1dx mkii

[Topgardenboy]

I have one of the first 1DX MKII that arrived in May 2016, I have been very impressed with the handling and auto focus it was primarily purchased for wildlife photography. My only gripe is that above 1000 ISO it is very noisy, I have updated the firmware but it really is no better than a 5D MKIII. I would be interested if anyone else has any views or opinions.

[Kayaker72]

I have one of the first 1DX MKII that arrived in May 2016, I have been very impressed with the handling and auto focus it was primarily purchased for wildlife photography. My only gripe is that above 1000 ISO it is very noisy, I have updated the firmware but it really is no better than a 5D MKIII. I would be interested if anyone else has any views or opinions.

First of all, welcome to the forum!

I do not own a 1DX II. A few members of the forum do, and perhaps they will chime in.

What I can do is look at different tests, but also, my general understanding is that sensor improvements from the 5D3/1DX to the 5D4/1DXII were more in the base ISO range. Not necessarily >ISO 1000

Starting off with TDP, I would say the 1DX II has just a very slight advantage at ISO 3200. Really, it is just a finer grain of noise.

https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Camera-Noise.aspx?Camera=792&Test=0&ISO=3200&CameraComp=1041&TestComp=0&ISOComp=3200

Then, over at DXOMark, the signal to noise ratio is almost identical (look under measurements). Really, the only difference they show is in DR and color sensitivity

https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Canon--EOS-1D-X-Mark-II-versus-Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III___1071_795

Then, on Photons to Photos, they do show a significant difference in read noise:
http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm#Canon%20EOS%201D%20X%20Mark%20II_14,Can on%20EOS%205D%20Mark%20III_14

Having owned the 5DIII and 5DIV, I do think there is an advantage, but it really isn't as much as some internet forums would have you believe. So, you may not be mistaken. There is a slight advantage for the 1DXII, but it likely would take certain circumstances and a trained eye to see it.

[Topgardenboy]

Thank you for your reply, as I said the noise issue doesn’t worry me if it was improved then you would lose some of the speed aspects of the camera. I will have to brush up my post processing to improve removing noise when it has been an issue.

[Jonathan Huyer]

I own the 1DX II and had a good chance to test the high-ISO noise performance last year in Patagonia. This shot was taken at ISO 8000, for example (with noise reduction applied in post):

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-HCb5ss5/0/a82c3e10/XL/i-HCb5ss5-XL.jpg

I have found the Mark II is a very slight improvement over the Mark I that owned previously. Maybe half a stop better? I also have the 5D Mark IV and it is almost as good as the 1DX II. The noise is slightly more obvious but it is very fine-grained, probably owing to the high megapixel count. To me the raw image noise is almost irrelevant --- what really matters is the quality of the image after processing. When you remove noise, the picture will inevitably lose sharpness. So a camera that has more megapixels is likely to be noisier, but maybe it can also withstand a higher degree of noise reduction before the image quality suffers noticeably (please correct me if I'm wrong). So which camera gives the best post-processed image? I'm not actually sure. But I'm definitely happy with the 1DX II.

[Topgardenboy]

I use the MK II primarily for birds and in low light to get a high shutter speed the ISO is up very high. And I don’t think that the raw image noise is irrelevant, because after post processing yes noise reduction software does reduce the noise but the finished image might not look bad maybe up to a 10X8 but go to A3 and to me it looks dull. Also I thought that the higher megapixel meant less noise in the raw image, although maybe I am mistaken. However I am really pleased with the MK II, I just love pin sharp nature pics so I will have to take them in the sunshine or wait for Canon to bring out a noise free camera. :cool:

[apersson850]

A noise free camera will never happen. Stochastic processes will guarantee that.
However, what many fail to realize is that noise-free human spectators already exist. Just give them an interesting picture to look at, and they'll forget about the noise.