Will the Canon 1D X Mark III Shoot 30 Frames per Second?

Will the Canon 1D X Mark III Shoot 30 Frames per Second?

Now that the furore (or lack thereof) following the Sony a9 II announcement has subsided, rumors are starting to emerge regarding Canon’s forthcoming sports and wildlife flagship, the much-anticipated 1D X Mark III. An alleged leak suggests that the new camera will shoot at 30 frames per second, but of course, the details are a little thin.

Canon Rumors is reporting that Canon’s next behemoth may feature a 28.1-megapixel full-frame sensor featuring a brand new chip, the Dual DIGIC 9. This processor might be one reason that there is also the suggestion that it will shoot stills at 30 frames per second. Is this feasible, and if so, how?

If true, Sony might be a bit miffed given that it has just brought out the a9 II without any significant upgrades. Some suspect that Sony could exceed 20 frames per second but is holding back, preferring to put out an incremental update ahead of the Olympics next year.

Almost certainly, a DSLR shooting such an insane burst rate will be through the use of the electronic shutter rather than the mechanical shutter which on the current Canon flagship shoots at a minigun-esque 14 frames second — a rate that already seemed to have exceeded the laws of physics. The 1D X Mark II shot 16 frames per second using Live View — i.e., with the flappy mirror locked out of the way — and one assumes that the Mark III will do the same. Whether that means a burst rate that exceeds the 20 frames per second of the a9 II remains to be seen, and it would certainly be a monumental step forward in technology on the part of Canon if this proves to be the case.

One possibility is that more attention should be paid to the “up to” part of the rumored specifications, as well as the lack of the word “raw.” It may be that these are JPEGs generated from 6K video, though you’d expect the video resolution to be the headline here, not the stills.

If you’ve any insight, please leave a comment below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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18 Comments

What if it is mirrorless and just uses the EF mount and flange distance? 30fps is nuts for a 28MP camera, I’m guessing mirror lockup like the article suggests but who knows, especially if it has IBIS

You can make a dslr run like a mirrorless camera, if the internal capabilities are ok. You'd just use the lcd screen instead of a viewfinder.
Olympus shoots 20Mp raws at 60fps (s-af) and 18fps (c-af) since 2016, 24Mp at 30fps shouldn't be too much of a problem in 2019.
We'll see anyway.

Typical Canon. 30fps but no 24fps ;-)

I don't see why they couldn't have it take 2 to 3 pictures for each mirror flap enabling 30 frames per second using the optical viewfinder

That's actually not a bad idea. I wonder if something like that could be possible.

Pretty good thought man.

Sounds like the synchronization gear on war aircrafts from the ww1 and 2.
It would be a funny clock to tune, but the "mirrorless" way is already here and wouldn't need any hard engineering, so I don't think it will be that.

Is 30fps even useful? I dunno, don't do sports.

The faster the frame rates a camera can shoot, the more options for you to choose from the moment you captured the event.

You just do short bursts. At 30FPS, it's like grabbing a stills image from a video clip.

If it's 30fps I don't think it's with the mechanical shutter. The A9 II van only shoot 10fos with mechanical shutter.
Don't know if a dslr is still usable for fast sports with only electronic shutter.

Electronic shutter works as well on dslr, but you'd use lcd only, which is lame for sport.

I don't need 30 fps shooting, even wildlife. Imagine also how fast you fill your memory cards. I'd love a slightly higher resolution and better video codec. I'm not that difficult :)

I hope Canon brings something amazing to the table

Is there a reason all text is so wide. That even with a 5.7' screen you can hardly read the it when horizontal. Whos the smart one with that. Make it less wide

Are you zoomed in ? No problem on my screen...

This is what I like: Canon exceeding what I was looking for in a new offering! Now, let's wait and see what other enticements they dangle for my money.

I saw that rumour there too - I'm a bit skeptical. If it shoots 30 fps, I'd assume it is akin to how the M6II does it in a raw burst with some caveats.

With that said, I kind of wonder if they've implemented that hybrid viewfinder they applied for patent on a few months back - i.e. being able to act as a mirrorless camera when the mirror is locked up and an EVF available in the eyepiece. If they're using an electronic shutter to hit those frame rates, I have to expect that it is either in live view only or using a hybrid viewfinder - that's a lot of mirror flapping otherwise.

If it does it's going to be with the electronic shutter, with sub-par AF and bad rolling shutter, so not very useful for the intended purpose.

This will definitely come with caveats. For instance, locked AF or perhaps it's video (and therefore low resolution) that turns each frame into a jpg. No way it's 30 flaps of the shutter per second with full DSLR functionality (ie, AF, full sensor capture, raw, etc).
Also, Canon has talked for years about the convergence of video and stills. This is likely what they had in mind.