D1X is a very fine camera, one that you can still find in at many smaller newsdesks. The AF is super fast and as accurate as AF gets. However, it's still of the earlier generations DSLRs, so there are some quirks. It's, along with Canon 1D, a big battery eater. Hope your friend brings extra batteries. I have done about 250-500 shots on one charge. And like most DSLRs of that era, its white balance is somewhat unpredictable on automatic in artificial lighting. Make sure the batteries can hold their charge, all batteries get dead after about 300-1000 cycles or about three years and most original NiMH batteries in D1Xes are almost dead by now. And when the battery is almost dead, it might work fine for most of time but in heavy shooting situation, when the AF draws a lot of current, might give up on you, and the camera freezes. Similar to what the IstD experiences with bad batteries, based on the list experience. I have had this happen in most important shoots :(
The shutter lag is something like 40 miliseconds, so you can really get the peak of action. The buffer is like 9 jpegs or 6 nefs in succession, which is not much but manageable. They released an upgrade of memory which doubled the number. One thing to watch out for - if you enable either Noise Reduction or PB Zoom (playback zoom) custom functions, the buffer will be able to hold several photos less (because these functions use up some of the main memory). The controls are pretty self-explanatory, but get some play with the AF. It has several modes of AF, with each generation of AF cameras getting more and more difficult to understand - just ask your friend about all the AF options on the D2X ;-) One good trick with it is to set the AF to AF-ON button only and use AF Continuous, that way you can focus independently of pressing the shutter release, just like back in manual focus days <g>. Also, if shooting jpegs it's IMO good to set the Hue to +3 (or, damn, was it -3?). That makes the colours more real, and avoids the issue of pink faces which were plaguing the D1 a lot. Be a bit more careful with overexposure, the sensor is older and has a teeny bit less latitude so highlights can clip a bit more easily. Hope this helps, Frantisek
