DPreview post EOS 1D mkII review.

patch29

DPreview posted a review for the EOS 1DmkII today. It can be found here.

I found the overall review interesting and informative. It gives information useful to many digital camera owners. There is some good information relating to the fastest CF/SD cards on the market (and how fast a fast camera can write to them) and some good examples RAW vs JPG and between the different RAW convertors available. The test shots also show how the camera compares to the D2H, 10D, 1D, 1Ds and others. It is overwhelming the number of options this camera has. I for one am still learning and continue to learn about new options it has. Some I do not know if I will ever use, simply due to the fact that most of my shooting is very fast. I need to capture it now and my lighting and color temp can vary from minute to minute or second to second (The main reason I shoot RAW). Some of the features that could be of interest are the adjustable M/G and B/Y controls. It would be very handy to a jpg shooter who uses a custom while balance, but wants to add a little warmth back in. I also learned that it will autobracket via ISO, this could be interesting if you needed a certain shutter speed-aperture combo, plus you might get different noise options for your final results. The quality of the sensor at higher ISO's continues to increase, making me hope that a 1Ds mkII will debut this fall, with a higher mpx sensor with clean high ISO images. :dunno We can hope. I have been very happy with my 1DmkII's. I already notice a reduction in my post-production workflow time, not my RAW processing time, but the amount of time I needed to do trivial things (rotate images). The future for digital photography looks very optimistic. I cannot wait to see what it continues to deliver. :thumb

wxwax

patch29 wrote:

DPreview posted a review for the EOS 1DmkII today. It can be found here.

The autobracket ISO is a great idea. Can you not also set it to ISO priority, so that your aperature/shutter speed stay constant and only the ISO varies depending upon the lighting conditions? If so, that's a dream deal, especially as sensors get better at removing low light noise.

cmr164

"Drop output image size to around four megapixels and you can shoot 70 JPEG frames at 8.33 fps."

kick tail and take names!

DoctorIt

cmr164 wrote:

"Drop output image size to around four megapixels and you can shoot 70 JPEG frames at 8.33 fps."

kick tail and take names!

Gosh, only 4 megapixels!

that's insane speed. I feel the need...

patch29

wxwax wrote:

The autobracket ISO is a great idea. Can you not also set it to ISO priority, so that your aperature/shutter speed stay constant and only the ISO varies depending upon the lighting conditions? If so, that's a dream deal, especially as sensors get better at removing low light noise.

No, I don't think so. The other EOS 1D cameras did not do this and I do not know if the new one does, but I doubt it. I think I saw a tread somewhere on it and the answer was no. I also do not know if the older cameras will ISO bracket.

rutt

DoctorIt wrote:

Gosh, only 4 megapixels!

that's insane speed. I feel the need...

With this camera, speed is the problem as well as the solution. It shoots so fast I haven't learned to squeeze reliably just one off in high speed burst mode. And after shooting an event, sorting through the huge stack you can end up with, is an issue all by itself. And think about the flash cards you can fill up! This camera has been a real challenge to my photographic infrastructure (which has actually been a blast.)

patch29

rutt wrote:

With this camera, speed is the problem as well as the solution. It shoots so fast I haven't learned to squeeze reliably just one off in high speed burst mode. And after shooting an event, sorting through the huge stack you can end up with, is an issue all by itself. And think about the flash cards you can fill up! This camera has been a real challenge to my photographic infrastructure (which has actually been a blast.)

I know what you mean. I am in the market for some additional, faster and larger storage media. I really want Sandisk to offer a 1GB SD Ultra II card since they seem to make the fastest out there. The 512mb will do, but at those speeds it fills up really fast. I am not sure what I am going to do about the CF cards. I have all Lexar right now. I would prefer not to mix them up with Sandisk, but they are so much faster. Then again I do not remember hitting the buffer during a job (even shooting RAW), so does it matter? The 40x Lexar CF plus a couple 512 SD ultra's for speed might be all I need. Now to pay for the cameras and more memory is a different story.

rutt

patch29 wrote:

Then again I do not remember hitting the buffer during a job (even shooting RAW), so does it matter? The 40x Lexar CF plus a couple 512 SD ultra's for speed might be all I need. Now to pay for the cameras and more memory is a different story.

I think that's the key observation. The buffer really is big enough for all practical purposes. The bigger issue is what to do with all the images if you actually do use high speed burst much. I wish you could program one of the buttons to be a separate high speed burst shutter.

I think helicopters with miniguns much have similar problems.

patch29

rutt wrote:

I think that's the key observation. The buffer really is big enough for all practical purposes. The bigger issue is what to do with all the images if you actually do use high speed burst much. I wish you could program one of the buttons to be a separate high speed burst shutter.

I think helicopters with miniguns much have similar problems.

I have gotten pretty good at being able to fire one shot on the highest setting. In the personal functions you can set the high and low speeds, so you could leave high at 8 and bump low to 5 and that might give enough lag to get one shot.

It would be really cool if the camera could record directly to a (portable) pocket firewire drive, similar to an ipod, that would make for a lot less downloading and switching of cards. That would of course make me nervous, but it would be nice when you need it.

cmr164

Adorama is shipping mine tomorrow or the next day. The agony of waiting...

DoctorIt

rutt wrote:

With this camera, speed is the problem as well as the solution. It shoots so fast I haven't learned to squeeze reliably just one off in high speed burst mode. And after shooting an event, sorting through the huge stack you can end up with, is an issue all by itself. And think about the flash cards you can fill up! This camera has been a real challenge to my photographic infrastructure (which has actually been a blast.)

Hey Rutt, so I take it you have a new 1DmkII? Does this by any chance mean you have a 10D for sale? or are you lucky enough to be keeping it as a spare?

gus

This burst of evolution is insane. I have a canon AE-1 in the cupboard which probably didnt change in features in 15 years. I was admiring the Nikkor 200mm (f2 AF-S VR) lens at DP review then saw the price !!! 4500 Euro's !!

Pity the lens prices dont fall like the cameras. Probably all the more reason to spend the bigger money & get the lens right the 1st time.