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| The Mark II comes with rechargeable battery, charger, DC coupler and lots more. |
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| Photo by Mike Stensvold |
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| With its 8.2-megapixel resolution and PC terminal, the EOS-1d Mark II is an excellent studio-portrait camera. Photo by Lynne Eodice |
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| This is one frame of a multi-shot sequence at 8.5 fps. With some subjects, many of the frames look near-identical at that rate—not all action subjects require the camera's top rate. Photo by Karel Kramer |
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| The Mark II's AF system can keep up with its superfast advance rate, and nails single-frame action shots extremely well, too. The rugged pro design holds up well in tough shooting conditions like dirt tracks. Photo by Karel Kramer |
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| Precise timing is easy with the Mark II's minimal lag time.Photo by Mike Stensvold |
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Up to 40 8.2-megapixel images at 8.5 fps
One of the great joys of working for a photo magazine is getting to use all the latest and greatest gear. One of the great sorrows is having to return it when we're through testing it. Never has having to return a piece of equipment been more painful than with the new Canon EOS-1d Mark II. This digital SLR that can shoot 8.2-megapixel images at 8.5 per second—up to 40 in a row if you wish—is truly a joy to use.
There are other digital SLRs capable of shooting 8 frames per second (including the Mark II's predecessor, the original EOS-1d). But those are 4-megapixel cameras, not 8-megapixel cameras. To pull off 8.5 fps with 8.2-megapixel images is quite a trick. Canon has employed a number of technological advancements to make it happen. Among them: A huge high-speed DDR-SDRAM buffer, twice as large as the original EOS-1d's memory buffer, provides room to hold all that data. The new single-board DIGIC II imaging engine reads 8 channels per line at a time instead of the usual 2 channels per line, while a new signal-processing algorithm speeds up image-data processing. The DIGIC II imaging engine can write images to high-speed CompactFlash cards like the SanDisk Extreme provided with our test camera at 5.0 MB per second (compared to 3.2 MB/second for the original EOS-1d and just under 2 MB/second for the 11-megapixel EOS-1Ds).
The Mark II's new Canon-produced CMOS image sensor is fairly large (28.7x19.1mm), so the pixels themselves are a relatively large 8.2 microns square, yielding excellent sensitivity and dynamic range, yet less noise than the EOS-1Ds's 11.1-megapixel sensor. A new on-chip microlens gathers light for the pixels, enhancing sensitivity and reducing noise. Both fixed-pattern and random noise are further reduced by second-generation on-chip noise-reduction circuitry. The new sensor also has low power consumption—a single charge of the supplied NP-E3 Ni-MH battery is good for 1200 shots at normal temperatures (the battery will recharge in under two hours). While not "full frame," the sensor's "telephoto factor" is just 1.3X, meaning a 20mm wide-angle lens frames like a 26mm wide-angle on a 35mm camera—better for wide-angle fans than most digital SLRs, whose telephoto factors turn a 20mm lens into 30–32mm.
Autofocusing performance has been made even faster by utilizing two 32-bit CPUs instead of just one, so that focus detection and lens driving are done simultaneously rather than in sequence. This also results in more accurate predictive continuous AF—the AF system was designed to keep up with that 8.5-fps shooting rate.
The Mark II shares its predecessor's (and the EOS-1Ds's) very short shutter-release time lag (55ms) and viewfinder blackout time (87ms), and the release lag can be reduced to just 40ms via Personal Function 26. Startup time has been almost halved, from the EOS-1d's 0.9 second to 0.5 second.
Of course, speed isn't all the new Mark II has going for it. It's a very rugged pro camera, with a magnesium-alloy body, excellent moisture- and dustproofing, and a shutter tested for 200,000 cycles (up 33% from the sturdy shutters in the EOS-1d and EOS-1Ds). It's got all the features a pro could want. And that 8.2-megapixel resolution means it can handle a tremendous range of photographic assignments, not just action.
Focusing
The Mark II offers two autofocusing modes. In One-Shot AF, the camera focuses on the subject when you press the shutter button halfway down and locks focus there until you either take the picture or let go of the button. In AI Servo AF, the camera focuses continuously on a moving subject, as long as you keep the shutter button partly depressed.
You can select any of the 45 AF points manually, or let the camera select the appropriate one (i.e., the one covering the nearest subject in One-Shot AF). You can register a selected AF point and quickly activate it whenever desired. You can also (via Custom Function 13) limit the manual selection area to 11 or 9 AF points, for quicker operation, or use Custom Function 17 to expand the AF operation to the selected AF point and the 6 or 13 surrounding points (handy when tracking erratically moving subjects like birds in flight). The active AF point is displayed in red in the finder.
All 45 points are horizontal-line sensitive. When L-series lenses of f/2.8 or faster are used, the central 7 points function as cross-types, sensitive to both vertical and horizontal lines. With slower lenses down to f/4, the central sensor will function as a cross-type while the other 44 are sensitive to horizontal lines only. For lenses or extender combinations with an effective maximum aperture of f/8, only the central AF point is active, as a horizontal-sensitive sensor.
Of course, you can focus manually at any time by moving the lens' AF/MF switch to MF and rotating the focusing ring until the image appears sharp in the finder. With USM lenses that have a distance scale, you don't even have to use the switch; just rotate the focusing ring. Like all EOS cameras, the Mark II will accept all Canon EF-mount lenses (except the EF-S 18–55mm zoom designed specifically for the EOS Digital Rebel), providing effective focal lengths from 18.2mm to 1560mm.
The Mark II's AF system functions in light levels from EV 0–18 (at ISO 100). Accessory dedicated EX-series Speedlites provide a focus-assist beam that extends low-light autofocusing capability.
Exposure
Four metering modes provide the means to handle just about any shooting situation. For general shooting, we found 21-zone evaluative metering (linkable to any AF point) the best option. There's also partial metering, which reads the central 13.5% of the image area; center-weighted average metering, which reads the entire image area but places most of its emphasis on the central portion; and spot metering, which reads the central 3.8% of the image area (as indicated by a circle in the center of the finder—or you can link the spot metering to the active AF point via a Custom Function). There's also multi-spot metering, which lets you take spot readings of up to eight different areas to see their relative brightnesses, and set exposure accordingly.
There are four exposure modes: shiftable program AE, shutter- and aperture-priority AE, and metered manual. An AE-lock button, +/-3 stops of exposure compensation settable in 1/3- or 1/2-EV increments, and three-frame automatic exposure bracketing provide plenty of exposure versatility. (AEB can be done via shutter speed and aperture, or via ISO, which maintains the shutter speed and aperture, and varies the exposure by adjusting the ISO sensitivity.)
More Shooting Features
Shutter speeds run from 30 seconds to 1/8000, in 1/3-EV increments. In bulb mode, the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is depressed, with the elapsed exposure time displayed on the LCD panel (using the optional Remote Switch RS-80N3 or Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3 will save you the tedious task of holding the shutter button down for long exposures). It's a good idea to activate noise reduction during long exposures, as they tend to get "grainy."
You can choose among three drive modes: single-shot, low-speed (3 fps) continuous, or high-speed (8.5 fps) continuous. In high-speed continuous, you can shoot up to 40 consecutive 8.2-megapixel JPEG images, or up to 20 consecutive 8.2-megapixel RAW images.
Custom Function 12 allows you to lock the mirror up before exposure, to eliminate vibration in high-magnification work. There's a built-in eyepiece shutter to prevent stray light from entering and adversely affecting exposures when your eye is not at the finder (as in remote shooting), and a knob just to the left of the finder to set dioptric eyepiece correction from –3.0 to +1.0. A convenient depth-of-field preview lets you view the image at the set aperture at the touch of a button.
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