Dylan777 said:
Hi gent's,
What are your top 2 reasons you upgraded or plan to upgrade in near future from mrk1 to II?
How is high ISO compared to mrk I?
Best,
Dylan
I upgrade from 1DX to 1DXII the moment the 1DXII was available.
Top 2 reasons were silent shutter and all AF points available at f/8.
The silent shutter on the 1DX was a joke, the contineous silent shutter on the 1DXII is a relief when shooting from hides. It's not far off from the 5DIII (which I kept for its silent shutter when I had the 1DX, but I now sold the 5DIII because I didn't use it anymore), certainly when you put the contineous silent shutter speed to 3 fps (max speed in the 5DIII) but also at 5 fps it's still silent enough for me.
I never liked having only the center AF point(s) available at f/8 in the 1DX/5DIII so that's another relief with the 1DXII. When I want to have a "light" walk, I put the 100-400 II + 1.4x extender on the 1DXII and I'm good without a tripod, still having 560 mm at hand.
High ISO: I read everywhere that high ISO of the 1DXII is similar to the 1DX. There must be something wrong with my 1DXII because I would say it's at least 1 stop (it's rather 1.5 stops I'd say) better than the 1DX. Or it's a combination of better high ISO and noise that is easier to remove. I use about as much noise reduction on a 1DXII ISO 2500 shot than I did on a 1DX ISO 800 shot. Recently I was preparing some photos for a presentation about wildlife photography, and I always put some exif data on the picture so the people attending the presentation can always see what shutter speed, aperture and ISO setting was used . So I put in a red squirrel photo and it turned out to be a ISO 10 000 shot. I completely forgot it was shot at that high an ISO, I would have thought it was an ISO 800 shot.
Dust: my 1DX was terrible regarding dust and oil spatters. One 12 fps burst of 40 shots would turn a clean sensor into a sensor with dozens and dozens of dust/oil spots. This 1DX has been 3 times at Canon before dust was manageable, manageable meaning I could remove most of the dust myself with an artic butterfly. Before, cleaning it myself, even wet, resulted in oil smears all over the sensor. Very frustrating, certainly compared the the 5DIII which never needed to be cleaned. The 1DXII still has getting dust on the sensor, but it's far less and it doesn't seem to be oil, and giving it a quick wet clean gets the sensor clean again.
Pleasant surprises: AF during Live View, it's fast, very fast. I can have my 200-400 on it, with a 2x extender, and flip in the internal 1.4x extender and in Live View, AF is still fast. Which brings me to the next pleasant surprise: the 1DXII seems to take extenders better than anything before. I never use the 2x extender a lot before as I could see it clearly having an adverse effect on IQ. With the 1DXII, that adverse effect seems way less, I now use the 2x extender a lot more. With the 200-400 and the 2x extender and the internal 1.4x in place, the IQ is still more than acceptable. This is now my preferred set-up in my garden hide. With this combination I am good for squirrels but also for the tiniest garden birds.
I think it should be clear I am glad I did upgrade from 1DX to 1DXII ;-).
Mario
http://severi.be
https://www.facebook.com/photographymarioseveri/