Canon 1DX in 2021? Is The AFFORDABLE Powerhouse Worth BUYING?

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] g'day good morning and welcome to the channel as you can see i'm out in the field and today i'm going to set myself a challenge i'm actually going to go back in time to 2012 and i'm going to use the flagship camera of that era this is the original 1dx so this had 18 megapixels i think it was 12 frames per second a big buffer it really was revolutionary when it came out and i remember when i first heard about it i thought oh man i'd love to try that camera it was way out of my price range in australia these go towards ten thousand dollars and i was using a 7d at the time there's no way i'd ever be able to afford a camera like this however times have changed and you can now pick one of these up second hand for around i think 12 to 1500 so it's starting to become affordable for bird photographers and i'm curious to know whether this camera is worth buying in 2021 so i'm here at a lake and i'm going to give it a go i'm going to try it on my 500 f4 which is actually also released in 2012 and just see how it performs now it's pretty cold i must admit our hands are feeling a little bit frozen but there's not quite as many birds here as my previous visit so i might struggle and the water level is really high meaning i'm not sure exactly where i'm going to be able to lay down i might have to go to the water's edge here but the birds aren't all that close so um i'll see how i go i might struggle a little bit today but that's part of the challenge so we'll get set up and we'll get into it all right so i've got this uh ground pod which i've you would have seen in a number of my videos i'll put a link in the description it's called a skimmer pod ground pod works really really well i've got my gimbal head and i just simply attach the gimbal head onto the ground pod like so and this will be my base for setting up today so i'll put the lens on here all right so we've got our 500 f4 we've got our 1.4 converter and we've got the 1dx this ground pod enables me to get really low so getting low's key all right so the sun's definitely coming up and it's just starting to hit the water the birds are still in the shade which makes uh exposure a little bit tricky there's a cute coming so we'll just but it's still in the darkness we've got a little bit of light now which is making it a little bit better let's do the shutter of this 1dx it's pretty noisy that's for sure immediately i immediately notice how different it is using a dslr because i've been using a mirrorless for so long that we don't get the exposure in the viewfinder it can be really easily over underexposed because you know you can't see what your exposure is you're relying on the meter in the back of the camera it's a beautiful morning very still there's a pair of black fronted doctorals that are just in front of me unfortunately we don't have any light but i do get a few shots it's pretty amazing this is what i actually live for these shore birds just observing these birds i've actually got my r5 and 100 to 500 to record them so i've got a bit of footage of them they're right in front of me and they don't seem too bothered and that's the key when you lay down low and you just relax they often will come to you that's what's happening now i just wish i had some sun the sun's gone behind a big tree so me [Music] so i've just had a really good session with a few birds this morning and i think it highlights that i actually had my doubts i thought there's not many birds around i'm not in the best spot you know am i going to get some nice shots and i think we all experience that but if you just get out there and you lay and you wait things tend to happen and some cockatoos have just landed in this tree way up over the back here and it actually makes for a really nice composition we've got all these cockatoos and the tree tops and i've taken a couple of shots and i really like it and if i wasn't here i wouldn't have got that shot these little black fronted doctorals i was not expecting those this morning and they've come quite close enabled me to get some shots um a headshot of a puke echo and a couple of pacific black ducks just swimming on the water so you know in a short space of time half an hour or so we've managed to rattle off quite a few shots and i'm pretty confident that some of those will turn out to be quite nice so because i need to stop doubting myself i guess and just you know enjoy the the process but i think we all experienced that so i thought it would be worth sharing okay we've got some um ducklings coming some pacific back black duck ducklings [Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay something amazing just happened and that's what we want as bird photographers i managed to capture some really awesome behavior so the black front of doterra ran out into the grass and i saw it pick up some i'm not sure exactly what it was it was a big bug in it its legs was coming out and it couldn't quite eat it so it's walking around with this big bug in its mouth and i managed to get quite a few frames i'm hoping that they come out because that's what we're after after that sort of behaviour you know the bird feeding it's natural environment and i'm just fingers crossed that the shots came out that would be amazing if we can display that behaviour i did have a bit of grass in the way but bye [Music] it's turning out to be a really good morning with lots of good photos [Music] all right well that brings this morning's session to an end that was just amazing i had so much fun i was in my element laying here in the mud photographing the doctrines and the ducks i really didn't have to move all the birds were just coming to me so you know you can find a location such as this you can just really enjoy your photography being with the birds being with nature listening to it can't get much better than this all right so how did the 1dx perform with the 500 well pretty well i'm sure i've got lots of shots so hopefully you enjoyed them that 12 frames per second is fantastic so it's just much better than my old 5d4 i didn't hit the buffer at all today just having that at those 12 frames per second is a big advantage the autofocus um i must admit i struggle a little bit the it just seemed to hunt a little bit for some reason i think i'm used to the auto iaf of the mirrorless now whereas you find the subject you auto eye and it just tracks the bird whereas with this i was sort of tracking the bird but then it would struggle to find it where the black frontal dots was in the grass and at times it just couldn't find the bird it was just hitting the grass and then going and coming back so i did have a little bit of trouble and i'm sure i missed quite a few shots because of that however um for the price you're paying you know 1500 bucks for a very good camera you know at the time it was worth 10 grand when it first came out so for 1500 you're going to get a really good frames per second good buffer the iq and the iso performance i'm sure is good you know 18 megapixels is probably a little bit small for most people now but you're still going to get lots of really nice photos it's extremely hard wearing you know the battery's going to last forever i guess the downside is the weight i think it weighs around one and a half kilos so when paired with this lens um we're looking at about four and a half kilos or close to 10 pounds which is quite heavy and you sort of would struggle to hand hold this for long periods of time but as you saw i used my ground pot and my gimbal no issue whatsoever so overall the gear performed very well if you're on a real budget and you want a really good dslr then the 1dx may be an option for you just be aware of the shutter count you don't want to go sort of over i don't know maybe 150 000 under 100 000 would be ideal these shutters do go forever but ideally you want one that has a lower shutter count but yeah definitely a fun morning i hope you enjoyed it if you like this content obviously give me that thumbs up subscribe if you want to see more of these videos thanks to the members that support the channel until the next one take care see you later we've got the old 1dx that's what we're going to be using today and this allows me better make sure it's locked in there

Channel: Duade Paton

Views: 33,329

Keywords: Bird Photography, Bird Photography Tips & Tricks, Wildlife Photography Tips, Telephoto Zoom Lenses, Canon R5, Canon RF tips and tricks, Canon R6, best kit for bird photography, Canon RF Mirrorless Tips and Techniques, Canon 1dx, Canon 1d-x, Canon DSLR Camera For Wildlife, Best DSLR 2021, How to photograph birds, Used DSLR, Canon RF100-500, Canon EF500 F4 IS II, Telephoto lens for wildlife, EF500 F4

Id: _drTLU7hmwk

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021