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eronald

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #40 on: March 03, 2012, 02:26:27 pm »



But the real truth is nobody is going to sell you a combination arriflex and hasselblad for 3500 singles.  Even if they could they'd be foolish, so . . .

IMO

BC


Why? A box, an HDMI plug, and wifi for control, no mirror, no shutter except a protection device, not even a shutter button or an LCD screen, just a sensor and encoder, no AF etc, no lens, buy your own, do your own focus, get your own external recorder, $3K end user with Scarlet sensor, machined out of a block of aluminium.

This remind you of something? Yes ... of the first cameras.

Edmund
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fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #41 on: March 03, 2012, 03:20:45 pm »

Quite frankly. Do you find that the camera designs today that we operate are on the level of what current electronic - technology capability is allowing?
I remember Bernard talking breifly about how camera makers are releasing very progressive updates with a bombing of marketing expectations, (and everybody bites) when in fact it's a carefully planed road-maps with agreements between themselves to make us buy the maximum possible device in the shorter possible time. This is a delicate and fascinating topic.

Of course that they have those 3-4 K convergence cameras right now, and they are developing a lot in the 3D. Don't think that what they release is the best they can do at one point, but only the best they want to do for maximum profit at one point, all in agreement with their competitors partners. It may be even possible that they decide wich and when a company has to disappear. We only see the surface and official press buletins.

What they can do is way ahead what we touch right now. And if they sold a 5D2 at 2000 bucks in stores, is that this kind of camera technology cost them absolutly nothing to produce. Our industry is vastly in the hand of giants, that dictate the politics they want to and decide when and how. It's a good and a bad thing at the same time.

About what James wrote, it's good to know about the Scarlet interface.

  
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 03:35:57 pm by fredjeang »
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bcooter

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #42 on: March 03, 2012, 04:05:43 pm »

Fred,

Your a passionate cat, but does it really matter?

I mean the red ain't a still camera a blad don't do movies but this camera can do both for the cost of  2 weeks rent  in manhattan.

IMO

BC



« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 04:11:46 pm by bcooter »
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theguywitha645d

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #43 on: March 03, 2012, 04:14:29 pm »

Quite frankly. Do you find that the camera designs today that we operate are on the level of what current electronic - technology capability is allowing?
I remember Bernard talking breifly about how camera makers are releasing very progressive updates with a bombing of marketing expectations, (and everybody bites) when in fact it's a carefully planed road-maps with agreements between themselves to make us buy the maximum possible device in the shorter possible time. This is a delicate and fascinating topic.

Of course that they have those 3-4 K convergence cameras right now, and they are developing a lot in the 3D. Don't think that what they release is the best they can do at one point, but only the best they want to do for maximum profit at one point, all in agreement with their competitors partners. It may be even possible that they decide wich and when a company has to disappear. We only see the surface and official press buletins.

What they can do is way ahead what we touch right now. And if they sold a 5D2 at 2000 bucks in stores, is that this kind of camera technology cost them absolutly nothing to produce. Our industry is vastly in the hand of giants, that dictate the politics they want to and decide when and how. It's a good and a bad thing at the same time.

About what James wrote, it's good to know about the Scarlet interface.

  

I worked in Japan for a camera manufacturer with the product teams. I do not recognize any of what you wrote about the camera industry.
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fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #44 on: March 03, 2012, 04:19:46 pm »

Mmmm...
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fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #45 on: March 03, 2012, 04:35:23 pm »

Fred,

Your a passionate cat, but does it really matter?

I mean the red ain't a still camera a blad don't do movies but this camera can do both for the cost of  2 weeks rent  in manhattan.

IMO

BC


No, this is not that important at all. In fact I'm enjoying filming with what I got like crazy, even if there are things that sometimes indignate me. It doesn't stop me to learn, produce and being each time more passionate about the all imagery language, specially when there are less and less barriers between the still image and the motion one.

Just that I sometimes feel very tired of those constant updates in wich I don't know really the real gain involved. Generally I observe that significant steps aren't occuring at each novelty. The best way to explain what I feel is, you know, those bombings of junkmails we receive all the time: how to get bigger muscles, better erection, better car, better girlfriend etc...
Something like that. So I see this brand new camera and...

It's true that I'm particularly concern recently on how to get things easier, with higher reliability, and with the less hassle possible and the less possible accessories and devices. I've always been alergic to ads-on.  

But yeah, all this doesn't matter that much indeed. I enjoy a lot.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 04:45:04 pm by fredjeang »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #46 on: March 03, 2012, 06:54:12 pm »

I worked in Japan for a camera manufacturer with the product teams. I do not recognize any of what you wrote about the camera industry.

May I ask what kind of function you were occupying? The only people who would know are top executives and strategists, probably no more than 5-10 people.

Besides, my comment was more nuanced than the summary provided by Fredjean. I had also clearly mentioned the fact that many of these features are made possible by a stack of technologies relying heavily on a small set of suppliers (typically specialized chips). The availability of these key components is required to unlock some innovations and it is not always clear who is driving the roadmap forward.

In the end though, demand from brand manufacturers in Japan remains the key factor affecting the whole supply chain and there is at least an implicit agreement and alignement of roadmaps. It simply cannot be otherwise.

Cheers,
Bernard

fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #47 on: March 03, 2012, 07:27:52 pm »

Besides, my comment was more nuanced than the summary provided by Fredjean. I had also clearly mentioned the fact that many of these features are made possible by a stack of technologies relying heavily on a small set of suppliers (typically specialized chips). The availability of these key components is required to unlock some innovations and it is not always clear who is driving the roadmap forward.

That's correct, I wrote in a messy way, as often in english. Bernard did write an interesting imput on that, in a form of introduction but my post were not suposed to copy or talk in the name of Bernard and my thoughts on that are purely personal. I just refered to this post because we were talking about the same subject and because I agree with Bernard's thoughts on that, although I've been less nuanced here.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 07:42:40 pm by fredjeang »
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pixjohn

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #48 on: March 03, 2012, 11:03:42 pm »

 I hate these stupid threads,  When the camera comes shoot a test. Until then it just a waste of time
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haring

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #49 on: March 04, 2012, 12:31:59 am »

Megapixels are overrated.

I totally agree!!! :)

Frank Doorhof

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #50 on: March 04, 2012, 03:18:28 am »

I want to add to bcooter.

As long as we speak about cameras like 90% in this thread I wonder what they do.
For me specs are specs.

In the end we are story tellers, I always tell my students, "it doesn't matter if you hammer a nail in with brand x or brand y, it has to go in, so choose the hammer that will get it in the quickest, in the end it's about the painting that will hang from the nail and that doesn't care"

As photographers and videographers we tell a story, in the past I often walked even during holidays with a 645 and canon through la, ny etc, just because I wanted to have the best quality at all times, very soon you figure out that with the 645 you just miss too many shots due to speed, boot up time, higher iso being noisy or not available etc, so now a days the MF travels with me for the photoshoots and when we drive around its with me for landscapes or when I know I have the time and for the rest of the time it's the DSLR that does the shooting, I always end up with my images, they tell the story and when walking I travel light and respond fast so being more comfortable, no need for backpacks etc.

The upgrade will be personal, compared the price of the rest of my gear the investment to upgrade is not that much, the benefit of having higher resolution out after pressing the record button with video is huge (we do more and more video), cleaner iso is a no brainer (I'm often shooting at 3200/5000 wishing I could go higher without noise) and better AF is just cool for when I do sports (hobby).

All the complaints about megapixels I don't get, do you really need more than 22?
Magazine spreads can be done with less than 16, big prints can be done with good quality 22MP especially when the AF is up to the task and you use a good quality sensor.

But as mentioned before there is just one thing important when you upgrade, will it help to do your work faster and better, for me with video it's a no brainer so yes I upgrade, with higher iso they talk about 2 stops meaning iso800 now will be iso3200 on the mkIII and that's great so also a no brainer and there it already stops for me, the rest is bonus ;)

I do agree that canon is pricing their cameras a bit "weird" lenses have gone up incredibly, on which I have to add that I don't upgrade my lenses because for example my 70-200f2.8l is works great en is already sharp enough wide open and closed down and I don't think the new one will tell a better "story" ;) and now also the always affordable 5d series are pushed into the realm of the older 1 series, meaning a LOT of first starting consumers wanting full frame will go to Nikon and when you're into a brand switching will be almost impossible, unless you have money to burn.
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fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #51 on: March 04, 2012, 04:59:03 am »

Yes, but I think that we can't talk about a camera, specially a camera that is supposed to be strong in motion, with just manufacturer specs.
Things have to be putten into the context of the all workflow pipeline.

We're all talking about clean, no brainer, simple etc...because that's what we all want.

But I think that Cooter also expresses something cyclic: You've been shooting during mounths with those Red, and you're looking at the 14 cases for the X' time...and you look at the Canon
and it's just so attractive. Cooter might buy the Canon, and after X time dealing with it, you look at your Red and it just looks so attractive, right or not?

Yes, there is no one ideal tool but the ideal is to have different tools.

About usability etc...
- Codec party. When I work with R3D files, I can cut with the proxies, although that's only when you don't have clients next to you because those proxies aren't looking good, then the only thing you have to do is re-linking at some point to the Raws for grading, for ex in Da-Vinci and output a master in 444 and a copy in 422. That's what I'd call simple, clean etc...
Now take one of those highly compressed codecs that feature generally dslrs. You'd have to transcode. You can not re-link to AVCHD 8 bits for grading because the all thing is falling appart.
Time consuming, more manipulation, more complicated. Of course it's done, but that's not what I'd call simplier. Also, outputing a high bitrate 10 bits copy for grading from a highly compressed 8 bit codec is a bigger file than a R3D and you don't gain any information but just empeach more degradation. You're in fact working in "false" 10 bits. There are no such things and as MR pointed in a recent article, the use of external recorders on those cameras is a choice to meditate because there is very little gain in quality but only in the workflow.

- Have you ever tried to work with long heavy cine lenses on those dslrs and pull focus in action? Here the all thing is falling appart. It's just not stable enough. The solutions to overcome that are very costly. Try for example to film surfers that aren't on the closest waves, from the beach with a 500mm equivalent on a tripod and follow the action with a dslr...fun guarantee. Actually talking about that, this summer I went to the Landes coast, a french world championship spot for surfing and there were filmakers. None were working with dslrs and their equipment was really heavy.

examples like those abund. So the only thing is to know the range of action of those still cameras, what can be reasonably done with them. Of course the higher isos exploitable, the better. That's the strengh. But then, 8 bits... means that it depends very much what kind of subject you'd have in front of you. At the minimum plane color scale, snow, lake, uniform wall and depending on the light inclination, isos, you'll posterize at one point or another. It's not fun and avoiding it on set is difficult and not always possible. So yeah, being able to shoot at very high isos and in fact that your footage looks almost daylight and then in post you make it looks night again, would be for me the best solution with those dslrs if what you want is not a festival of dirt and banding artefacts. I applaude if this Canon can really jump to very high isos the clean way.

What I mean to resume is that those Canons are good and a lot can be done indeed, but the moment you go out of their confort zone, the all thing is falling apart easily and time, money and brain consuming hassles are there, but they are just different than with heavier equipment. So it depends very much on your needs, budget and personal approach. The best thing is to adapt the pipeline to those dslrs but not the other way because it won't work so well.

In the end, the work is done with whatever. I think it's just important to be aware of what to expect and the pro-cons of each tool.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2012, 05:50:48 am by fredjeang »
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #52 on: March 04, 2012, 05:09:57 am »

I do agree that canon is pricing their cameras a bit "weird" lenses have gone up incredibly...

Not much more than the change of exchange rate between the Yen vs Euro/US$ between the times when these products were released.

I guess that some day you've got to pay the price of currency devaluations that have helped  both the US and Europe with export a lot?

Canon's price increase make sense, what is pretty amazing is the Nikon pricing. I am not sure how they do it.

Cheers,
Bernard

dreed

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #53 on: March 04, 2012, 08:48:07 am »

Not much more than the change of exchange rate between the Yen vs Euro/US$ between the times when these products were released.

I guess that some day you've got to pay the price of currency devaluations that have helped  both the US and Europe with export a lot?

Canon's price increase make sense, what is pretty amazing is the Nikon pricing. I am not sure how they do it.

Cheers,
Bernard

There have been some interesting quotes in the years between the 5D2 and 5D3 from Canon, one being that they can build a camera with pretty much any combination of features but getting it all into a package that they can put on the market at a reasonable price is a real challenge.

Another abstract filet of information that is surfacing in my brain is that there was a quiet period (1990s?) when Canon was the only big-name camera manufacturer to make a profit.

Then again, it may be that Nikon is just using cheaper materials than Canon.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #54 on: March 04, 2012, 09:27:38 am »

Then again, it may be that Nikon is just using cheaper materials than Canon.

The ability to optimize the price of sourced components is obviously the largest contribution to the profitability of consumer electronic manufacturers.

I have had the chance to spend 10 mins with a D800. At least the external materials feel just as solid as anything else I have used. I can obviously not comment on the many parts that are not externally visible.

Cheers,
Bernard

theguywitha645d

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #55 on: March 04, 2012, 12:58:27 pm »

May I ask what kind of function you were occupying? The only people who would know are top executives and strategists, probably no more than 5-10 people.

Besides, my comment was more nuanced than the summary provided by Fredjean. I had also clearly mentioned the fact that many of these features are made possible by a stack of technologies relying heavily on a small set of suppliers (typically specialized chips). The availability of these key components is required to unlock some innovations and it is not always clear who is driving the roadmap forward.

In the end though, demand from brand manufacturers in Japan remains the key factor affecting the whole supply chain and there is at least an implicit agreement and alignement of roadmaps. It simply cannot be otherwise.

Cheers,
Bernard


I was commenting on Fredjean's take. It sounds like a great conspiracy of companies handing down the crumbs and padding their profits. Companies don't sit on their best technology. Certainly companies don't want to lose money, but likewise they will introduce new technology if they think they can break even and further their market presence. There is advantage in actually producing technology beyond "great" profits. I have not seen what Fredjean is implying.

Roadmaps are marketing documents for customers and investors. They can be changed and are changed with shifts in the market. The top executive do not make the technological choices, those are really made by the product teams. The executives take that information and make strategic plans. You can not have it both ways of a top-down structure and then say it is only structured within existing technology. Sure, the supply chain is important, but so is developing new technology--it is a very competitive business. Even the suppliers are looking for edges.

I worked in technical documentation which included manuals, GUI development, and international press releases. I would be assigned to the product team for the products I worked on. The teams included members from engineering, marketing, quality assurance, and customer service.

So what is your experience in the camera manufacturing business?
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eronald

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #57 on: March 04, 2012, 04:58:58 pm »

Re my credentials, I was the photo columnist for Publish.com. Ziff paid me very well indeed for my opinions, just like some people here are paid for their pictures, doesn't mean they're the best, but they'd better deliver.

My opinions on the tech stuff were at that time backed up by personal research (I can read, write, and even do simple sums thanks to my EE/CS degree and PhD qualifiers), and extensive and continuing interviews with both marketing droids and leading hardware designers, eg. Poulson at Hasselblad, Karbe at Leitz, and Ohara at Canon; and a lot of little guys who prefer to be anonymous. I happen to speak and even read some japanese actually, some days it helps, ne?

So, yes, just about everybody confirmed that cameras are designed to avoid cannibalization, and that some stuff is always held back, so that there is always something which one is sure the next generation will be able to do better; also cheaper models have some features disabled in software as a lot of people discovered for themselves back in the days when.

Which leads us to the interesting question of the 5DII. People in the business who did teardowns of the 5D II explained to me that Canon knew exactly what they were doing and dongled the hardware, disabling certain abilities related to high quality video export on purpose. My own opinion is that the AF was also made weak to avoid cannibalizing the 1D models. But you say, why did Canon make the 5DII when they also make video cameras? In my personal opinion the 5DII  was the concrete expression of Canon's anger at Sony entering the still camera business, which Canon saw as breaking the existing agreed-upon equilibrium.

There are no exact answers to many of these questions. I have my opinions,but no camera exec I have ever met has been shy about telling me the intimate details discovered by reverse engineering the competition.

Edmund



I was commenting on Fredjean's take. It sounds like a great conspiracy of companies handing down the crumbs and padding their profits. Companies don't sit on their best technology. Certainly companies don't want to lose money, but likewise they will introduce new technology if they think they can break even and further their market presence. There is advantage in actually producing technology beyond "great" profits. I have not seen what Fredjean is implying.

Roadmaps are marketing documents for customers and investors. They can be changed and are changed with shifts in the market. The top executive do not make the technological choices, those are really made by the product teams. The executives take that information and make strategic plans. You can not have it both ways of a top-down structure and then say it is only structured within existing technology. Sure, the supply chain is important, but so is developing new technology--it is a very competitive business. Even the suppliers are looking for edges.

I worked in technical documentation which included manuals, GUI development, and international press releases. I would be assigned to the product team for the products I worked on. The teams included members from engineering, marketing, quality assurance, and customer service.

So what is your experience in the camera manufacturing business?
« Last Edit: March 04, 2012, 05:04:00 pm by eronald »
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theguywitha645d

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #58 on: March 04, 2012, 06:06:06 pm »

There are no exact answers to many of these questions. I have my opinions,but no camera exec I have ever met has been shy about telling me the intimate details discovered by reverse engineering the competition.

Edmund




Reverse engineering and controlling a series of product lines was not what I was objecting to. Why does every camera deserve to have exactly the same features at every price level. I hope folks don't think these companies actually start from scratch when they make firmware for a new camera model. And features can be disable because the hardware cannot support them or support them very well.

Quote
Our industry is vastly in the hand of giants, that dictate the politics they want to and decide when and how.

This idea, so often expressed, that there is some great capitalistic machine manipulating the market and consumers for their own profit. I find that is, on one hand, comical as it is giving too much credit the the folks running the companies (I have not found them that competent) and, on the other, nothing about the reality of the business nor the people in it. While it is very fashionable to bash companies for greed, what plays out in the financial industry in Wall Street, does not really translate into camera divisions of Japanese companies--the holding company or boards of directors are a completely different matter as they have nothing to do with the operation of those divisions, at least on the level of the products. The folks I have met in my career are really interested in making the best product for their customers--customers are quite a constant in their thoughts. But this business is not a charity either. It is struggling with low margins and bankrupt companies do not make good products at all.

BTW, I did not work for Canon, but I have never known our engineers or marketers lower the performance of a spec. because of another model. It is not that it could not be done, but the pressure to have better and better numbers to push new products is much greater than helping existing models compete. The focus is always on the next release, not the ones that have passed.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2012, 06:13:10 pm by theguywitha645d »
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fredjeang

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Re: Canon 5D MK III specs leaked- what do you think guys?
« Reply #59 on: March 04, 2012, 06:41:34 pm »

So, maybe it's time for Panasonic to change their engineer team because it seems that a bunch of young hackers are entering the brain and discovered how to make it work like a pro camera.

Those guys are actually solving a big factory issue Panasonic never gived a damn to fix for "their loyal customers" (guess why).  So people in their garage are currently taking an on-purpose limited camera to free it from limitations, and not only that, the latest software is completly redesigning a newer powerfull brain with much less hassles and enormous dev perspectives. A bunch of hackers...yeah, people are starting to move forward the way they want.

Just my 2 cents thoughts.

Ps: if the company you refer to was Pentax, then I'd agree that this is a prety helphy company in terms of politics and transparency. Pentax being a small company, but when things start to be big, that's a all different story.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2012, 06:55:32 pm by fredjeang »
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