Jack Douglas said:
I read the whole thing and it's not toooo bad for bias. The usual subtle bias more in what they don't say than what they do, like dual cross focus points or F8 as mentioned by Neuro. There is of course the usual convenient shifting of emphasis on what features are most important. 16 vs. 14 FPS is not very important for an action camera. More telling as one commenter stated is that they tend to use Nikon jargon.
Unfortunately, it appears you missed these passages from our slideshow:
"Additionally, the 5 central points are dual-cross type, containing a long base-line x sensor in addition to the and + cross sensor for enhanced AF precision with F2.8 and faster lenses. Indeed, we've found these 5 points to have nearly mirrorless (contrast-detect) levels of precision, important for shallow depth-of-field photography."
... and as for us apparently downplaying the shooting rate differences, I suppose you missed this:
"Furthermore, the 4K frame grab feature on the EOS-1D X Mark II effectively allows for a 60 fps silent shooting - with AF. Rolling shutter is minimal, so this is actually a usable way of capturing the decisive moment when it comes to very fast action. The D5 can shoot silently at 30 fps for 5s, but you're out of luck if you want autofocus, and you only get 5MP stills out of it in this mode."
We also never said 16 vs 14 fps isn't very important. In fact, quite the contrary: we mentioned that the 16 fps mode on the Canon is more usable than the 14 fps mode on the Nikon when we wrote:
It's worth noting the Canon can shoot at 16 fps and still display a review image between each shot - allowing you to follow your subject - while the screen on the Nikon stays blacked-out when firing at its 14 fps maximum frame rate.
As for F8 focus, we mentioned it repeatedly in the 1D X II review. You're right, it should've been mentioned in this slideshow, and for that I apologize; it was a simple oversight. I've added that in to the slideshow.
Furthermore, after recent testing of Dual-Pixel AF in 4K/60p mode, I'm simply blown away, and so have updated the performance sections of the slideshow to include this perspective, saying:
On the numbers alone, the EOS-1D X Mark II has the edge in terms of shooting speed – especially when you consider 4K screen grabs at 60 fps with surprisingly capable AF, and a far more usable high (16) fps mode.
I've also updated the concluding slide to reflect this:
It's significantly faster if 7MP JPEG stills will suffice, given its 4K/60p frame grab mode with very capable AF.
Finally, as we've stated repeatedly in the comments and I've stated here at CR, we don't use 'Nikon lingo', we use industry standard lingo. We do it intentionally because we have a general readership, not only a Canon-based readership. And the industry has settled on pretty consistent wording for single vs. continuous AF:
- Sony - AF-C / AF-S
- Olympus - C-AF / S-AF
- Nikon - AF-C / AF-S
- Panasonic - AFC / AFS
- Pentax - AF.C / AF.S
- Samsung - CAF / SAF
- Canon - AI Servo / One Shot
Therefore, we use some combination of AF with 'S' or 'C', or spell out 'single AF' or 'continuous AF'. This is the most generally applicable way to talk about this subject for a site that reviews all cameras and expects cross-platform leadership, rather than talking about 'AF-S on the Nikon vs. One Shot on the Canon'. 'One Shot' also has a drive mode connotation to it, which we wish to avoid (drive mode and AF mode are orthogonal).
That said, before using these terms, we do clarify (you'll see it in the 1D X II review) that 'One Shot' and 'AI Servo' are referred to as 'AF-S' and 'AF-C'.
This is not an indication of bias or incompetency.
I hope that helps clear things up a bit, and thanks for the feedback.
Rishi
