EOS 1D X announced!

[Jon Ruyle]

But, for 1D IV owners, 10 MP equivalent pixels on target doesn't seem like a fair tradeoff for an extra 2 fps and a FF sensor.

Seems like it to me, too. (But then, I'm not a 1D IV owner. Personally, I'd take the FF any day.)


We still don't know what the low light performance will be like, nor how much improvement (if any) we'll see in the new AF. If both are leaps ahead of existing state of the art, this will be an exciting camera. If neither is, then the 1DX seems to me like a merged 1Ds/1D that does not much improve on the strengths of either.

[Fast Glass]

At Neuro,


Let me take another crack at it. I know that the exposure is the same when you use a crop body but noise is not. When you crop regardless whether I use a sensor or extender DOF is the same, if DoF is the same noise is the same. But the exposure is not. The would be a much less confusing statement I hope.


You can

[btaylor]

Microadjustment with zoom lenses has also been made easier. In the past it was only possible to register one microadjustment setting for each lens. However, with the EOS-1D X it's now possible to make adjustments for both the wideangle and telephoto settings of a zoom lens. This will help to ensure that whatever focal length you use with a zoom, your images are accurately focused.


This statement peaked my interest - I know my old 70-200mm f/4L IS was slightly off between the wide and long ends.


Wow I've got some reading to do, this thread's really taken off!


Looks nice (initially). For $6800 I've even be tempted for my next upgrade. Look forward to some reviews coming out.

[neuroanatomist]

You can't compare the 300mm f/2.8 to the 400mm f/2.8 of either version beacause the 400mm gathers much more light.

Sure you can. Yes, the 400mm f/2.8 gathers more light than the 300mm f/2.8, and both of them gather a lot more light than the 14mm f/2.8. But the longer focal length, the more light attenuation. I don't care about how much light a lens gathers, I care about how much light actully reaches the sensor - and all three of those f/2.8 lenses listed above deliver the same amount of light to the sensor. I think that's the whole point of an f/number - as a ratio of focal length to iris diaphragm it simplifies exposure calculations, because f/2.8 means the same amount of light regardless of focal length.

A better example of what I mean would be a; 1D X, 300mm f/2.8 II, 2x extender vs 7D, 300mm f/2.8 II, 1.4x extender. Both would have about the same weight but the 1D X would have better noise because of sensor technology. Thats why I asked what weight advantage because I don't see any.

The issue I have with that example is that now you are talking about different amounts of light - 1DX+300/2.8+2x is f/5.6, 7D+300/2.8+1.4x is f/4. But for the situation Rick was talking about, neither is really applicable - in addition to reducing the effective aperture, teleconverters slow down AF, something a sports shooter would likely have a problem with. So, the sports shooter with a 1D IV and 300mm f/2.8 is going to need a 400mm lens to compensate for the loss of crop factor. If you choose to believe Canon's marketing department, the 1D X offers a, "2-stop improvement in noise performance." If that's true (which is a big if at this point), then it means the photographer could switch from a 300/2.8 to a 400/5.6 and bump the ISO up two stops to maintain shutter speed, if s/he was ok with the DoF at f/5.6 and the IQ loss - that would be a big weight advantage in favor of the 1D X. But I suspect most won't see it that way, and rather will view it as a need to change from a 300/2.8 to a 400/2.8 and deal with the extra weight.

The ultimate camera in my eyes would be a 36mm mp FF that can downrez/crop incrementely to increase FPS to as much as I want,

Yeah, that would be very nice! Still, why do you need 36 MP? For me, I haven't needed more than 21 MP and the 18 MP of my 7D does the job just fine.

[canoli]

... In focal-length limited situations, the old 1D4 will have 16 MP compared to just 10 MP in this new one. And the 7D will have 18 MP compared to just 7 MP in this new 1DX.
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Hi Daniel - would you - or anyone - kindly elaborate on that a bit - what is a "focal-length limited situation?" Are you referring to video output only?


Thanks!

[HDNitehawk]

@ canoli


I think he is referring to the number of pixels you would utilize with the 1D X if you had the same lens on each body, and cropped the 1D X pics to match the other cameras framing

[neuroanatomist]

what is a "focal-length limited situation?

When the longest lens you have doesn't get you framing as tight as you need, and thus you have to crop the resulting image.


Shooting small birds with my 100-400mm lens is a good example - typically, the bird might occupy 15-25% of the frame (in one dimension), so cropping is useful/needed. Here's an example:



Final version Original
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Now, that shot was with a 7D and it's 1.6x APS-C sensor. The crop above dropped it from an 18 MP image to an 8 MP image - still plenty of resolution for typical prints. Now, if I had shot this same shot with a 400mm lens on a FF camera, cropping an 18 MP image to the same FoV as the final version above would have left me with approximately 2300x1533 pixels, i.e. a 3.5 MP image. Besides the loss of resolution, cropping also enhances the noise perceived in the resulting image. So, a very clean 18 MP image from a 1D X, cropped to the FoV of a 7D, results in a noisier 7 MP image. In those situations, I'd be better off using the 7D. Of course, the other option is to expand the limited focal length, i.e. in addition to the FF camera, spend $9.5-13K on a 600mm f/4 (and extra for a sherpa to lug it around).

[Joel Eade]

Canon, like so many other corporations, seldom reveal the true rationale behind product development but as a for profit, publicly traded company you can bet it all has to with making money. Canon is so huge and the range of products so large (1D series cameras are only a small fraction) that it probably doesn

[canoli]

Ah - understood - thank you! (and HDNite)


I'm not sure why this is a knock on the 1DX though. Different tools for different jobs right? Of course we all make the best compromise we can given our budgets and our preferences (and sherpa availability!) but it's kinda like saying "this masonry bit isn't very good - it doesn't go thru steel."


OTOH I do understand and appreciate the sentiment that, if this is now Canon's marquee body...why didn't they outfit it with more MP? I hope the answer is quite simply, "these 18MP are better than the 21 you got in the 1DsIII and the 5DII.


There's an interesting tidbit in Canon's release statement about up-rezzing the images. I hope that wasn't just a marketing phrase and that it's based on real-world results. I can see it - with the larger pixel-sites, the new microlenses and the dual Digic 5s plus the dedicated metering cpu.... Whether it bests the D3X... ?


All I can say is I can't wait to find out!

[Colin500]

Besides the loss of resolution, cropping also enhances the noise perceived in the resulting image. So, a very clean 18 MP image from a 1D X, cropped to the FoV of a 7D, results in a noisier 7 MP image. In those situations, I'd be better off using the 7D.

The 1DX image cropped to APS-C will be noisier than the original image, but with the improvements in sensor technology, shouldn't it be less noisy than the image from the 7D? Or will the 7D image still be better due to the higher resolution?


Anyhow, let's all hope that Bryan get's a 1DX soon for a good review ;-)