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I don't think it has anything to do with the earthquake/tsunami, this was written the day of the tsunami:

'Canon can confirm that the Canon Inc headquarters and the Canon Group Subsidiary locations in Japan did not suffer major damage to any buildings or factories as a result of today's earthquake and tsunami.'

'In one location, Canon Utsunomiya, approximately 12 employees suffered minor injuries and in some Canon manufacturing sites production was suspended as a result of power failures.'

This is a great step for Canon,they chose the right path in my opinion(given it delivers the promises,I know it will).Even though I wont be able to afford it I have to say that I feel really glad for Canon.

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Sigma 24-70mm EX DG f2.8
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Canon 400mm f5.6 L USM
San Disk Ultra II 4gb
Manfrotto 681B
Canon 200 EG backpack.

With any new product like this they Canon will now be getting pre orders from distributors and retailers, this will give them their initial demand figures ensuring they make enough but not to many.

In outdoor products the lead time is longer. We get shown ranges in May then have to place orders by July for delivery early the next year so they eventually get into retailers early spring. I wonder how long the distributors have known the details of this launch? I suspect with the high end products like this the majority find out the same time as we do.

Does anyone think there will be a 1D Y? Huge mega pixel FF camera for landscape / portrait / studio. The high resolution will mean sacrificing the fps and other processes that need data to be crunched quickly. Maybe lesser hi ISO performance?

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Canon EOS 550D (with Magic Lantern)
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I don't think so. Most cameras with higher resolution aren't much worse in terms of high ISO performance - if you resize the pictures to the smaller size you are comparing them to. BUT you get more details with the higher resolution, especially at low ISOs.

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Canon EOS 500D + Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EF 24-105mm 4L IS USM + EF 100-400mm 4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 100mm 2.8L Macro IS USM + Sigma 12-24mm 4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM + Canon Speedlite 580 EX II + Nissin Speedlite Di 466

I am glad to see that low-light performance was prioritized. Otherwise, it is academic, as cost will keep me from buying such an expensive camera for quite some time, and if I owned such a wonderful instrument, might not want to risk carrying it at work, in the trunk (boot) of a police patrol car, when a cropped-frame camera is entirely adequate for the job.

It is somewhat entertaining to see comments from the loyalists of each brand. As I have indicated in the past, I have no such brand loyalty, being a fan of some EF L lenses, and some Nikkors. I have seen some stunningly detailed night images shot with my wife's D7000, and she has commented favorably on night shots made with my 40D and 7D cameras. Our first FF camera could be either brand.

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Canon 7D/5D/40D/1D2N; Nikon F6, FM3A, & Coolpix A; Canon 40mm Pancake, 135L, 50L, 35L, pre-II 50mm 1.8, 100mm 2.8L Macro, 10-22mm EF-S, 28-135 EF, 400mm 5.6L; Nikkor 50mm 1.2 AI-S, 50mm 1.4G, 50mm 1.8D, 16mm 2.8D Fisheye, 180mm 2.8D, 100-300mm 5.6 AI-S; Tokina 17mm & 100mm 2.8 Macro

Hi folks,

According to this post on BPN:

AF is unavailable on the EOS-1D X if the maximum aperture reported to the camera through the electronic lens mount is smaller than f/5.6. This is a lower specification than previous EOS-1 series DSLRs. On the plus side, consider the fact that with most f/4 lenses including the 400 DO, 500/4L IS and IS II, and 600/4L IS and IS II, you now have 41 cross-type AF points plus color and face detection, whereas you had no cross-type points and no color or face detection during AF with previous EOS-1 series DSLRs using the same lenses, not to mention a significantly wider AF coverage area from left to right.

This is apparently a direct quote from an email received from Canon's Chuck Westfall.

Would this affect your buying decision?

Bob.

Via Northlight Images

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I noticed the lack of mention of f/8 support in my much earlier post. Again I'm not really the target market for a 1 series, but if I were a hypothetical 1D4 upgrader, I think this is a drawback as you have not only lost the crop factor, you also lose the ability to stick as much extender on. I'm don't think the fps boost makes up for that. From memory, the f/8 AF was only single point only anyway, but it would still be a nice to have.

I can't miss the f/8 point myself since I'm only going to look at lower bodies that never had it anyway.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Does that mean if you have a lens that has an aperture of F1-5.6, your AF will work, but that any lens with an F-number of 5.6 and higher, won't auto-focus?

If that's the case, I don't think it's a big deal. I don't think any L lens has an aperture smaller than F5.6. None of the lenses I have (that would fit a full-frame camera) sport such a small aperture, so it would be a non-issue for me.

The issue is when you use lenses with extenders. With previous 1 series bodies if you have a f/4 lens with 2x extender, or f/5.6 lens with 1.4x extender, you could still retain AF. Losing that ability can impact some users.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

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I wonder what the AF performance will be like if using a third party extender which doesn't tell the 1DX what the f-number actually is? But would the resulting sharpness, or lack of it, make this a worthwhile exercise?

But I think it's very easy to overstate the issue. The actual loss in linear resolution when going from the 5.7µm pixels of the 1D4 to the 6.95µm pixels of the 1DX is only about 20%. To my mind that doesn't mean that hordes of 1D4 owners are going to rush out and buy 1.4x extenders to make up for the loss of reach. So the only individuals likely to be affected would be those who habitually used a 1.4x extender on an f/5.6 lens or a 2x extender on an f/4 lens.

I have a feeling that Canon has done their research on this and decided that they gain more than they lose in terms of AF performance by dropping the f/8 capability (don't ask me why, as I've no idea what the technical trade-offs are during chip design) even if they upset the, presumably, small number of individuals I referred to in the previous paragraph.

Bob.

Edit: Maths corrected. Thanks popo.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Ah, extenders - I see!

I was at a camera store today and they had a notice about the 1D X, right above the 1D IV. The price for the 1D X is, apparently, going to be 649,000 yen at this particular store. The 1D IV was selling for over 700,000 yen. Who in there right mind would buy a 1D IV at this time!? Am I missing something?

Anyway, the fact that the flagship is starting off at a lower price than the current on is cool with me, I just don't understand why. Any ideas?

Bob, not sure I follow your numbers. The 1D X pixels are approx. 20% linearly bigger than the ones on the 1Dmk4. If you crop the 1D X output to APS-H size, you're left with approx. 11MP, which I think is a significant enough drop from 16MP. If you also factor in the loss of f/8 AF, that's another 1.4x factor of potential reach lost.

So on the big assumption if you need and can usefully use the 1D4 at pixel level output for reach, the 1D X would cost you over half that. To me that's a new hole in the lineup if the 1D4 gets retired. But I suspect there's more "interesting" bodies to come yet (not necessarily 1D level).

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Hi popo,

My bad. It should have been 20%. To get the drop in linear resolution I took the square root of the ratio of the pixel sizes forgetting that they were sizes and not areas. I'll amend the post. Thanks for the correction.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

Some interesting comments about the 1DX from Doug Brown (biography) on this page.

There’s no doubt that it’s nice to be able to AF at extreme focal lengths, but in all honesty 99.99% of my images are taken with maximum apertures of f/5.6 or larger. If sacrificing f/8 AF results in a substantially higher keeper rate for my other frames, it’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make (but I’ll be keeping my Mark IV, which does AF at f/8 ).
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I have precious little experience with full-frame bodies in bird photography, but the full-frame Nikon shooters seem to do pretty well with their 12 MP sensors. The 1D x has 50% more pixels than the D3s.

Those are just extracts so it would be fair to Doug to visit his website and read the whole paragraph. And while you are visiting be sure to check out his portfolio.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I really think anyone using this camera wouldn't be depending on extenders. This camera is made for the pros that are using the 10,000+ dollar telephoto lenses with apertures of F4 or 5.6 minimum.

Maybe I have a distorted view of extenders, but I think of them as a way to cheaply sqeeze some focal length out of a lens. (Even though they are more expensive than one may expect.) I mean, would a sports photographer even mess with a lens with an aperture higher than 5.6??