EOS 1DMkII - First live event - Review

First event covered completely with the new EOS-1 series 1DMkII / 1DMk2 Cameras – A Real World Example Review

First impression of real world performance: It rocks

I just got home from the first real event since the upgrade, and I couldn’t be more impressed with the performance of these cameras. Tonight’s coverage included lots of dancing in near complete darkness. In addition, the bride is of course wearing a white dress which is very reflective to artificial strobe light. Using auto focus point selection, the 1DMkII cameras locked focus nearly every time, right off, no delay or hunting, and quick too. Accurate? AMAZING. I could see every detail in people's faces and clothing when bouncing flash.

This example image was captured in light so dark I could hardly frame the subjects in the viewfinder. I gave the shutter a half press and very quickly got the focus lock indicator (though I certainly couldn’t tell if it had actually locked onto anything or not). I captured the image and here it is. I can see every hair, every stitch in the bride’s dress, and every detail. The focus was not only close, but it was perfectly accurate. No front or back focus what so ever. In near complete darkness! I was able to do this again and again, and took home well over 100 perfectly focused images from the dance floor.

My 16-35, which I was about to give up on and toss in the trash - suddenly seems sharp again. Hmm. Odd? I'll know for sure after some pixel peeping on the actual files, but on the viewfinder, it sure looked sharp to me. Much sharper than I’d come to expect with the 20D. I’ve come to trust the auto point selection to find and lock the right subject so much now, that I stopped even looking through the viewfinder after a while. Candid stuff, I just pointed and fired. Perfectly locked on the intended subject the vast majority of the time.

Which brings me to my second point - this was my first test of the new Lightsphear "Photo Journalist" (Info Here). That too was just awesome. I've used the original LSII and liked it, but this was even better. It's a soft material, so you can bend it around. It's also clear and doesn't look like a beer cup taped to your flash. It looks more like a rum & coke glass. A major improvement. Anyway, those dark dance floor shots had a ceiling probably 15 to 18 ft above. Each image looked like it was softly overhead lit, with a giant soft box right over my head to fill in faces and details. I was very pleased with the lighting pattern. This example image was taken using the Lightsphear “Photo Journalist” with a Canon EX-550 flash.