I've been using a Canon 5D Mark III as my flagship camera for the past nine years. It replaced a 1D Mark II, which I bought in 2004. I recently acquired a motion trigger that I can use with my Canon cameras, a Camtraptions Wireless Motion Sensor PIR v3. Its first mission was monitoring a bluebird nest box, and you can see the early results on my trailcam blog. In order to save wear and tear on the 5D shutter, I decided to get the 1D out of storage, where it has been since 2012.

The older camera is both amazing and frustrating. The amazing thing is it shoots bursts at a rate of 8.5 frames per second, which doesn't compare to what some modern top-end cameras can do but is faster than the 5D's 6 frames per second. That doesn't sound like a big difference, but I scared myself when I fired off a burst. The frustrating things about the 1D is it is terribly heavy and the sensor gets dirty. The 5D is much lighter and the vibrating sensor cleaner has been very effective. And of course the 1D has a low pixel count compared to later cameras, 8.2mp versus 22.3 for the 5D and 50+ for later cameras.

Still, the old camera took some good images. Here are three. The first is the very first image I took with the 1D Mark II. It was a was taken in my back yard in Massachusetts on August 12, 2004. It's a very generic-looking bird but I think it is a tufted titmouse. The second image is one of my all-time favorites, a female cardinal, taken two days later. The third is another all-time favorite, perhaps my favorite image ever, Florida owls in 2008. The 1D Mark II was/is a capable camera and I hope to get some decent bluebird shots in my new back yard in Montana as I finally wear out its shutter.

First Light

Female Cardinal

Owls