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Canon EOS-1D Mark II N

Canon EOS-1D Mark II N

DESIGN AND POSSIBILITIES

What could be more important than speed for a reporter? It is worth hesitating for a split second - and the moment is lost forever. The most indicative type of shooting in this sense is sports. The snapshot of a runner touching the ribbon at the finish line with his chest is admirable. But in order to capture this moment, the camera must "shoot" a whole series of frames almost instantly.

The Canon 1D Mark II N series has no equal in burst shooting speed and the number of shots: at 8.5 frames / sec, the camera can record up to 22 shots in RAW or 48 in JPEG (with a quality level of 8 out of 10 possible). Speed ​​and more speed! This is the motto of all professionals. And time, as you know, is money. Therefore, the delays in operation of the Mark II N are minimized to such an extent that it is impossible to measure the response intervals "by eye" - you will have to take the manufacturer's word for it. It takes 0.2 seconds to turn on, and the shutter lag is 55 milliseconds. When shooting single shots, even in RAW + JPEG (Large) mode, there is no lag - the buffer memory is very large. But the speed of clearing the buffer and writing to a memory card depends on its speed characteristics of the card. With the old slow flash drive, we had to wait noticeably for a long time until the series was unloaded from the buffer and the frames could be viewed on the screen. By the way, already in the preview mode, the picture can be enlarged, not only in the center, but also relative to the focus point, if it was set manually.

Sometimes for a reportage, the speed of its publication is more important than the quality of shooting, in this case JPEG is preferable to RAW, which takes time to convert. Anyone who has worked with the previous version of the Mark II notes that the Mark II N's JPEG quality is noticeably improved. Of course, in order to get a result in JPEG format, which can be sent to print without additional correction, the camera will have to be adjusted accordingly (in contrast to JPEG, RAW also forgives significant mistakes when setting parameters).

The tuning controls are radically different in style from the hobbyist EOS 350D and the semi-pro EOS 20D. There is no mode dial or scene programs. In order to minimize the number of controls, many options are activated by pressing two buttons at once while rotating the wheel.

I am sure that a software novelty, which has appeared so far only in Mark II N and 5D cameras, will make life much easier for photographers - a set of Picture Style presets. There are six sets of image processing options named: Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, and Monochrome. Sharpness, saturation, contrast, tonality can be adjusted, and imitation of color filters and toning is provided for a monochrome picture. In fact, each scene mode has more parameters, but many are hidden from the user. You can apply these presets while converting RAW files. And not only those made by modern cameras, but practically all "eos", starting with the D30. All subsequent models of Canon DSLRs will integrate Picture Style. And it is right! Indeed, in this way, with the same settings, different cameras will produce images that are similar in sharpness, contrast and tonality.

In the neutral Picture Style mode, we get a picture typical for a professional camera without processing, counting on computer debugging. By the way, it may seem too pale and blurry to an amateur, since non-professional cameras independently process the image - they increase the contrast and color saturation, “sharpen” the picture and crush the noise. Moreover, they often do this not ideally. Unlike the algorithms of amateur cameras, the other (non-neutral) Picture Style modes perform image processing delicately - depending on the scene, they adjust the color, sharpness, and contrast level.

The body design strongly resembles the Canon EOS-1V top-end film SLR. The only difference is that the vertical handle is not sold separately, but is built into the body. All main control buttons are duplicated for shooting both horizontal and vertical shots.

When buying a camera that is supposed to be used for professional purposes, it is worth taking a closer look at such a rarely advertised parameter as the shutter resource. For amateur DSLRs, a resource of 10,000 operations is considered the norm. It is easy to calculate how long it will take a professional photographer at a rate of 300 frames per shooting day (or even more if you shoot in a series of ten frames). It's not a fact that after 10,001 shots the camera will fail, but there is a very real prospect of replacing the shutter. When designing professional cameras, the approach is completely different: Canon guarantees camera trouble-free operation with up to 200,000 shutter releases!

The flexibility and versatility of professional systems is another difference from amateur ones (albeit extremely high quality and sometimes very expensive). The Mark II N can record pictures both on traditional professional CompactFlash memory cards, and on the more and more widely used compact format SD format SLR cameras. Moreover, unlike its predecessor, the Mark II N allows you to switch from one card to another with one button - this is very convenient for large volumes of shooting. And yet another innovation that can make it easier to work with images: now you can record RAW images to one card and simultaneously to a second card in JPEG format.

It is not uncommon for one professional camera to have several “owners”. Standard situation: the editorial office of an illustrated weekly has one or two cameras that are used by all (or almost all) editorial staff as needed. So, especially for such cases, it is now possible to replace the standard file name of the IMG_8276.JPG type with one containing your name or initials. Then, even if several photographers shot on one card, there will be no problems with sorting and attribution. And it, authorship, is, oh, how jealously guarded in a professional environment.

The screen, which has grown to 2.5 inches diagonally, has become even brighter: the number of its pixels has been doubled. The menu reads perfectly, practically from any angle, both horizontally and vertically.

Canon has a wide choice of professional optics: there are both wide-angle zooms and telephoto lenses with an optical stabilizer.

PICTURE

The enlarged (albeit slightly compared to 20D) matrix with almost the same number of pixels allows you to get much higher detail. Of course, the 16-megapixel 1Ds Mark II produces even sharper and more detailed images and almost no noise at ISO 3200! Unlike the younger "Mark". But a twofold superiority in pixels does not automatically mean a twofold increase in resolution, and the price rises exponentially. The quality we got in the 1D Mark II N shots is enough for high-quality magazine spread prints. And RAW allows even more.

Color rendition is excellent in all conditions. Even at night, in the light of spotlights, it was enough to set the color temperature manually to get a perfect color frame.

Photo at different ISO:

ISO100

ISO200

ISO400

ISO800

ISO1600

SPECIFICATIONS

Sensor: CMOS 28.7 x 19.1 mm, 8.2 effective megapixels

Snapshot recording: JPEG, RAW (12 bit), maximum frame size - 3504x2336 pixels

Lens: interchangeable optics, EF mount (except for EF-S lenses)

Focusing: TTL-AREA-SIR using CMOS sensor, 45-point, One Shot AF, AI Servo, predictive. Manual focusing with a ring on the lens

Exposure metering: TTL metering at full aperture with 21-area photocell, evaluative (linked to any AF point), partial (13.5% area in center), spot-metering on center point (3.8% in center), spot-metering on AF point (3.8% from the viewfinder area),multi-point metering (max. 8-point), center-weighted averaged metering

Modes: Program AE, Shutter Priority AE, Aperture Priority AE, Manual

Display: 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixels

ISO sensitivity: 100–1600 (L and H values ​​corresponding to ISO 50 and 3200 can only be set by activating the corresponding item in the menu)

White balance: auto, daylight, shade, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent, flash, custom, color temperature setting, custom white balance (10 parameters). White Balance Correction: Blue / Amber +/– 9 or Magenta / Green +/– 9

Exposure range, sec: 30–1/8000

Flash: E-TTL II with EX series Speedlites, manual metering

X-sync, sec .: 1/250

Memory: CF, SD

Power supply: Ni-MH rechargeable battery NP-E3

Battery life: approx. 1200 shots (at 20 ° C), approx. 800 shots (at 0 ° C)

Body weight, g: 1225g (battery weight 335g)

Dimensions, mm: 156.0x157.6x79.9

Interface: USB, IEEE 1394

Turning on: 0.2 sec

Focusing: with USM lenses almost instant

White balance: excellent in most cases, manual adjustments were required when shooting at night under spotlights

Digital noise: up to and including ISO 400 is practically absent, the image quality is quite acceptable at ISO 1600, the use of ISO 3200 is possible, but the noise is too noticeable

Special pluses: excellent ergonomics, record shooting speed, large screen

Special cons: to switch from Canon EOS 20D and similar cameras will require relearning - the control style is radically different

EXAMPLES OF PHOTOS:

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