Great shot, Andrew!
I also got my 1D3 this Monday. Had a couple of days to play with the camera and a field test yesterday. Below is a summary of some of my initial impressions of this camera. Thought some of you may be interested to hear. You can also find some of my first field test images here: http://www.pbase.com/anguslau/1d3_samples
1) The camera feels really light compared to old 1D body.
2) Body cap is of a poor design. Its conical shape makes it very easy to slip.
3) Ultrasonic dust removal works quite well. Have been changing lenses close to a hundred times without much dust on the sensor. Though not perfect, but I doubt manual cleaning will add much value. This is really nice.
4) Live view mode is very nice and can be useful for various applications such as macro, studio work, landscape etc. Manual focusing is a snap and can be done very accurately. This can be extremely useful for tilt-shift lenses or other critical landscape work. DOF preview with a bright image is marvellous! The major trouble I have is vibration while fine focusing at high power. I can adjust focus on a PC, but it will be very nice if there can be a hand controller to do fine focusing. And also a control to turn on IS!! Fine composition is also very awkward at high magnifications. A mount with motorized slow motion will be very helpful...
5) AF accuracy seems ok when I tested all my AF lenses (about a dozen). But I found that its seemed to vary a bit compared with my 5D. So I tried the focus point adjustment function, I found that it makes a significant difference! The process is not straight forward and time consuming. But I believe I am now getting much more accurate and consistent results for my long lenses that went through the tweaking. More testing may be required, but looks promising. It seems that AF inconsistency is a sign that the camera/lens pair is not well calibrated. Once calibrated, they will give accurate and very consistent results.
6) I found that the max burst depth can get substantially lower than 30 raw, depending on whether you have turned on noise reduction, highlight tone priority etc. I need to turn all those off plus setting a low iso in order to get 30.
7) In terms of ISO performance, I think the 1D3 has about 1 stop advantage over the 1D2. iso1600 is very usable if image is not cropped. I would not even border to use noise reduction if image is not cropped. iso3200 is quite nosiy, but very usable after noise reduction. iso800 & under are very clean.
8. Highlight tone priority seems to work. Can be useful at times.
9) Battery life seems very good. Still showing 24% left after 1500 shots.
10) Menu navigation and ergonomics seems quite good. I think it is a significant improvement from 1D2.
11) The new viewfinder is very very nice. Noticeably brighter and sharper than the old one. I feel much more confident in manual focus using this viewfinder than with the old one (even after adding the right angle finder). I have a feeling that its field is more flat than the old one too. With the old viewfinder, I often find that if I try to focus on non-center subjects, its very difficult to get a good focus, particularly together with the center subject. But this new viewfinder seems to be much better in this. In my first field test, I can really feel the improvements of the new viewfinder. Its a lot brighter & sharper than the old one. Very pleasant to look at and much easier to check for focus.
12) I really like the ability to change iso without moving my eye off the viewfinder. Just press the iso button with my index finger and turn the wheel. I can see the reading on the viewfinder too! Very nice.
13) The option to display top LCD info on the back LCD screen is an extremely good feature too! The readings are big & bright and at eye level. Its a god sent for people like me with aging eyes. I don't need my glasses to change settings! And the screen updates while you change settings too. My only wish here is for this to automatically display whenever I press the AF/Drive button so that I don't need to press two buttons.
14) In terms of changing settings, I wish I can see AF & drive mode in the viewfinder. Right now I must check the top LCD (or back LCD screen) to see & change these settings.
15) General feel of the camera is more responsive than the 1D2. Initial focus acquisition is very fast and seems to be able to snap to focus over a larger range than the 1D2. At AI servo mode, its almost like a point and shoot camera! Whether for static subjects or subjects inflight, just point & shoot! Very fluid.
16) Looking at some images from my first field test, there are quite a few sharp pics. Certainly more than when I had my 1D2. I had been using the 1.4x or 2x converters. Some of the pics are really sharp even without stopping down. So my preliminary conclusion is that the AF microadjustment works!
17) Burst rate very fast, very fluid. I can feel the difference between 8.5fps & 10fps. Not a huge difference, but it certainly adds to the responsive feel. And I have more frames to choose from!
18. For my first field test, I still get a large number of OOF images within series. But I think its probably my skills rather than the camera. The number of really sharp ones are more than what I get in the past.
19) I feel that it handles highlights better. Not conclusive yet. Need more time & tests.
20) It seems that shadow noise is really lower than the other cameras (as advertised). I seem to be able to stretch the files a bit more without introducing too much noise in dark areas. Again, need more tests.
21) Previews on back LCD is now much more subdue than other cameras. It is now much closely reflects what you'll see on your PC. I believe this is a good thing. But novice users may find that images on the LCD looks rather dull.
