A few days ago Ron Martinsen posted the final version of his blog entry on the Canon EOS-1D X. At Photo Plus Expo in New York, he had the opportunity to sit down with Canon Advisor of Technical Information Chuck Westfall and to discuss the camera. After a little bit of time spent with it he feels that the camera includes everything he loves about Canon's 1D Mark IV, 1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, and 7D.

"Canon says this sensor offers a 6.95 pixel pitch (µm) compared to 6.4 for the 5DM2 and 5.7 for the 1DM4 (...). With a sensor that is effectively the same size as the D3s, yet nearly 6 megapixels more packed into each image, the big question is going to be about image quality – especially at higher ISO’s. Canon claims that with in-camera JPEG’s the image quality will meet or exceed what is seen today in the 1Ds-Mark III/5D Mark II. That’s a tall claim, but my hands on experience at the Expo seems to indicate this is true."

Ron was excited about the 12FPS performance of the camera however he had some doubts concerning the buffer. He didn’t have enough time to test the buffer flush performance, but as the Mark IV was much better in this aspect than the D3s, he expects the 1D X to be the fastest camera on the market in this measurement.

According to Ron, Canon has added many autofocus improvements so the new system is less prone to user error:

"The advanced ability to change these settings still exists, but presets have been added with additional help information to aid photographers in quickly knowing which setting to use for a variety of common situations. I think these changes will help photographers maximize the potential of the system."

He also states that the X will only show you the focus appoints that apply to your lens and more cross type sensors have been added to improve the accuracy of subject tracking.

Another interesting aspect of the camera is what kind of results you get when you use it with high ISO settings:

"The formerly useless ISO 12,800 is now usable and appears to look at least as good as what ISO 1600 looked like on the 1D Mark IV. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any of my own images for closer scrutiny elsewhere, so the judge is still out on this. At a minimum it seems that Canon has matched the Nikon D3s and is definitely 2 stops better at high ISO performance, but I think it is higher than that. It certainly seems to be a camera where 12,800 and lower all seem like very usable ISO’s from what I saw."

He is also happy that Canon made some changes concerning video recording - even though the video files are still limited to 4GB, he reports that Canon has come up with a seamless scheme for allowing multiple video files to be created and transparently stitched together for a maximum of 29 minutes and 59 seconds of its highest quality HD video per individual clip.

"Other improvements include a much nicer feel for the scroll wheel, an easier to use joystick controller, programmable redundant front camera buttons. I was also happy to see Canon finally do away with the SD card slot and go to dual Compact Flash slots."

He sums up his article with the conclusion that if this camera is stable and works as advertised, this is the greatest camera Canon has ever made.

Source: http://www.ronmartblog.com