Messages

181

EOS Bodies / Re: Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 03, 2012, 01:12:11 AM »

You know, I would buy the "Yen has strengthened" argument, hence them jacking the price if....  it wasn't actually priced even MORE expensive in Japan than it is in the US.

Japanese price=358,000yen=4,377 USD

Might want to check reality before you spout off theoreticals. 

And the kit price is priced at 100,000 yen more than the body alone, which is $1,222 roughly USD.

Here's a couple links for the equivalents of large electronic stores similar to Best Buy in Japan:

http://www.biccamera.com/bicbic/jsp/w/d_camera/canon/eos5dmarkiii/index.jsp

http://www.yodobashi.com/ec/promotion/newtopics/detail/10000000000000024435/index.html

Canon hasn't released official Japanese pricing yet, as of 3/3/2012, so my guess is those sites are just trying to price gouge people before the price is released. Confirmed world wide pricing pegs it around 270,000 Yen based on all of Canon's other pricing for their other products between regions. It makes no sense to charge so much more in Japan for it compared to all their other products as people will just buy gray market ones.

182

EOS Bodies / Re: Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 02, 2012, 11:49:40 PM »

US Dollars are the only thing that matter when comparing the original USD price to the current USD price. The difference in price based on inflation is about $3200 today, or about $300 less than the $3500 it currently lists for.

I don't know if the OP (before edit) included exchange rate (it was there by the time I first read it earlier today) but it is relevant nevertheless.   I also don't know if Canon uses the model that is being suggested but in response to your point, if you're a executive at Canon Japan, the only thing that matters is Yen and it's very reasonable to believe that Canon Japan is setting the price in Yen, converting to USD at current exchange rates, and possibly consider whether that price in USD is too high for the market.  But even in the case that they did think the USD price was a bit high, I think it more likely they would set the list price as is, see what happens, and offer a behind the scenes discount to wholesalers so that the street price would go down rather than having a significant disparity in the list pricing.  I know not if any of this is true or what really happens at Canon HQ... just my idle speculation.

Ok, valid points. Taking that into consideration:

Assuming an intro price of $2700 in late 2008, adjusted for inflation, that would be about $2850 today. If we account for the exchange rate, in Yen in 9/2008 (rate of about ¥106/$1) $2700 is about ¥286200...and in Yen in 3/2012 (rate of about ¥81/$1) $3500 is about ¥283500. As far as adjusting for inflation/exchange rate to the Yen is concerned, the difference in yen is about ¥2700, and in USD today that difference would be about $33.33.

As far as I can tell, Canon introduced both cameras at roughly the same price point in their own currency.

I got my exchange rates from here (really quick bing search): http://www.x-rates.com/d/JPY/USD/hist2012.html

I used the exchange rate one month prior to the intro date as list prices in the various markets are invariably preconceived, though of course they might be using different number. Either way 76 Yen:USD was used for the 5DIII and 109 for the 5DII. Inflation was 7.8%. This results in $3500 vs $4170 USD.

Canon's prices for the 5D Mark II in Japan was 300k Yen, and for the 5D Mark III is 270k Yen. The projected price should have been 320k Yen.

If you go to http://www.canon.com/camera-museum you can see all of Canon's lenses and their intro prices in Yen. You'll notice that since the 1990's Canon has had almost no deviation in it's intro prices in Yen when adjusted for inflation. For example the 14mm f/2.8 L I was 298k yen in 1991 and 14mm f/2.8 L II was 307k yen in 2007. This matches the inflation rate down to fractions of a percent and you'll find a similar patterns in the rest of Canon's lenses and bodies, though their historical body prices aren't listed on that site.


I will agree with BobSanderson that invariably local rebates and price cuts over time will have no easily predictable pattern, as that's how Canon's pricing really works. Canon does not introduce products at what the market can bear but instead at what they have historically charged. Canon then tweaks pricing to what the market can bear with discounts. My point was simply that Canon's introduction pricing has been incredibly consistent and it is clear Canon broke tradition to price the 5DIII lower than the 5DII to begin with.

183

EOS Bodies / Re: Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 02, 2012, 07:32:56 PM »

You're missing the point of the thread inflation + exchange rate. Canon is a Japanese company their price is 20% lower in Yen. They have always priced their products for the US market based on inflation adjusted Yen at introduction. I've researched this extensively and this practice goes back 20 years. They have always priced their  products based on what the past version cost at introduction, adjusted for inflation and exchange rate. This goes back to the 20D the first EOS lenses, the 5D etc. So Canon really did break tradition for the first time in history to introduce this camera at a reduced price of $3500.

Nikon is a Japanese company too and they chose to price the D800 for 3000.  Does the exchange rate + inflation argument not apply to Nikon as well?

I was addressing the perception of money versus the historical record.

You're addressing the problem of perception of money versus the current camera market.

The 5D III I think is even more of a bargain when you consider the market. The D800 is a high megapixel pro camera that is otherwise unremarkable. The 5DIII has 2 stops of improved low light performance, which is astounding to say the least, and it features 1 series build quality. Both of those are very expensive features to put in a camera. More megapixels are not an expensive feature.  The 5D III is really like combining a D3X and the D3S into one body and charging half as much which is great, though not everyone wants the features.

184

EOS Bodies / Re: Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 02, 2012, 06:02:30 PM »

You're missing the point of the thread inflation + exchange rate. Canon is a Japanese company their price is 20% lower in Yen. They have always priced their products for the US market based on inflation adjusted Yen at introduction. I've researched this extensively and this practice goes back 20 years. They have always priced their  products based on what the past version cost at introduction, adjusted for inflation and exchange rate. This goes back to the 20D the first EOS lenses, the 5D etc. So Canon really did break tradition for the first time in history to introduce this camera at a reduced price of $3500.

185

EOS Bodies / Re: Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 02, 2012, 04:44:08 PM »

Waawaaa. You gotta pay to play. Just looking at the high ISO sample images of the MKIII, I'm happy to pay a $500 premium for it over the D800. This thing is a low-light monster.

Agreed not to mention the dynamic range improvements. Canon released a Nikon D3S with nearly twice the megapixels for nearly half the money. It's really an astonishing camera.

186

EOS Bodies / Newsflash on 5D mark III price: It's cheaper than the 5D II intro price

« on: March 02, 2012, 04:35:58 PM »

I keep seeing people posting about how they are dissatisfied with the 5D III price. Lets just look at the numbers:

Canon 5D Mark II intro price: 300,000 Yen
Canon 5D Mark III intro price: 270,000 Yen

Canon has always been a very rigid company with it's introductory pricing and has always priced successive products at the exact same price as previous generations, adjusted for inflation for the last 20 years. Their pricing has been so extremely consistent it deviates from the inflation rate in Japan less than a fraction of a percent. Their pricing is very similar to what Apple does in this way. The 5D Mark III marks the first time in history that Canon has ever priced a new generation of a product lower than the last generation.

If you have issues with the dollar amount complain about the devaluing of the US dollar, not about Canon.

I think the 5D III is a monumental upgrade, and the fact it's being offered for less than the last version was at introduction is all the more amazing.

Hope that helps clear up the pricing issue. If history is any indication the price will be cut in half over the next few years too

187

EOS Bodies / Stunned and impressed by the 5DIII.

« on: March 02, 2012, 04:07:27 AM »

- No more pattern noise
- Improved DR by 1 stop
- Improved jpg by 2 stops
- Improved raw by 1 stop
- Massivly improved AF
- 50% improvement in FPS
- Slightly more resolution
- Dual Card Slots
- 1 series build quality

Simply put Canon has surpassed all expecations. We're talking a 22 megapixel camera that can do the task of the best low light cameras and the best action cameras, with very decent FPS.

I'm more than impressed and can't wait to get my hands on one.

What does everyone else think of the new camera?

188

EOS Bodies / Re: 5d Mark III AEB, what gives? Am I missing something?

« on: March 02, 2012, 03:32:53 AM »

Man oh man, I was hoping the 5d Mark III would have everything and leave nothing to be desired.

There was one particular spec I was really hoping for: AEB 2, 3, 5, 7 @ 1/3EV, 1/2EV and 1EV. If you're an HDR enthusiast, you know how big of an asset this feature can be. 

I'm not sure what to make of it now that it's finally here. So the Mark III will have:

AE Bracketing   ±3 (2, 3, 5, 7 frames at 1/3 EV, 1/2 EV steps)

But why capped at 1/2EV steps? Am I missing something? tons of the Nikon cameras from the top down do full EV steps.

Nikon D3x:
AE Bracketing   (2, 3, 5, 7 frames at 1/3 EV, 1/2 EV, 2/3 EV, 1 EV steps)




Nikon D800
AE Bracketing   (2, 3, 5, 7 frames at 1/3 EV, 1/2 EV, 2/3 EV, 1 EV steps)


Heck, even the D300s does the same.

So the 5d M III won't do full EV steps even though the AEB has been expanded to 7...

I have to say I'm a little disappointed. A small stat indeed, but when you look at Canon's history of crappy AEB options this just seems WEIRD.

One spec may not be a deal-maker/breaker, but it is surely a consideration for my intended purposes. Man, the d800 @ $500 less + higher resolution + better AEB is looking good to me.

What do you make of this?

The current 5DII can do over 1 EV steps so I'm sure that 5DIII can do it, it's probably just an oversight in the write up of the camera.

189

EOS Bodies / Re: If 5d3 really is 22Mp, what will low light (ISO) performance likely be?

« on: February 28, 2012, 11:32:54 PM »

I hate to ask, as it has probably been beaten to death all over the world, but I need to know. My 5dII does fairly well, and based on my needs seldom pushes for TOO much of an increase. However, if they are using a sensor very close in MP size, it seems they are just following the approach by Nikon in the D3s revision.

I would expect images at 25,600 to rival 6400 on current 5d. Two stops is asking a lot, but I really think after 4 years of technology development this would be possible--even at 22MP.

If there is merely a clear one-stop advantage, I don't see a worthwhile reason to upgrade if AF is unimportant. Maybe low ISO/Shadow noise improvements could warrant a reason. As they always say, the proof is in the pudding. The more I look at the D800, which on paper appears to be wonderful at its price, the more I believe it will be noisier than a bunch of bad kids on Saturday morning. And that is a major reason NOT to jump ship!! At least for me, it is.

I think your technical understanding of photography is off the mark, to say the least.

Noise improvements happen from two areas, noise reduction and sensor technology. Seeing as you can just apply the latest noise reduction to any raw file the advantage doesn't go to any camera in this regard.

To give you the simple answer no the camera will not deliver 2 more stops of noise.

In fact in 9 years since the earliest days of DSLR's Canon has only increased sensor sensitivity by a QUARTER stop. To give you an idea of how off the charts what you're asking is, not only would it be 16 times the improvement Canon is used to delivering, it is actually against the laws of physics to improve the current 5D II 2 stops at the sensor level. The current 5D gathers 33% of the light that hits it. 2 stops would mean that the camera gathers more photons than actually exist. The camera would have to create more energy than it takes in which is along the realm of perpetual motion machines. Perhaps in the 5D Mark 1,003 but not the 5D mark 3.

It's worth mentioning though that Canon has let their sensors drift behind the field in terms of noise. So the 5D III is poised to have a massive 0.25 stop to 1 stop increase in noise handling, most likely a 0.33 stops or 0.5 stops to catch up to current standards. This sort of leap is considered the equivalent of going from air travel to space travel so it's a big deal and will be the biggest improvement that Canon has ever done in noise from one generation to another largely thanks to pressure from Nikon which has made extreme leaps in noise handling. Canon has already caught up the rest of their line to Nikon which has been done in smaller jumps thanks to a shorter life cycle so a leap of this magnitude is very likely.

So yes while the 5D II > 5D III noise won't meet your standards for being worth it, it will likely be the biggest improvement in a single generation that ever has or will happen.

As far as JPG's go you can expect 2 stops though as Canon implements revolutionary new noise reduction algorithms which have been available in only photoshop plug-ins so far.

190

Lenses / Re: MegaPixel frenzy vs. Lens capability

« on: February 27, 2012, 03:34:18 AM »

I've actually done extensive testing to determine the resolution capabilities of Canon's current lens line up.

Most of their lenses are only capable of about 14 megapixels of resolution. Their L lenses tend to be closer to 17 and handful of lenses such as the 70-200mm F4 IS can go all the way up to 36 megapixels based on extrapolating results from crop cameras.


Here's the weird thing about resolution though, just because a lens can only render 14 megapixels, doesn't mean it needs a 14 mp sensor.

The best way to illustrate this is to go into photoshop create an alternating black and white set of lines. Then resize it using nearest neighbor to 10x it's size. Offset it by just 2 or 3 pixels and then resize it using bicubic to the original size.

What you did there is took an image of a certain resolution and did the equivalent of trying to render it at it's own resolution while inserting random variation. In the real world a len's image does not line up perfectly with a sensor's pixels. Lens tests compensate for this by measuring at hundreds of points. The reality is though that if you had 1 pixels for every point a lens could render you'd only capture 50% of the len's resolution.

Thankfully we have sharpening algorithms which help to even out the issue, which theoretically can halve the issue, unfortunately cameras use bayer sensors which make the problem slightly worse. In the end if you had 1 pixel for every point a lens could render on our cameras you'd only capture around 70% of it's resolution after processing.

The theoretical point of deminishing returns when trying to render a lens follows this graph, as mentioned earlier sharpening algorithms make the problem about half as bad, so this assumes there is zero sharpening:



Theoretically if you used a 14 megapixel lens on a 14 mp sensor and compared it to the same lens on a 28 mp sensor (double the resolution of the lens) you'd see a 21% increase in resolution, a 56 mp sensor (quardruple) would result in a 32% increase in resolution over 14 mp, and a 112 mp sensor would get you a 37% increase. 

So there is some benefit to having way more resolution than your lens can render simply to catch all the contrasting edges which do not perfectly align with the pixels on your camera.

191

EOS Bodies / Re: *UPDATE* The Next 5D on March 2, 2012 [CR3]

« on: February 26, 2012, 10:06:10 PM »

With regard to people discussing the issue of pixel size versus noise, in modern sensors there are two issues and associated technologies which collaborate to eliminate the problem almost entirely.

Specifically micro lenses and back lit sensor technology. To actually have separate pixels you have to physically separate them with "walls" this was a big issue which impacted noise until the advent of micro lenses. These essentially magnify the incoming light so that none of it is wasted hitting anything but photo sensitive material and bend it around non-photo sensitive material. The second issue is that sensors for whatever reason have all their wiring on top instead of on the bottom at certain points that wiring can block enough light to affect noise, back lit sensors are wired under the photo cells not above, which solves this issue.

In any case though DSLR sensor technology is far from using the most advanced sensor tech possible. In fact DSLRs use some of the least advanced sensors made because they have a lot of light gathering area. Compact cameras use the most advanced sensors because economies of scale and extremely small sensors make it cost effective to do so.

Canon's most light sensitive sensor is found on a compact camera not a DSLR. If Canon used it's most advanced sensor tech in a full frame sensor it would output 210 megapixels, and have identical noise to the D3s, which is still almost a stop better than the 5DII.

So no technically speaking increases in resolution do not correlate with noise.

The problem is though that ECONOMICALLY speaking resolution does correlate with noise. Having advanced sensor technology is expensive and so is having high resolution. Two cameras one with high resolution and one with low noise would probably could be made for less than one camera which has both. That is why there is often a trade off, otherwise the sensor costs way too much to manufacture.

Canon actually used some of the least advanced sensor technology possible in the 5DII so it will be easy to make it leaps and bounds better in noise with increased resolution. At the least you can expect a quarter of a stop improvement in noise. At best you can expect a full stop. Likely it will be a half stop improvement. 

192

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 - New Sensor

« on: February 24, 2012, 06:32:34 PM »

Any guesses if the 5D3 will be a release of new sensor technology?  Perhaps a back-illuminated or otherwise new advanced technology.  Does the D800 have any of this?

The old 5D2 actually used one of the cheapest and least efficient sensors possible. In a word, it was stone age technology. The sensor had so little light gathering abbility that it performed on par only with medium format cameras and the earliest 2-6 megapixel DSLR's.

Back illumination and other such advanced technology is nessesary to eek gains out of sensors on the bleeding edge.

What Canon will likley do is simply update the sensor technology to just being average. Even so that will DOUBLE the light gathering of the sensor.

193

EOS Bodies / Re: Will the suggested 5d III specs satisfy your photograpy needs?

« on: February 23, 2012, 03:26:02 PM »

As others have said, it doesn't make sense to bring this highly anticipated camera to market without major improvments.

I think the most dramatic improvement we'll see is in noise. The 5D Mark II had some of the worst quantum efficiency (portion of photons collected) possible in a camera, it only collects 25% of the photons that strike the sensor. That number is so low that it is only equaled by medium format cameras, or some of the very very early DSLR's which only had 2-6 megapixels. Canon litelrally put one of the least advanced sensors they could make in the 5D and 5D II. It's stone age technology of the cheapest caliber. What is very possible and what I am hoping is that Canon bumps the camera to at least the "average" light gathering in it's range, if not making it the king of low noise.

At the least I'm speculating a 1 stop increase in light gathering, which is an epic difference, no more low iso noise and nikon quality dynamic range,  pro grade AF and a major bump in continuous RAW shooting as well as major improvements in video. This would pretty much make it the go-to camera for practically anything. THE killer app - a 22 mp D3s in other words.


I'm also speculating that Canon will then release another 5D like camera with 30-50 megapixels which will have a 'soviet era' sensor design.

If you take a 5D III with the specs I outlined, a 5DX with extreme resolution but poor performance otherwise and the 1DX you have the best bodies out there in this segment.

If the 5D III is anything like I'm speculating it will be perfect for most photographer's needs including my own.

194

Lenses / Re: 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 vs 17-40mm f/4L for a crop camera

« on: February 19, 2012, 02:14:42 PM »

Again, I've posted here before asking about different lens. So now I'm being a little realistic.

Rather than purchasing 24-105, I'm thinking about getting the 17-40mm as a replacement for my kit lens.

Which lens is going to be a better replacement for my 18-55mm?

If you do have another suggestion, I'd like to hear it as well. But my price range is from $500 - $800.

(Side note, I do not plan on going FF. I do plan on upgrading to a 7d though, even though it's still a crop sensor camera)

This should really be a simple decision. The 17-40mm L is the absolute worst choice you could possibly have on a crop body. That lens is only useful on full frame. The reason is that is virtually idencial performance to the 18-55mm IS kit lens, while having significantly less features in many key areas. Canon makes an amazing kit lens for it's crop bodies. The 15-85mm is one of the best lenes around though.

195

EOS Bodies / Re: this would make huge difference in quality

« on: February 19, 2012, 01:05:40 AM »

Canon already has the technology to make cameras with 15 times the resolution, a third the noise and 50% more dynamic range all in the same sensor. The main issue is in how much it costs to make these sorts of sensors. The limit hasn't been technological for many many many years. It has been a battle of mass producing high tech sensors cheaply.