The Canon EOS-1D was a groundbreaking digicam when it was first announced in late 2001, and held its ground amazingly well against the competition in all the time since then. In January of 2004, Canon announced the Canon EOS-1D Mark II, a radical update of the original 1D, doubling its resolution, while simultaneously increasing its continuous shooting speed slightly to a blazing 8.5 frames/second, and cutting image noise in the process. Other specs between the cameras are fairly close (although the Canon EOS 1D Mark II’s low image noise levels are particularly impressive), but the net result is that Canon has staked out a sizeable piece of the high-end digital SLR turf in a decisive manner. No other camera currently on the market comes close to matching the Canon EOS-1D Mark II for its combination of resolution and shooting speed.