Response to Pricing article on 1Ds

[Roger_Cavanagh]

[font color=\'#000000\']BTW, there's another thread on this same subject in the Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear forum section. It's a pity this new forum style did not include all the major advantages of the old forum. In the old forum one could go straight to all the current topics of the day or week. I get the impression many folks miss this feature and are drifting away from the forum as a result.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']I use the "New Posts" command. It's just under the welcome message. I find it much better than the old style.

Regards,[/font]

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']Just found this extract from the BJP in my email:-

"Kodak announces new '35mm' CC

Whereas the full-frame sensor in the forthcoming DCS 14n digital SLR is
a CMOS device from Belgian manufacturer Fill Factory, Kodak has now
unveiled its own '35mm' sensor using CCD technology.

The KAI-110000CM is a high performance device featuring 11 million
pixels with a maximum capture rate of 3fps. The 37x25mm chip has 9µm
pixels, arranged 4032x2688 to give approximately 10.8 million pixels in
the final image, and is claimed to have a dynamic range of 66dB. An IR
cut-off filter is included over the surface of the sensor and
microlenses are provided for enhanced sensitivity. It is not yet known
in which cameras the new interline CCD will feature. "

Anyone know what 66db means in terms of F stops?[/font]

[Bernard]

[font color=\'#000000\']66 dB is 11 stops, a claim we have seen elsewhere. Divide the dB by 6.02 to get stops. It would be interesting to see the response curve.[/font]

[Paul Caldwell]

[font color=\'#000000\']Hello Michael,

Actually I would like to believe your logic, and do believe some of that may be true, however from the way you describe it, it sounds like Canon is building a flintlock.  Like the old gunmakers in the 17th century, one at a time.  

I work in electronics, and I don't see why digital cameras, high end, have to be any different.  I can't think of any other current electronic device that has such a issue.  Laptops, TV's Stereo's all of which have more intellegence that a current digital camera that is still based on DOS.  Your electronics inside all of the cameras are ribbon plug, preassembled.  Yes you have some calibration issues, but so do you will any optical device.

As for the chip, the techology is out there, to make much larger chips at many locations throughout the world.  If Canon chose to find one person to make all their chips, they should have learned from some of the PC vendors out there when they chose to have one component maker make all their gear.  Once that vendor had trouble all bets were off.  

Canon is a consumer based electronics company, and one of their products is cameras of which they do an excellent job. Frankly they have the only one 11mp camera period.  They can charge what they want and will until someone else comes out with one.  Look at the flush of 6mp's that we saw this year.  

I have to laugh at Canon's response to you in regards to availability, "it will be very limited".  Big deal, thats their problem.  I mean if they can't figure out by now how to bring this type of technology to market in a good volume thats their problem.  Now all the people who want one are calling their dealeras and placing orders and Canon loves that.  What this is called is backlog creation.  

I have always held your comments and articles in very high esteme, I do have to say that I am alittle disappointed in this type of aritcle.  Especially the part where only the "true" pro should be tempted to use this camera.  

Many of the "pros" have been sitting around waiting for digital to come closer to film, now they have it as your first review on the 1ds showed.  So all the other people that have been the test bed for all these companies should just move out of the way, since this is such a highly developed tool.

Canon is playing the game, and for now playing it well.  They are the only game in town.

I don't mean any disrespect to you or your site.  

Paul Caldwell
[/font]

[Marshal]

[font color=\'#000000\']Canon is currently the only game in town with an 11MP camera as you say, and Kodak will soon be the only game in town with 14MP(13.5 effective MP)resolution.

Actually though, as MR pointed out in his Expo reprt, there's a company making a LF digital back that's 11MP, which as Michael pointed out is priced $4-5K more than the 1Ds and not nearly as easy to use from the looks of it. Pretty awkward to use I'd think.

For pure hi-res purposes only, the 14n will definitely win the "Bang for the Buck" award.  Its performance falls short of the 1Ds in many ways, but matches the performance and features of most MF cameras. If studio and/or  landscape photos are all you'll need, it may get the job done better than any film camera short of 4X5.

But that still remains to be seen until we can get sample photos. Looking forward to MR getting his hands on a 14n to test. He may be partial to Canon, but just a few days with one should help us get an idea of its capability. Hopefully, Michael will also be given the Kodak software to shoot RAW files with.[/font]

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']I use the "New Posts" command. It's just under the welcome message. I find it much better than the old style.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']Roger,
Can't find the 'New Posts' command. Under my welcome message I have 'Your Control Panel' then a list of topic categories with a reference to the last post in each category. At the bottom of the page there's a heading titled 'view new posts' but this seems inactive. Is there a way of activating it? Is this what you're talking about?[/font]

[Bill Koenig]

[font color=\'#000000\']I too, miss the old software. I find that the new posts button seems to be the easiest way to navigate this site, if you can even call that easy. I'm sure I'm missing some things here because of the difficulty getting around on this board. I wish way could go back to the old software.
  [/font]

[Roger_Cavanagh]

[font color=\'#000000\']

Ray wrote:
Can't find the 'New Posts' command. Under my welcome message I have 'Your Control Panel' then a list of topic categories with a reference to the last post in each category. At the bottom of the page there's a heading titled 'view new posts' but this seems inactive. Is there a way of activating it? Is this what you're talking about

drm wrote:
The trouble with "view new posts" is that "new" means, apparently, "since my last visit".  Which means that if there were 10 new posts I was interested in, and I had time to read and respond to 1 of them, before doing something else, then there is no easy way of finding out what the others were....

And I also found that if you use the "LL skin" then you don't get the "New Posts" option.

I checked my profile and I am using the standard Ikon Board skin, which is a lot less garish (sorry, Michael) than the LL one. I just checked and the New Posts doesn't appear in the LL skin where I described.

How I use New Posts is to get a window with the new posts and right-click on each item and open in new window, so I can read each new thread, close that window and go back to the list and get the next new post.

You shouldn't give up that easily, David.

Regards,[/font]

[Doug_Dolde]

[font color=\'#000000\']One thing that seems to be often overlooked in evaluating the price of ANY digital camera, especially one with the potential to completely replace film is that the high cost of a film scanner can be eliminated.

If you already have one it can be sold.  If you don't consider you'd need a scanner with medium format scanning capabilities (to match a Canon 1DS or similar high res digital camera) costing from $2500-5000.

Too obvious?  Maybe so.[/font]

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']"The KAI-110000CM is a high performance device featuring 11 million
pixels with a maximum capture rate of 3fps. The 37x25mm chip has 9µm
pixels, arranged 4032x2688 to give approximately 10.8 million pixels in
the final image, and is claimed to have a dynamic range of 66dB."

Do I take it there are no really knowledgeable people reading this site any more? Can no-one tell me what a dynamic range of 66dB means in F stops?

On the issue of finding the latest posts on this forum, I still find the most effective way (but still quite cumbersome) is to do a search using an asterisk (*) as the keyword and setting the following parameters:-

Type - post and/or topic titles

Forum - All open forums

Search in - Topic titles & posts

Search from - This Day (or week) - newer

On the issue of film versus digital, it's pointless quibbling about which has the slight resolution edge when the other advantages of digital are so enormous from a sheer efficiency point of view. In the 4 months I've owned a D60 I've taken more photos than in the previous 4 years. I have thought of doing my own (definitive!) tests to see just how much extra resolution my Nikon 8000ED scanner might be able to extract from a fine grained film, but what's the point? For such experiments to be conclusive, they have to be carried out with great care and patience and I'd have to set aside a lot of time. Even if I were to find that 35mm film is still sharper (than the D60), I hardly think I'd start shooting more film as a result. In fact, I know I wouldn't, for the 'efficiency' reasons I've alluded to.

What I'd really like to see more of in this forum is serious discussion on the potential of higher resolution (greater pixel density) sensors. The relationship between lens and sensor and how that relationship is different from the lens/film relationship. What are the limits of 'state-of-art' 35mm lenses? Do we need different lens designs to get the most out of digital and if so, why? What is the 'real' advantage of a new and smaller format such as the proposed 4/3rds. Will we ultimately settle on a Medium Format sized sensor for the ultimate in quality, or will 36x24mm be sufficient? Is there any reason why a high quality Canon tilt & shift lens at F2.8 cannot, in principle, produce better results than an 8x10 field camera at F22 (provided the 36x24mm sensor has a sufficient number of low noise pixels)?

These are the questions in my mind and are what I consider to be the contemory technical issues. But I don't see much discussion here on these issues.

Excuse me for the rant![/font]

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']Thanks for that, Bernard. Ah! The response curve. Does that sometimes trail off gradually with digital devices as it often does with analogue? My experience with the D60 is that highlights tend to blow out suddenly as the limit is approached. However, increase in noise in the shadows is a gradual effect.

Assuming the 66dB/11 f stops figure is legitimate, this new chip from Kodak would appear to be a big step up from the 6 or 7 f stops of the 1Ds. Now we're getting somewhere.[/font]

[Marshal]

[font color=\'#000000\']

But now I'm in love, "And this time it could be forever"   David

At least until the 2Ds comes out.  ;-)    

But that will be a while.[/font]

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']Paul,
I tend to agree. One thing is for sure. Canon reps are not going to tell it like it is. They're going to repeat the spiel they've been given. I think Canon are milking the market for all it's worth. And who can blame them? That's business! Competition is supposed to moderate such effects. Nevertheless, it could be true that there IS a manufacturing quality control problem that forces the price up. It might also be true that there WAS a QC problem that has now largely been solved. Unless there's insider information from the coal face, one can't be certain.

BTW, there's another thread on this same subject in the Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear forum section. It's a pity this new forum style did not include all the major advantages of the old forum. In the old forum one could go straight to all the current topics of the day or week. I get the impression many folks miss this feature and are drifting away from the forum as a result.[/font]

[David Mantripp]

[font color=\'#000000\']The trouble with "view new posts" is that "new" means, apparently, "since my last visit".  Which means that if there were 10 new posts I was interested in, and I had time to read and respond to 1 of them, before doing something else, then there is no easy way of finding out what the others were....

And I also found that if you use the "LL skin" then you don't get the "New Posts" option.

Whatever.  I've made my points about this software...  Sadly, so have many others, by leaving the forum.[/font]

[Rainer SLP]

[font color=\'#000000\']Hi Doug,

Yes you are right. But are you not shooting a little bit to high with the price of the suitable scanner?

Every 4000dpi scanner does it and they do not cost at your US $ 2.500,00 lower limit.

As far as I have understood this whole Analog vs Digital comparison, a filmscanner with minimum optical resolution of more than 2400 -2600dpi is useless because you begin to scan the grain?

and is it not so that seeing the grain or not seeing the grain is what is fooling us and make us think that the digital images are better than the analog ones?

it is the same think that why you know that the horizon is tilted or not. You cannot say how many degrees the horizon is tilted but you just know it. Right?

It is the same with the digital image and the analog image. Missing grain is interpreted as better resolution because you have a cleaner image, not because you have more detail.

How comes that people say that resizing up an image makes you loose detail, which is not true. What you do is taking away relative sharpness because you are repeating the same information again. In this moment when you have a bigger image you automatically step back to have a better view and again your image has the right sharpness.

I think that as long as the Digital cameras do not have the same resolution in linepairs per mm as the Film the Film is in advantage against the digital. But here we go again with this issue.[/font]

[David Lawson]

[font color=\'#000000\']In defence of Michaels arguement on the cost of 1DS, not that he needs it. I have just done a studio shoot as part of a Canon day in the UK, with the 1DS. I am simply blown away with what I saw. I am a wildlife photographer, who pays the bills by doing other photography. If I were studio based this has to be an essential tool. For what this camera costs, especially in US, you get value for money. It is for working professionals who will recoup the outlay of $/£. If you are a non professional who can afford one, you are lucky, get it and if you don't like it you can send it to me. I was impressed with D30, astounded by 1D. But now I'm in love, "And this time it could be forever"   David[/font]