Test Drove 1Ds MkII

claudermilk

In a word: droool! :bow

Got to use this monster over the weekend shooting a show. Wow. First impression of the interface is it's wonky for someone used to a 20D, but I could learn to like it I'm sure. The AF is magic--I started out on a single central AF point, then discovered the middle-ring setting which seemed to read my mind as about 90% of the time it picked the AF points I wanted it to. Strangely, I also got out of Av mode fairly quickly and got real comfortable juggling aperture & shutter in M mode. One thing I don't get is all the buzz over the FF viewfinder. Jumping between the Mk II & my 20D, really the only difference I could detect was the Mk II's indicators consumed proportionally less room even with more info--which was very welcome--but otherwise to me they were about the same.

Anyway, I'm in serious lust now & this just confirmed that the 20D will get replaced with a Mk II N when I can, and not a 40D.

ziggy53

I agree that the Canon 1D series are a real dream to use in full manual mode. There is a very real performance advantage in latitude as well versus either the consumer or prosumer models. As long as you don't blow the highlights, there is a considerable amount of recovery from the middle tones and shadows that you just don't get with any other models except the Canon 5D, which also has a superb imager and processor section.

Put good glass in front of the Canon xD cameras, give them good light, and you are bound to get pleasing results.

Do you have any images to share?

Shizam

You know, I just so happen to be preparing a FS: 1DsII thread

claudermilk

Tease! I just put a deposit on new carpet for the house :wow:helpso, while the lust is there, the ability to sate it is not. :cry Reality--and the wife--tells me carpet before camera. Anyway the 1D Mk II N is really the better camera for my typical shooting.

The one thing that I did find annoying was that the buffer filled too quickly & took too long to empty, I found myself twiddling my thumbs or reaching for hte 20D for a few unplanned wide shots waiting on the writes--especially once a card filled up. This is a studio camera, not an action camera.

No shots processed yet--I am chewing through them..and ran into the downside of a 16MP sensor: I ran out of drive space! Had to do a bit of juggling and pruning to get the download done. I also have another drive on order to move stuff as processing will be painful since I will have to run a handful of TIFFs to PS at a time, then ditch them after the final JPEGs are produced, then run another batch.

I also ran up against the 1.6 vs 1.0 difference--my 70-200 was suddenly much shorter! To some extent I'm cropping, but I didn't do any of my head-and-shoulders shots I try to mix in this time around.

Lighting sucked, but I did have good glass and some experience shooting in this kind of lighting. I am seeing that I have quite a bit of latitude in adjusting exposure--at least on the shots that I didn't miss a boost in lighting and blew highlights badly. I tried to keep it at about 1/3-1 2/3 EV under.