Photography News Issue 32

Camera test 39

Photography News Issue 32 absolutephoto.com

Original image

-4EV

-3EV

-2EV

-1EV

0EV

+1EV

Performance: Exposure latitude

To get an idea of howmuch flexibility Raws from the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II can take, I shot nine frame brackets (manually) in various scenes including full sun and shadow-dominated subjects. Large JPEGs were shot at the same time to see howmuch latitude we had there too. In manual exposure mode and with reference to the histogram, the determined settings for the sunny scene shown here were 1/500sec at f/5.6 and ISO 100. From there, shots were taken to +/-4EV in 1EV steps. During Raw processing in Lightroom, each of the bracketed shots was adjusted to give the same exposure as the correctly exposed shot. The resulting images were viewed on-screen at 100% and 200% to evaluate image quality. Overexposeby4EVandyouarenot going to get a top quality result. Pulling the +4EV Raw back gave very flat highlights but the shadow areas came up okay with little discernible extra artefacting. Overexpose a

shadowy scene by 4EV and youmight away with it. Pulling the highlights on the +3EV shot was reasonably successful compared with the +4EV shot – still slightly flat and grey but with more diligent processing could be made to look acceptable. Recovering heavily underexposed shots was reasonably successful too. The -4EV shot went slightly magenta (easily correctable) and there was noise evident in the shadows but it wasn’t horrible by any means. The -3EV shot looked fine and while noise levels were still greater than the -2EV shot they were acceptable. In sum, the Raws dealt well with exposure abuse with files recoverable to a high level of quality to +/-3EV. The straight-out-the-camera +/-1EV JPEGs looked okay and with the help of Lightroom looked identical to the correctly exposed shot. In fact, the -3EV and +2EV shots could be improved giving better results than you might expect.

+2EV

+3EV

+4EV

Images To see howmuch adjustment Raw files from the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II can take, a sequence of exposures were taken to give a +/-4EV bracket in 1EV steps. Then in Lightroom, the files were corrected by the same amount as they were over or underexposed and the results assessed.

Verdict

Features 25/25 Very well endowed whether for still or movie imaging Performance 24/25 Autofocus is incredibly good in a very wide range of situations Handling 24/25 Intuitive, slick and simply great to use Value formoney 23/25 Terrific camera but still a lot of money Overall 96/100 The EOS-1D XMark II sets new standards in Canon’s pro DSLR range Pros Fast and accurate AF, exposure consistency, high ISO performance, touchscreen AF duringmovie shooting Cons Expensive and bulky but what do you expect from a pro flagship Canon? departments especially with autofocusing and autoexposure. All round image quality is excellent too although its very high ISO performance is not the best in its class – one guess which DSLR manages to beat it. But it is still amazing what you get at ISO 12,800 and above. There is no doubt that the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II is a fantastic, hugely capable DSLR which, of course, is no more than you’d expect to read. It is simply very, very impressive in all

Above High-quality grab shots can be tackled in very low-light conditions. Here, ISO 12,800 allowed an exposure of 1/160sec at f/2.8 and the lens was the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 set to 63mm. Top right Girl on fire was a handheld scene taken using a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom at 1/400sec and f/4.5, ISO 1600 and white-balance set to 3200K. Rightmiddle Danish bike was shot with a 24-70mm zoom at 35mm and an exposure of 1/125sec at f/13. Bottomright Night scene. A handheld ISO 12,800 image taken using a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom at 50mmwith an exposure of 1/90sec at f/2.8.