By splitting the AF duties between two microprocessors, the EOS-1D MKII is promised to be quicker at acquiring the focus when the AF system is first engaged, as well as smarter about predicting the point of focus of the subject in sequence shooting.

Canon already has one of the best AF systems around in the original EOS-1D; we hope that the combination of twin AF processing CPUs, and the AF algorithm Canon developed for the new camera, make a good thing even better.

• High-Speed Continuous: approx. 8.0 fps (adjustable)
• Low-Speed Continuous: approx. 3 fps (adjustable)
• 55ms shutter lag
• 87ms mirror blackout (1/60th or faster shutter speed)
• Maximum 21 frame buffer; buffer depth is reduced to as few as 14 frames when shooting RAW, RAW+JPEG and/or at higher ISO settings
• When power switch is turned to Off, camera finishes writing all photos to the card before powering down
• If the card door is opened mid-write, all photos remaining in the buffer are lost

E-TTL II, says Canon, will greatly improve flash exposure accuracy even when the scene is  dominated by dark or light tones, and that because the system is no longer biased to the active focus point, focusing, then recomposing, will not result in a flash exposure error.

With newer Canon EF lenses, distance data also forms part of the E-TTL II flash exposure calculation, acting primarily as a sanity check on the reflectance info coming back from the 17 metering cells being used to compare the ambient and flash light

If the reworked TTL in the 1D MKII means better, more consistent flash exposures, this will be a breakthrough in Canon flash photography

All things being equal, a camera with a smaller pixel size will produce noisier photos than one with a larger pixel size.

But, all things are not equal in this case. When Canon designed the 1D, they were only beginning to understand how to best massage sensor data to keep noise at bay, and were working with a sensor they designed but did not produce.

The 1D MKII not only sports a sensor that features higher-efficiency microlenses for improved light-gathering ability, but its engineers were able to draw on several years of experience knocking back image noise in designing the image processing circuitry in the new model.

We're optimistic - confident even - that the photos coming from the 1D MKII are going to be smoother and considerably less noisy than the 1D, despite the 1D's pixel pitch advantage.

Approx. 1.3x (relative to 35mm film frame)

Five standard colour looks are choosable in the camera:
• Color Matrix 1 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 2 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 3 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 4 (Adobe RGB (1998))
• Color Matrix 5 (sRGB)

• Two additional Color Matrix settings are user-configurable (colour space, saturation and skin tone rendering), allowing for the creation of personal colour looks
• An ICC profile isn't embedded into photos. The camera does, however, mark any photos it has processed out to Adobe RGB (1998) as such, through a clunky method allowed under the DCF 2.0/EXIF 2.2.1 specifications.
• Camera includes White Balance Compensation function that enables adjustment of blue/amber and magenta/green colour bias in +/-9 steps

Five standard colour looks are choosable in the camera:
• Color Matrix 1 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 2 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 3 (sRGB)
• Color Matrix 4 (Adobe RGB (1998))
• Color Matrix 5 (sRGB)

• An ICC profile isn't embedded into photos, and the camera marks photos shot on all Color Matrix Settings (even setting 4) as sRGB in the EXIF ColorSpace tag

Being able to create a custom Color Matrix is great. For one thing, it means that it's possible to choose the colour look separate from the colour space, such that if you prefer a really saturated look reminiscent of Color Matrix 3, but want JPEGs to emerge from the camera in the Adobe RGB colour space, it will be possible to achieve that through one of the custom Color Matrix settings.

The White Balance Compensation feature will potentially allow for careful tuning of the colour to achieve better results under icky fluorescent and other artificial lighting, as well as to warm up or cool down slightly the selected manual WB setting. If it's not too difficult to actually use in practice, this could be a cool feature.

6 increments that are similar to Amount values in Photoshop's Unsharp Mask; includes a setting that applies no sharpening

• Yes; EOS-1D Mark II includes a USB 1.1 port for direct connection to a compatible printer

Battery:
• 12V DC/1650mAH NP-E3 NiMH rechargeable battery
• Frames per charge: approx. 1200 at 20°C/68°F; approx. 800 at 0°C/32°F

AC power:
• DC Coupler Kit DCK-E1

Battery:
• 12V DC/1650mAH NP-E3 NiMH rechargeable battery
• Frames per charge: approx. 500 at 20°C/68°F; approx. 350 at 0°C/32°F

AC power:
• DC Coupler Kit DCK-E1

Even though we've only only looked at Digital Photo Professional briefly as we write this, it's clear already that it will be light years ahead of the software formerly known as File Viewer Utility.

For those who prefer a third party solution, expect that it could take some time for the new camera's RAW files to be broadly supported.