Is there still hope that we see in-body stabilization in the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III?

Apr 25, 2011
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Whatever Canon adds these days, Canon still is always behind the leaders of innovation. There was a time when Canon was ahead. I miss those days.
I don't (if there ever were such times, which I doubt). When I buy something as expensive as good camera gear, I expect to use it for a long time.
 
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I don't (if there ever were such times, which I doubt). When I buy something as expensive as good camera gear, I expect to use it for a long time.
Their time to market for new innovations has been slow, but when they get there they've dominated over the last 30 years. The difference is the amount of internet camera-specific websites/forums/youtube/etc covering it. As a society we have been conditioned with technology with the philosophy of "Day Before Release = Vaporware", "Day of Release = State of the Art", "Day After Release = Obsolete".

Except now it's gotten so bad that if all the manufacturers don't offer the exact same specs with a different badge, it's labeled obsolete too. I've seen those same criticisms on Sony's site for not adding that functionality to their lenses, or nikon for having that functionality only if you disable focusing with the Z lenses.
 
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Their time to market for new innovations has been slow, but when they get there they've dominated over the last 30 years. The difference is the amount of internet camera-specific websites/forums/youtube/etc covering it. As a society we have been conditioned with technology with the philosophy of "Day Before Release = Vaporware", "Day of Release = State of the Art", "Day After Release = Obsolete".

Except now it's gotten so bad that if all the manufacturers don't offer the exact same specs with a different badge, it's labeled obsolete too. I've seen those same criticisms on Sony's site for not adding that functionality to their lenses, or nikon for having that functionality only if you disable focusing with the Z lenses.

To some degree you are correct. That being said the 1d line is geared towards working professionals. They want reliable gear that works. In that group I am sure there are spec chasers, but I suspect they are the minority. The websites / forums / youtube pundits are not the demographic 1d line is aimed at anyway, and even if it were 99.9% are not going to buy a 1d.
 
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Aussie shooter

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It's a myth sports/action shooters won't benefit from IBIS. It's the same benefit as from any IS. As an example, say you have an EF 70-200 IS. Will you prefer to shoot with IS enabled or disabled? Obviously you don't compensate the motion blur, but hand/camera shake blur adds to the overall blur and it can be critical. Personally I can't shoot action say at 200mm and 1/500s and without IS.
Well, you can't really shoot action at 1/500 sec period. With or without IBIS. Not unless you want your subject to be blurred. But when the action does slow down it would certainly help to be able to drop your shutter speed and consequently lower your ISO along with it and that is where IBIS would help.
 
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Michael Clark

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Somehow I doubt this is the case for two reasons: 1) Pretty much all the IBIS hardware sits behind the sensor while the mirror box is in front of it, 2) DSLR are far more bulky than mirrorless bodies (compare the Canon 1DX mark II or Nikon D5 versus the Olympus E-M1 mark II and try to guess which one has the 5-stop IBIS built-in) so size alone shouldn't be the barrier to adding the extra few mm necessary to accommodate such tech. I think there's more to it than just size.

The difference is that the sensors in DSLRs are much closer to the back of the camera body, in order to allow room for the mirror box and registration distance fo 40+mm in front of the sensor, while the sensors in mirrorless bodies tend to be further forward with reference to the back of the camera because the registration distance is much shorter.

There's absolutely no room in a DSLR to move the sensor forward to allow more room behind the sensor for IBIS without increasing the total thickness of the camera body, unless one is willing to use a shorter registration distance that still would need to avoid mirror clearance issues.
 
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Michael Clark

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It's a myth sports/action shooters won't benefit from IBIS. It's the same benefit as from any IS. As an example, say you have an EF 70-200 IS. Will you prefer to shoot with IS enabled or disabled? Obviously you don't compensate the motion blur, but hand/camera shake blur adds to the overall blur and it can be critical. Personally I can't shoot action say at 200mm and 1/500s and without IS.

Why are you trying to capture action at 1/500? Even if the camera is rock solid, your subjects will be blurry when moving at full speed.
 
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Joules

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I'm once again surprised at how afraid of change come people appear to be. How can you be so critical of IBIS when in lens Is is just fine? Moving parts are moving parts, I don't see how one would be a concern for reliability, life time, tilted image plain and so in, an the other is not. Especially since IBIS could allow some features that IS doesn't, like correcting for rotation or actively help with subject tracking.

From my point of view, with a decent IBIS implementation, it should alway be possible to lock the sensor down. If you don't like it, don't use it. But don't make claims about how much worse it is, until you've seen the implementation. If Canon was willing to put IBIS in their cameras just to have it on the spec sheet, we would have seen it already. When they'll do it, they'll do it properly or not at all.
 
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So IBS will add an additional stop? Professional sports photogs are laughing. I'm shooting at 1/2500 and above and it's to my advantage to turn IS off at times. People can crow about IN Camera Stabilization but 1 to 2 stops it's not a reason to buy a new body. Now give me a 30MP frame at 15fps in RAW to enhance post-production. All we want is an OVF, at 15fps RAW and 30MP frames with our big whites we spend $6K to $13K for and more cross-points across our OVF. Give me the solid Canon tools we're used to. I'm a photographer, not a videographer. If I want to take 60fps or 120fps 4K video I'll buy a $1,000 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. I'm a professional sports photographer not Steven Frig'n Spielberg. Has anyone at Canon walked down the sidelines in the press pit at NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL? No one has come to us! No one asked us at America's Cup as we're getting drenched in water following a moving object in a moving object. No one came to us. We are professional sports photographers! Please don't fill my body with TOYS that take away from my photographs. Devote the MKIII to photographers... not enthusiasts. You took away our stock of CFast for Express cards. OK!!! Why give me 20 or 24MP's when that technology is in you $600 consumer cameras? If Canon can't deliver a 15fps, 30MP camera with enhanced IQ, DR, Resolution, Focus and Auto MA for our Big Whites I've got to wonder why we, or our agencies are to invest. Every pro sport I shoot 15fps is more than enough. I'm not producing a frig'n movie. When we broadcast it's a $200K Canon lens!!! Why screw with our cameras, we are photographers. Please don't take away from my photographs by devoting so much of the camera to videography. Take that space and give us a better camera for photography. We know what we shoot. The games, the sport, the athletes, the rules.... And 15fps is plenty. We want the DR and focus so at 15fps RAW we get the money shots. If we had 30MP's we can express more latitude in production for post. Can an executive sitting in an office in a chair understand that??? We are sports photographers.
I want to contradict. I hope Canon does not listen to you. I hope for a good IBIS.
The development is already completed anyway. You have to talk to Canon earlier.
I talked to Canon staff 2 years ago. The majority of 1DX customers want both, photo and video. Photojournalists and wedding photographers need both and do not always want to travel with multiple cameras.
Or I need the 1DX III as a B-video camera.
The 1DX III camera is not just for sports photographers. Sports photographers are in the minority.
If Canon would follow your wishes, the camera can not achieve the sales figures and would cost at least twice. And Sony would be happy. We are picture-video journalists.
 
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Ozarker

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To some degree you are correct. That being said the 1d line is geared towards working professionals. They want reliable gear that works. In that group I am sure there are spec chasers, but I suspect they are the minority. The websites / forums / youtube pundits are not the demographic 1d line is aimed at anyway, and even if it were 99.9% are not going to buy a 1d.
I'm not so sure I can agree that the 1D line is geared towards working professionals so much, but that working professionals are geared towards the 1D line. The market for that camera is much larger than just big time working professionals who must have a speed demon of a camera. From well heeled people who want nothing less than a flagship item, to birders, to etc. It's just that working professional sports photographers get the visibility at the sidelines of big league sports.

The guys working for small local newspapers covering the high school stadiums aren't using from the 1D line in great numbers. The one I knew a few years ago was using a Rebel with an EF-s zoom. He's a working professional. What I was using just for fun outclassed what he had by a mile. I was just there to practice. Many of the parents were also using better.

So I always have to smile when people (not you) come on here saying the camera is made for working professionals as though that is what supports that or any other model. The working professionals aren't a big enough number to do it. How do we know? Just look at the huge market contraction over the past few years. Camera companies are fighting for their very lives right now. Just how many 1D toting working professionals cover an NFL game? They are the same folks covering MLB, NBA, Hockey, and other professional sports. There are only 32 NFL teams. Sports Illustrated now has 4 full time photographers. Yup, just 4. In 2013 they had 28. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-sports-illustrated-cut-all-of-its-photographers/
 
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navastronia

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Well, you can't really shoot action at 1/500 sec period. With or without IBIS. Not unless you want your subject to be blurred. But when the action does slow down it would certainly help to be able to drop your shutter speed and consequently lower your ISO along with it and that is where IBIS would help.

You certainly can, and I did, at 1/500, shoot marathon runners who were quite close to me. 1/500 is sufficient for sports that don't require explosive speed.
 
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Michael Clark

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At what full speed exactly and what direction relative to the camera line of sight? :)

Typical high school athletes running across the camera's field of view. I was panning with the torso, which is reasonably stable, but the extremities, particularly the feet, are blurred at 1/800. EOS 7D + EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II (200mm and moderately cropped, 1/800, f/2.8, ISO 3200). I was on the walkway of the home stands (roughly the same height and distance from the center of the field as the visitor stands seen in the background) moving from up in the stands where I had been shooting band members and students cheering and was moving back to the field level when #4 broke a long run that wound up being a touchdown.

vMj4k.jpg
 
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GoldWing

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I'm not so sure I can agree that the 1D line is geared towards working professionals so much, but that working professionals are geared towards the 1D line. The market for that camera is much larger than just big time working professionals who must have a speed demon of a camera. From well heeled people who want nothing less than a flagship item, to birders, to etc. It's just that working professional sports photographers get the visibility at the sidelines of big league sports.

The guys working for small local newspapers covering the high school stadiums aren't using from the 1D line in great numbers. The one I knew a few years ago was using a Rebel with an EF-s zoom. He's a working professional. What I was using just for fun outclassed what he had by a mile. I was just there to practice. Many of the parents were also using better.

So I always have to smile when people (not you) come on here saying the camera is made for working professionals as though that is what supports that or any other model. The working professionals aren't a big enough number to do it. How do we know? Just look at the huge market contraction over the past few years. Camera companies are fighting for their very lives right now. Just how many 1D toting working professionals cover an NFL game? They are the same folks covering MLB, NBA, Hockey, and other professional sports. There are only 32 NFL teams. Sports Illustrated now has 4 full time photographers. Yup, just 4. In 2013 they had 28. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-sports-illustrated-cut-all-of-its-photographers/
Hi, Anyone can use the camera and obtain outstanding results if they know how to tell the camera what to do. Now spend another $60 to $70K on glass and a total of 18K for three bodies and you have a kit. Now add your wifi, 3 Canon 600 series flashes, your pelicans, mono and tripods, gimbals, cards, heads and we're at about 100K before we even step off the field and into the studio where another 100K with strobes, fixed lighting, modifiers, scrims, backdrops, gscreen, PC's and on and on. We are the guys paying the Bill's. "I am the person " paying the bills. I SHOOT ZERO video. And every major sports magazine, team, leauge, sports agent, athlete, newspaper, TV Network, website at some point has paid one if not all of my bills.

What I want as someone who has paid their dues is 30MP at 15fps in RAW with cross-points across my entire OVF. The video/broadcast cameras I stand next to have $250,000 lenses on them. I don't do their job and they don't do mine. I've been hit twice on the sidelines once taken out in a stretcher with a TBI. Once for water sports I was hit by boat and dragged unconcious with a hole in my head and almost lost an eye.

I AM A SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHER
 
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Aussie shooter

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You certainly can, and I did, at 1/500, shoot marathon runners who were quite close to me. 1/500 is sufficient for sports that don't require explosive speed.
As I said. When the action slows down it could be helpful. And a marathon(for the most part) does not happen at high speed. Limbs will still be blurred though. You wont stop that at 1/500sec
 
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Ozarker

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Hi, Anyone can use the camera and obtain outstanding results if they know how to tell the camera what to do. Now spend another $60 to $70K on glass and a total of 18K for three bodies and you have a kit. Now add your wifi, 3 Canon 600 series flashes, your pelicans, mono and tripods, gimbals, cards, heads and we're at about 100K before we even step off the field and into the studio where another 100K with strobes, fixed lighting, modifiers, scrims, backdrops, gscreen, PC's and on and on. We are the guys paying the Bill's. "I am the person " paying the bills. I SHOOT ZERO video. And every major sports magazine, team, leauge, sports agent, athlete, newspaper, TV Network, website at some point has paid one if not all of my bills.

What I want as someone who has paid their dues is 30MP at 15fps in RAW with cross-points across my entire OVF. The video/broadcast cameras I stand next to have $250,000 lenses on them. I don't do their job and they don't do mine. I've been hit twice on the sidelines once taken out in a stretcher with a TBI. Once for water sports I was hit by boat and dragged unconcious with a hole in my head and almost lost an eye.

I AM A SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHER
You don't pay the bills. I understand what you want, but the fact is that you are a drop in the bucket compared to the market as a whole. That is the market Canon caters to. Much of what you list, Canon doesn't make.
 
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Jul 19, 2011
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I'm once again surprised at how afraid of change come people appear to be.

That is often the case when people like you don't understand the technical details.

How can you be so critical of IBIS when in lens Is is just fine? Moving parts
are moving parts, I don't see how one would be a concern for reliability, life
time, tilted image plain and so in, an the other is not.

The lens IS moves a lens in a magnetic field, IBIS moves the whole imaging unit.
You obviously have no idea about what the wiring to the sensor looks like,
and what it means for the lifespan of thin conductors if they are constantly
moved, bent back and forth. Try to bend a paper clip open and close a few
hundred times. What do you think why the Sony cameras are so great in
overheating (showstopper, if your camera refuses to run), and why Canon
bolted heatpipes to the senor of the 1D-X MkII?

Modern imagers generate a lot of heat that must be dissipated unless you
want to kill it. Unless you have heatpipes like Canon does, or bolt the sensor
to a massive aluminum cooler like Leica does, you need active forced ventilation.
Which translates to a dust and moisture intrusion vector.

Lens IS moves only in two dimensions, IBIS also tilts. 10 micrometers of
play will give you unsharp corners. Have seen that on Nikon Z cameras already.

From my point of view, with a decent IBIS implementation, it should alway
be possible to lock the sensor down.

You are obviously not an engineer.
 
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