My first day with the MKII

Wow. Simply, freaking wow. Amazing camera. As many of you know I literally received the camera from UPS on Friday afternoon, unpacked it out of the shipping box and we hopped in the car to head to Richland, Washington to shoot the USSBA Sprint Boats on Saturday.

We arrived at the motel about 4 hours later and I then proceeded to unpack the camera and then charge two batteries. Once that charger was set it was time to get the camera strapped. I installed the wrist strap and my new Op-Tech Pro strap.

I installed the software on my laptop and then saw a problem. My laptop has only the small firewire plug so I can't set Personal Function settings. Didn't matter. Doesn't effect shooting.

I went over to the Sports Illustrated site and downloaded their recommended setting to a CF card and then loaded them into the camera. I reset the * focus to shutter button as that's what I prefer. More on that later. Otherwise I did my entire shoot with the SI settings.

I installed a Sandisk Extreme 1gig CF card and a UltraII SD card. then setup the camera for AC power so I can at least get a feel for it.

This camera just feels so nice. The balance is awesome. It's a bit heavier than the 10D, but it's not going to break my back as I'm used to 6-10 shoots with the 10D and 100-400L. The OpTech strap feels nice.

I look through the viewfinder for the first time. WOW! It's like a movie theater in there! Very, very bright and large as compared the to 10D/D60 that I also own. By now it's midnight. Gotta sleep. 6am will come early.

We arrive at the track and I have the 17-40 attached. With the 1.3, rather than 1.6, crop-factor this lens now really looks wide angle. The boats are in the pits and I go for a low angle, full-wide shot. I press the shutter-button for the first time.

As warned off go two shots in a millisecond! Whew! Man this thing is so, so fast. The two shots from the shutter sound like the closing of the doors on a Ferrari. Thump. Thump.

Sweet.

So now I go easier on the shutter and all's good.

Out on the track the AI Servo is absolutely perfect. No hunt at all. Not one time and out of 1519 shots I kept 1487. Amazing!

Color is phenomenal. I had read on some forums that some people were have problems with red. Not here. See below and in the gallery. All colors were right on.

I shot all these photos on TV mode, ISO320 and AWB. Speaking of which the AWB is very impressive. We have everything from bright sun to dark, ominous clouds and the AWB performed with perfection.

The toughest part of getting used to this camera is the menus. You lose the button-wheel that the 10D/D60's have. 1D and 1Ds owners will feel right at home as they also operate the same way. It didn't take long to get used to that.

The vertical shutter button, as many have said, it more sensitive than the horizontal and I found myself taking quite a few double-shots. But I also did with the horizontal button, though not as severe. Next shoot I will convert over to * button for focus and that will give more more control over the shutter and then I can punch the button when I need the shot and be less likely to hold it down for any length of time.

As a sidenote the OpTech Pro strap gets a huge thumbs-up! With the MKII and 100-400L attached and on my neck from 8am till 4pm I have no sore neck whatsoever. The wrist-strap also gets a thumbs up. Great combination.

And with the NP-E3 battery and shooting 1519 shots and the camera being on almost the entire eight hours except for eating lunch it still read full. Thumbs up on the NP-E3 for sure. I would have gone through alomst three sets of batteries on the 10D.

So, you can the gallery at: http://racefamily.raci​nglines.com …ts/Richland0522​/index.htm

There has been no processing on the photos in the gallery except Breezebrowser's default USM. The photos below have been processed.

Enjoy!!!

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The photos look great!

Enjoy your new camera.

I'm jealous, I have to wait till late summer to order one.

Jim,

Those photos are absolutely dead on. Great shots... impressive!

I don't think they need a bit of post-processing.

? Did you have to adjust much in lens selection due to the 1.3 versus 1.6 crop difference?

Man I hope my 1DmkII comes soon! Even my cat is waiting for it!
(see my earlier thread)
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=33123
HAHAHAHHA

Looks like your enjoying it

Thanks Tapeman.

Jon: The 1.3 vs. the 1.6 was not even an issue with the boats. We shoot pretty close anyway. Media access to these tracks is actually in front of the catch fencing and literally on the track. We stand no more than 40-50 feet from the edge of the water.

I was also impressed with the AWB on the MKII. With the 10D the cloudy shots would be tinged brown, but very easily fixable. With the MKII, white is white whether it's cloudy or sunny. However, if I was printing these out for a client I would surely perk up the cloudy ones before sending them off.

I see you are loving the camera!! I can't wait to see more...WOOHOOO!!

NiL,

Great Shots Jim! I am in many ways happy that you got yours ahead of me because you are a true Pro. Keep up the good work. The photos look awesome.

More info and the URL for the above would be great.

Getting more and more ticked off, Placed my order (and deposit!) on the 9th Feb with Canons largest UK dealer, they have over £4M on order with Canon and they are just not seeing any (well very low numbers).

As ever excellent pics from you that just add to my frustration

N

Excellent images Jim. You and the MKII work well together.
Non photo question. I've watched a lot of sprint boat racing on the TV. Does the driver really benifit from the nav's hand signals? They seem to be going too fast to be able to see the hand signals and watch the course. If the nav can see the turns, then the driver must see them too. I love watching thses guys run.

Jim:
Great stuff. Nonetheless, as good as the Mk II is, it can't be any better than the person pushing the buttons, and you apparently have these boat shots 'wired'.

Have you made a direct comparison of image quality between it (Mk II) and your 10D? What is your sense of the difference in image quality?

Tom

Thanks for the comments all...

Neil: Get the SI settings at: http://www.siphoto.com​/?canon1DM2.inc

With the MKII you can just download the settings onto a card and then upload then to the camera. Sweet!

Tom: No I have not compared yet, but I will when I have time. I am also curious to see the difference with some 100% crops.

Jim,
Very impressive! It is great to see you are making good use of it. Does it feel more balanced w/ the 100-400, 10D vs Mk II?

More balanced weight-wise? No. Not really. The camera does feel different than the 10D. Being that this was the first major shoot of the year for me I am surprised I am not more sore, but I was also using the new Op-Tech Pro neck strap and the wrist-strap, in which I give a thumbs up to both of those. In fact, gonna get the Op-Tech for my wife for the 10D this week.

Wonderful shots Jim. Looking at your web page, I'd be hard pressed to select a favorite (or even 6 ).

Great shots, Jim.

I, too, am interested in the difference in the 1.6 vs 1.3 crop factor. When you get some car shots, let us know if you had to make any adjustments, or if your lens inventory still works for you.

I got my hands on a MKII on Saturday, at my local camera store. Quite a piece of hardware. Better sense prevailed, though, and my credit card stayed in my wallet. But I don't know how long I can resist...

Thanks Rick. I doubt anything will change for the cars either much. I'll just have to wait until they get a little closer before pulling the trigger! The difference is not that great that I have noticed. I can also hook up the 1.4x TC if needed and I have a 2.0x coming in today, but I doubt I'll use them for motorsports. I don't see me adding any new glass soon. What's left? A 500? 600? I'll need a few more covers to afford those!

One of the keys to getting great shots in motorsports is media credentials. Then you can (literally) sign your life away and shoot from scary places.

dn7elson: Thanks. It makes it hard selecting for a gallery too when I only had to toss 32 out of 1519 shots!

And the reason the galleries are so large is that I am also shooting for the teams too, so I do need to make as many photos available as possible for them to select from.

I could have very easily made a 500-600 photo gallery.