Canon EOS-1D X Mark III field testing has begun [CR2]

Jun 12, 2015
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Your argument rests on one assumption; that mirrorless renders DSLR obsolete... or, to be fair, that mirrorless provides 10 times or more utility that DSLRs. Currently mirrorless does not do that. In fact, mirrorless currently does not beat DSLRs in all aspects. Battery life and the ability to see through the camera when it is off are 2 characteristics.

Doubtless battery technology and electronics advancements will make battery life a moot point in the future. However, that Sony, Panasonic and FujiFilm all don't have credible competitors to DSLR would lead me to believe that Canon will release new DSLR models once the RF push has subsided somewhat.

And looking through an EVF in strong lighting conditions is really unpleasant compared to an OVF. I own the EOS R, and I think it is very good in most ways, but I don’t like using it in strong light. Highlights and shadows does not look natural, and using an EVF in such conditions takes the joy out of photography. I hope the OVF stays for a long time, AND I hope newer DSLRs comes with exchangeable matte screens, such as the 1D series, the 6D, 5D classic and 5DII.
 
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Architect1776

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The MIII is interesting.
I would like to see the same (Better) performance from an RX pro camera.
Equal ruggedness and all the other pro features.
But rather than charge 6K bring the price down to 3K and sell millions of them.
Canon could do it and still have a huge profit margin at that price.
Keep lens prices as they are if they want but even bring them down.
With automation that they have and yes keep the quality and skilled labor where needed.
They could walk away after the 1DX series is closed down.
 
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Talys

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But rather than charge 6K bring the price down to 3K and sell millions of them.

I don't think so. If 1DX were $3000, Canon would not sell millions of them, because it isn't a great camera for a lot if casual and enthusiast photographers. It is too heavy and large for a lot of people, a lot of folks don't care about a rotatable/gripped body, and in the midrange, megapixels sell cameras, especially where a user wants to be able to crop more deeply (possibly because they don't want to swap lenses or don't own a longer lens).

And anyways, I don't see even the perfect full frame ILC selling millions of units af $3k - that is just too much money for a lot of people.
 
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unfocused

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But rather than charge 6K bring the price down to 3K and sell millions of them.
Canon could do it and still have a huge profit margin at that price....

Bring the price to design a building down to $1,000 and design millions. You could do it and still have a huge profit margin at that price.
 
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I have, and they're not. Can't you see the pixels?

I'll grant you with long lenses in dim conditions the EVF will be brighter. That could be desirable for sports. For wildlife it usually isn't, because your eye's iris closes down, which makes it harder to see through binoculars or just with the bare eye; wildlife photography often involves swapping between.
Tracking fast subjects such as bird-in-flight is far easier with an EVF which has no mirror black-out.
 
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Tracking fast subjects such as bird-in-flight is far easier with an EVF which has no mirror black-out.
Only if they are in a hawk like death dive, I found fast vertical tracking movements no issue but horizontal tracking with an EVF gave me a seasick kind of motion queeziness. No way was the tracking better for fast moving horizontal subjects with an EVF.
 
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dtaylor

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And looking through an EVF in strong lighting conditions is really unpleasant compared to an OVF. I own the EOS R, and I think it is very good in most ways, but I don’t like using it in strong light. Highlights and shadows does not look natural, and using an EVF in such conditions takes the joy out of photography. I hope the OVF stays for a long time, AND I hope newer DSLRs comes with exchangeable matte screens, such as the 1D series, the 6D, 5D classic and 5DII.

EVFs are also next to worthless in astro conditions. I can see and manually focus stars and even the Milky Way through a good OVF. I have yet to get anything but static in LiveView or in an EVF under the same conditions. Not to mention that an EVF destroys your night vision in one eye. I'll grant that when I'm shooting astro I'm generally reviewing the shot and thereby wrecking my night vision any way, but I could leave my night vision untouched with an OVF. No option to with mirrorless.
 
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Ozarker

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The MIII is interesting.
I would like to see the same (Better) performance from an RX pro camera.
Equal ruggedness and all the other pro features.
But rather than charge 6K bring the price down to 3K and sell millions of them.
Canon could do it and still have a huge profit margin at that price.
Keep lens prices as they are if they want but even bring them down.
With automation that they have and yes keep the quality and skilled labor where needed.
They could walk away after the 1DX series is closed down.
And just how do you know Canon could do that and still have a "huge" profit margin? Fantasy much?
 
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EVFs are also next to worthless in astro conditions. I can see and manually focus stars and even the Milky Way through a good OVF. I have yet to get anything but static in LiveView or in an EVF under the same conditions. Not to mention that an EVF destroys your night vision in one eye. I'll grant that when I'm shooting astro I'm generally reviewing the shot and thereby wrecking my night vision any way, but I could leave my night vision untouched with an OVF. No option to with mirrorless.
Agreed. I tried it and hated it.

I read a lot about “WYSIWYG,” but it isn’t really true. What you see is a JPEG preview of an illuminated screen compensating for ambient light from the viewer’s perspective. I shot tens of thousands of photos using the EVF for exposure which are vastly underexposed before realizing I need the histogram to be displayed.
 
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Ozarker

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I don't think so. If 1DX were $3000, Canon would not sell millions of them, because it isn't a great camera for a lot if casual and enthusiast photographers. It is too heavy and large for a lot of people, a lot of folks don't care about a rotatable/gripped body, and in the midrange, megapixels sell cameras, especially where a user wants to be able to crop more deeply (possibly because they don't want to swap lenses or don't own a longer lens).

And anyways, I don't see even the perfect full frame ILC selling millions of units af $3k - that is just too much money for a lot of people.
Craziness. These people equate whatever they happen to dream up with reality. Stuck in the tween years, intellectually. They have absolutely no idea what these complex machines cost to manufacture, but that matters not when one deals in fantasyland economics.
 
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Aussie shooter

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Tracking fast subjects such as bird-in-flight is far easier with an EVF which has no mirror black-out.
Tracking birds through an evf sucks ass. Even with no blackout. OVF is still king in the widife world. One day EVFs will likely come close to matching an OVF. At least they will be good enough to not be unpleasant to use. But that is not the case yet. They still cause eye fatigue.
 
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Joules

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Tracking birds through an evf sucks ass. Even with no blackout. OVF is still king in the widife world. One day EVFs will likely come close to matching an OVF. At least they will be good enough to not be unpleasant to use. But that is not the case yet. They still cause eye fatigue.
I don't think that coming close is all that what you call EVF will acomplish.

Focussing isn't about EVF or OVF. Using the imaging sensor vs a dedicated AF sensor is what really matters.

In THEORY, using the sensor is far superior. Period.

The sensor is guaranteed to be in the same plane where the image is captured, unlike a dedicated AF sensor, which could be off by a small distance and therefore require AFMA.

Because the focus sensors in a DSLR are exposed to light only when the mirror is in the optical path, and the light that hits the mirror is mostly used for the OVF, they can utilize only a portion of the light that would be available to sensor based Autofocus, where nothing sits infront of the sensor at any time.

And obviously, since an image sensor can capture an image, it can utilize the image content to make better decisions on focus. Eye AF is an example for this. And I think this is what the guy you responded to meant.

The thing is, making good use of the additional number of focusing points and the much richer amount of information from a sensor based focus system requires much more processing power and faster ways to read the Information from the sensor. And that is something that is difficult with small devices like cameras in general, and Canon seem to be struggling a lot with it in particular.

But they seem to push into very high resolution sensors with the rumored 100 MP mirrorless and the upcoming 32 MP 7D II + 80D replacement. Maybe they managed to get some of that under control.

If they do the same thing with the high res crop camera and the high res mirrorless like they did with the 7D II and 5Ds and just scale up the sensor, the high res mirrorless would have about 32 * 1.6^2 = 82 megapixel. Assuming they wouldn't go backwards from the 5 fps in the 5Ds, but keep it at that speed, it would be a camera with ~30% more throuput than the 1D XII. To acomplish that, they must have made some progress with their weakness.

Factoring in the size difference between 14 and 12 bit, 5 FPS at 82 mp is basically the same throughput as the Sony A9 handles with 20 FPS at 24 mp. It make me hopefull that Canon has suceeded with their stacked sensor research... But being Canon, I better don't get my hopes up.
 
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Mar 2, 2012
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In THEORY, using the sensor is far superior. Period.

The sensor is guaranteed to be in the same plane where the image is captured, unlike a dedicated AF sensor, which could be off by a small distance and therefore require AFMA.

Because the focus sensors in a DSLR are exposed to light only when the mirror is in the optical path, and the light that hits the mirror is mostly used for the OVF, they can utilize only a portion of the light that would be available to sensor based Autofocus, where nothing sits infront of the sensor at any time.

It’s a trade. Capture sensor based AF doesn’t have everything in the “pro” column.

Dedicated AF sensors for example are not constrained by the size and location prescribed by the capture sensor. They can be purpose-built.

Also, while much of the light is split off to the OVF, the AF sensors are full spectrum, whereas the vast majority of the light hitting the capture sensor is filtered out for the purpose of color reproduction.

One could build a small black and white (i.e., no color filter array sitting in front of it) sensor with large pixels and use it instead of discrete AF sensors and benefit from subject recognition in an SLR.




It is true that there are more things to align when not using the capture sensor for AF. Also there is a small finite delay between focus and capture associated with the mirror moving. But it is not as clearcut as I think you’re suggesting.
 
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Also, while much of the light is split off to the OVF, the AF sensors are full spectrum, whereas the vast majority of the light hitting the capture sensor is filtered out for the purpose of color reproduction.

One could build a small black and white (i.e., no color filter array sitting in front of it) sensor with large pixels and use it instead of discrete AF sensors and benefit from subject recognition in an SLR.
But then again colour information can also be used to make better AF under certain circumstances.
 
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But then again colour information can also be used to make better AF under certain circumstances.
But then again, color (+IR) information is already used in Canon's mirrorslappers to guide the AF sensor.

What's more, is that the dedicated AF sensor does not need to be planar. One may have several semi-transparent sensors at different planes to better detect the phase shift (and to better compensate for the geometric adjustments potentially needed).
 
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It depends on what you shoot. I do not believe all these people would be shooting with sub par AF.


Now when the 1D MkIII AF was genuinely suspect the white to black lens ratio changed drastically, now, very heavily leans to the white for the highest end pros that live and eat by their AF performance.

If its that good, I do wish the chasm between it and the 5D were as narrow as that between, say, the D5 and lower nikon dSLR series.

I've tried a D850's AF, its just too good but im not letting go of my EF 50mm F1.2 for it.
 
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