I wish I could say I have photos to provide you taken with the 1D MKII but I don't. I attended the Camera Owners of the Bay Area club meeting last night.
Canon and Olympus reps were demonstrating their newest products to the group and the meeting sure was packed this evening. First time I had to illegally park in my normal parking area because there were so many cars. Anyways, so I arrive and the Canon rep starts covering all of the new products that Canon announced at PMA. You could tell he knew people were her mainly for the Canon 1D MKII and some for the Canon Powershot Pro1 because he skimmed through the other products so quickly. The highlight was of course though the Canon 1D MKII.
I know everyone has read the specs on it so I won't go into to much detail. However here are some new features which I found quite nice.
-Canon 1D MKII battery life lasts twice as long as the 1D. I always felt for such a large battery, the Canon 1D has very poor battery life but one area where Canon was able to improve battery life is in the LCD screen which uses much less power.
-LCD screen although it is the same size, has twice the resolution. The Canon 1D had such a horrible screen that this I am sure will be a great releif.
-RGB Histogram is a new feature on Canon 1D MKII. I sometimes find that although a histogram reports exposure correctly, since it is not an RGB histogram, it doesn't tell me if an individual color is exposed properly. With the Canon 1D MKII, it allows you to view an RGB histogram. This works well especially when I tried to take a picture of a red colored item which generallly tricks cameras. It also has white balance compensation via two settings which allow you to adjust the blue and green. This worked very well.
-This is not new to the 1D MKII, but something I just really appreciated about the 1D MKII is that it starts up so quickly. My 10D takes a few seconds to start up and that can get annoying after a while.
-The E-TTL2 is worth the hype. Metering was dead on.
The rep talked alot more but it honestly isn't anything new that no one has not repeated here before. One other thing that I did not read anywhere is that Canon will be releasing a BP-511A battery very soon to replace the Canon BP-511. The Canon rep stated the new batteries would provide 26% longer life.
I was also able to play around with Digital Photo Professional software. It was very fast (although the rep had a laptop with 2GB of system memory). The image quality looked as good as Capture One. Better than Adobe Photoshop CS. He stated that the likely process to obtain this software will require you to go to Canon's website and submit your camera's serial number to verify that you own a Canon 1D, 1D MKII or 1Ds. The rep stated that the software will be released as soon as the camera is available. He said the cameras should start shipping in about a week and that is close to when we should be expecting to see full reviews on the internet. Reviewers have had a CAnon 1D MKII for quite a while now.
Is it worth $4500? I think so . Will I buy it? Only if someone gives me $4500 as I am quite broke. I think everyone though who is ordering one will find this to be the best all around camera that Canon has ever produced.
Here are some pictures I took today at the meeting with my own camera:
I also played around with the Canon Pro1 and the Canon S1 IS. Here is a video clip that I took with the Canon S1 IS. Although the Canon Pro1 is the best looking point and shoot camera I have seen, I would still rather have a Digital Rebel over the Pro1.
Thanks for the added info! I especially am intrigued that the rep said the camera will start shipping in a week! I am hoping they will get the first 50,000 out next week ;-)
Thanks for the info. I'll be attending a similar get together this Saturday in Florida. I hoping a 28-300 IS L will be for show as well, but I'm not holding my breath.
jfulton wrote:
Thanks for the info. I'll be attending a similar get together this Saturday in Florida. I hoping a 28-300 IS L will be for show as well, but I'm not holding my breath.
Great report Manuel! I enjoyed the session last night - it was great to get some hands-on time with the Mark II. I was blown away by the rapid-fire "machine gun" shutter of that camera. Simply awesome.
I've got one on order, and now I'm more psyched than ever to get my production camera and start shooting.
I took some sample photos last night with the two new lenses (28-300 L, and 70-300 DO IS). I'll post some when I get a chance.
The conditions were far from ideal - indoor, poorly light college class-room setting, and I had my settings on my 10D set wrong, so a few didn't turn out at all. I'll see if any are presentable, and post the images.
Coming from somebody who generates a significant portion of my income from photographic safaris, the answer is a resounding yes. The camera fits very well for nature photographers, based upon the specs. Of course it will go through the normal testing in the months to come, but I suspect my 10D and 1D will go by the wayside, and will be replaced with two 1DmkII bodies.
Coming from somebody who generates a significant portion of my income from photographic safaris, the answer is a resounding yes. The camera fits very well for nature photographers, based upon the specs. Of course it will go through the normal testing in the months to come, but I suspect my 10D and 1D will go by the wayside, and will be replaced with two 1DmkII bodies.
Andy,
Can't wait to see the type of pics you get with two Canon 1D MKII
I totally agree.
It will be worth every penny for what I'm doing.
I have 2 on order at 4 different shops.
Who ever gets em in first, gets my dough.
If I didn't generate income with the camera, I'd sit by and wait for the price to settle down a bit, but I already have deals below MAP lined up.
Just waiting for them to come in !!!
Kurt Jones wrote:
...................... I'd sit by and wait for the price to settle down a bit, but I already have deals below MAP lined up.
Just waiting for them to come in !!!
kj
How long did it take in the past for the 1D price to drop from the initial point?
In fact what was the initial price of the 1D?
This is just torture . Canon should not be allowed to put poor photographers in this kind of waiting torture . Don't we have rights . Its just not fair, Waiting , waiting,waiting
Could be worse... you could be waiting for Nikon to catch up...
