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Photography News Issue 30 absolutephoto.com
Preview
Andy has seen both sides of the Nikon/Canon divide. Initially a Canon user, he made the move to Nikon, but then switched back when the EOS-1D X was announced. He got a pre- production Mark II version back in mid- December but, considering how happy he was with its predecessor, opened the box with an air of scepticism… Andy Rouse: Whether I can instantly go out that minute and use it. Instruction manuals are no use to me. My big fear when a manufacturer makes changes to a camera is that they’re going to mess it up – it has happened before. I think the EOS-1D X is the best camera in the world with the best AF system in the world, so if Canon was going to build on that I didn’t want them to make mistakes. As soon as I got the camera, I went out with it that night. I shot at Tower Bridge and various other London locations just to convince myself that everything was OK. PN And were you convinced? AR I shot at ISO 200 and the quality was astounding. The level of detail is way beyond what the 1D X was capable of. The most obvious difference was in the shadow detail where you’d normally get some noise, even at 200. I applied HDR to the images and found that I could brighten the shadows without any noise appearing. They sharpened well too and the colours looked great straight out of the camera. PN After this initial trip, what did you shoot? AR It was the worst time of year for me to test the camera – hard for wildlife and no one was flying air-to-air because it’s so cold, so I went and photographed kingfishers. You need 1/2000sec to capture them and you have to shoot at f/11 and above, which is tough enough in sunlight, but I spent three days in torrential rain. With the EOS-1D X, ISO 8000 was the limit, but on the first day with the Mark II I shot at ISO 10,000 and 16,000 and the results looked more like those I’d get between 4000 and 8000 on the original. To get the extra speed, I was underexposing by two stops and then lightening the shots in post-production, but you can see the results here. There’s no colour noise in the shadows at all; there is pattern noise but I like that because it’s the same as film. When I went back the next day, the weather was even worse so I shot at ISO 25,600 and 32,000 but I still got images that could be used commercially up to A2. Andy Rouse Wildlife and aviation photographer Photography News: When a new model comes out, what do you look for first?
PN Howwere you processing the images? AR With Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP). I haven’t used it much in the past, but this latest version is excellent. I loaded the files in, did very little apart from using the built-in noise reduction and was impressed with the quality. DPP does take some of the noise out, so whatever it’s doing it’s very good at it. PN How did you find the autofocus performance on the 1D XMark II? AR Kingfishers are very fast and I’d never tried autofocusing on them with any other camera as I know they can’t keep up, but the 1D XMark II did get a few. I did use the autofocusing on the magpie; another very difficult subject. The AF was very fast – it locks and holds the focusing point much quicker and is discernibly better than the 1D X. On subsequent shoots, the f/8 support was great. I often use a 2x teleconverter so being able to move the focus point around the frame and know that the focus will be accurate is superb. I’m not a live view shooter generally, but I did an owl workshop a few days ago and I shot a lot on live view and it worked really well. The face tracking was particularly useful, it
was quick and responsive giving me another option as sometimes I don’t always want to lift my head to the look through the viewfinder so I can keep an eye on the bigger picture. PN What else stands out for you? AR I shot some video of the kingfishers – Full HD at 120 frames-per-second and it looks amazing. Early tests with 4K are equally impressive. I was also heartened to see the exposure simulation capability, very handy when you’re using filters, and the viewfinder leveller is handy too. In general, I’ve also found the camera to be better balanced. PN Overall impressions? AR There are many functions that aren’t new, but they’ve been tweaked and are right. Canon has produced an epic camera and I’m constantly finding new things to like about it. The fact that it gives me a fighting chance to get good pictures is great andwhen I do get the shots, even at high ISO, the quality is there. Modern pros don’t knowwhat they’re going to be doing from one day to the next and they do need one camera that’s going to do it all – including video. This is that camera.
There are many functions that aren’t new, but they’ve been tweaked and are right. Canon has produced an epic camera
Above and belowright Even though kingfishers are notoriously too fast for autofocusing, Andy Rouse did try it with this kingfisher, and the EOS-1D X Mark II caught a few shots as the bird emerged from the water. With the magpie, AF locked on fast. Below Shooting in abysmal weather, the EOS-1D X Mark II turned in results with no colour noise, even at high ISO settings.
andyrouse.co.uk
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