A funny thing happened during our testing of the Canon EOS-1Ds ($8,000 street), a digital SLR pro camera: We ran out of superlatives. Granted, any camera that costs the same as a small car should make great images. But the EOS-1Ds goes beyond great and breaks new ground with features that will almost certainly trickle down into consumer digital cameras in the next year or two.

Like its predecessor, the EOS-1D, the EOS-1Ds shares many components with Canon's flagship EOS-1v 35-mm film camera. The build quality of all three cameras is world-class, with extensive weather sealing and industry-leading auto-focus and exposure systems.

But the big news in the EOS-1Ds is the 11-megapixel CMOS image sensor. Previous digital cameras from Canon, Fuji, and Nikon used image sensors that were smaller than 35-mm film frames. Smaller sensors use only the center part of the lens's image, so the effective focal length of the camera's lens is multiplied by a factor of 1.3 to 1.6. For example, a 20-mm extreme wide-angle lens mounted on a Nikon d100 digital SLR yields a not-so-wide effective focal length of 30 mm. This prevents digital SLR users from getting truly wide-angle shots with their existing lenses.

The sensor in the EOS-1Ds is the exact same size as a 35-mm film frame, eliminating the multiplier factor. Using Canon's 16- to 35-mm f/2.8 lens, we were able to shoot building interiors and other wide-angle subjects just as we would with a standard 35-mm SLR camera.

On our test bench, the EOS-1Ds blew away every other camera we've ever tested. For starters, we weren't able to measure the EOS-1Ds's exact resolution, because the standard digital-camera test chart (the ISO 1223) maxes out at 2,000 lines—well short of the EOS-1Ds's actual resolution.

The EOS-1Ds is a pleasure to use, thanks to its excellent ergonomics and the largest, brightest viewfinder of any digital SLR on the market. Battery life is excellent: The included nickel hydride battery yielded over 400 pictures per charge, even with liberal use of the built-in (and very bright) 2-inch LCD screen.

The RemoteCapture software bundled with the camera turns the EOS-1Ds into a tethered camera system (Canon provides an ac adapter). You can control the camera's shutter release from a FireWire-connected PC, and new images are stored on the PC instead of the camera's CompactFlash card. This is a convenient feature for high-volume portrait, studio, and industrial-process photographers.

Pros who can justify the price should look closely at the EOS-1Ds. The rest of us can hope that some of these features will soon make their way to a camera for the masses.