Canon EOS 5Ds and 5DsR - 50.3MP with and without AA filters

[eronald]

Also, sampling 3 color planes per sensel will also triple the uncompressed file size compared to Bayer CFA Raw data. That will require more processing power in camera (and more battery capacity), more storage space, and takes longer to record (lower number of images per second). It will also be slow in Raw conversion, and there may be little Raw converter support other than from the manufacturer themselves.

Bart,

 I do think you are being unintentionally humoristic here - the real world total resolution Rf of an (n*n)  Foveon sensor which measures an (rgb) triplet at each point in the array is automatically higher than the total resolution Rb of an (n*n) bayer sensor which measures only one of r,g,b at each sensel. I would judge And so yes, more storage is needed for the Raw, but some is clawed back by the added resolution. So we have Rf=K*Rb, and subjectively, I would say that we have roughly K=1.8.

An interesting consequence of this is that to achieve total resolution Rb we can use larger pixels and a Foveon sensor with a lens that resolves less by a factor of (1/sqrt(K)).

 But I think your argument should be pointed at Doug, Yair and those other people who are trying to sell us digital backs - it is inadmissible that an 80 Mp back should write large files and require longer for transcoding Raw into rgb! Something needs to be done about this!

Edmund

[Misirlou]

Here's something I noticed about AA filters. A few months ago, I took some pics of an old adobe church with a Sigma DP2 Merrill. One of my favorite shots has a decaying window covering about 1/8th of the frame. There was a very fine mesh screen across the whole window. It recorded every single strand of wire in that screen, very crisply and distinctly, against the darkened interior of the room behind. One of the sharpest, "bitiest" images I've ever made.

Then I printed it at A3+ size on my Canon 9500 MKII. If you get your nose right up to the print, you can see interference patterns that I attribute to the very high frequency pattern of the screen image with the equally high frequency of the nozzles in the print head. Looks really strange, as if some strands in the screen are missing. It's definitely an aliasing problem, and it would not have occurred with an image of lower spatial resolution, or an AA filter. I could probably get rid of it easily if I reprinted, just by changing the print magnification a small amount either way.

[BernardLanguillier]

Those Sigma/foveon fanboys... can we get back to salivating about more good old Bayer pixels?

Cheers,
Bernard

[NancyP]

Ahem, Bernard. FanGIRL. I find the Sigma Merrills to be good compact cameras for landscape and near-macro, given their limitations in ISO and treacle-like writing speed. I take one along for hikes, along with a small but decent tripod - 3.5 pounds / 1.6 kilos for whole shebang. My "I am seriously doing this hike for the landscape photo" kit tends to weigh ~ 11 pounds/ 5 kilos or so, more if I take my fave macro lens, itself 1.2 kilos.

I fully realize that my cameras are better than I am, and that what I REALLY need is an upgrade to my brain. 

[eronald]

Ahem, Bernard. FanGIRL. I find the Sigma Merrills to be good compact cameras for landscape and near-macro, given their limitations in ISO and treacle-like writing speed. I take one along for hikes, along with a small but decent tripod - 3.5 pounds / 1.6 kilos for whole shebang. My "I am seriously doing this hike for the landscape photo" kit tends to weigh ~ 11 pounds/ 5 kilos or so, more if I take my fave macro lens, itself 1.2 kilos.

I fully realize that my cameras are better than I am, and that what I REALLY need is an upgrade to my brain.  

Nancy,

Do tell me when you get that brain upgrade, I need one too
Edmund

[LKaven]

Ahem, Bernard. FanGIRL.

Please, FanORGANISM.  I see no need for species chauvinism.  :-)

[Telecaster]

Please, FanORGANISM.  I see no need for species chauvinism.  :-)

As my friend & colleague Lisa says whenever someone does a good thing: "You da person!"

-Dave-

[Roscolo]

Never could justify any of the medium format hi-res options. Scanning backs in my upper price range have been sold out for years. Not about to buy one of those used on ebay. Been waiting on an offering like this from Canon for YEARS, So I'm hoping the 5Ds will be my solution for hi-res images of artwork.

[BernardLanguillier]

Never could justify any of the medium format hi-res options. Scanning backs in my upper price range have been sold out for years. Not about to buy one of those used on ebay. Been waiting on an offering like this from Canon for YEARS, So I'm hoping the 5Ds will be my solution for hi-res images of artwork.

I tend to prefer the cleanliness of the files of my D810 at ISO64 over those of my Betterlight Super6K even at base ISO. Yes, color is a bit more pure on the BL, but the amount of noise does IMHO more than counterbalance this. Besides critical focus is much harder to achieve reliably on the 4x5 camera compared to a DSLR with live view.

Good 35mm lenses such as the Otus are also at the same level as the best LF style lenses, so I think that solutions have been available for quite some time in the 35mm world.

The new 5Ds will for sure be another interesting option.

Cheers,
Bernard

[powerslave12r]

http://photorumors.com/2015/02/04/canon-eos-5ds-and-ef-11-24mm-f4l-usm-prices-revealed/

$4000 5DS
$4200 5DS R
$3400 11-24mm

Unconfirmed by source.

[Phil Indeblanc]

If it is a out-house sensor, wouldn't the price also be closer to the numbers we are used to..sure a bit higher as it is 50 vs 36mp, but I don't think they should pass roughly $4K price point(?)
The D810 is under $3k now. How much a difference is the extra mp going to make in price? Given the pixel quality is equal.

taking that recent price info into account, it likely is the Sony sensor!
Still my guess, but I see the dots maybe connecting.

Please have a locked option selector like the 5Dm3
Please focus like the 1D models, or at least the 5Dm3
Please have the sweeping sweet sound of the 1Ds shutters...that was equal to playing beautiful music to my ears from high end amp and speakers)...even if it is 150K count. I just miss that sound.

[dwswager]

http://photorumors.com/2015/02/04/canon-eos-5ds-and-ef-11-24mm-f4l-usm-prices-revealed/

$4000 5DS
$4200 5DS R
$3400 11-24mm

Unconfirmed by source.

Ouch! Assuming the quality is there, I guess people will pay.  I guess if you're already able to sell a 22MP 5DmkIII with 5 year old sensor performance for $3099, then I guess a 50MP 5Ds with a good sensor for $4000 is a deal!

[BernardLanguillier]

Ouch! Assuming the quality is there, I guess people will pay.  I guess if you're already able to sell a 22MP 5DmkIII with 5 year old sensor performance for $3099, then I guess a 50MP 5Ds with a good sensor for $4000 is a deal!

I don't see the rumored price providing useful hints about the sensor sourcing.

From a Canon exec standpoint, the 5DIII was already the best DSLR on the market. They never acknowledged any DR or image quality shortcoming.

From their standpoint, even if the 5Ds remains at 12+ DR stops, it still delivers enough additional value compared to the 5DIII that they should price it at least 1,000 US$ higher.

Cheers,
Bernard

[NancyP]

Bernard, I had no idea that Betterlight scanning backs were still around. That's an interesting technology, cousin to some of the lab-on-a-chip and glass slide scanning technology (some "digital pathology" systems such as Aperio/Leica). Most folks don't want to wait 10 minutes for a scan, I imagine - wind or water in landscape shots would be impossible. Maybe great for product shots?

[Phil Indeblanc]

re the scanback,
Even for many product shots they are not for anyone with a time clock. Its a slow process. If you plan to do any multi shots, it really will eat your time. I used it for a short time. While the files are pretty chunky amazing... at the time it was the best I'd seen, it just is hard to make it fit a productive pace, for my shoots at least.

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernard, I had no idea that Betterlight scanning backs were still around. That's an interesting technology, cousin to some of the lab-on-a-chip and glass slide scanning technology (some "digital pathology" systems such as Aperio/Leica). Most folks don't want to wait 10 minutes for a scan, I imagine - wind or water in landscape shots would be impossible. Maybe great for product shots?

As Phil said, those are fun to use and the files are good, but they are also a pain due to the time it takes to do a scan, the constraints in terms of minimum luminosity, the need to have a non moving environment (including the light, which causes issue with natural light when you have cloud passing in front of the sun for instance), the need to thether to a laptop,...

I don't use mine as much as I intended to frankly speaking. I have an on-going project with shooting older buildings in the area where I live for which I bought the back, but I have been using my DSLR and stitching a lot more till now. It's already hard to use indoors, outdoors is even worse.

Anyway, this is really out of topic, so feel free to contact me though PM if you have additional questions.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Roscolo]

I tend to prefer the cleanliness of the files of my D810 at ISO64 over those of my Betterlight Super6K even at base ISO. Yes, color is a bit more pure on the BL, but the amount of noise does IMHO more than counterbalance this. Besides critical focus is much harder to achieve reliably on the 4x5 camera compared to a DSLR with live view.

Good 35mm lenses such as the Otus are also at the same level as the best LF style lenses, so I think that solutions have been available for quite some time in the 35mm world.

The new 5Ds will for sure be another interesting option.

Cheers,
Bernard

All my 35mm glass is Canon. Decided waiting / hoping was better than changing. Glad I waited!

[torger]

€3500... like a MFD lens cap. I was expecting a higher price, I hope it's enough to make a body that feels professional. I was never fond of the 5DmkII plastics, but the 5DmkIII is good, hopefully the same.

I just got again reminded of an additional reason why AA filter is good. With my MF camera I always shoot from a tripod and use distortion-free symmetric tech cam lenses, so I never rotate and I don't need lens corrections. Once I did a mistake though (just once! ) and I had to rotate the image. Jagged aliasing and rotation does not combine well - the fine narrow details looks really broken, and I assume lens corrections like distortion correction won't play as nice either. It's better to have a smooth pixelpeep if any rotation or other transforms are being applied, and as you with a DSLR do crazy things like shooting hand-held and using zooms or retrofocus wides you may need to apply corrections quite often...

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I just got again reminded of an additional reason why AA filter is good. With my MF camera I always shoot from a tripod and use distortion-free symmetric tech cam lenses, so I never rotate and I don't need lens corrections. Once I did a mistake though (just once! ) and I had to rotate the image. Jagged aliasing and rotation does not combine well - the fine narrow details looks really broken, and I assume lens corrections like distortion correction won't play as nice either. It's better to have a smooth pixelpeep if any rotation or other transforms are being applied, and as you with a DSLR do crazy things like shooting hand-held and using zooms or retrofocus wides you may need to apply corrections quite often...

Good point. Although, the quality of the distortion correction/resampling algorithm does make a difference as well. A trick to tame low quality resamplers is to first upsample, then correct, then down sample. That effectively simulates an oversampled image. Unfortunately, if the resampling is poor, the up/down-sampling may also add artifacts, so one should test this for a particular implementation.

When the first D800/D800E resolutions were compared, the effective difference I could measure was only about 1%. That's a sacrifice I'd gladly make to reduce post-processing time for salvaging a project subject to a deadline. The customer doesn't pay for my additional post-processing time ...

Cheers,
Bart

[davidgp]

Canon 5Ds and 5Ds R press release... http://www.canonrumors.com/2015/02/canon-eos-5ds-eos-5ds-r-press-release/