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Author Topic: Canon at a standstill? Musings  (Read 7155 times)

peterottaway

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2014, 12:53:51 am »

I find that 36 MP does focus your attention on all your little failings in technique. I might be considered obsessive but I do own 4 tripod / monopods including a tabletop model and a carbon fibre with ball heads and geared heads.
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Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2014, 04:13:12 am »

Just another thought: for sure Canon have listened, and are listening to, the pro photographers, to get the pulse on current and future trends and requirements.

It seems that they have not considered a high megapixel count body to be a priority for the majority of their users. In all fairness, the pro market is dominated by sports and event photography; and for these two areas, Canon have the bases pretty well covered. As for the "enthusiast" and "fine art" photographers, they have a small impact in the pro sales market, and Canon have that covered too (5D and 6D series).

In the last couple of years, they have responded to pro market trends, with focus on the high quality cine cameras. Now that that is done, for sure they will introduce the high res body.

PhotoEcosse

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2014, 04:44:17 am »

Just another thought: for sure Canon have listened, and are listening to, the pro photographers, to get the pulse on current and future trends and requirements.



I am sure that they do listen to all cohorts of their customer base. But how significant to their marketing and development are the opinions and needs of "pro photographers"?

I would have thought that well under 1% of their "pro" models are purchased by professionals. Bear in mind that professionals have to base their purchasing decisions on boring factors like cost/benefit analysis whereas amateurs like us can (within our budgets) give free rein to our whims and fancies. That is why amateur photography, rather than professional, tends to drive the leading edge of both technological and artistic development.
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David Anderson

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2014, 05:13:27 am »

Most of the people who own these cameras either do not ever need 36 Mp, 14 stops, or only rarely. Many could not tell the diff except for uncommon particular situations For most it might as well be vaporware. And, currently it comes at the price of funny color balance, both manufacturers. The camera body should be looked upon as a "back", nothing more.


I can easily see the difference between my 1DsIII and D800e shots in terms of image quality.  ;)
(Which camera is better could be argued to the death.)

Canon really should have had a 5D sized body out with similar or better resolution by now just to keep these arguments fired up !  ;D



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Lee Rentz

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #24 on: January 13, 2014, 09:12:59 am »

There was a time in my photography when I used a tripod for every shot; at that point the Nikon 800 would have been the perfect camera for me. But in the last few years, after the advent of full-frame digital cameras with extraordinary ISO capabilities, I have become much, much looser in my work, and only occasionally use a tripod. I have no desire for more detail in my work, if it means going back to using a tripod and thus missing too many shots. So, even if Canon comes out with a 45 or 60 megapixel camera, I wouldn't necessarily buy it if there was still an alternative that was more suited to my shooting style. Aside from that, my hard drives already fill up far too quickly.
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hjulenissen

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #25 on: January 13, 2014, 09:31:37 am »

There was a time in my photography when I used a tripod for every shot; at that point the Nikon 800 would have been the perfect camera for me. But in the last few years, after the advent of full-frame digital cameras with extraordinary ISO capabilities, I have become much, much looser in my work, and only occasionally use a tripod. I have no desire for more detail in my work, if it means going back to using a tripod and thus missing too many shots. So, even if Canon comes out with a 45 or 60 megapixel camera, I wouldn't necessarily buy it if there was still an alternative that was more suited to my shooting style. Aside from that, my hard drives already fill up far too quickly.
More MP is (all else equal) never a bad thing for IQ, but it can bring a benefit that approach zero as other factors start to dominate image degradation (e.g. camera shake). I believe that future raw processors might be able to do better with "oversampled" images than current generation. I.e. D800 images may be blurred to the point of looking similar to D700 images by the camera shake of a given user/scenario today, but it might still look better when DXO 13 is released (or it might not).

Increasing megapixels has some operational drawbacks (typically lower framerates, rapid buffer fill-up, less images on a given memory card/hard-drive, slower raw development etc). History (Moores law) predicts that these problems will be less significant with time, so camera manufacturers can bump up the number of pixels at the same rate that memory card sizes and processing power progress, and have the speed etc stay at a constant level. For cases where you are certain that the extra resolution is not needed, it is possible to build optional down-rezzing into the camera (granted, this will typically work around the bottle-necks of down-stream components, not upstream components like sensor).

Improved DR (at low ISO) is harder to argue against. Who would possibly prefer (all else equal) to have the least significant bits of their raw files filled with noise instead of image information? I want my camera to take pictures of the scene I am pointing at, and do it "accurately". If I want noise in my image, I prefer to add to taste using Lightroom.

-h
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allegretto

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #26 on: January 13, 2014, 09:42:41 am »

I am sure that it is enough. Until someone comes along with lines like:

 ::)

and you find truth bothersome? Have as many megapixels as you like. That's my point. You feel you need them… go get 'em. Could say more but you've managed to bring this low enough, no need to go lower.

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Ben Rubinstein

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #27 on: January 13, 2014, 03:13:53 pm »

^ Member ignored. Those standing in rocky glass houses really shouldn't throw stones.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2014, 03:15:53 pm by Ben Rubinstein »
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Telecaster

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #28 on: January 13, 2014, 04:23:06 pm »

More MP is (all else equal) never a bad thing for IQ, but it can bring a benefit that approach zero as other factors start to dominate image degradation (e.g. camera shake). I believe that future raw processors might be able to do better with "oversampled" images than current generation.

For my needs oversampling is exactly what these high-mp cameras do. That you can have an excess of spatial data along with a healthy amount of tonal data is, to me anyway, impressive. I hope we'll see RAW processor developers devote time & effort to decoding specifically for output to high-res screens.

Based on what I've seen so far from the A7r, I'd say that rather than it demanding the very best lenses it puts many older designs nicely back in play. At least when judging the 3840x2160 output files I'm interested in. So I can choose lenses holistically—based on a balance of global & local contrast character, color rendition, OOF character, etc.—rather than being fixated on any one thing.

-Dave-
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #29 on: January 13, 2014, 04:38:23 pm »

Nice summary!

Best regards
Erik

More MP is (all else equal) never a bad thing for IQ, but it can bring a benefit that approach zero as other factors start to dominate image degradation (e.g. camera shake). I believe that future raw processors might be able to do better with "oversampled" images than current generation. I.e. D800 images may be blurred to the point of looking similar to D700 images by the camera shake of a given user/scenario today, but it might still look better when DXO 13 is released (or it might not).

Increasing megapixels has some operational drawbacks (typically lower framerates, rapid buffer fill-up, less images on a given memory card/hard-drive, slower raw development etc). History (Moores law) predicts that these problems will be less significant with time, so camera manufacturers can bump up the number of pixels at the same rate that memory card sizes and processing power progress, and have the speed etc stay at a constant level. For cases where you are certain that the extra resolution is not needed, it is possible to build optional down-rezzing into the camera (granted, this will typically work around the bottle-necks of down-stream components, not upstream components like sensor).

Improved DR (at low ISO) is harder to argue against. Who would possibly prefer (all else equal) to have the least significant bits of their raw files filled with noise instead of image information? I want my camera to take pictures of the scene I am pointing at, and do it "accurately". If I want noise in my image, I prefer to add to taste using Lightroom.

-h
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allegretto

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #30 on: January 13, 2014, 05:34:42 pm »

^ Member ignored. Those standing in rocky glass houses really shouldn't throw stones.

I'm so hurt! how about a hankie for you…? At least I don't have to worry about taking your umbrage.

what's with taking disagreement personally? Many different approaches are valid under different circumstances. No one's honor is at stake for disagreeing.


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Glenn NK

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #31 on: January 13, 2014, 10:05:13 pm »

I've been a Canon user since 1978. (The A-1 was the reason I switched from another brand, and I've remained a Canon user since.) I can't help but feel, that, at least as far as Pro photographers are concerned, Canon appears to be at a creative/technical standstill. Ever new announcement seems to be geared toward amateurs (70D and a myriad of Powershots) or the Pro filmmaker. I own both the 1Dx and a now 5-year old 1Ds3. I keep being tempted to give myself a slight update with the 5D3, but keep holding back that Canon MUST have something up it's sleeve... or does it? The dominance that Canon achieved a decade ago has eroded quite seriously. I admit that, as well as being a photographer, I'm a techno-geek. I am able to complete my work easily with what I have, and other than the 1Dx last year, no new announcements has made it easier on my wallet. I'm the kind of photographer who, in film days, loved playing with new film, developers, papers, etc., so it's no surprise that I keep wanting to see what Canon will do next. But at this point point, I suppose the real answer to that is... NOTHING.

Here's what was stated on Gizmodo recently:

http://gizmodo.com/the-last-days-of-the-dslr-1465327158

Although it's in regard to MILC vs DSLR, some of the comments implied that Canon (and Nikon) are asleep.

My comments are,
"How can he know that they are asleep?"
"How can he know they aren't investing in the new technologies?"

They've been leaders in camera technology for so long that I can't remember when it started (I started with Oly in 1962 and Pentax in 1963 when they were leaders, and Nikon was referred to as the "King of the Japanese cameras").

I'm not writing Canon off just yet.  As someone above noted, their 21 MP sensor cameras are the best selling on B&H, so they can't be that bad.

There is a difference between "standstill" and "taking stock" - they often look the same.

Glenn
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #32 on: January 13, 2014, 11:59:21 pm »

There was a time in my photography when I used a tripod for every shot; at that point the Nikon 800 would have been the perfect camera for me. But in the last few years, after the advent of full-frame digital cameras with extraordinary ISO capabilities, I have become much, much looser in my work, and only occasionally use a tripod. I have no desire for more detail in my work, if it means going back to using a tripod and thus missing too many shots. So, even if Canon comes out with a 45 or 60 megapixel camera, I wouldn't necessarily buy it if there was still an alternative that was more suited to my shooting style. Aside from that, my hard drives already fill up far too quickly.

For what it is worth, I have never had as many hand held images looking very sharp at 100% in PS with any other camera as I currently have with the D800.

The reasons?
- The excellence of the mirror damping,
- Auto-ISO combined with superb image quality up to very high ISOs, in particular when used in combination with DxO 9 with Prime noise reduction,
- AF - although it is also true with manual focus lenses like the Zeiss Otus that I have been using hand held a lot recently.

Describing the D800 as a tripod only camera does not give it 10% of the credit it deserves.

The D800 in auto ISO, A mode at f2.0 with a nice prime lens like the Sigma 35mm f1.4 is the ultimate PJ camera, the closest thing to a SLR loaded with the best negative film. The DR makes it incredibly forgiving of (rare) exposures issues and let you focus 99% of your brain power on the creative part of photography.

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: January 14, 2014, 09:01:20 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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Silver Halide UK

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2014, 11:22:35 am »

For what it is worth, I have never had as many hand held images looking very sharp at 100% in PS with any other camera as I currently have with the D800.

The reasons?
- The excellence of the mirror damping,
- Auto-ISO combined with superb image quality up to very high ISOs, in particular when used in combination with DxO 9 with Prime noise reduction,
- AF - although it is also true with manual focus lenses like the Zeiss Otus that I have been using hand held a lot recently.

Describing the D800 as a tripod only camera does not give it 10% of the credit it deserves. It

The D800 in auto ISO, A mode at f2.0 with a nice prime lens like the Sigma 35mm f1.4 is the ultimate PJ camera, the closest thing to a SLR loaded with the best negative film. The DR makes it incredibly forgiving of (rare) exposures issues and let you focus 99% of your brain power on the creative part of photography.

Cheers,
Bernard


I doubt if Nikon want us to tell the truth about our D800s, Bernard. It might persuade Canon to pull their finger out and release a new model that begins to compete.

:)
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David Anderson

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Re: Canon at a standstill? Musings
« Reply #34 on: January 15, 2014, 04:14:35 pm »


- Auto-ISO combined with superb image quality up to very high ISOs,


Too true.
I spent a couple weeks in UnZud shooting a fishing story largely hand held in auto ISO and found I had a lot more sharp pictures to choose from when doing the edit.

I would also add, the high resolution leaves a lot of room for cropping.

Amazing camera the 800.  8)
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