Firing away...
Canon 1D X, EF 70-200mm f/4L
200mm, f/4, 1/160s, ISO 100, Av, RAW
There are a few comments about this picture I'd like to make, in regards to the 1D X:
First, the higher frames per second helped a lot. If I timed everything in the ballpark of when the troops were going to fire, and I just held down my shutter button, I couldn't miss it. Yeah, it goes by the generally negatively-viewed method of "spray and pray", but you know what? Sometimes you need it. The 12 fps didn't disappoint at all. Additionally, the buffer was large enough to take a lot of consecutive RAW shots and store them on my memory card without any buffering delays.
Second, I was pretty under-exposed on this shot, but I was able to bring out the shadows in their clothing with ease. The RAW files allow me quite a bit of latitude in post-processing to overcome my mistakes while shooting.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that the metering was quite good, especially in situations where I needed speed and accuracy, and exposure was an afterthought.
Third, the sharpness was very good, considering I shot this handheld at 200mm, and this is a 100% crop!
Fourth, it was raining most of the day. I was there for several hours shooting in the rain, without an umbrella or a plastic bag around the camera. I had a hood protecting the lens, but that was it. The 1D X performed very well through the inclement weather, and I wasn't worried at all about the wetness.
One of the funny comments I heard was towards the end of the day when I was shooting by the confederates side during this scene:
Canon 1D X, EF 70-200mm f/4L
150mm, f/4, 1/400s, ISO 100, M, RAW
There was this photographer shooting with his Nikon D3X, with his monopod, etc. I pulled up a little behind him and off to the side, and shot a burst handheld... probably around 35 shots. When he heard the shutter sound, he got startled and I messed up his shot.
He turned around to me and said "is that the new 1D X?". I was like "yup.". He said "wow, that sounds amazing... you scared me a little though. It sounded like a mini machine gun." Then he complained how difficult it was to get the ideal shot of the canon firing because of his lower frames per second. I guess he was having difficulty timing it correctly.
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