# Canon 1DX II or Better lens



## TonyUSA (Nov 18, 2017)

Hello,

Enjoy taking sport photos such as swim meet.  Mostly using 5DIII at the moment.  Which would you suggest for upgrade to get better photos between 1DX II or get better lens.

Thank you,


----------



## benhasajeep (Nov 18, 2017)

The 1DXII!  With the exception of a big fast lens, you aready have a couple good fast mid telephoto lenses.  The 1DXII will have better ISO and more than a stop and half dynamic range.  Faster frame rate as well.


----------



## weepete (Nov 18, 2017)

which lens are you using currently?


----------



## TonyUSA (Nov 24, 2017)

Thank you for your reply.  Sorry for late reply.



weepete said:


> which lens are you using currently?


Mostly Canon 70-200mm mkII f/2.8L IS and Canon 100-400mm mkII f/4.5-5.6L.  Some time Canon 8-15mm f/4L fisheye, Canon 16-35mm f/4L


----------



## jaomul (Nov 25, 2017)

You have nice lenses. The next question would be what you hope to achieve with an upgrade, I'd it better quality images or better autofocus or do you need a rugged body, or just a new toy (we all love toys)

If it's better image quality I'd save money and just go with a 5d 4 which also improves on frame rate over the mark 3. It has better dynamic range, more resolution, slightly less noise and a load of video options missing from the one you have.

If you need the FPS of the 1dx then that's your only option.


----------



## weepete (Nov 25, 2017)

Yeah, I'd suggest the 5Dmkiv as well. Your current glass is pretty good indeed!


----------



## TCampbell (Nov 25, 2017)

You already own several best-in-class lenses.

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II is currently the best 70-200 lens there is -- from anyone.
The EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM II is the best in it's class and it's so good that if you slap Canon's 1.4x III teleconverter on it it's still better than any 150-600mm lens in the industry. 

So that's some pretty good glass you have ... and I don't see you being able to upgrade the lenses much (unless you're going after Canon's really big white whale lenses).  So if you're using your 100-400 and it's getting you the framing you want... but you're not happy about shooting at f/5.6, then maybe a 300mm or 400mm f/2.8 could come in handy.  But be warned... they are heavy lenses.  When the lens gets that long, in order to maintain a low focal ratio it needs a wide aperture and that means each glass element inside the lens is very large ... and that means heavy.  

I use a 5D IV and I still have my 5D III.  I do not have a 1DX II -- nor have I ever shot with one.  So I can't comment on the 1DX II other than to say that it's burst rate is amazing.

The 5D IV got a bit of an upgrade in ISO... a bigger upgrade in dynamic range... and a bit of an upgrade on the already very good auto-focus system that the 5D III has.  It also picked up features such as touch-screen LCD and built-in WiFi & GPS (not features that impact your photo quality -- just nice to have stuff.)

As I recall the 5D IV picked up about 1 frame per sec. in it's burst speed... but it's nothing compared to a 1D X II.  The 1D X II can do 14 fps in normal mode and 16 fps in live-view mode and it has an internal memory buffer so large than it can take 170 RAW images before you have to wait for it has to slow down.  In fairness these are 20 Mp images (vs. the 5D IV's 30Mp images size).


----------



## TonyUSA (Nov 25, 2017)

Thank you everyone for your valued input.


----------



## TheDanishDanger (Dec 8, 2017)

I can’t stress enough the difference of high quality glass.  When I made the switch from a 300mm f4 IS USM (which is a great lens) to the 500mm f4 IS USM the difference was incredible.  Glass wins for me.


----------



## TonyUSA (Dec 9, 2017)

TheDanishDanger said:


> I can’t stress enough the difference of high quality glass.  When I made the switch from a 300mm f4 IS USM (which is a great lens) to the 500mm f4 IS USM the difference was incredible.  Glass wins for me.



Let talk about lens only.  Not to pick between new camera or new lens.

Do you or anyone here think it would be HUGE improvement from my 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 to 500m IS?  I had an eye on 300mm f/2.8 IS II before.


----------



## beagle100 (Dec 14, 2017)

TheDanishDanger said:


> I can’t stress enough the difference of high quality glass.  When I made the switch from a 300mm f4 IS USM (which is a great lens) to the 500mm f4 IS USM the difference was incredible.  Glass wins for me.



true, ultimately glass wins,
500mm f4 IS USM  .... that's a serious upgrade
*www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless*


----------



## photoflyer (Dec 15, 2017)

TheDanishDanger said:


> I can’t stress enough the difference of high quality glass.  When I made the switch from a 300mm f4 IS USM (which is a great lens) to the 500mm f4 IS USM the difference was incredible.  Glass wins for me.



I agree.  The best body in the world cannot really make up for chromatic aberration.  But you already have good glass so if money is no object, get the 1DX.


----------



## ac12 (Dec 16, 2017)

TonyUSA said:


> TheDanishDanger said:
> 
> 
> > I can’t stress enough the difference of high quality glass.  When I made the switch from a 300mm f4 IS USM (which is a great lens) to the 500mm f4 IS USM the difference was incredible.  Glass wins for me.
> ...



The focal length increase from 200 (your 70-200/2.8) to 300 is only 50%.  So I don't think you gain much image size at the same aperture.

Similarly, the focal length increase from 400 (your 100-400) to 500 is even smaller, only 25%.  So not justifiable from image size.  Only from image quality or lens speed would I get the 500.

BTW, how large are you printing or displaying?


----------

