Canon 1d-X hands-on

Tonight the Kingsize Team was lucky enough to attend the Canon New Zealand launch of the EOS 1d-X, where we had a hands-on with five pre-production bodies.

We will post more photos and videos soon, but please follow our Twitter and Facebook pages for pictures and details.

The new camera is a natural evolution of the EOS system. What we saw today was the sports body with speed being the focus. If history repeats, then there will be a slower, higher megapixel body coming later.

UPDATE: Perhaps the 5d MK3 will take that position, since it could maintain it’s high megapixel simplicity without having the high end features of the 1 Series at the low price point.
Mean while the new video camera expected to be announced in early November should answer the needs of pro-video.

The 1d-X is reported to be the merging of the two 1 Series bodies, so an “s” high megapixel body may not come later. Canon is said to have decided on an 18mpx chip as being optimum. Have we reached a point where the megapixel race is over and the real world has prevailed ?

For stills shooters, the body goes full frame, and shoots 12 frames per second in RAW and JPG. The Auto Focus is clearly superior. With a long lens, we simply tracked the camera, and it held focus, without hunting, so the Servo mode looks formidable.

For video, Canon have added Time Code, and new codecs. UPDATE: not new codec we understand, but new compression options. There is no AF in video mode. We do now have an Ethernet port on the side, which can be used for direct data out. No SDI or standard HDMI.

There are dual CF card slots, new buttons: two jog wheels on the back, and two pairs of custom function buttons on the front right.

This is the kind of camera that while not revolutionary, has been refined to an almost perfect EOS camera for the hybrid stills, video shooter. It is no RED or Sony F3 challenger, but until we test the actual footage, we won’t know just how good the image quality is out of this new beast. Canon say that the high ISO is at least two stops better than previous cameras, so at least there, we can see some noticeable image improvements.

Given that the chip and image processor will be newer than the 5d mk2, and that it is full frame, the 1d-X must deliver better image quality in general conditions, so it will be interesting to see how the camera is adopted by both the stills and motion community, outside of sports, wedding, and reportage shooters. 18mpxl are more than enough for 90% of work, so even that against the 5d should not be an issue.

More to come… (photo: Phil shoots 12fps with the EOS 1d-X)