Canon 1D Mark IIN: What's the real story

[M. Worthington]

Why did Canon really release the 1D Mark II N? It wasn't just for an LCD screen upgrade and picture styles, was it?

[jfrancho]

Evolutionary updates, just like the 30D.

[Gbee]

Because, some found that the 1D was actually a better camera for sports especially. SOME 1DMKII cameras were found to have irreparable focus problems.

Sports Illustrated had some long articles on this subject; you might like to look them up at your leisure.

My personal story, I bought the MKII, was initially delighted with it, but subsequently had a lot of focusing errors and tracking errors and having tried all the usual settings to no avail I gave up and set up my 1D as an exclusive sports camera. The MKII was the general purpose and flash camera for me.

Having been directed to the Spots Illustrated articles, I realised that my MKII was one of the erratic ones, so I sold it ASAP for the MKIIn. That proved so much better that I retired my 1D and bought another MKIIn.

So in a nutshell, I was not that satisfied with the MKII to retire my 1D, yet I was very satisfied with the MKIIn and bought a second one. Note that I was even contemplating a D2hs again until the MKIIn version put that thought out of my head again.

The proverbial, “your mileage may vary” applies.

Originally Posted by M. Worthington

Why did Canon really release the 1D Mark II N? It wasn't just for an LCD screen upgrade and picture styles, was it?

[AlexMa]

maybe the dual write to 2 different cards............................


Naw,

braging rights


The fastest DSLR on the market................8.5 fps

[cyclohexane]

To make a good camera (excluding the lemon units) better.* Nikon did the same thing with the D2H, except that it was a bit more drastic and involved a lot of fixes/new ASIC processing engine.

The fastest DSLR on the market................8.5 fps

Fastest in regards to fps, yes. If you factor in shutter lag (55 ms) and mirror black-out (87 ms), it's not quite the fastest DSLR on the market in every category.* The D2H/S and D2X/S have a shutter lag of 37 ms and a mirror black-out time of 80 ms.* This, however, is purely specs, because I doubt one can casually notice the difference between these two specs, or 8.5 versus 8 fps. If anyone has a Mk.II/N to spare, I'll be happy to try it though, LOL

[bradleygibson]

My guess:

They may have known they were going to integrate the 1D and the 1Ds, so a 'real' EOS-1 update wasn't due for a while. Perhaps, they reduced the manufacturing cost of the camera in anticipation of a long production run, and updated a couple of features (0.5fps frame rate for bragging rights, screen size for marketing) just so it won't get too long in the tooth while we await the Mk III?

-Brad

[eClix]

Originally Posted by cyclohexane

To make a good camera (excluding the lemon units) better. Nikon did the same thing with the D2H, except that it was a bit more drastic and involved a lot of fixes/new ASIC processing engine.

Fastest in regards to fps, yes. If you factor in shutter lag (55 ms) and mirror black-out (87 ms), it's not quite the fastest DSLR on the market in every category. The D2H/S and D2X/S have a shutter lag of 37 ms and a mirror black-out time of 80 ms. This, however, is purely specs, because I doubt one can casually notice the difference between these two specs, or 8.5 versus 8 fps. If anyone has a Mk.II/N to spare, I'll be happy to try it though, LOL

It's funny actually, in my program last year, a 2nd year had a 1D mark II and one 2nd year had a D2H. They set their buffers for 3o frames, and they both finished at the same time with the 1D actually behind by 1 frame (weird eh).

[cyclohexane]

The old Mk. II is only rated at 8.3 fps. Also, if you're under 1/250 second, the camera can't fire at 8 fps, period. Maybe the mirror blackout slowed it down? I can try doing the math, but I'd like to know how well the conditions were controlled. Were they both using the same kind of card? I've cleared a D70 buffer faster than "faster" cameras because of my faster cards.