Overview - Canon EOS 1D Mark III - Digital Camera SLR User Manual

I. OVERVIEW
Professional photographers know what they want in a camera. Above all, the camera
must be dependable—able to come through in shooting situations that are far less than
ideal... even in harsh environmental and handling conditions. The camera must be
responsive—reacting instantly to the photographer's input... able to capture, within a
heartbeat, the image in the mind's eye. It must provide a sophisticated feature set that
makes it versatile and adaptable and, yet, does not compromise operability. And, of course,
it must deliver image quality beyond reproach—which, in the digital era, means not only
noise-free detail, richness of color, and depth of tone, but also sufficient data density to
satisfy the widest range of output applications. Today, there is one Digital Single-Lens-
Reflex (DSLR) camera that meets these criteria as no other: the Canon EOS-1D Mark III.
Redesigned and re-engineered from the ground up, Canon's newest flagship EOS is
destined to become the next "must have" DSLR for professionals.
At a blazing 10 frames per second (fps), the 10.1-megapixel Canon EOS-1D Mark III is
the world's fastest DSLR camera (as of February 2007). It is nearly 20% faster than the
8.5 fps EOS-1D Mark II that it replaces, and it is crushingly faster than anything else
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with comparable resolution. While this speed will make great headlines, it is but a small
part of the repertoire of a stunning machine that sets new benchmarks in virtually every
category of professional DSLR performance and then creates new categories where pro
DSLR cameras have never gone. The sum is a camera that is the epitome of professional
excellence in every respect. It will go everywhere, do everything and appeal to (almost)
everyone.
The EOS-1D Mark III is the product of a "reset to zero" design program. As the newest
camera in Canon's 1-series, it inherits a legacy of strength, reliability, control, flexibility
and image quality that is second to none in the world of photography. When planning
for it began, Canon was in the enviable position of being able to identify every possible
aspect of professional DSLR performance that could be improved in some way. They
relied on their legendary manufacturing expertise to bring the new ideas to fruition.
The EOS-1D Mark III uses a new, 10.1-megapixel image sensor, designed and manufactured
by Canon on semiconductor manufacturing equipment that is also designed, manufactured
and maintained by Canon. The sensor uses Canon's proprietary CMOS technology with
several significant advances. Canon has managed to increase the proportion of each
pixel that is sensitive to light, called the fill factor. For any given pixel size, the greater
the fill factor, the more light each pixel can capture, resulting in better color and less noise.
Needless to say, this is not off-the-shelf technology.
I. OVERVIEW 4