Canon announces 18.1 MP EOS-1D X flagship DSLR camera

It’s the photography world’s “worst-kept secret”, a Canon exec cheerfully quipped as the Canon EOS 1D X DSLR was introduced.

Speed without compromise: this was the idea behind the 1D X. The 1D X has fast everything: fast autofocus, fast auto exposure, fast continuous shooting, fast ISO range. But all this speed doesn’t come at a cost to the image quality.

To be more specific – the camera comes with a full-frame 35mm 18.1 megapixel CMOS that can shoot up to 14 frames per second, with the backing of a Dual DIGIC 5+ processor, which is a whopping seventeen times faster than the DIGIC 4 processors the current EOS range sports. The new sensor has a better signal-to-noise ratio and improved light capture endowed by the larger pixel size.

ISO settings have also been improved by two stops compared to the EOS-1D Mark IV. Images shot at ISO 51,200 on this new camera are comparable in cleanliness to images shot at ISO 12,800 on the Mark IV. And the ISO range on the X can be expanded up to 204,800.

The camera also boasts a 61-point autofocus system with 41 cross-type points that lock on to and track subjects at high speed and high precision. Where the old system on the 1D Mark IV could only offer fast AF speeds if you had a really fast (f/2.8 and brighter) lens attached, the X can do those speeds for lenses up to f/4.0.

According to Canon, “to match sports photographers’ reflexes’, the shutter release lag has been shaved down to 36 milliseconds, and speeds of 12 fps continuous shooting can be achieved in RAW, and up to 14 fps in super high-speed mode (that saves in JPEG). At those speeds the beast sounds less like a camera than it does a machine gun.

What sort of price tag will this marvel of modern technology command? Canon was silent on that particular number, but seeing as it’s the flagship product of their DSLR line, it’s probably time to go on a diet.

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