Canon EOS 1DX mark II announced

[davidb]

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but the latest announcement from Canon piqued my interest as the owner of a mark one. At £5,199 I won't be upgrading anytime soon!

http://www.canon.co.uk

[Mike Farley]

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but the latest announcement from Canon piqued my interest as the owner of a mark one. At £5,199 I won't be upgrading anytime soon!

http://www.canon.co.uk

Seems like a lot of camera for a lot of money and overkill for most.

Reading DPReview's first impressions article, the Dual Pixel AF feature is intriguing and a response to the better focusing accuracy of CSCs, but as DPReview notes it is a mystery why it cannot be used with continuous AF when it would be of most use.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/456927 ... ii?slide=6

[GrahamL]

WARNING: Techie-oriented

What intrigues me is this new-ish battle between Sony/Nikon and Canon on the speed of memory and the divergence they are taking in approach.

Sony and Nikon are pushing their new PCI-Express technology-based 'QXD' memory card while Canon and others are staying with the SATA version of compact flash, albeit a second generation 'CFast 2.0' ( i.e. Canon). As I understand it only Lexar and Sony make cards for the new QXD connection, while both Lexar and Sandisk make CFast 2.0. Canon's 1DX MkII CFast 2.0 may well be faster than Nikon D5's use of 1st generation QXD, but the longer-term I suspect it's a variant of the QXD PCIe-based card that will win.

The fastest SSD drives in the computer world are based on a 3rd generation PCI-Express slot using the latest Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) interface; Intel's DC P3608 Series and the Samsung 950 Pro. I guess if 4K video does get widely adopted the use of the slower/cheaper SD cards will become more restricted. Assuming there isn't a technology jump there too.

Some technical background:
Compact Flash 2.0 vs. QXD (2012) http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/cfast-2-0-splits-high-end-flash-card-market/
Recent computing article (Sept, 2015) on SSDs: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2987956/solid-state-drives/intel-samsung-launch-their-fastest-ssds-with-up-to-5gbps-speeds.html

Question: For normal photographic use do we need such increase in image-capture speed?

Graham

[Mike Farley]

Question: For normal photographic use do we need such increase in image-capture speed?
Graham

I have given my answer already. Even for professional use I doubt that there are that many occasions when such a high transfer rate will be required. 170 Raw images at 14 fps is a burst of just over 12 seconds. Just long enough to capture Usain Bolt running the entire 100 metres and the start of his victory celebration.

Stick to JPEG, as many sports pros do, the only limit is the capacity of the card, but there are lesser cameras which do that already.

Seems like a lot of camera for a lot of money and overkill for most.

[Rose]

Scott Kelby has posted his first impressions... http://scottkelby.com/42048-2/

[Mike Farley]

Scott Kelby has posted his first impressions... http://scottkelby.com/42048-2/

He seemed to quite like it.

[Mike Farley]

Thom Hogan points out that at the top end Canon and Nikon will have two very similarly specified cameras, a situation which will also exist lower down the scale when the D500 takes on the 7D11. In addition he speculates that the D810 replacement will take on the 5DS/r models with its own 50 MP sensor. All of which will allow direct comparisons to be made, an unusual occurrence when in the past Canon and Nikon have released models which have been sufficiently different to blur any distinctions. With neither camera yet available the 1DX!! and D5 head to head is too close to call at this point, but with its pricing of the D500 Nikon certainly seems to think that it will have the edge on the 7D11.

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/thi ... sting.html

[Rose]

Our own David Candlish has now published his first impressions...

http://petapixel.com/2016/02/03/a-hands ... x-mark-ii/

[Mike Farley]

Our own David Candlish has now published his first impressions...

http://petapixel.com/2016/02/03/a-hands ... x-mark-ii/

Congratulations to David for featuring on PetaPixel again.

It looks as though that when the reviews come out the D5 will be shown as nailing high ISO performance when compared to the 1DX II, although that is not the only attribute to consider when assessing sensor performance.

Vincent LaForet has published his own first impressions and unlike David has been allowed to publish some low resolution JPEGs. His article includes a short 14 fps sequence of a surfer falling from his board. All that processing power seems to generate a lot of heat; I have not previously heard of a memory card being hot to the touch when removed from the camera.

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2016/02/ ... -1dx-mkii/

[davidc]

I'm a bit disappointed it's evolution rather than revolution (from both Canon and Nikon) but then again, that in itself is nothing new. Having said that, it looks to be another hugely capable camera.

The flagship camera will only ever appeal to a small niche of pro shooters who either don't own the kit themselves (and rent it/their company has it) or are hugely invested in the lens lineup for the chosen brand. So while it's fun to play with and look at from a neutral perspective, whether the Nikon has better high ISO performance by 1 stop or Canon can shoot 30 mins instead of 3 mins 4k video doesn't really matter. Both cameras are a significant step up for the pros who use them and comparing them is largely pointless. And comparing them to even the top end Sony kit is pointless, different tools for different jobs.

I'd disagree about the card performance though, it's very important. Pros who shoot many frames and download to editors back at base need the vastly increased performance to make deadlines. Shooting video demands these performance levels too while simply shooting stills will still benefit - both while shooting and downloading later. I've compared regular SD cards vs high speed cards and when you are downloading significant quantities of data into Lightroom (or even just backing them up while on a trip) then slow cards make a huge difference. This was especially noticeable when I was downloading tens of thousands of high res images during my Canon 5DSR review period. One question, what size cards are people shooting with?

For irregular or lightweight users shooting relatively infrequently with small sensored cameras then card performance is of lower - but not negligible - consideration. Not everyone may be nudging the limits but the difference is night & day when pulling 64gb off several SD cards. Think HOURS of difference