The Digital Picture review of the 1D X

yalemba wrote in post #14810011
For 1DX wedding and sports photographers, its novelty of high FPS and ISO will wear off as soon as amateurs start flashing and flaunting their 36MP Nikon cameras in events...

So megapixel count trumps everything???

For me Dynamic Range and megapixels together would trump everything. Canon have been promising us better DR for so long now, its time they delivered.

joeblack2022 wrote in post #14810172
So megapixel count trumps everything???

As an owner of 1Ds M3, I look at 1DX as a step-down for studio and landscape photography, where high FPS and ISO are not relevant. I'd be very happy with a Canon 1Dz with 40MP at 5 fps and 800 ISO

dog rocket wrote in post #14809388
One thing's for certain: if Canon releases a "3D" high MP camera, it will *not* be in the $8K range retail like a 1Ds4 would likely have been... not by any stretch with the D800 in the Nikon camp... even if it's in a pro style body like the rumors claim. In fact, even if Canon releases a high MP camera, it may be a tall order to match the performance of the Nikon/Sony sensor... and they'll get shelled if it's not. You can bet there's a whole department in the engineering trenches of Canon not getting much sleep right now!

I hope you're right. All they have to do is get rid of the frigging banding! It's been a trait since they jumped into the digital age!

yalemba wrote in post #14810368
As an owner of 1Ds M3, I look at 1DX as a step-down for studio and landscape photography, where high FPS and ISO are not relevant. I'd be very happy with a Canon 1Dz with 40MP at 5 fps and 800 ISO

Look at the sentence I quoted, it wasn't referring to studio and landscape photographers.

yalemba wrote in post #14810368
As an owner of 1Ds M3, I look at 1DX as a step-down for studio and landscape photography, where high FPS and ISO are not relevant. I'd be very happy with a Canon 1Dz with 40MP at 5 fps and 800 ISO

Totally agree.I'm undecided whether or not I should cancel my 1D X preorder.

joeblack2022 wrote in post #14810172
So megapixel count trumps everything???

It depends on your needs. The 1D X can obviously shoot anything but, there are folks who want resolution. The answer most people will give is go digi MF. Digi MF isn't cheap and surprisingly enough the D800 holds it's own against Phase One's iQ180. So, you don't have to spend a ton to go that route.

yalemba wrote in post #14810011
As we already know, the 18MP sensor technology seems to have become a commodity; even entry-level DSLRs are offering this resolution. At some point, Canon will have no choice, but to offer a 40MP camera to studio and landsacape photographers. For 1DX wedding and sports photographers, its novelty of high FPS and ISO will wear off as soon as amateurs start flashing and flaunting their 36MP Nikon cameras in events...

Ya, flaunting their 36 MP cameras with 4 FPS

I understand there some niche for extremely high pixel count, but I prefer low light performance than more pixels that I don't use.

marekknowak wrote in post #14810464
Ya, flaunting their 36 MP cameras with 4 FPS

I understand there some niche for extremely high pixel count, but I prefer low light performance than more pixels that I don't use.

I own the D800 and the sensor does an excellent job at shadow recovery. If you don't shoot landscape, a high res camera isn't for you.

jdizzle wrote in post #14810446
It depends on your needs.

Of course, again pointing out the sentence I was making a comment on said that sports and wedding photographers would get over the novelty of FPS and high ISO. I doubt any sports photographer would consider high FPS a novelty. Neither would clean high ISO images for a wedding photographer.

I'm not dismissing the needs of landscape and studio photographers but I was making a comment on a statement that wasn't directed at either of these.

yalemba wrote in post #14810011
As we already know, the 18MP sensor technology seems to have become a commodity; even entry-level DSLRs are offering this resolution. At some point, Canon will have no choice, but to offer a 40MP camera to studio and landsacape photographers. For 1DX wedding and sports photographers, its novelty of high FPS and ISO will wear off as soon as amateurs start flashing and flaunting their 36MP Nikon cameras in events...

I'm not at all convinced this is true. Quite the opposite, actually.

Wedding photographers eat up high ISO, but generally don't print nearly as large as landscapers do. For them, high ISO performance most certainly is more important than resolution.

Sports shooters are concerned with speed (shutter speed and camera FPS) more than anything else, and because of that they'll tend to appreciate good high ISO performance (since it makes it possible for them to use very high shutter speeds in a wider variety of situations).

For other professionals, everything depends on their use. Landscapers will tend to be concerned with resolution, low ISO image quality, and dynamic range before anything else. Like landscapers, portrait shooters will tend to be more concerned about low ISO image quality (tonal smoothness and fidelity), but unlike landscapers, they will be less likely to be concerned about resolution (18 megapixels is quite a lot for that purpose -- few people are interested in closely examining the zits on a person's face, and 18 megapixels is plenty for capturing tons of interesting portrait detail), and will certainly be unconcerned about dynamic range.


All of which is to say, speed and high ISO are not merely gimmicks to wedding and sports shooters, they are useful -- quite a bit more useful than sheer resolution. And in general, when a pro covets a capability, it's for good reason -- because he can put that capability to good use.

kcbrown wrote in post #14810941
I'm not at all convinced this is true. Quite the opposite, actually.

Wedding photographers eat up high ISO, but generally don't print nearly as large as landscapers do. For them, high ISO performance most certainly is more important than resolution.

Sports shooters are concerned with speed (shutter speed and camera FPS) more than anything else, and because of that they'll tend to appreciate good high ISO performance (since it makes it possible for them to use very high shutter speeds in a wider variety of situations).

For other professionals, everything depends on their use. Landscapers will tend to be concerned with resolution, low ISO image quality, and dynamic range before anything else. Like landscapers, portrait shooters will tend to be more concerned about low ISO image quality (tonal smoothness and fidelity), but unlike landscapers, they will be less likely to be concerned about resolution (18 megapixels is quite a lot for that purpose -- few people are interested in closely examining the zits on a person's face, and 18 megapixels is plenty for capturing tons of interesting portrait detail), and will certainly be unconcerned about dynamic range.


All of which is to say, speed and high ISO are not merely gimmicks to wedding and sports shooters, they are useful -- quite a bit more useful than sheer resolution. And in general, when a pro covets a capability, it's for good reason -- because he can put that capability to good use.

Excellent post.

Just saying.

jdizzle wrote in post #14810498
I own the D800 and the sensor does an excellent job at shadow recovery. If you don't shoot landscape, a high res camera isn't for you.

Shadow recovery isn't high ISO noise level.

The D800 dynamic range is higher than the canon only at low ISO. At high ISO, canon has higher dynamic range, and better shadow recovery.

The tests you see on the net showing how great shadow recovery is on a D800 are done at low ISO.

Which is kinda useless unless you are the kind of photographer who
miss the exposure by 3 stops when there is plenty of light.

We had an "interesting" discussion about the 1D/1Ds/1DX yesterday. I argued the case for a updated 1Ds and the opposite camp chose to argue that the speed of processing in camera made up for the missing pixels. It shows to me a total lack of understanding of what we landscapists want from a camera, processing speed is irrelevent, as are stratospheric ISO numbers. I was critised for calling the 1Ds a "studio" camera, which I did only because "landscapist" is an awkward word.

Apparently Canon canvased opinion before dumping the 1Ds line. All I can say is they must have very carefully chosen who they canvassed, because if I'd been asked they would have received a very different answer.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #14800797
...and the 7DII will be a 1.3x crop factor to replace the 1D APS-H format.

I'll buy two of them.