Well I'm home from the International Portrait and Wedding Expo Seminar, held by Nulab. I ran away with the D2x, I ran hard, and I ran fast, then after a while, the hand cuffs hurt too much so I just had to give the beautiful camera back, the police have it in their posession now who knows how long they will be finger printing it for!?
In all seriousness, all I can say is 'wow. Where do I begin? It was a complete surprise when two of the Maxwell staff walked into the room, and the guy running the seminar (who was a canon man through and through) said that Maxwell had given us special permission to play with 2 of the only 5 that have come into the country already, only for an hour or so. I think the dribble coming from my mouth and my chin on the floor was a bit off putting to some (especially the canon users) but I couldn't wait to get my hands on this baby! As soon as I held it, we fell in lust, it wanted a good home, I wanted to give it one. With a RRP of $7999 (maxwell price, not birddog price) I will book 4-5 weddings and a few other portrait jobs and this camera, will one day be mine. Believe me, I *will* have this camera in the future. It was deceptively light, massive chunk of a unit with the grip, it felt so natural to be in my hands, very comfortable and ergonomic. My first realisation was it's SUPER fast focusing - so very silent (non audible I reckon) and it's clarty. ISO 100 was another nice enhancement. The Maxwell guys were giving it a good sell and telling us how many more 'in camera' functions it had, such as cropping in camera and I think saving the cropped image. It also has WiFi (802.11g) capabilities - great for so many reasons - the wedding photo, straight to laptop, the photojournalist, straight to the lappy then to the office, the sports journo etc etc. It was difficult to concentrate on what the maxwell man was saying as i was busily trying to navigate this awesome piece of equipment, without hogging it and giving everyone a go. THere were two of them between 12 of us for just over an hour - fortunately I think the other people there (most canon photos) were aware of my lusting and were happy for me to keep on playing. At the seminar they had hired two
models for the wedding shoot demonstration, we did a number of inside and outside shots, and as birdy has said putting a 12-24 on the D2X for wedding shots (mostly portraiture) was a bit hit and miss. No inbuilt flash which I think is a good thing, they say that the capablilties of the SB-800 are really amplified with the new D2X - i had no need to attach mine as we had some reasonably good natural light + there was not a lot of time. The size of the LCD on the back was enormous, I was trying to find out where you could plug in your DVD player and watch a wide screen movie, but that function, I couldn't find. The menu settings on this camera are a LOT more detailed than the D70, but you would come to expect that for a camera nearly 4 times the price of our beautiful and still treasured D70.
I haven't had a lot of time with the D100 but it had quite a few similarities that I can remember from what I've seen of our Birddogs one. I did the right thing and took my own memory card and shoved it in the D2X and I will definately post some images that I took today from it.
In finishing, I want to re-iterate what great camera our D70 is (for the price) and I don't want this to start a thread where everyone feels they MUST go out and get the D2x. Having said that I feel that *IF* I had that sort of cash flow, then I would order one tomorrow!!! The battery life of the D2x is also another fantastic feature, they said that some of their techs had the camera a few days ago at some sporting event and went nuts with it ALL day and into the evening, when they got back to base, the camera still had about 20-25% camera life. Another added feature of the camera is it has an inbuilt battery metre, which I know I would find very useful.
I was pleasantly surprised (as you have read) to bump into birdy out at Maxwell as we were coming down the stairs from the seminar, I was still dazed and amazed that I had one of the very first D2X's that had come into the country around my neck. I did consider running, and running very fast, as Craig had suggested. Hopefully when I have a few more weddings and portrait jobs down up my sleeve the glorious!!
THey claim that the D2X will now easily compare with the resolution and quality of the medium format film cameras and that within a few years, the word 'film' will be extinct...I have my doubts but only time will tell.
I wish I was able to give you a more technically minded review of the camera, but as I have said - time was indeed limited...but at first glance, to say I was impressed would be an understatement, my cheeks are sore from grinning so much, and no, I was not once in front of the camera being asked or prompted to 'smile'. Watch this space for some images that I took today of our acting/model bridal couple.
Geoff.
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:06 am
Impatient to see his first impressions!
What can I say? I have the D70/ D100/D2h, yes and definitely the D2x will be in my inventory shortly, say a week or ten days!
