Reposting this from here http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1055238
I got to handle 3 seperate 1D-X models today, at Canon Pro Solutions, for a decent bit of time. However, we were not allowed to insert our own memory cards, and so I have no sample images to share - the door was taped over. I'm approaching this from the viewpoint of a 1Ds3 person, not a 1DIV person.
My thoughts are as follows, in no particular order. Hopefully they should prove interesting to some people.
- Feel: The feel in either orientation is fantastic, the buttons are very natural and the addition of a second joystick for portrait orientation is excellent. The dedicated live-view button is a nice touch, there's also a quick menu button of questionable worth. The near-lens mount customisable button is suprisingly usable, I was expecting to dislike it but it functions quite well.
- Autofocus: A complete joy. My opportunities to try tracking with servo were limited, but the autofocus seemed to fit my two main criteria: be fast and lock accurately. Point selection is great including expansion to surrounding points in either cross or square box type. Servo seemed to be perfectly accurate to me, but there was no fast motion near me to test. Their presentation made a big deal over the new servo algorithms & design, and I've no reason to doubt.
- Metering: A quick test of pointing the cameras into varied lighting conditions says that the new 250 odd zone system seems to be bang on, at worst about 1/3 or 2/3 stops off, no complaints whatsoever.
- Viewfinder: The electronic level & overlay displays are fantastic! I really love it. The old FEL button is now M. Fn1 instead, which by default is electronic level. Unfortunately, the customising of M. Fn 1 & 2 are limited - for example you can't set them to bring up WB Shift, which is something I use a lot. I forgot to check if they allow you to set MLU using them or not though.
- ISO Performance: Unsurpringly, at ISO 204,800 there is noise. I am judging this from the max magnified view on the back of the LCD, and no, it is not clean. It is not clean at iso 50,000 either, but markedly better. I did a fair bit of testing at iso 800-1600, and honestly, it does seem remarkably clean.
- Menu system: Excellent, I really like it. You can hold down info for an explanation of everything on the fly, and it's clear and well organised.
- Drive speed: 14fps brings a funny smile to your lips. You have to enable it via a menu, then you can select it via the normal drive button - there's no need to set MLU each time or anything like that. It works, though you lose the ability to shoot RAW & the viewfinder is black, even though it comes back afterwards. It will focus for the first frame, but after that focus and exposure are locked. With regards to the buffer, I have no idea what speed of CF card was in there, but I held down the shutter and it went and went and went. I didn't bother making a formal test of it, because of my next point.
- Banding. We were explicitly told that one of the 2 models on the table in the demo presentation had a significant banding problem. The key reason we weren't allowed to use our own CF cards yet is simple: the camera is NOT finished yet. These are very early samples, and there is a good reason it's 5 months until they're for sale - they have a lot to clear up. They will do open days for cps people to make an evaluation shoot later on, when the camera is ready.
All in, in terms of features, it's damn near perfect. The only things I could wish for were perhaps a 0.78x viewfinder and inbuilt flash ettl radio triggering ala pocketwizard. To those like me who rarely shoot above ISO 800 and 5fps is enough yet print large, and are uncomfortable with the resolution: Frankly we are in a minority. I can't tell you if the images coming out of it interpolated to 21mpix at iso 200 beat the 1Ds3, or make any evaluation of the image quality because the camera isn't finished. For that we have to wait and see. All I can tell you is about the features, which are simply excellent.
Addendum: I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between two Canon employees, and there were comments strongly hinting about something during the presentation regarding the November announcement. I really don't think it's my place to give out information that wasn't explicitly given to me, but I think a decent number of people are going to be rather happy.
^^ Added edit: A disclaimer: This may be completely wrong, and I may be misinterpreting things. I don't want to give too much weight to this at the expense of detracting from the main focus of the 1D-X.
