Finally the day has arrived when I retire my Canon 1D Mark 2. This camera has served me for 6 years! I get nostalgic when I think of the time I got ‘her’. She was one of a handful in the shipment to arrive in Singapore. The rest were routed to Athens for the 2004 Olympics. For 6 years she endured the hardest abuse and came out unscathed. Two of the most memorable experiences I had were:

1. Shooting a triathlon in Bintan in heavy rain. Mid-way through the race, a thunderstorm developed. What started as a light drizzle turned into a fierce tropical thunderstorm which blew my makeshift shelter, made of black trash bags, away. I was in the middle of nowhere and my 1D had a 70-200mm lens coupled to it. Together they formed a completely weather-sealed system. So here I was in a thunderstorm, with my camera exposed to the elements, still shooting away. Onlookers would’ve been amazed at this sight. I was strangely confident that the rain would not get into the camera and lens and I was right. I wiped them dry in the hotel room and went on shooting the next day.

2. I was shooting for a magazine in Phuket. The story was on canoeing. We were canoeing around the islands when we encountered huge waves and rain. Sea water flooded the canoe and would’ve capsized it if not for good drainage. My camera was constantly showered with both sea water and rain. I kept shooting and when I went back, I literally washed the camera under a running tap to get rid of the salt. Brought it back to Canon when I returned to Singapore to check and got a clean bill of health.

Those were the few extreme weather conditions I encountered. Not to mention dropping the camera a few times. This is a truly remarkable camera and it lives up to whatever marketing stuff Canon says. Extremely sturdy and weather-sealed. I just wished it didn’t weigh so much. Or I have a few extra kilos to make lugging this fella a breeze. Since I use prime lens mostly nowadays, I want both cameras to give me the same stuff. An 8 Mpix camera is too far away from a 21 Mpix camera.

So I’ll be using 2 5D Mark 2s from today. Actually from tomorrow’s shoot onwards. And I’ll be missing my 1D….