Well, I've been curious: Just how well does the recently released Canon 1D Mark III compare to the famously low-noise Canon 5D? There's reason to wonder: the new 1D, while having a somewhat smaller sensor with less megapixels, still has a physical pixel site size only 7/8s x the site size of the 5D, which means the inherent noise collecting light would be greater with the 1D. But, Canon has reportedly been working feverishly in the engineering of their sensor technology to reduce system causes of noise and to increase the efficiency of their light-collection, which would lead to lower noise at the actual sensor site level. Interesting stuff to some of us who care about such things, because Canon is launching these new technologies, and especially their higher-end "pro" cameras such as the 1D and the new "full frame" 1Ds with 21 megapixels(!!!) seem to be setting new standards for sensor technology.

So I recently acquired one of these high-end new-fangled 1D Mk III gadgets (I had to sell a kidney) and it really is a fine camera in so many ways, but I really wanna know!!! How does the camera hold up to the 5D when you crank up the ISO? The 5D has been around for 2 1/2 years, and yet it still sets the standard for low noise in low light with high ISO speeds. Well, with my 5D just waiting to be challenged, I set up a test.

Note: if you just want to see the conclusions, go to the last four images, starting at the end of page three! Otherwise, this might be a bit tedious as it steps through a thorough look at the 1D images and processing!

In the first frame of this gallery you will see an unremarkable scene: a dim corner lit by a small table lamp with a laptop turned mostly into the shadows. There are a few bright areas, a lot of shadows and low light areas. Contrasty. Not an interesting picture, not artsy. But it does set the scene for first seeing how the cameras RAW files capture it at various ISOs and then, the fun begins: nudging these shots in the Adobe Lightroom RAW processor first to bring out a little more light and life in the pic, to see what damage was caused by lightening up the shadows at different ISO levels, and then to apply Lightroom's RAW noise reduction with its basic "capture sharpening" which all RAW photos need because they are not processed by the camera, and we'll not only see which ISOs are pleasing or at least useable, but we'll see how these two cameras match up!

My first "scene-setting" shots are done at ISO 100 to provide a reference: ISO 100 in Canon cameras is the "base sensitivity", which means that the pixel buckets are full and we can get max quality with min noise. I'll show a few enlarged shots to give you a comparison.

And then things get interesting! Small "point and shoot" cameras like most of us casually use, can't go much above ISO 100 without showing a lot of noise, so the makers of small cameras usually don't let you even try. Some advanced compact cameras have bigger sensors and can get up to ISO 400, say, without terrible problems, but try ISO 800 and you have a real mess.

Most bigger "DSLR" cameras have much bigger sensors, with much larger pixel sites than the smaller cameras, and that makes them very expensive, but they also have to struggle with noise (even though the larger sites give them more room to move), so the older DSLRs started to have problems at ISO 800 and would only go above that in a real emergency. Even today, many contemporary DSLRs are limited to ISO 1600 because, at that level of signal amplificaion their images are barely useable. But in the past three years, that barrier was broken, with some cameras allowing ISO 3200 and hoping for the best in software noise reduction (which, by the way, has gotten quite good both with RAW processing software such as Lightroom and with advanced image noise reduction software, such as Photoshop or specialized products such as Noise Ninja or Neat Image).

Okay, take a deep breath. Now, for those who are reading this and saying "What's the big deal? I just take my camera and point it and take a picture! I don't even know what ISO is about, much less worry about it!"...well, ISO speed has a very important role to play in things like indoor photography where the lights are dim and a flash may detract from the ambience, or sports, when you need to have the fastest possible shutter speed so you need to amplify your signal with ISO boosting so you can get that speed that freezes a basketball player right as he's cresting a slam dunk, or wildlife, so on an overcast day you can get that beautiful bird as it's taking off, or maybe just catching a moment with a kid on a dim day doing something special -- ISO is one very important setting to ensure that you have every opportunity to "catch the moment".

Boy, I can be long-winded, but believe me, I'm giving you the "short version". Pages and pages have been written about this stuff, and I've read too many of them!

So now, to be brief: a series of shots from the 1D Mk III at ISO 100 to show you the scene and some blowups, then I'll show a series of frames from each ISO taken from the 1D Mk III to show you how it handles the various steps in the image processing, then I'll show you comparisons between the 1D and the 5D. It all will start at ISO 1600 because that's been the new benchmark since the 5D came out, The 5D only goes to 3200, so the comparisons with it stop there. ISO 3200 could be expected to be a mess, and it tends to be if maginified. But then the 1D one-ups the 5D because it goes up to 6400, so, well, I have no comparison between the two there. Take your time and step through the images and read the captions, if you really want to know about this stuff!