It was 18th October 2011, I was there with hundreds of others in Kuala Lumpur at the launch of a mysterious unnamed camera from Canon.

With a puff of smoke, lots of gasps (and an occasional moan ), tens if not a hundred or so smartphones and tablets raised up into the air, the CEO of Canon Marketing Malaysia took the Canon EOS 1Dx out of a safe.

Yes, it was exciting, it was great… and as far as anyone could tell from the working protoype, Canon Inc’s new EOS flagship is ready!

But then… the wait started; first it was early January 2012… then it was pushed back to April 2012 and finally, 8 months or so from the announcement, a production Canon EOS-1Dx finally reached my hands in late June, barely a month before the opening of the London 2012 Olympics.

So, did Canon drop the ball this time? Releasing an imperfect camera? Or releasing it too late? Or BOTH?

I can’t say for sure if this is the perfect Canon camera for the London 2012 Olympics since I haven’t really shot any sports with it as of now, neither am I an experienced Olympics photographer to provide anyone with credible comments with respect to that, but…. what I can say is this :

“The Canon EOS 1Dx is the best Canon EOS camera I have ever used in nearly every aspect”.

And yes, I have owned and used many throughout the years, from the EOS 10D, 20D, 7D, 1Ds, 1Ds Mark II and 1D Mark IV.

Now… you can stop reading right here if that’s all you wanted to know.

Cons
Cost – What? You mean you don’t need to pay for the camera and that it will NOT just appear on your desk one fine day without you paying for it? At USD6,799 (price as of today at B&H), it is no small change. You can get 2x 5D Mark.III for the price OR 4x EOS 7D OR 7.5x EOS 60D. How’s that for perspective?

Weight & Size – The heaviest, most conspicuous Canon DSLR you can buy; lugging around a 1Dx is like lugging a piece of brick when the 1Dx has wide-angle lens attached… and its like carrying a one-year old child around when it has a mid-range telephoto zoom plus flash attached.

In short, the EOS 1Dx Weighs nearly 2x as a 5D Mark.III and nearly 3x as much as a EOS 60D.

So if you are looking to travel light with your camera and not having everyone run away or start following you around for a chance to rob you, stop reading here.

Image Quality
Instead of doing a detailed scientific analysis of this camera, I will only write about the camera from the perspective of a working photographer, instead of comparing the images from some set-up studio shot with varying lighting, resolution charts and what not.

To put it simply; the photos straight out of a EOS 1Dx looks absolutely gorgeous.

The amazingly good auto white-balance (yes, I USE AUTO white-balance) and a great sensor + processor + firmware combo ,coupled with the excellent auto-focus system produces sharp, accurate and natural looking images. And this statement holds true from ISO 100 (which is the base ISO for this camera) right up to ISO 12800 (which is the highest I have gone so far).

ISO 6400 and ISO 12800 on this camera in low tungsten or candle-light is a little grainy when you look closely at the camera but that grain/noise is nothing can’t be removed when required.

Images are still amazingly sharp at both these ISO settings with good dynamic range and natural colors, so removing the grain during post-processing have always yielded very good results.

Oh… do note that the statements above are all based on shooting RAW with NR (noise reduction) always set to OFF and processing the RAW file using Adobe Lightroom.

Auto Focus
Definitely an area that interests most photographers: auto-focus accuracy and speed.

And yes, in case anyone would like to know, you can have a AF system that is deadly accurate but slow like a mollusc AND vice versa; the Canon EOS 10D was a good example of the former and the EOS 1D Mark III (ahem… in certain situations) is an interesting example of the later.

So, what is the 1Dx AF system like?

First of all, it is like bloody nothing I have ever seen; it has so many modes that will make anyone who hasn’t used a Canon EOS 7D before go crazy AND it is complicated enough to even make actual EOS 7D users’ heads spin.

Having used mostly spot AF with a bit of area AF + auto AF point selection for both still and tracking moving targets, I think I can safely say the 1Dx AF system has none of the tendency to hunt of a certain Canon Mark III nor the slight hesitation in low-light like the EOS 7D.

The AF system on the 1Dx is like the 1D Mark IV’s AF system with more options; is faster and more accurate in good to average light. In low-light / available darkness, the AF system of the 1Dx is much more accurate though might be a little slower in attaining focus lock when compared to the EOS 1D Mark.IV.

Ergonomics & Functionality
Well… if the new AF system is complicated, the overall increase in functionality, number of controls and customization options will definitely make anyone go a little crazy.

RTFM is one of the best advice to any new 1Dx users that I can giive. And by that I mean READ it from cover to cover… don’t just flip through it; after you have done that, try to understand every function. Then you should go to sleep, wake up in the morning and read it again… and repeat again the next morning.

Having used the camera in various settings from weddings, low-light events, night city/landscape, people, food, macros and shooting a certain slobbering Boxer (its the name of a bred of dog in case if you don’t know ) called Tiger playing in the garden; I can say that I finally understood most of the functions and how the camera is designed to function by the Canon engineers.

Some say Canon’s ergonomics are the worst among the different camera manufacturers and I am sure those critics will find the 1Dx’s ergonomics to be worse than all the Canon cameras that came before it.

However, to someone who has been using the 1D-series since the Mark.I(s); the 1D-series were NEVER designed to be easy to learn or to use, they are cameras that are designed for people who wants things done as fast and as reliably as possible; these are people who will likely be handling the camera more than they “handle” their spouses or partners… hehe… but I digress.

We LEARN to use the camera, peroid. Though, it might seem strange and non-intuitive to have to move this finger to press this button and use the index finger to push another; all those actions eventually are eventually honed reflexes through hours upon hours of using the camera, so the number of buttons and their functions doesn’t matter much as long as our fingers can reach the controls any time we want.

Misc.
A couple more things are worth mentioning, the LCD looks great but please don’t be fooled by the LCD, oftentimes, an image can look absolutely gorgeous on that beautiful LCD that Canon has put onto the 1Dx and only so-so once the image is seen on a calibrated monitor. Blame Nikon for that… but well… at least our 1D(s) LCDs now have more similarity with an iPhone in the presentation department than a projector.

The Dual CF slots; many lament why NOT twin SD or even the CF+SD like the previous 1D or have a slot of one of the newer storage options? I shall not address the why NOT(s) and tell you why Dual CF is good.

Dual CF slots allows you to use just ONE type of card which is interchangeable between the 2 slots, allows you to only require support for ONE type of card reader and these slots actually use cards that care fast enough for the camera and you can actually buy CF cards (unlike some more exotic memory card types) off stores practically anywhere now.

With 2 dual CF slots, you can have 2 COMPLETELY IDENTICAL copies of your images… think about it, the most important thing to a photographer are our images, our photos which are contained in the memory cards; having double redundancy on that can’t hurt, can it?

Conclusion
So, who is this camera for?
- It is for the professional photographer who can afford and want a camera that can handle nearly any conceivable condition that a photographer can encounter.

Who is this camera NOT for?
- It is NOT for those who are basically looking for an upgraded camera phone or digicam.
- It is also not for anyone who can’t understand why “those” photographers need to spend enormous amounts of cash on a huge, heavy monster that is the 1Dx (or any other professional DSLR) when other cameras are “smaller”, “better” and “cheaper”.

Here are some additional shots taken with the Canon EOS-1Dx; all shots are direct RAW conversions to JPEG using Adobe Lightroom 4.1 :