE: CF and SD cards FOCUSING: TTL-AREA-SIR with AF-dedicated CMOS Sensor METERING: 21-zone TTL full aperture metering SHUTTER SPEEDS: 1/8000 to 30 sec. (1/3-stop increments), bulb, X-sync at 1/250 sec. ISO SETTINGS: 100-1600 (in 1/3-stop increments), ISO speed can be expanded to ISO 50 and 3200 via menu selection LCD MONITOR: 2.0-inch TFT POWER SOURCE: One NP-E3 rechargeable Ni-MHbattery pack DIMENSIONS: 6.1x6.2x3.1 in. WEIGHT: 42.9 oz. STREET PRICE: $7999 DISTRIBUTOR: Canon U.S.A., Inc., www.usa.canon.com