 on the street. Now, they are just a stranger who you will never meet.
*Multi- Destination Membership* Featuring a finely appointed 1 bedroom, 1 bath suite that will accommodate 4 guests comfortably. Usage is biannual in floating weeks. RTU in perpetuity. Owner will consider all reasonable offers! For more information or to make an offer, please submit the inquiry form.
As a member of *Exclusive Residences*, you will have access to one of the most powerful travel sites available on the Internet today. It is easy to plan your next vacation or business trip with real-time availability of hotels and cruises. As a member, you will also enjoy discounted weekly rates on thousands of resort condominiums located throughout the world. With 24 hours a day, 7 days a week access to the reservation system and the added bonus of being able to place accommodations on hold for up to 24 hours, you are sure to find and plan vacations of your dreams! To discover more, visit www.exclusiveresidences.com.Canon announced the new 1DX on the 2nd March 2012. After a very long period we received one of the first ones that came into South Africa. This document is to see how well the camera performed in the field and with our in-house tests.
TEST RESULTS
We looked at the camera’s AF system and how well it tracks and focuses. The ISO, we compared it against the 5D MkIII, 1D MkIV, Nikon D800 and D4; and lastly the resolution. So let’s look first at the AF system.
AF FOCUS
Canon has had some bad press about their AF systems in the 1D MkIII, it improved with the 7D and 1D MkIV, but did not win too many critics over. They really stepped up their game with the 5D MkIII, so lets see how well the new 1DX does. The 1DX has the same specifications as the 5D MkIII but also has the new iTR (Intelligent Tracking and Recognition) Auto Focus system that uses colour and face recognition to help track moving subjects. They increased the dual cross AF sensors. See images below:
become. What we want were as follows:
- Quality: Jpeg L
- Color space: Adobe sRGB
- Picture Styles: Standard
b.The images were viewed in DPP version 3.11.31. are just too”, “iTR switched off (iTR is only active in the Zone and all 61 points auto selections modes)”. See image below:
We started with the centre focusing point and selected other focusing points in the following sequence (this sequence was used in all the tests), centre, far left, far right, middle top and middle bottom. See image below:
The camera focused perfectly on the spot without any hesitation or hunting (in both One Shot Focus and AI Servo Focus).
The next set of tests we expanded the focusing points by selecting the following options, even though “only cross-type AF points” were selected, the camera will use non cross-type AF points to assist with the focus process, see image below:
After our 5D MkIII test with expanded AF points, the 5D MkIII only used the selected AF point to focus with and used the expanded to assist, we expected the 1DX to perform exactly the same, and it did!!
Every test shot, the selected focusing point was used to achieve focus. The camera focused perfectly and never selected an expanded AF point (in both One Shot Focus and AI Servo Focus).
As with the 5D MkIII, we then expanded the AF points even more, now using 8 assisting AF points rather than only 4 in the previous test. See images below:
Once again flawless!! We then selected Area/Zone AF mode. See image below:
Just as the 5D MkIII the camera behaved like his previous predecessors. Every time the AF system selected the closest focusing point. The red block around the AF points indicates the zone. See images below:
We then moved on and selected all 61 points. See images below:
The camera behaves differently depending on AF Mode. When the AF mode is on One Shot, the camera selects the focusing point and every time it selected the closest point. See images below:
If the camera is in AI Servo, the AF will start from the selected AF point, and it did so every time. In the image below, the selected AF point was centre. We did select other AF points and the AF was spot on every time, without hesitation or hunting:
The next test was to activate the AF point auto switching. So we moved the setting from 0 to 1 and selected again every AF area. iTR was still switched off. See image below, example of how the set-up was for “expand 4 focusing points”:
The camera did not switch AF points in any of the modes and the test results were exactly the same as if the AF point auto switching was set at zero.
In the next test, we moved the AF point auto switching to +2 and tested every AF area again. iTR was still switched off. See image below, example of how the set-up was for “expand 8 focusing points”:
The results were exactly the same as when the AF point auto switching was on +1, the only difference we got was with the Area/Zone mode, more AF points achieved AF, but still in the same position.
We then repeated the tests with iTR on. See image below:
The results were the same, (remember iTR is only active with Area/Zone and all 61 AF points), except when all 61 points were selected in One Shot AF mode. The camera indicated more AF points achieving focus, see image below:
CONCLUSION ON STATIC SUBJECT FOCUS
The 1DX acted exactly the same as the 5D MkIII with this test, and we expected that. I am going to repeat myself and say again what I said in the 5D MkIII’s review and that is, it seems Canon has moved away from the philosophy that the AF points must AF on the closest subject, now employing the idea that the selected AF point takes priority and the surrounding AF points assist with the focus, exactly how it should be.
As with the 5D MkIII, the AF system really impressed us!! Whatever setup you use, whether it is with expansion or not, the AF is instantaneous and without any hunting.
For the second test, we used a moving subject to test the tracking ability of the focusing system. The test is simple and minimizes “operator” error. We printed black and white diagonal lines on a canvas that was inturn glued on a board. The board was then mounted on the bulbar of our Land rover. My wife drove at 50km/h towards me whilst I photographed the board.
The first image was taken from around 70m from the camera and the last image will be around 6m from the camera. The tests were done with three lenses namely, EF 600 f4.0L IS USM, EF 300 2.8L IS USM and the EF100-400 f4-f5.6 L IS USM lens at 400mm (note, the tests were done with the old 600 f4 and 300 f2.8, we will redo the test with the new lenses when we get our hands on one). All three lenses were used on their maximum aperture. The camera was supported on a Gitzo 1648 Carbon Fiber tripod with a Wimberley. The camera settings were as follows:
a.
- Quality: Jpeg L
- Color space: Adobe sRGB
- Picture Styles: Standard
b.
- Focusing mode AI Servo and Drive Mode 7fps.
- The centre focusing point was used with the different expansion options
- AF was set on Case 1
- Shutter speed was 1/4000 sec
c.The images were viewed in DPP version 3.11.31. The thumbnail will show the image plus the focusing point used and the enlarged view is a portion of the Actual Pixels (100%) of the Jpeg image where the focusing point was aimed at.
See below an example of the test, once again we are not going to show all the results because we took over 800 images.
The AF system was set up as follows:
With the different expansion options:
The results were then checked in DPP version 3.11.31 as well as in Photoshop CS 5 Bridge at actual pixels. See below the Single Point AF area with the 600 f4L IS USM lens, the result was 100%:
Below is a summary of the results:
600 f4L IS USM:
Single point: 100%
Exp 4 points: 92,7%
Exp 8 points: 92,7%
All 61 points with centre point selected: 84,6%
300 f2.8L IS USM:
Single point: 96,0%
Exp 4 points: 92,5%
Exp 8 points: 92,3%
All 61 points with centre point selected: 83,6%
100-400 f4.5-5.6L IS USM at 400mm:
Single point: 91,2%
Exp 4 points: 84,6%
Exp 8 points: 89,3%
All 61 points with centre point selected: 87,3%
The camera only hesitated once during the tests and did not take two or three frames, due to not achieving AF and that was with the 100-400 lens when the AF point were expanded to 4 points. You can see from the result that the AF then struggled to recover and gave one of