A Big Megapixel Discussion

[motorhead]

Its great news, and about time Canon woke up to the advances being made by Sony and Nikon. I hope its the long awaited replacement for the 1Ds3, a high MP camera with award winning DR and noise control in a 1Ds style body.

That's why I've stuck with my 5d2, in the hope that Canon would eventually come to their senses and realise that we don't all want video cameras, some of us have other requirements.

[unfocused]

It's a flagship

Not necessarily....

I'm not sure what you are basing that on...

Might be basing it on Nikon. Their flagship has 16 megapixels.

[zim]

This should be a real specialist camera, not for everyone. Not going to happen but I’d love to see Canon go for the jugular design this camera around the 2 ¼ sq form and be modular.

[dstppy]

Well that tears it! I'm switching to Nik . . awww who cares, you gotta do that stuff on the first-page 

Seriously though, this is really nice to hear . . . someone mentioned a 5DmkIV???  I'm pretty sure Canon will milk that for 3-4 years . . . it's really an all-around winner, although, I mean at the $2500 price-point that I am once again holding out for

[JonAustin]

I'm satisfied with 22mp. Large enough to print big, Small enough to save some space.

Same here. In fact, I shoot my 5D3 in 10mp RAW mode most of the time. I only ramp up to 22mp when the client demands it, I need to print big or I intend to do substantial cropping.

If the pixel count of the 5D4 is significantly higher than the 5D3's, I'll look forward to snapping up a second 5D3 at a discount.

[Pi]

The elephant in the room is the read noise, not the pixel count.

[johnhenry]

I don't think there is a lot of head room in the APS C format. Just how many pixels can you cram into that sensor size?

I calculated once that it would take over 46M pixels in a FF sensor to equal the density on the 7D.

Problem is moving that much data onto your memory card to keep a high frame rate

[daniela]

Do not always think of an high end Camera.
I hope this Camera meets the D800, not the D4. Replacing the midlevel-series.
My Japanese girl-friend rumored, that Nikons replacement of their highend bodies will be a mixture of the d800 with the performance of the D4 with an superb low iso.

I am sorry, but Canon is 1 generation behind Nikon. If they would not have the dust-problem, I would switch too. A D600 would be great. Much cheaper then the 5D3, much better then the 6D.

And if they struggle to get back on the Camera-Olymp, I hope they do not see this as an chance of exponential rising of the prices.

[docholliday]

Its great news, and about time Canon woke up to the advances being made by Sony and Nikon. I hope its the long awaited replacement for the 1Ds3, a high MP camera with award winning DR and noise control in a 1Ds style body.

That's why I've stuck with my 5d2, in the hope that Canon would eventually come to their senses and realise that we don't all want video cameras, some of us have other requirements.

Amen to that - it's why I still have 1DsMkIIIs. I could care less about video, otherwise I'd be shooting a CineAlta or ARRI Alexa with Zeiss Master Primes in PL mount.

If the high MP cam does low read noise, and 40mp+ (needs to double resolution to truly be 'better'), then great. And, keeping the large 1-series frame. The smaller cameras hurt after shooting all day. And the grips suck.

If not, it'll be 1DsMkIIIs for longer or Hasselblad H4/H5 from then out.

[traveller]

At last, proper rumours return!!! 

On a serious note, it interests me that this rumour mentions "Canon is apparently quite motivated to make industry leading sensors again".  My question would be why they lost that motivation in the first place; did they believe that sensor technology had reached a (temporary) plateau? Was it economic conditions that caused them to scale back R&D? Maybe Chipworks' article about DSLR sensors shed some light on Canon's reasoning:

http://www.chipworks.com/blog/technologyblog/2012/10/24/full-frame-dslr-cameras-canon-stays-the-course/ see also part I:

http://www.chipworks.com/blog/technologyblog/2012/10/23/full-frame-dslr-cameras-part-1-nikon-vs-sony/

The issue that concerns me most about Canon's position is economies of scale.  Given the fact that fab facilities are an enormous fixed cost to establish and equip for a given technology level, if Canon are fabbing their own sensor chips in low volumes (compared to mobile devices and compacts), surely they are at a disadvantage compared to manufacturers (e.g. Sony) that can spread the costs over a larger volume of chips?  Unless Canon can find a leaner method of producing their sensors, the only way that I can see them keeping costs down is by sticking with older fabrication processes for longer.  This means that they will always be behind the curve for a larger proportion of the time than Sony (who have higher volumes that can support more frequent updates) or Nikon (who outsource production or design + production to third parties).   

[wockawocka]

AND IT NEEDS TO BE CHEAPER THAN THE 1DX OTHERWISE WE MAY AS WELL USE MEDIUM FORMAT DIGITAL

[RGomezPhotos]

This would be the 'Big Megapixel' flagship for images that benefit from the pixels.  You would also have a speed-oriented camera like the 1DX that would also be a flagship.  As regularly noted, no camera can do it all.

[chauncey]

File size...file size...get a life, hard drives are cheap.
I would have already a MF if I woulda been able to figure out how to use 10-15 grand in canon glass on an MF camera body.
I trust Canon to have a decent sensor with adequate ISO performance.

[Don Haines]

WE WANT BETTER PIXELS

NOT JUST MORE OF THEM!

Your pixels will be smaller....

[MrFotoFool]

Plus 100 to the two people who said we do not all want video.  My first (and so far only) DSLR is the 5D2, which is renowned for video, but honestly I do not even know or care how to turn on the video recording.  If they had made a duplicate version with no video, I would have bought that instead even if it was the same price.

I also do not see why anyone needs more megapixels than the current full frame offerings.  I have photos in my place blown up to 40x60 inches, from 5d2 and from 100 speed film, and they look fantastic!  Are people really doing six foot or eight foot enlargements that they need more megapixels?