Would I lose pic quality by selling my 1DS Mark II?

[Jane Auburn]

Would I lose much discernable picture quality by selling my 1DS Mark II and buying a 30D for bird photography? I use the camera primarily with 500 and 600mm lenses. I don't use the 1DS Mark II enough to justify keeping it, and I'm thinking I actually gain something by switching to the 1.6x crop factor, and I've heard there's greater "pixel density" with the 30D. True or not?

[Mike Funnell]

Well, the pixel density is greater with the 30D (and even higher with the new 400D). There's more than just pixel density to overall picture quality, though. And there are other practical "use in the field" issues as well, such as build quality (esp. weather sealing). I don't think a simple numerical comparison of pixels per square millimeter can be used as a valid overall assessment. (Full disclosure: I've only ever used 1.6 crop factor cameras - 300D and 30D - and can only lust after a 1DsMkII!)

...Mike

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Jane Auburn

Would I lose much discernable picture quality by selling my 1DS Mark II and buying a 30D for bird photography? I use the camera primarily with 500 and 600mm lenses. I don't use the 1DS Mark II enough to justify keeping it, and I'm thinking I actually gain something by switching to the 1.6x crop factor, and I've heard there's greater "pixel density" with the 30D. True or not?

Hi Jane, I've been pondering your question since this morning. You have not, as of yet, posted a link to your website, so I can't see what kind of work you do. Send me a PM about that so at the very least, I can enjoy your images. That is one of my rewards!

Now given that you have already a 1DsII and two of the most expensive professional lenses on the planet, you have either a trust fund with no supervisor or you know what you are doing and have pretty good judgement yourself.

Still, we can start from the two lenses, which should clearly establish you as demanding for your photography of birds. Given that, I would question whether you would be happy using the focus of the 30D compared to the 1DsII. The new lovely Rebel XTi has a great central focus point when used at or better than f 2.8 aperture. So your fabulous f 4.0 lenses, would not benefit from that little but important feature.

So we are down to this. Rent a 30D and try to shoot with it and lock in a track some birds and see how good it behaves.

The pixels no doubt are fine, but its the focus that worries me.

Furthermore, (and I'm a guy that loves light cameras for light lenses), the 30D and the XTi would, for me at least, have too little weight to get balance with your large lenses.

Now if I was in your position, I'd consider a used 1DII as this is fast as a machine gun and also will give you that little bit extra reach of the x 1.3 factor which might be an advantage to you anyway.

My advice is really simple. Rent each camera for one day, or find someone in your area to let you use theirs.

Where are you located? There's sure to be a 1DII OPF member close by.

Who know, you may live down the street to Nicolas in Bordeaux!

Asher

[Alan T. Price]

There is plenty of evidence that the image quality per se will be much the same with either camera - i.e. pretty good - but particularly for bird-in-flight shooting you will have far fewer keepers when using the 30D AF system compared with using the 1D2 AF system. To me lost pictures equates to an extreme case of lost picture quality.

[Alex Krenvalk]

You can try for recovery image this program
http://www.oemailrecovery.com/photo_recovery.html

[Will Thompson]

Jane, I have a 1DmkII you could try in the LA area.

[Anthony Arkadia]

I am looking for a Mint 1dsmkII, let me know if you still have intentions of selling it.

Originally Posted by Jane Auburn

Would I lose much discernable picture quality by selling my 1DS Mark II and buying a 30D for bird photography? I use the camera primarily with 500 and 600mm lenses. I don't use the 1DS Mark II enough to justify keeping it, and I'm thinking I actually gain something by switching to the 1.6x crop factor, and I've heard there's greater "pixel density" with the 30D. True or not?

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Alex Krenvalk

You can try for recovery image this program
http://www.oemailrecovery.com/photo_recovery.html

I hadn't realized this topic came up! Interestingly, I only discovered it was an .exe file on downloading. not perfect for a Mac w/o Windows running!

We need RAW repair porgrams. There are tons of RAW recovery programs!

Thanks for the extra info. It's inexpensive and sometimes trying a different program works!

Asher

[Joseph A. Kurkjian]

I've compared the static AF accuracy of a 10D, 30D and 1DmkII and they are equally terrific; all with +/- 1/6 DOF of "right on" (yes, I know, I'm lucky). Depending on your luck of the 30D draw you could get 30D such that the static AF error is close to perfect (and I imagine the average 30D unit off the production will be centered on zero AF error, as versus front or back focus). I don't shoot with your camera and can only relate to 1-series performance as determined by my 1DmkII (so take what I have to say with the good old "grain of salt").

Most of the birds I shoot are not flying and so normally dynamic AF acquisition and tracking are not too important to me. However, shooting ducks is a completely different story. The few times I've used the 30D in a dynamic tracking situation it has been perfect. Assuming proper panning on the shooter's part you should keep in mind it isn't how fast the target is moving but how fast the scene in the viewfinder is changing. If you think about "viewfinder image changes" then you might find the following picture interesting. http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia/image/58379774/original This guy was coming at me pretty fast (you know, for a duck) and the overall scene in the viewfinder was very rapidly changing and yet the 30D held in there pretty well.

So, from my perspective (as a mostly static shooter) you might as well take advantage of the 30D's high lineal pixel density. From the standpoint of noise (I shoot a lot at ISO 400 plus) the 30D is almost as good as my 1DmkII and I'm pretty sure will out-perform your current camera.

It isn't clear to me why you haven't mentioned the possibility of a 1DmkII (or maybe the up and coming 1DmkIII). A lot of bird species are constantly making very jerky motions with their heads and if you want to capture just the "right expression" the fast frame rate is IMO the only way to go. For the "not so nervous" birds I use the 30D instead of the 1DmkII.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian