stanj
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 p.2 #13 · The magic of the 1Ds Mark II .... | |
m.shalaby wrote:
I was in the market for a 1Ds Mark III - any huge difference between the II vs. III ?
I know 16 vs. 21mp, but otherwise anything else? I'm mostly looking to get rid of my 5D Mark II due to the outer AF points missing shots a lot.
The Mark III is very hard to find right now... Should I save the dough and just get the 1Ds Mark II instead?
When I got the 1Ds3 when it was released, I was not in love. It felt like the biggest ripoff ever. The difference between 1Ds to 1Ds2 was huge; from 1Ds2 to 1Ds3 was marginal, and I said so often, loudly (as I tend to do  ).
Then I shot a few tens of thousands of frames with the 1Ds3. And then at a wedding I was handed my old 1Ds2 "to try". And then it hit me:
- Speed. "The speed with which the machine goes about doing its work", not meaning frame rate.
- Live view. Yes I know we grew up without it. It's like radar cruise control: once you've had it, you won't give it up.
- Battery life: 3500 shots on one charge. That's 96GB in raw+JPG. I can go on a 2 week vacation with just one spare battery and no charger. Ironically somehow I accumulated 3 spare batteries...
- AF. Yes there was the 1D3 fiasco that the 1Ds3 was equally affected by. There was the official recall where the center point and the outer points were out of alignment, and both my 1Ds3 bodies were affected by it. But at the end of the day, the 1Ds3 AF is far more accurate and fast, esp. in low light.
- User interface. Except for one or two things that I consider a step backwards, the UI of the 1Ds3 is far more intuitive than that of the 1Ds2.
- I like the images better, regardless of what's been said (this based on about 500,000 1Ds3 frames). I can do more with them, and more easily, than with the 1Ds2. I think they have more "pop". Actually I think the 1Ds2 had the least "pop" of all the Ss; the 1Ds had to be worked really, really hard but the results were mind boggling. The 1Ds2 made it easier, but it never blew me away. The 1Ds3 reaches the same level of pop to me as the 1Ds, except without the sweat.
One more thing: I keep my lenses current as much as possible. That has a lot to do with the final image quality, sharpness, and "pop". For example, on the 1Ds I had the 16-35, 24L, and 70-200LIS. I had the same lenses on the 1Ds2, and the camera lost some magic. And again on the 1Ds3. Then the 16-35L2, 24L2 and 70-200LIS2 came out. These images have the same pop, if not more, than the 1Ds did with its "current" lenses. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when people compare bodies between generations, they should always use the newest lenses from the same generation. My prime frustration is the 24-70, which was great on the 1Ds, meh on the 1Ds2, and pretty crappy on the 1Ds3. Take that with the usual grain of salt for my bitter statements, but there's a lot of truth to that. That's why I am certain that whatever the next body will be, it will come with a new 24-70 simply because the current one would look like a complete joke.
Again, to each their own. To me, 1Ds3
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My choice was between a used 1Ds2 for $1600, or a new 5D2 for $2500, so I went with the 1Ds2 and love it. Doesn't mean I wouldn't love the more advanced technology of the 5D2 more -- I know I love the 1Ds3 more!