So, now that November 3rd came and went, who's going for 1DX?

I'm holding out to see what happens with the C-DSLR and the putative 5DIII. I'm strictly an amateur enthusiast, so don't have money to burn, and I'm not going to make it back on paid jobs.

My main desires are not to get bitten by unexpected moire, and to have a codec that's robust enough that I can green-screen within my limitations and grade a little in post.

That being said, the 1Dx is a very desirable piece of kit, if I were a pro 'tog I'd probably go for it.

Dave
 
I agree that the "C" camera is much more interesting than the 1DX for video... With one big difference: The "C" camera hasn't actually been announced as a shipping product. All we know is that they're working on it. The 1DX has a date, or at least a month.

Assuming their prices are in line (and it very well might not. Canon has demonstrated the capability to price their "Hollywood" offering at an appropriately "Hollywood" price) I'm probably going to get the 1DX (again, assuming improvements I talked about are true) just because these camera prices hold up extremely well in the used market. Heck, the +3 years old 5D is still going for $1900 or so. Basically a $600 rental over a 3 year span. with a $2500 deposit. If I sell the 1DX in a year, I don't suspect that the "loss" will be very high at all to switch to the "C" camera. Did the same thing going between 7D to 5D with 24p came out.

Thats a good point..sure that will factor into peoples decision making too.

I hope that your wrong with that prediction yoclay.
 
Cannot see it being released for at least another year, actually.
A total disservice to the all the customers who made Canon even think of going to Hollywood.

I wouldn't look for a 5DIII announcement until Sept 2012. As far as customers who made Canon think of going to Hollywood, those customers would be DPs in Hollywood that were embracing the 5DII from the interviews I've listened to. Canon wasn't running around trying to get feedback from me. They were asking DPs in Hollywood. They are the reason they introduced the firmware upgrades that they did. I'm sure Canon thinks it's cool that people like us were using the 5DII as well, but I'm sure it meant far more to them that People like Hurlbut, Tattersall and Charters were saying "Hey, look at this, this little cam is pretty usable in a production environment". Those are the people that made Canon think about going to Hollywood. We were just gravy.
 
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Personally, the 1dx is the most attractive of Canon's recent announcements to me. I'll wait and see what the 5dmkIII inherits from the 1dx, and if some things get left out, a 1dx could definitely be on the cards for a few reasons:.

Price: it's cheaper than the Canon cinema cams by a long shot. It's also only a little bit pricier than a prosumer cam like the HPX170 or XF300. And because I have all the lenses and other kit already, I don't need to buy any additional equipment. Sure, it's more expensive than an AF100 or FS100, but I don't have to sell all my Canon lenses and start from scratch, or buy an expensive electronic adaptor when they become available.

Canon have listened: The 1dx may not be the unrealistic camera, with 4k at $2.5k and uncompressed recording and XLR inputs in DSLR form factor etc that some people were cluelessly demanding, but they have fixed the big problems: Moire, live monitoring, record limit (partially) and audio monitoring (though headphones would have nearly made it a done deal for me). They have demonstrated that all the noise and feedback did not go un-noticed, and it appears they have done a good job of improving the biggest complaints.

Codec: I have a workflow right now that works. It's not RAW. It's not 4:2:2 or 10-bit or whatever, but the files look amazing for the work I do (mostly weddings and surf videos). I use Cineform and it's a piece of cake to manage all my files. Drag and drop from the card, open the folder in cineform, then go get a cuppa while it does it's thing. None of the confusing folder structures used by the XF cameras - just one folder with a bunch of clips. I'm quite happy for Canon to continue using the same method and codec they have been - although it sounds a though there is at least some improvement in the encoding.

Format: I don't need 4k. Sure, it's nice to Pan and scan, but I'm not ready to upgrade all my computers to handle 4k, just for those few times I want to fix my framing or crop slightly. 1080p works nicely with all software, and doesn't hog too much hard drive space. 720p50 is also fine as I only ever use 50p for surfing footage going to the web or DVD.
 
He's said the "C" DSLR's 1080P is based on the full width of the FF sensor, but the 4K is a cropped APS-H version (keep in mind APS-H is still bigger than S35). Why that is so, he could not get into that.
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I think there is a simple explanation for that: image processors can convert FF image into 1080p on the fly, but converting FF image into 4K signal is just too much for the processors at the moment. So 4K uses just a pixel for pixel slice from the middle of the sensor, no downscaling needed. One possible future feature could be electronic shift where the user could move the 4K frame on the sensor, that would be nifty in some cases. Just speculation, of course.

One useful feature for 1080p would also be an adjustable, lossless "digital zoom", as the FF sensor is so much bigger than the video frame. The zoom factor could be adjusted from 1 to about 2.5x without a loss of quality.
 
Well, given that raw is by definition, what comes off the sensor without image processing, 4K would be an "H" crop from full 35mm.

I read / heard that they will use the 1Dx sensor in the cine DSLR, so that makes sense.

If the 5DII / 7DII or whatever has a significantly inferior video implementation than the 1DX, and the Cine D is more expensive (It shouldn't be, but we all know Canon). then I may make a push for it even though it's outside my budget.

Point is, anything I buy either has to be cheap enough that I can replace it in a year or so, or so good that I can keep using it for 5 (Or even 10) years without it becoming hopelessly outdated.

I'm just off to buy a NEX 5N body, as a stop-gap pocket cam to use with my Leica-R glass.

Dave
 
One thing that Canon is underestimating, is the power that could have Nikon, if they release a camera like the 5DMKII, but including all the features that we the public have been begging for more than 2 years, while Canon is sleeping in a greedy attitude. C'mon Nikon, I know you can do better, because I'm falling asleep waiting for Canon.
 
Wait for the "Cinema" DSLR, the 5d III, or the 7d II. They all seem like better options that will definitely have most of the features of the 1dX in them. Here's a little map of what canon is planning:

roadmap.jpg


(right reads cinema, left reads stills photography, top reads Professional, bottom reads consumer)


nice !!
 
Given Nikon's track record so far with VDSLRs I think we can count them out of any contention.

IMVHO it's down to Canon, Panny or Sony

Dave
 
Format: I don't need 4k. Sure, it's nice to Pan and scan, but I'm not ready to upgrade all my computers to handle 4k, just for those few times I want to fix my framing or crop slightly. 1080p works nicely with all software, and doesn't hog too much hard drive space. 720p50 is also fine as I only ever use 50p for surfing footage going to the web or DVD.

That right there nails it. I've been saying we don't know what we're asking for when we said "raw video" from a DSLR for a long time now. 4K falls into the same category. it's 4 times the data, minimum, . If you've ever handled RED footage, it is not fun unless you've got a good computer and/or a Red Rocket card. Not a knock against RED, but 55MBytes (not Bits) per second coming out of Scarlet is going to cause a lot of people's heads spin.
 
Well I am sick of waiting for the 5D3 so if it isn't announced by March then I am going to buy the 1DX Body and pick up a 5D3 as a second body when that comes out.
If the 5D3 is announced before March then I will pick up two of them.

What is the guess with Street Price for the 1DX people?
It says $6,800 which is €5,000/£4,350
 
You know, from the little we've heard so far, I see no engineering reason for the "EOS-C" DSLR to be any more expensive than the 1Dx,as it uses the same innards. In fact, if they did away with the whole mirror / pentaprism and put in an EVF it could even be cheaper.

But it won't if the marketing suits (Hawk-spit-ding) get their way :kali:

Dave
 
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