Hot Full Frame Autumn: New Cameras

[The View]

while I continue to gather information, I will speculate anyway!

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=205312\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Speculation is the most satisfying application of the mind.

Photography has a lot to do with speculation. Even the best "planned" shot has a surprise moment, and photography truly becomes interesting when you leave the soil of assured experience and explore new ideas.

[The View]

That's why I'm waiting for the Sony A900.  Sony is in a unique position in that they are developing new lenses for digital with Zeiss on board.  These Zeiss FF lenses are very, very sharp compared to Canon/Nikon.
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It will be interesting to see what happens to the Sony - Nikon relationship.

Sony produces cameras, Nikon produces cameras, but only Sony produces sensors (of these two).

I wonder if Sony wouldn't just delay to give the latest and best to its competitor Nikon.

Regarding the A900, I hope they put an LCD display on top. I hate it, when higher end cameras have no top display, like the A700.

[alba63]

Again, 4/3 is not a "small-sensor" system any more than DX is a "small-sensor" system. (...) The difference between 4/3 and APS-C is minute; the difference between APS-C and 35mm is vast. If DX can have performance so close to a sensor so much larger, does it make sense that the slightly smaller 4/3 sensor would be so hobbled against DX?

Well, the difference between Dx (Nikon) and 4/3ds is not "minute" - The surface of 4/3 is only 65% of the surface that Dx has - simply do the calculation, it is easy. At a time where 35mm FF starts to become the new standard for high quality, 4/3ds is closed into it's small format forever...

So far all 4/3ds cameras were not up to the quality of the Dx cameras that came out at the same time, let alone larger formats.

And I still believe that it was a mistake of Oly not to buiild upon their 35mm system. 4/3ds will never be more than a niche system, and will never be accepted by the majority of pros.

regards
Bernie

[Er1kksen]

Well, the difference between Dx (Nikon) and 4/3ds is not "minute" - The surface of 4/3 is only 65% of the surface that Dx has - simply do the calculation, it is easy. At a time where 35mm FF starts to become the new standard for high quality, 4/3ds is closed into it's small format forever...

So far all 4/3ds cameras were not up to the quality of the Dx cameras that came out at the same time, let alone larger formats.

And I still believe that it was a mistake of Oly not to buiild upon their 35mm system. 4/3ds will never be more than a niche system, and will never be accepted by the majority of pros.

regards
Bernie
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=205571\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

In areas other than pure image quality, several 4/3 cameras have indeed been up to the quality of their DX peers. At the entry level there's really nothing in the right price range to compete with the E-410, and the closest camera in price, the Nikon D40, is a nice camera but really doesn't compare. It may have slightly lower high ISO noise, but the E-410 resolves considerably more detail and provides the user much greater control, as well as being smaller, lighter, and better built. Some working photographers have also switched from the Canon 40D or Nikon D300 to the E-3 (a few have gone the other way, as well). Certainly different cameras are going to have more appeal to different people, but this seems to imply that there was no percieved "inferiority" in comparison to the contemporary DX models.

DX will likely always have an edge in high ISO noise, just as FF will always have an edge over DX. But to say that this has caused all 4/3 cameras to be "not up to the quality" of contemporary DX cameras seems a little off. There's more to a camera than sensor size.

The decision not to work on their 35mm system may have locked Olympus into a niche market that will only appeal to some, but it has allowed them to produce some fantastic optics, and there will be many who will choose them because that's more important to them than 2/3 stop high-ISO noise (the difference demonstrated in RAW files so far).

[The View]

One key issue with a camera, apart from image quality, is how it handles.

How good is the viewfinder?

Smaller size sensor cameras usually have a narrower viewfinder.

Sure, you can build a bigger viewfinder, but this makes the whole camera bigger, and why not put the biggest possible sensor into the camera?

For some lighter lenses may be attractive.

I personally don't care if it weighs a bit more.

I just bought a DX camera and an expensive lens for it. I'm happy with it. But it doesn't mean I have to stay with the format forever.

Currently, the price difference of FF and DX is a big one.

A FF camera costs twice to three times what a DX camera costs. FF is new, the bigger sensors are more expensive.

But the price differences of FF and DX will get smaller. And I don't think a FF lens is much more expensive to build than a DX lens.

[douglasf13]

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Sony - Nikon relationship.

Sony produces cameras, Nikon produces cameras, but only Sony produces sensors (of these two).

I wonder if Sony wouldn't just delay to give the latest and best to its competitor Nikon.

Regarding the A900, I hope they put an LCD display on top. I hate it, when higher end cameras have no top display, like the A700.
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  There is a top LCD.  Here is a pic of the top of the camera.

[a href=\"http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/2346220871_a9c83a7bdc_o.jpg]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/234622...9c83a7bdc_o.jpg[/url]

[Kenneth Sky]

Just so you know, the LCD is correct but the digits are fake in the above posting. The lens is the CZ 24-70 f2.8.

[douglasf13]

Just so you know, the LCD is correct but the digits are fake in the above posting. The lens is the CZ 24-70 f2.8.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=206321\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

  I thought that at first, too.  However, the other icons may indicate that it's showing the WB at 2000K and the Exposure comp at 1.8??

[The View]

The Nikon D700 has made it a full frame summer.

With all those FF cameras about to be presented: I guess the real battle will take place about the lenses.

If there are enough high resolution lenses (and sharp!) for the high megapixel full frame sensors.

[douglasf13]

The Nikon D700 has made it a full frame summer.

With all those FF cameras about to be presented: I guess the real battle will take place about the lenses.

If there are enough high resolution lenses (and sharp!) for the high megapixel full frame sensors.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=207228\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

  That's what Sony seems to be addressing.  The 70-300G and Zeiss 24-70 they released this year are razors, and there is a Zeiss wide angle zoom and two Zeiss primes coming, along with some new long stuff.  My 24-70 is insane.  I keep checking in disbelief as it outdoes any primes I have in the range, similar to how the Nikon 14-24 behaves.  

Sorry to keep chiming in about Sony.  I guess I'm one of the few Alpha mount users here  

[BernardLanguillier]

It is true on one hand that people generally underestimate the power of technological progress. I believe that the noise performance of Dx sensors can be bettered in modest steps in the next years, maybe the same quality as today's d300, just with 14 or 16MP. However I do not believe that with current  technology it will be able to maintain or even improve dynamic range in small sensors. Olympus (4/3s) fights with a too weak latitude in the highlights, and no DSLR except the Fuji S3/5 with their dual pixel approach and maybe partly the D3 NIkon have adressed this frequent complaint.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=205266\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, it appears to me that a D300 with 12 MP has more DR than a D100 with 6MP...

They are 5 years apart.

My view is that none of us have any practical way to know exactly how much potential for progress sensor manufacturers still have. If I were running such a business, I would be careful to roll out enhancements little by little for the sake of sustainability and maximum integral sales.

So my bet - and we can look back at this thread again in 5 years from now - is that 4/3 will be by then at least at the level of a D3 today. You want more DR still? Then you will start to have issues with flat images requiring tone mapping to get pleasant results. One by one...

So my contention is that 4/3 does have potential, and considering the quality of the Leica lenses available, my view is that better pics will be taken with these cameras by then than with many of the competing systems on top today...

Cheers,
Bernard

[The View]

That's what Sony seems to be addressing.  The 70-300G and Zeiss 24-70 they released this year are razors, and there is a Zeiss wide angle zoom and two Zeiss primes coming, along with some new long stuff.  My 24-70 is insane.  I keep checking in disbelief as it outdoes any primes I have in the range, similar to how the Nikon 14-24 behaves. 

Sorry to keep chiming in about Sony.  I guess I'm one of the few Alpha mount users here 
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Oh, Sony will give Canon and Nikon a good deal of competition, and this is good so.

The A700 is a very good camera, and the 24-70 definitely a great zoom lens.

Photozone.de noted a disappointment regarding the bokeh at 70mm, and a certain proneness to flair. What do you  think?

[a href=\"http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/47-sony-alpha-aps-c/380-zeiss_za_2470_28?start=2]http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/47-sony-al...2470_28?start=2[/url]

The only thing I think is a bit a downer is that they didn't make it a 24-80 or 85, so it would cover portrait range, like, in DX the Canon 17-55/2.8.

[The View]

Well, it appears to me that a D300 with 12 MP has more DR than a D100 with 6MP...

They are 5 years apart.

My view is that none of us have any practical way to know exactly how much potential for progress sensor manufacturers still have. If I were running such a business, I would be careful to roll out enhancements little by little for the sake of sustainability and maximum integral sales.

So my bet - and we can look back at this thread again in 5 years from now - is that 4/3 will be by then at least at the level of a D3 today. You want more DR still? Then you will start to have issues with flat images requiring tone mapping to get pleasant results. One by one...

So my contention is that 4/3 does have potential, and considering the quality of the Leica lenses available, my view is that better pics will be taken with these cameras by then than with many of the competing systems on top today...

Cheers,
Bernard
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I just wonder where technology will hit a wall. At the beginning of every technology, the steps of development are bigger, compare to cars and computers.

After a certain amount of development the law of diminishing returns comes into play, and maybe we're getting into that zone now.

Dynamic range may be the battle field on the sensor sector...

...and this could be the strength of the FF cameras. (Those have been out a good deal of a shorter period than APS sensors)...

... but I will watch what lenses will come from Canon, Nikon, and Sony.

This thread is interesting regarding lenses, that aren't up to the resolution of the sensors.

[a href=\"http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26289]http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=26289[/url]

I am still doubtful about the future of the four thirds system.

[BJL]

I do not believe that with current  technology it will be able to maintain or even improve dynamic range in small sensors. Olympus (4/3s) fights with a too weak latitude in the highlights, and no DSLR except ... adressed this frequent complaint.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=205266\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

As far as I can tell, people who judge by photographic results not lab tests are not complaining much about overall dynamic range, but at most about highlight latitude or the mythical "highlight dynamic range".
Added highlight range for scenes with unusually large Subject Brightness Range from metered mid-tones to highlights is trivial: downward exposure compensation, probably with a modified, low contrast tone curve. The only sensor limitation to this is total DR; the rest is up to choices in exposure and processing.

By the way, Olympus offers a "Shadow Adjustment Technology" mode specifically for such high SBR scenes, which adjusts both exposure (down about 1/2 stop) and tone curve. But for typical scenes, more than about three stops between metered exposure level and the highlight limit is a waste of DR through underexposure ("expose to the right" thinking here). My guess is that most DSLRs meter for about three stops from mid-tones to highlights and so have far more than three stops from mid-tones to shadows at low ISO for this reason, not due to any technical limitation of sensors.

[douglasf13]

Oh, Sony will give Canon and Nikon a good deal of competition, and this is good so.

The A700 is a very good camera, and the 24-70 definitely a great zoom lens.

Photozone.de noted a disappointment regarding the bokeh at 70mm, and a certain proneness to flair. What do you  think?

http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/47-sony-al...2470_28?start=2

The only thing I think is a bit a downer is that they didn't make it a 24-80 or 85, so it would cover portrait range, like, in DX the Canon 17-55/2.8.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=207487\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

  I think Sony will give Canon and Nikon a run for their money in IQ with 24MP and these lenses, although it remains to be seen if the line will still remain a distant third.  I'd bet it won't come close to touching Nikon/Canon in sales for years.

  As far as the 24-70, I haven't noticed any flair issues, and, yes, when at 70mm 2.8 the lens sometimes has questionable bokeh when shooting a busy background, but it is easy to work around.  Klaus from photozone, a Sony user,  is a very good tester, but keep in mind that bokeh tests are new for that site, and it remains to be seen how a lot of the older Canon/Nikon lenses test.  Either way, I don't think either the Nikon or Canon hold a candle to the Zeiss 24-70, but I'm probably biased  

[timescapes]

After a certain amount of development the law of diminishing returns comes into play, and maybe we're getting into that zone now.

Dynamic range may be the battle field on the sensor sector...

I think this is correct.  

It is also true of digital cinema cameras, which are about to engage in a decisive battle with cinema 35mm chemical film, reminiscent of the DSLR vs SLR battle of the last couple of years.

[The View]

I think Sony will give Canon and Nikon a run for their money in IQ with 24MP and these lenses, although it remains to be seen if the line will still remain a distant third.  I'd bet it won't come close to touching Nikon/Canon in sales for years.

  As far as the 24-70, I haven't noticed any flair issues, and, yes, when at 70mm 2.8 the lens sometimes has questionable bokeh when shooting a busy background, but it is easy to work around.  Klaus from photozone, a Sony user,  is a very good tester, but keep in mind that bokeh tests are new for that site, and it remains to be seen how a lot of the older Canon/Nikon lenses test.  Either way, I don't think either the Nikon or Canon hold a candle to the Zeiss 24-70, but I'm probably biased 
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Biased? Admit it! You fell in love with your camera!

PS: I'm glad Sony has entered the market as a competitor, so the old Minolta legacy doesn't go down under without a trace. How much Minolta Sony will retain is another question. I expect it to thin out over the years, as new developments replace the older knowledge.

Competition will keep the big ones on their toes, so they won't fall asleep behind the wheel of their success.

[Tony Beach]

13-15 is probably the best quality you can get out of a 35mm ff sensor. Yes, you can get bigger images, but probably no better![a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=201523\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, that's your opinion, but I think you are wrong.  By your logic a 12 MP DX sensor should have no resolution advantage over an 8 MP DX sensor.  In fact, I can make out an improvement going from 10 MP to 12 MP on a DX sensor.  Now if you define more detail as not being better, than you are right, but that's an opinion and not a fact; I consider more resolution to be an improvement though, although to get any more resolution from DX format would make the format critically diffraction limited and require tilt shift lenses to realize any advantage since you would not be able to stop down past f/8.

These DX numbers translate to around 25 MP for FX.  The problem though is that since there is a one stop difference in attainable DOF, diffraction limits kick in at about the same number of megapixels for both formats, so a 12 MP FX format sensor is diffraction limited at f/16 and if you want to stop down past that you will gain nothing by adding more megapixels.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Regarding sensor development there seems to be a couple of physical limitations. Even if you could eliminate read noise fully there would be 'photon noise'. I also think that quantum efficiency is quite close to optimum so there is no room for a quantum step in that area. DR is dependent on well capacity and the 'noise floor'. There may be some room to increase well-capacity by making the actual sensor larger within it's matrix cell, that is increasing the fill factor.

Regarding sensor pitch it is probably not a very good idea to go below five microns,as diffraction would be a limiting factor. Five microns would put FX format around 35 MP and DX format around 16 MP. Decreasing sensor pitch farther would not increase resolution but may eliminate the need for the antialiasing filter.

Keep in mind that is much easier to develop lenses for smaller formats. Weather development goes for DX or FX we would need new lenses which are calculated to achieve a decent MTF at five micron spacing at an aperture of f/5.6. I may suggest that todays lenses are not sharp enough for 15 MPixel DX or 25 MPixel FX.

It seems that Canon struggles a bit in the wide angle end of the business. It seems that Nikon did produce a very good 14-24 zoom, demonstrating that it's nothing impossible to do that. Nikon does not for now have a high res FX sensor but testing the Nikon lens adopted to a Canon D1sIII showed that it's a brilliant performer also at 21 MPixels.

It would be a decent  thing if there would be high class lenses built for Canon by other companies like Zeiss or Coastal Optics.

Sony has a cooperation with Zeiss. I don't know if the cooperation is just about label engineering or Zeiss actually designing lenses for Sony. It seems that the Zeiss glass for Sony is quite decent, but it also seems that Sony may have some manufacturing issues as many of the lenses seem to have centering issues. As most testing nowdays seems to be done using lenses mounted on cameras and not 'pure MTF-measurement' we need to wait for Sony to release the 'Alpha 900' and have some to put those lenses to tests before we can say anything about Zeiss-ZA lenses on full frame.

A final thought  may be that we need better MTF-figures, the old 10/30 lp/mm figures given by Canon are not very relevant for tomorrows 5 micron pitch cameras. Olympus gives MTF figures at 60 lp/mm, that is much more relevant. It seems that Oly lenses are in general very well corrected, but it seems that Olympus has a very strong antialiasing filter so the sharpness of their lenses cannot be fully utilized .

Best regards
Erik

I just wonder where technology will hit a wall. At the beginning of every technology, the steps of development are bigger, compare to cars and computers.

After a certain amount of development the law of diminishing returns comes into play, and maybe we're getting into that zone now.

Dynamic range may be the battle field on the sensor sector...

...and this could be the strength of the FF cameras. (Those have been out a good deal of a shorter period than APS sensors)...

... but I will watch what lenses will come from Canon, Nikon, and Sony.

This thread is interesting regarding lenses, that aren't up to the resolution of the sensors.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=26289

I am still doubtful about the future of the four thirds system.
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[BJL]

DR is dependent on well capacity and the 'noise floor'.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=210096\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The well capacity limit is true with current standard designs, but there are a number of alternative technologies and ideas around that can increase the signal headroom of a sensor.

One is Fuji's SR idea of having a second smaller less sensitive photodiode at each pixel, which gives measurement of highlight pixels that are blown out on the main photodiode.
Another is versions of repeated read-out during exposure. For example, read each photosite once or more often early in the exposure for the highlights to mid-tones, read again later for the darker regions. Some sensors intended for security cameras use this sort of approach already, getting huge DR from photosites far smaller than those in SLRs.