It is not very exciting to hear that your beloved piece of photography equipment is being replaced with a new and improved model – as was the case for me with the announcement of the Canon EOS 1DX. Although I have been using my 1DS MKiii for a good two years now, Canon will still need a lot of persuading power to get me to buy a new camera from them that costs about as much as a new Toyota. There is not much that I can do about Canon releasing a new model, so I decided to try out the new EOS 1DX and see if an upgrade is justifiable for me.
Design & Appearance
The Canon 1DX appears quite identical to the 1D and 1DS models with just a few differences. It seems that Canon has again listened to feedback from its users when they were designing their latest 18 megapixel beauty. The major obvious change would be the new “X” badge on the front side of the, there are also four well placed custom buttons for use when shooting vertically or horizontally. The back of the camera looks a bit like a 60D, but my favourite addition would be the “control stick” which is designed for quickly navigating the menu even while shooting vertically. And on the sidescamera are the various input/output ports on offer: HDMI, AV/USB, LAN outputs, as well as mic, DC power, and remote inputs. There’s also a small pop-out tab for unlocking and removing the battery, which slides out of the bottom of the camera. It’s a professional looking camera and I love all the placements of the buttons and controls.
LCD Screen
The Canon 1Dx offers a beautiful 3.2 inch rear LCD with 1020k dot resolution which is a huge jump from the 230k dot resolution of my 1DS Mark iii. It is just a slight upgrade compared to the 5D Mark II and the 1D Mark IV, which uses 920k dot resolution LCD monitors, but is still noticeable.
Ethernet LAN Port
The Canon 1Dx offers the standard collection of ports for a professional DSLR: HDMI, AV/USB output, 3.5mm microphone input, DC power input, and remote input.From a professional perspective I enjoyed using the added Ethernet LAN Port cause it allows me the transfer my images and video at a much faster speed when it matters. It’s not even difficult to imagine setting up 50-100 feet of wire cause the cost is not gonna be much.
Dual Digic 5+ Processors
I would not mind at all utilizing Dual Digic 5+ Processors which Canon engineers claim to be 17x more powerful than the Digic IV processors. So you can just about see me now in tears causemy 1DS MKiii uses dual DIGICIII processors only. Also I would like to add that the 1DX uses a dedicated DIGIC IV processor for autofocus and auto exposure processing. Imagine that ability, combined with the faster readout off the chip, 12fps, RAW, sports shooting as the most blissful thing on earth.
Conclusion
The Canon EOS 1DX is a giant leap forward and it looks to set the standard for professional Digital SLR cameras for the upcoming years. It is a camera that is both speed-oriented and quality-oriented and has shown to be a bold camera on paper and during testing. It also offers a host of exciting new technology that can satisfy both professional photographers and videographers. At an estimated release price of $6,800 the Canon 1DX is an expensive durable workhorse that should serve you for many years. I think it is worth the upgrade from my Canon 1DS mark iii with just some of the features that I liked being reviewed here. If you wish to have other features reviewed or add any details that I missed please feel free to comment.