[caption id="attachment_5604" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Canon's new flagship 1DX"]
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A couple weeks ago I predicted that there probably wouldn't be new full frame DSLRs from Canon or Nikon this year. Now don't I look like a fool? Last week it was basically confirmed that Nikon is going to release a new high-end D800 and now Canon has released the specs on their newest professional camera, the EOS 1DX. Well I wasn't entirely wrong. I did state that we wouldn't actually see anything until next year. With the flooding in Thailand, the Nikon announcement is likely to be pushed back and Canon has confirmed that we won't see the 1DX until March. I'm sure some other sites will get to do a lame unboxing/hands-on "preview" sooner than that, but I will be doing a real world low light review of the camera when we can get our hands on one here. In a lot of ways I'm glad we won't be seeing these cameras until next year. Holiday season is always busy here at Unique Photo and we enjoy helping customers, but now we won't hear "Hey is that new 1DX in yet?" or the cringe inducing "Aw come on can't you do anything? It's Christmas!" Yeah I wish I could make cameras magically appear out of thin air. I'd probably get a pretty nice promotion/raise here if I had that kind of ability. Anyway, let's take a look at the 1DX and I'll give my take on what it has to offer.
[caption id="attachment_5605" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="The 1DX says, "Look at all of my buttons!!!!""]
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- Full Frame 18.1MP CMOS sensor
It's about time Canon released a serious sports/action camera with a full frame sensor. The 1D Mark IV was and still is an impressive camera, but it never really separated itself from the Nikon D3s or even the original D3 which was born in 2007. That's ancient times in the world of digital photography. So Canon has finally filled the void in their professional line up. I guess this is why we haven't seen any 1D Mark IV bodies for a long time. This camera officially replaces the 1D and 1Ds series. This is a major milestone for Canon. I applaud them for making a professional camera for professional photographers. For a long time people whined about Canon only being concerned about Megapixels and not overall image quality. The 1DX puts those fallacies to rest. The future of high resolution photography is in large sensor cameras anyway. So unless Nikon releases a D4 with similar specs, the 1DX is going to be the new industry standard for wedding, event, and portrait photographers. The low light capabilities, advanced AF system, and fast shooting speed will also make it ideal for photojournalism and sports.
- Dual DIGIC 5 processors and Dual CF Card Memory Storage
This is good news as well. DIGIC 5 processors will help with the insanely high shooting speeds and high ISO capabilities of the 1DX. Dual CF card storage is a no brainer as well. I am glad to see the CF/SD card split gone from the 1D series. It really never made any sense to force photographers to buy two separate kinds of storage. SD cards are flimsy anyway.
- ISO 100-51200 Native. Lo1 at 50, Hi1 at 102,400, and Hi2 at 204,800
Until we can see some samples and process RAW files, record setting ISO settings are just numbers on paper. That being said, native ISO of 51,200 is very intriguing. It doesn't mean it will look clean, but the fact that it isn't considered a "pushed" ISO anymore is a big deal. It must be good enough if Canon is going to list it as a major feature of the camera. Right now Nikon holds the record with a native ISO of 12,800 on the D3s. This is two more stops of light, but I still don't think many people will be shooting at ISO 51,200. I am more excited to see how clean the 1DX files are at ISO 3200 and 6400. This could be the ground yeah moment. Super clean ISO 3200 would be a ground breaking achievement. I'm not talking about the "clean/usable" ISO we have right now in cameras like the 5D Mark II and D3s. True clean ISO 3200 would look like what we are used to seeing at 400/800 ISO now. I am not getting my hopes too high, but it is certainly intriguing.
- 61 Point AF (21 f/5.6 Cross Type, 20 f/4 Cross Type, and 5 f/2.8 Cross Type Senors) I don't know when the AF point madness is going to end, there will probably be an entire workshop dedicated to learning Canon's new AF system in the 1DX. Based on what I've read from the press releases, this new system makes it more clear to photographers on what settings they should be using. Apparently tracking is improved with the new "EOS iTR AF (Intelligent Tracking & Recognition Auto Focus)" feature. Again, it is hard to say how useful something like this is until it is put to practical use. For example, I never found the Nikon "3D Tracking System" to be useful all of the time, only with 300mm lenses and longer. Even at that point, lenses often got thrown off by bright objects in the background at times. I expect Canon's new system to work much better. [caption id="attachment_5626" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Baby got back."]
[/caption] - 12 Frames Per Second and 14 Frames Per Second JPG Only Click.... Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Yeah that's all I really have to say on that. Ridiculous and probably not needed, but I am sure every time I hand the 1DX to a customer they will instantly be riding the shutter of our demo unit into the ground. For some reason, the incessant clicking noise of a DSLR is like an eargasm for camera geeks. I am more interested to see how well the AF system tracks between each shot, especially in low light. For sports shooters, once you get your exposure and white balance set correctly, you don't need to change any other settings or worry about bad exposures. So the 14 fps JPG option will allow sports shooters to have even a better chance of getting the perfect shot... I guess it also makes sense that the shutter is rated to 400,000 actuations now instead of 250,000.
- Ethernet Connection Those of you who enjoy shooting tethered should be thrilled with this option. USB is just too slow for the massive files that come out of DSLRs these days and Firewire isn't on many laptops which people do shoot tethered to quite often.
- 3.2" LCD Monitor I'm not sure how much of a difference this will make from a 3" monitor, but it is a nice high resolution viewing screen that will make reviewing images on camera easier than ever before.