1dsII your thoughts?

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Shutterbug2006
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p.3 #1 · 1dsII your thoughts?

mttran wrote:
i am wonder how long have you had this camera

nothing like you said compared to my two copies and i am shooting them since 2006

+1

I've been shooting a 1DsII for two years, but it took a back seat to my 5D2 until I sold that six months ago. I've also owned a 40D, 5D, 20D, 1D2 and ID3. The focusing and image quality is solid for me, the only complaint I had initially was the clumsy 2 button navigation.

Nov 16, 2012 at 06:20 AM

Rune
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p.3 #2 · 1dsII your thoughts?

form wrote:
I would never own a 1ds II again...shadow dynamic range is non-existent (RAW), noise is worse than 5d classic, and overall responsiveness in every way is inferior to modern cameras except for shutter lag. It's outdated tech, very, very outdated...5d2 focuses better and in lower light (with center point), has TONS more dynamic range and shadow recovery, much cleaner images, more detail, plus it's lighter, batteries last longer or at least as long, shoots video, etc...

The only advantages of the 1ds II are spot metering selected af points besides center and very fast shutter lag...definitely not enough to justify buying such old tech.

I am kind of baffled with this response... one could possible ask himself whether you have used this camera at all or not... this was the absolute best DSLR one could own right up till 5 years ago. It has, through the years, taken some absolutt fantastic images I could only dream about achieving. Yes, 5 years may be a while talking about technology, but you make it sounds like this is, and was, a completely useless disaster of a camera.
Personally, I have owned a lot of cameras, but I have kept my 1DsII, basically because of the beautiful images that it produces. Yes, I also have a 5DII, I use it as my travel camera, but I have never felt it produces the same files as 1DsII. (BTW, I only use RAW..)
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One other thing I don't think anybody has mentioned, the sound of the shutter...

That sound is absolutely music to my ears at least, no other Canon I have used sounds like that..

Have a nice week-end!

Nov 16, 2012 at 07:46 AM

Gunzorro
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p.3 #3 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Rune wrote:
form wrote:
I would never own a 1ds II again...shadow dynamic range is non-existent (RAW), noise is worse than 5d classic, and overall responsiveness in every way is inferior to modern cameras except for shutter lag. It's outdated tech, very, very outdated...5d2 focuses better and in lower light (with center point), has TONS more dynamic range and shadow recovery, much cleaner images, more detail, plus it's lighter, batteries last longer or at least as long, shoots video, etc...

The only advantages of the 1ds II are spot metering selected af points besides center and very fast shutter lag...definitely not enough to justify buying such old tech.

I am kind of baffled with this response... one could possible ask himself whether you have used this camera at all or not... this was the absolute best DSLR one could own right up till 5 years ago. It has, through the years, taken some absolutt fantastic images I could only dream about achieving. Yes, 5 years may be a while talking about technology, but you make it sounds like this is, and was, a completely useless disaster of a camera.
Personally, I have owned a lot of cameras, but I have kept my 1DsII, basically because of the beautiful images that it produces. Yes, I also have a 5DII, I use it as my travel camera, but I have never felt it produces the same files as 1DsII. (BTW, I only use RAW..)
---
One other thing I don't think anybody has mentioned, the sound of the shutter...

That sound is absolutely music to my ears at least, no other Canon I have used sounds like that..

Have a nice week-end!

+1

I agree with Rune, except that I prefer the 5D2 imaging and other updated features. The 1Ds2 is still a powerful imaging machine and takes beautiful pictures.

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:27 PM

M Lucca
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p.3 #4 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Folks who have read some of the posts by 'form' would learn to take a large dose of salt on all his/her ramblings. This poster is a chronic complainer and whiner from gear to his/her wedding business. Many believe the issues lie within form.

Nov 16, 2012 at 05:32 PM

jj_glos
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p.3 #5 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Alistair1 wrote:
M Lucca wrote:
Came across a used 1dsII for about $900. Has 100k actuations. Seems to be in good condition. Worth it? It's unbelievable that it once MSRP for $8000 years ago.

Anyone still use these? How does it compare to say a 5d2?

The IQ from the 1dsII is very pretty. Lovely colors and tones. It is very nice body to use, feels great in the hand. 1dsIII is even better. I prefer it over the 5d2 but you lose movies and high ISO capability (and banding!).

However the price you are quoted is not that great. For some reason the 1dsII has dropped like a stone in price. I am about to upgrade mine and do not expect to get much more than £500 on ebay for it.

The price has dropped but if you only want £500 I'm interested

Most still go for > £700 up to £800 on Ebay. Considering I paid £900 for mine nearly two years ago the price is still pretty good.

Nov 17, 2012 at 12:29 AM

anthonygh
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p.3 #6 · 1dsII your thoughts?

argonaut wrote:
I have a 5d ..the 1ds mark ii focused MUCH faster...many more keepers.

I agonized between a 5D and 1Ds2 then saw a mint 5D with grip for under £500 so bit the bullet. Somewhat off topic...but how does the IQ of the 5D compare to the 1Ds2?

To add a bit more detail....I will be using the 5D mainly in a studio with strobes and it is unlikely I will exceed ISO 400.....my norm is 200.

Nov 17, 2012 at 12:47 AM

Tom Dix
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p.3 #7 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Grat body. Great af. Great price.

Nov 17, 2012 at 01:17 AM

argonaut
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p.3 #8 · 1dsII your thoughts?

The main reasons I purchased the 1ds mark ii after a 5d were the 45 pt af and the weather sealing ....for fast objects the 1 ds af was much faster than a 5d and of course not having to worry about rain...with that said the 5d images can be used at much higher iso then a 1ds mark ii...choices

... Nothing is perfect ....I wish canon would place more of their new tech into the higher end cameras rather than the low end.......GPS should be std now built in for instance.....the new autofocus while filming should also be in the high end cameras too....just my .02....

Nov 17, 2012 at 05:51 AM

Gunzorro
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p.3 #9 · 1dsII your thoughts?

1Ds2 is in between the 5D and 5D2 for IQ. I consider it closer to the 5D2 for look, but it is almost exactly in the middle of MP: 12.7, 16.7, 21.0.

Nov 17, 2012 at 06:43 AM

jpreston
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p.3 #10 · 1dsII your thoughts?

I bought a mint condition 1DsMkII a couple of months ago and the only thing I'm not real happy about is the shutter bounce I found at 1/1000 and above shutter speeds. Wish the seller would have mentioned that beforehand. I would've bought the other one I was looking at that had a newer shutter.

Nov 17, 2012 at 07:03 AM

jj_glos
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p.3 #11 · 1dsII your thoughts?

That's not good, couldn't you return it? I would've!

Mines actually with Canon for repair

Nov 17, 2012 at 11:21 AM

PetKal
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p.3 #12 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Nov 17, 2012 at 11:56 AM

Depp
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p.3 #13 · 1dsII your thoughts?

That sound is absolutely music to my ears at least, no other Canon I have used sounds like that..

Have a nice week-end!

Got to agree...one of my all time favorites!

Nov 17, 2012 at 03:05 PM

Alan321
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p.3 #14 · 1dsII your thoughts?

My 1Ds2 had AF issues when I bought it (new). A year later the shutter was replaced. Twice. A shutter controller board was replaced once. That's 4 trips to Canon Service at an average of 7 weeks each, for just two thousand operations. So form may or may not right but not all 1Ds2s were gems.

I got some lovely photos from my 1Ds2 but most were at ISO 800 or less. It just got too noisy up at 1600 and 3200. Note that I was exposing to preserve highlights and could not use ETTR to preserve shadow details at the same time.

The two-buttons-for-everything interface used to be the standard for pro cameras. It was deliberately cumbersome to prevent accidental changes happening in harsh environments.

The small low-res LCD is inconvenient by modern standards but far worse in my opinion was that the raw file preview images were also low-res. And highly compressed. You could tell whether or not your subject had blinked at the wrong time but you could not accurately assess focus other than for gross errors.

The personal functions were certainly not all useless and today they would part of the accessible custom functions. In those days the lesser cameras did not have these features at all. Things like changing the number of shots per bracket group, restricting the range of shutter speeds and apertures, disabling AF lens search, setting the * button to AF Lock, disabling the focus assist beam, quiet shooting mode, changing the continuous shooting speed, and changing various camera timing settings.

By far the worst thing about the 1Ds2 in my opinion is the lack of the now-standard sensor self-cleaning feature. You'll spend a lot more time cleaning your sensor than with a more modern camera, and at smaller apertures you will need to.

As much as I liked it early on, this camera caused me a lot of grief and frustration and soured my relationship with Canon at least as much as some others at the time were being soured over 1D3 AF defects. I've still got my Canon gear but I mostly use Nikon now.

- Alan

Nov 17, 2012 at 04:06 PM

Paul Yi
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p.3 #15 · 1dsII your thoughts?

I have to say that 1Ds MkII, despite its lack of high ISO capability and a pathetic rear LCD (on flag-ship camera...

),
the files it pours out are just amazing...

I actually prefer them over those from 5D MkII ....

If I have to pick a best camera performance/value wise right now, it will have to be 1Ds Mk II .......

Nov 17, 2012 at 04:16 PM

Alan321
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p.3 #16 · 1dsII your thoughts?

jpreston wrote:
I bought a mint condition 1DsMkII a couple of months ago and the only thing I'm not real happy about is the shutter bounce I found at 1/1000 and above shutter speeds. Wish the seller would have mentioned that beforehand. I would've bought the other one I was looking at that had a newer shutter.

Expect to need a new shutter much sooner than later. It will now deteriorate relatively quickly. If it doesn't fail outright and perhaps scratch the sensor then it will just look worse and worse at progressively slower shutter speeds.

It is possible that the previous owner used it in a studio with flash and never saw the problem because he never used the high shutter speeds. Possible, but not certain.

It is also possible that he did not notice it. I missed it at first on mine because the broad shadow banding effect was near the bottom edge of the monitor where it is more natural to see ghosting effects as my eyes move about when using a bright monitor and a dark background. I found that rotating small versions of the images fairly quickly will make the problems very evident if they are there. Once I found it and looked back through my older images I realised that it had been going on for some time. Soon after I noticed it the roughly horizontal shadow bands spread further into the picture and were accompanied by a series of arcs from top to bottom. Plain as day when shooting backgrounds of blue sky at fast shutter speeds - except to Canon technicians, apparently.

- Alan

Nov 17, 2012 at 04:20 PM

Dustin Gent
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p.3 #17 · 1dsII your thoughts?

Nov 17, 2012 at 04:25 PM

Danpbphoto
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p.3 #18 · 1dsII your thoughts?

One of Canon's finest bodies! Initially sold my 1st one and missed the top quality images without all the MA, Live Image issues aka bells and whistles so I bought another one.
Probably,overall, the best body I own!
Dan

Nov 17, 2012 at 04:26 PM

pingflood
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p.3 #19 · 1dsII your thoughts?

jrfx wrote:
Hi, I have 1Ds2 and processing its NEF files on DPP or Lightroom on Win7 x64.

If your 1Ds2 puts out NEF files you got ripped off.

Nov 17, 2012 at 09:16 PM

pingflood
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p.3 #20 · 1dsII your thoughts?

PetKal wrote:

That's too bad. I bought a mint 1DsMkII which had signs of shutter failing at 10,000 counts. Thankfully, I discoverd the problem within the camera return period, and KEH took it back.
In that sense, "mint" looking with 1DsMkII doesn't mean much, since it seems that the shutter reliability in that model was poor.

Yeah, it seems that a not statistically insignificant number of 1Ds2 bodies had shutter failures early on. I bought mine with 23k on the clock back in 2009 and found shutter bounce at 1/8000. Got some advice from stanj here on the forum to send it to Canon overnight with a note about my general disappointment with such an early failure on a pro body and I'll be damned if Canon did not only fix it within a few hours of receipt, but also overnighted it back, all free of charge. I have been a Canon shooter since.

As for how it performs in comparison to other cameras today, up to ISO 800 I still think it is the best there is. At 1600 bad things happen to my raw files and I do not like going there, but I will and have gladly pushed ISO 800 exposures a stop or two and gotten great prints out of the results.

Nov 17, 2012 at 09:24 PM

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