Canon Launches New Flagship DSLR - EOS-1D X

Full frame, 12fps and iso 204,800 means business!

By Dan Carr | October 17, 2011

Canon has unveiled a new camera today which amalgamates the truncated 1-Series lineup. The new EOS-1D X officially spells the end of the 1Ds lineup and the 1Ds Mark III is confirmed to be discontinued now. 1D + 1Ds = 1D X. The new 1D X is a full frame 18MP, 12 frame per second powerhouse designed to offer something, if not most things, to all conceivable pro shooters.

Tech Specs

An 18.1 Megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor.

A newly developed high-precision AF system with 61 user selectable AF points, 41 of which are cross-type points, and five dual cross-type points for extra precision.

A standard ISO range of 100 to 51,200 with three expansion settings - for ISO 50, 102,400 and 204,800.

Dual "DIGIC 5+" processors for fast image processing to deliver 18.1 Megapixel images at up to 12fps as standard and up to 14fps with super High Speed continuous.

Zone, Spot and AF Expansion focusing modes, plus subject type AF presets.

A 100,000-pixel RGB AE sensor with 252-zone metering powered by a dedicated DIGIC 4 processor.

+/-5 stops of exposure compensation.

A high-magnification transparent LCD viewfinder with 100% coverage with intelligent viewfinder display.

Super short 36ms shutter lag option.

30-1/8000sec shutter speed range.

An 8.11cm (3.2"), 1.04 million pixel Clear View II LCD screen.

Full HD EOS Movie shooting with Inter frame or Intra frame compression.

Auto creation of new movie file once 4GB file limit reached.

Timecode setting for HD movie shooting.

Manual audio level control with live level meters and adjustment during recording.

An improved EOS Integrated Cleaning System (EICS).

Dual CF card slots.

Touch-pad control area for silent setting adjustment during movie recording.

The Sensor

A full frame sensor is something that Canon shooters have been clamoring for in the 1D since Nikon got the D3. The interesting aspect is that they have listened to people views on the megapixel race and only made a very small increase over the 1d Mark IV which was 16MP. The new 18MP sensor is designed with one thing in mind, getting the absolute best performance in low light. With a standard iso range up to 51,200 this promises to be the new low light king! The previous 1-series was no slouch at all and that was a 1.3x crop camera!

Built In Ethernet

Built in Ethernet connectivity is a huge bonus which was no doubt asked for many times by Getty, AP and other such wire services. When it comes to photo delivery, time is money these days and many large sporting events like the Olympics and recent Rugby World Cup have cables everywhere to instantly transmit the images to a waiting editor in a trailer nearby. Images can be online with a couple of minutes of being shot but now Canon shooters will have no need for the additional adapters that were previously needed to accomplish this. This factor alone ought to see agencies scrambling to equip their shooter for the upcoming London Olympics in Summer 2012.

GPS Finally Comes to Canon

With the launch of the new GP-E1 Accessory Canon shooters finally have a way to embed GPS data right into the metadata of the images while being shot. Something which Nikon shooters have been able to do for some time now. The GP-E1 fits into the slot on the side of the camera which means you are still free to use the hotshoe which is great!

Redesigned Autofocus System

The sensor includes 21 f/5.6 cross-type sensors, 20 f/4.0 cross-type sensors, and 5 f/2.8 dual cross-type sensors. This means that the camera offers the same precision at f4.0 as the Mark IV did at f2.8. It also introduces a new system called EOS iTR AF (Intelligent Tracking and Recognition Auto Focus). This allows the camera to lock onto a particular color or even a face to aid tracking ability.

Continuous Shooting Speed

The news Canon EOS-1DX delivers an astonishingly fast burst speed of 12 frames per second, or even 14 frames per second in s special JPEG mode in which the shutter remains locked in the up position. My mind is boggled by this kind of speed, my current 1D Mark IV achieves 10FPS and that seems fast ! Honestly I'm not sure why they needed to go so fast, bragging rights ? The data that will be collected at 12FPS RAW 18MP files will be absolutely insane. 64GB memory cards will be a necessity !!

Page 1 of 2 pages 1 2 Next »