Original 1D owners, hows AI focusing?

JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
edited November 28, 2011 in Cameras
Considering an original Canon 1D for basketball season. I primarily do newspaper work so the 4.15MP doesn't bother me one bit. However, I'm guessing the AF is still going to be better than my 5DII is since I can only use center point.

Thoughts?? Vs current cameras where the 1D lies?

ETA- main reason I'm looking at the 1D, the electronic shutter... I want to also be able to do some creative things and being able to pretty much sync at any shutter speed really says a lot, unfortunately this is the only canon SLR that has one. :(
Jim Karczewski - http://www.jimkarczewski.com

Comments

  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited November 27, 2011
    The general responsiveness of the original Canon 1D is still very crisp, i.e. better than the xxD and dRebels, but the AF is not quite as fast as the 1D MKII/1D MKIIN, even though they share pretty much the same AF module. The difference is the single Digic processor of the 1D vs the dual Digic II image processors of the 1D MKII/1D MKIIN.

    I don't believe that the 1D can X-sync beyond 1/500th, despite the CCD imager. That's still better than any other of the 1D/1Ds bodies.

    There is known banding on the 1D at highest ISOs. ISO 1600 banding is probably moderate-slight (for your purposes) especially after post-processing noise reduction, but ISO 3200 banding is probably not usable for most purposes.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • ThatCanonGuyThatCanonGuy Registered Users Posts: 1,778 Major grins
    edited November 27, 2011
    If you could spare the extra $200-300, I think the 1DII would be better. The original 1D files are 4mp, which means there isn't much room to crop. I sometimes find that I can't crop my 8mp 1DII files much - even less if I had the original 1D. The original 1D can't accept CF cards over 2GB. It doesn't support FAT32, only FAT. The 1DII supports FAT32, plus it has an SDHC slot.

    The screen is pretty tiny on both the 1D and the 1DII. Neither have the joystick like on the 5D2. Neither have live view (but LV is useless for sports anyway). But for sports shooting, they work great. For me, the higher resolution and the large-CF-plus-SDHC support was worth the extra money.
  • Matthew SavilleMatthew Saville Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,352 Major grins
    edited November 27, 2011
    Yeah, do yourself a huge favor and save up the extra for a 1D mk2 at the very least. You won't be disappointed!

    I'm not sure about the electronic shutter being able to sync at ANY shutter speed. I'm pretty sure it only goes to 1/500, which was common among all cameras of that vintage. Go any higher, and your'e into FP territory which is a feature that all new cameras have, and it cuts into the flash power. The 1/16000 shutter speed is kinda awesome though, if 1/8000 isn't good enough.

    It's a shame that they didn't maintain that sync limit in newer cameras, but if it's so important to you I'd pick up the 1D now, but just assume that for sports in low light you're eventually going to want to save up for a 1D mk2 or mk3...

    Personally, I also want to get to 1/500 sec shutter sync, and for that I'm probably going to buy a Nikon D70s or a D1X for $200 or so. But that would only really be a nostalgia purchase really; I do just fine using my current generation cameras at 1/250 sync speed and slapping on a polarizer or ND filter.


    =Matt=
    “My first thought is always of light.” – Galen Rowell
    My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 27, 2011
    They do sync higher than 1/500. Was at a game the other night, with another news shooter who has a 1D. I gave him my PW Transciever.. he cranked it all the way up to 1/1600 and was getting full light on the subjects... I'm guessing with a TT5 you might even be able to sneak more out of it.

    My only other thought was just keeping my 5DII and getting a 7D and hoping you could sync higher with Hypersync on the TT5. That was until I read the flashes need to be on full power which absolutely kills that idea for sports.. At that point I would either need a MultiMax to cycle between channels (which supposedly with some cameras can get 1/500 sync) and a ton of speedlights which would be more $$ than just investing in a complete spedotron system with packs. I so hate things not being cheap. Laughing.gifOL
    Jim Karczewski - http://www.jimkarczewski.com
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited November 27, 2011
    JimKarczewski wrote: »
    They do sync higher than 1/500. Was at a game the other night, with another news shooter who has a 1D. I gave him my PW Transciever.. he cranked it all the way up to 1/1600 and was getting full light on the subjects... I'm guessing with a TT5 you might even be able to sneak more out of it.

    ...

    Fantastic. I had no idea the 1D could do that. clap.gif
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 28, 2011
    Ziggy.. Original 1D has an electronic shutter like the D70... it has a mechanical shutter only to protect the sensor, but the actual shutter itself is electronic.
    Jim Karczewski - http://www.jimkarczewski.com
  • Matthew SavilleMatthew Saville Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,352 Major grins
    edited November 28, 2011
    JimKarczewski wrote: »
    They do sync higher than 1/500. Was at a game the other night, with another news shooter who has a 1D. I gave him my PW Transciever.. he cranked it all the way up to 1/1600 and was getting full light on the subjects... I'm guessing with a TT5 you might even be able to sneak more out of it.

    My only other thought was just keeping my 5DII and getting a 7D and hoping you could sync higher with Hypersync on the TT5. That was until I read the flashes need to be on full power which absolutely kills that idea for sports.. At that point I would either need a MultiMax to cycle between channels (which supposedly with some cameras can get 1/500 sync) and a ton of speedlights which would be more $$ than just investing in a complete spedotron system with packs. I so hate things not being cheap. Laughing.gifOL

    I don't understand why it would be listed as 1/500 then, because that implies that going any higher is into FP territory which is of course possible, but at the loss of flash power. I know the 1D and Nikon D70 have electronic shutters, but I thought there was still a "rolling effect" higher than 1/500th.

    Either way, if flash at high shutter speeds is that important, then go for the 1D! it's a great camera, just a bit old as far as the LCD, battery, and menus etc. are concerned. The rugged construction and flagship AF won't let you down, that's for sure!

    =Matt=
    “My first thought is always of light.” – Galen Rowell
    My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited November 28, 2011
    JimKarczewski wrote: »
    Ziggy.. Original 1D has an electronic shutter like the D70... it has a mechanical shutter only to protect the sensor, but the actual shutter itself is electronic.

    That would appear to be true by your experience, but I haven't seen it documented elsewhere. (I did search for it.)*

    Please keep us posted if you should get a 1D and wish to do some tests. There are several qualities I would like to see explored.

    *(Edit: I just found a person who claims he could sync a Canon 1D with a Metz 54MZ-3 using Gadget Infinity V2 radio slaves to 1/16,000th. Now that would be interesting.
    http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/05/hacking-your-cameras-sync-speed-pt-1.html
    Look for the post from "Maddog", a little over halfway down the page.)
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • jheftijhefti Registered Users Posts: 734 Major grins
    edited November 28, 2011
    I can't speak to the matter of the electronic shutter, and I have never used a 1D, but I can say that my 5D2 is overall a better camera for shooting sports in poor light than my 1D3 is. And the latter is several generations ahead of a 1D. Sure, there is only that center AF point on the 5D2, but it works quite well. And even on my 1D4 I mostly use the center AF point for sports. Sure, the 5D2 is more than a bit sluggish on the shutter and burst mode. Still, with a bit of practice it gives me better images than anything save my 1D4, and even in terms of IQ it beats that as well.

    Also, if price is the issue, comparing a 5D2 to a 1D seems like apples-to-oranges. I don't know what a 1D goes for these days, but it can't be remotely comparable to a 5D2.

    Just my $0.02's worth...

    John
    http://johnhefti.com/
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 28, 2011
    jhefti wrote: »
    I can't speak to the matter of the electronic shutter, and I have never used a 1D, but I can say that my 5D2 is overall a better camera for shooting sports in poor light than my 1D3 is. And the latter is several generations ahead of a 1D. Sure, there is only that center AF point on the 5D2, but it works quite well. And even on my 1D4 I mostly use the center AF point for sports. Sure, the 5D2 is more than a bit sluggish on the shutter and burst mode. Still, with a bit of practice it gives me better images than anything save my 1D4, and even in terms of IQ it beats that as well.

    Also, if price is the issue, comparing a 5D2 to a 1D seems like apples-to-oranges. I don't know what a 1D goes for these days, but it can't be remotely comparable to a 5D2.

    Just my $0.02's worth...

    John

    Not price... It's getting a higher sync speed to kill more ambient at basketball games without having to spend $5000 on lights to do the same.

    I love seeing these videos by Dave Black about shooting with the Nikon equivalent of Canon's High Speed Sync, but in order to do so, he's using 8 - SB900's to make up for the power lost in HSS mode vs normal flash mode set to say 1/4 power or whatever I would need for a gym. So yeah, he's able to shoot at 1/1600 or whatever he wants but he had to spend $4000 to get enough speed lights to do that (well, more likely than not,highly discounted by Nikon for being sponsored by them)

    I've been trying to find ways to work around the 1/200 sync of the 5DII which I shoot sports with, but the one solution I thought that would work, HyperSync with the Pocketwizard TT5's means you have to shoot FULL POWER on flashes, which means one shot, wait, wait, One Shot, wait, Wait... I don't want to shoot 1 frame every 2 seconds... I get a 6-8 frame burst (if I really need it) now off of 1/4 power Speedlights. I just either need more power or a faster sync. I've tried adding a second speedlight set to 1/4 power but in order to really get the effect seems like I'll need 3-4 lights per side... which is again, a big $$$ drain even if I continue to use 540EZ's which are cheap. I still need battery packs for them because after 2 quarters and 150 shots of basketball I start seriously dropping light.

    In a perfect world, I'd buy a couple of 4 tube speedotron heads, a couple of power packs and I'd be happy. Too bad that solution would end up costing me at minimum again $5-6k
    Jim Karczewski - http://www.jimkarczewski.com
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