On my camera trade in the ‘sacrifice’ I had to make in terms of hardware was as follows: 1D MkIV body, 7D MkII body, M3 body, Battery Grip for the 7D, a Canon x2 Extender and the 200 f2.8 L lens for which the online estimate was a little over the £1,000 mark set against a purchase price of of £1,350 for a good condition and low shutter count 1DX MkII. Visually, unless you are into these things, the 1DX MkII looks little different to the 1D MkIV I was trading in but technically and ‘under the hood’, it’s a horse of a different colour.
It is perhaps the sign of the times that just over a year ago, a good condition example of a 1DX MkII second hand would have cost you around £2,000 so I suspect that shows that the trend to mirrorless has become more marked and especially at this ‘professional’ end of the market where cameras are just tools of the trade. I don’t care, DSLRs and associated kit may not be fashionable but they still take great photographs and I did that “strutting my stuff down the Kings Road” back in the 1960s when I was young !
The Trade In
Much to my joy, MPB adjusted my trade in price upwards by £80 so that the trade cost me the kit plus £243 which was very satisfactory to say the least, all it now came down to was just how good the 1DX I was getting would actually be… I didn’t have to wait long, it turned up the next day and was in pristine condition with a shutter count of less than 22,000 which is remarkable as the shutter life on this body is rated at around 500,000 actuations !
Although having traded the 1D MkIV in I cannot say for sure, the body of the 1DX seems slightly bigger but it is certainly heavier, the 1D was 1180gm whereas the 1DX is 1340gm. As far as the photographic and video options are concerned, there are lots more given that the 1D MkIV came out at December 2009 and the 1DX MkII at April 2016, so it is a beast of a very different colour from the earlier model.
Menu and Handling
The menu look and feel especially on the focus section, is very much the same as the 7D MkII and the 5DS/R which came out some 18 months before the launch of the 1DX MkII. However and having said that, it is also differently arranged and as I work with it can see that it is totally focused on the end use as a professional action camera.
A prime example being that it has no in built interval timer for timelapse photography and yet both those earlier 7D and 5DS camera bodies do have this which might seem odd. On the other hand and thinking about it, why on earth would you use the 1DX for this kind of thing and if I wanted to, I have a Canon external cable/intervalometer device to make this happen plus three other camera bodies with this capability built in.
My Immediate Use
Of course I am taking it out and using it – new toy ! But it is a bit more than that because there are lots of configurable bits to work my way through until it works for me in the way that suits my personal workflow and you can only achieve this by using it for real and finding out what ‘bugs’ are there present for you. Well actually, it’s less bugs and rather more finding out where all the bits and pieces you want to configure are !
Although close to the 7D MkII and 5DS in terms of underlying technologies, there is a clear difference in the 1DX MkIIs ability to handle high ISO and it shows when you put some images through your post production software which in my case is ON1 2023, they are very clean indeed.
Issues ?
I’m not sure yet, the large battery that goes into the inbuilt hand grip may have some issues but as this camera seems to have been little used in recent years or indeed throughout its life, it might just sort itself out by being charged and recharged a few times over the next few weeks.
If not and it doesn’t settle down, by dealing with MPB where I got it from, it also comes with a 6 month warranty and although these batteries are known for holding sufficient charge for a whole days shooting, as is my custom on all cameras, I have a back up battery on its way to me.
In fact that £80 ‘bonus’ on my upgrade has more than been spent on a spare battery, a Cfast card and a suitable card reader. It is one of those things that people often overlook, a new camera may require other essential things such as back up batteries if you use it a lot and in this case, a memory card format I didn’t have called a Cfast card and a reader for it, if you completely change systems, this part of your purchase can get financially onerous.
Conclusion
I am a very happy bunny. True its a bit heavier but it is a lovely bit of hardware and a delight to use so we shall see how it all goes over the next few months as we get to ‘know each other’.
