Canon MKII in Seacam EOS1Ds housing

My Canon rep just visited my stuudio this morning and had a MKII with him, Of course we had to try it in my Seacam EOS1Ds housing. Here's a quick take:

1. All primary controls (aperture, shutter speed, shutter release) work as is. If I had to shoot with this housing and the MKII, I could. Even the 4 buttons running vertically along the LCD align.

2. There need to be some tweaks on internal levers to make the MKII housing operate as smoothly as the 1Ds housing does with a 1Ds. That is already in progress and the MKII housing will be out in 60 days.

3. The 3 buttons below the LCD will neeed a new control, but that was obvious from the first glance at the MKII.

Pretty cool.

Just ordered mine and looking very forward to posting a report this Summer! It seems strange now thinking of shooting with film, 36 shots at a time.

Keith

Hi Stephen,

Just wondering if you have any information as to when the release date is for the MK II camera ?

Marc

Hi Stephen,

Just wondering if you have any information as to when the release date is for the MK II camera ?

 

Marc

Marc - I've read all kinds of online speculation, just as you have no doubt. But what the Canon guys told me today was ... end of April.

Also, while the Canon guys were in Key Largo, we tested the field of view of the EOS1Ds with a 17-40 zoom versus the EOS1D MKII with a 16-35mm Canon zoom. Since the 1Ds is full frame and the MKII has a 1.3 crop factor, I was interested in coverage comparison at the wide end in particular.

This was a pretty nonempirical test, but for sure the 17-40 on the 1Ds is slightly wider than the 16-35 on a MKII. Not much different though. If I moved the MKII/16-35mm about 10 inches farther back (on a subject 6 feet away) I could simulate the same coverage.

This says to me I need a 16-35 with my MKII, while I actually have preferred the 17-40 on the EOS1Ds. The F-4 versus F-2.8 never seemed such a big issue for the things I shoot, but the 16-35mm demonstrates enough chromatic aberration on a full frame sensor that I used a 17-40 instead. However, I'm pretty certain it will be very clean on the MKII with the sensor crop.

Just something to think about when buying a MKII kit. I'll be going with the 16-35 myself to get that extra little bit of wide coverage.