The Land of Crazy or.... ? [CR1]

[RuneL]

Is there a need for anything wider than a 10-something for crops?

Even the 16-35 is stupidly wide on fullframe and as I remember was only made because sensors were crop.


Regarding the 1D V:
35Mp let's say 50Mb for a raw @ 10+ fps = wat?

That will be something around 600mb/s (including overhead) - how is that possible? The you need a crazy fast CF-card - what about heat and power consumption?

Or do you switch to crop/every other pixel turned off? Well, we'll see.

If it's 35mp @ 10 FPS then Canon has come up with some clever tech.

[neuroanatomist]

Even the 16-35 is stupidly wide on fullframe and as I remember was only made because sensors were crop.

I don't think so.  The 16-35mm MkI was released in 2001, and while that was just after the D30, the 16-35mm was the successor to the 17-35mm f/2.8L, and that lens (released in 1996) predates commercially-available dSLRs.  The fact that the 16-35 is slightly wider than the 17-35 was probably just Canon pushing the envelope. 

[drummstikk]

> August 2011 7D Mark II
> • 24 Mega pixel Full Frame
> • Dual Digic V
> • Will be a partial replacement for the discontinued 1D Mark IV

It would certainly seem odd for Canon to make this camera and call it "7D Mk II." But whatever they call it (7Ds, maybe?), Canon does need to make this camera.

It kind of blows my mind that Canon has gone this far into the "D3 era" with no full frame "sports" camera. 1Ds MkIII has 5fps, barely adequate and at an uber-premium price and overkill resolution for those of us who shoot almost exclusively for print or web publication. 5D MkII, at about 3fps, is fine for the 7-10 times a year I do "arena" lighting, but usually stays home on most other sports assignments. (I'm actually still using the original 5D Mark nothing.)

The 8fps on 7D rarely lets me down on sports jobs. Only in diving do I ever pine for anything faster. But it would be huge if I could put a (rented) 400mm f/2.8 on a full-frame camera and have it *LOOK* like a 400 2.8 with it's beautiful razor-thin depth of field. I don't see why this shouldn't be a "pro-sumer" option for those of us in the mid-markets that don't command the kind of rates that would justify the purchase of something like the 1Ds Mark III.

[Stone]

> August 2011 7D Mark II
> • 24 Mega pixel Full Frame
> • Dual Digic V
> • Will be a partial replacement for the discontinued 1D Mark IV

It would certainly seem odd for Canon to make this camera and call it "7D Mk II." But whatever they call it (7Ds, maybe?), Canon does need to make this camera.

It kind of blows my mind that Canon has gone this far into the "D3 era" with no full frame "sports" camera. 1Ds MkIII has 5fps, barely adequate and at an uber-premium price and overkill resolution for those of us who shoot almost exclusively for print or web publication. 5D MkII, at about 3fps, is fine for the 7-10 times a year I do "arena" lighting, but usually stays home on most other sports assignments. (I'm actually still using the original 5D Mark nothing.)

The 8fps on 7D rarely lets me down on sports jobs. Only in diving do I ever pine for anything faster. But it would be huge if I could put a (rented) 400mm f/2.8 on a full-frame camera and have it *LOOK* like a 400 2.8 with it's beautiful razor-thin depth of field. I don't see why this shouldn't be a "pro-sumer" option for those of us in the mid-markets that don't command the kind of rates that would justify the purchase of something like the 1Ds Mark III.

In a nutshell, because Canon, Nikon, Sony etc. don't give a flip what you desire.  They are only concerned with what you are willing to pay for.  There's not a market leader in any industry that produces goods and/or services for the love of their craft.  As an example, why would any big pharma cure HIV even if they could?  For the good of humanity?  LOL!!!  There's no ongoing revenue stream in the cure but there's a constant revenue stream from the treatment, would you sacrifice your multi-billion dollar company for the good of humanity?  I think not, that's why if you caught HIV 15 years ago, you'd already be dead (well except for Magic Johnson but he can afford it) but people today with the virus will more than likely make it into their 70s if they can afford the meds.....

Sometime in the 70s-90s era consumers caught amnesia and we've all been bending over ever since.  It's why companies continue to spoon feed us technology instead of making huge leaps, do you really think Canon JUST figured out how to to push FF images at 10+ fps?  Do you think they CAN'T make a virtually weatherproof body?  People will pay for incremental advances in tech so they get incremental advances in tech.  It's why Apple has made billions from a phone that only allowed you to send MMS message 3yrs ago when everyone else had been doing it for almost 8yrs.  I could rant about this forever.

All it would take is 1 boycott of a major Canon product and you'd see the features you want in a more affordable body, of course it'll never happen because we've gotta have the next best thing, no matter how underwhelming the upgrade actually proves to be.....

[neuroanatomist]

As an example, why would any big pharma cure HIV even if they could?  For the good of humanity?  LOL!!!  There's no ongoing revenue stream in the cure but there's a constant revenue stream from the treatment, would you sacrifice your multi-billion dollar company for the good of humanity? 

Two drugs just approved by the FDA (boceprevir and telaprevir) have a reasonable cure rate for hepatitis C.  Pharma companies develop vaccines to prevent disease, because that's better than treatment.   Is that for altruistic reasons?  No, it's for profit.  To use your example, big pharma would cure HIV if they could, again, for profit.  Pharma and health insurance companies can tell you to the penny what HIV patients pay for lifelong treatment.  A cure would be priced substantially higher than maintenance drugs, but still lower than lifetime cost - the result?  Whichever pharma gets there first rakes in the bucks, because they get the whole pie, instead of the standard course of treatment, which comprises different drugs from different makers, and usually at least one generic that clearly eats into pharma's profits.

That's really what it's about - profit.  If Canon had game-changing technology, they would bring it to market.  Canon had the technology to mass produce a FF CMOS sensor.  Did they sit on that?  No.  They released the 1Ds in 2002, and effectively monopolized the FF dSLR market share for the next 5 years, releasing MkII and MkIII versions of the 1Ds by the time Nikon made it to the FF game with the D3 in 2007.  By then Canon had already scooped up two years of profits from the FF 'prosumer' market they created when they launched the 5D in 2005 - and Nikon would wait until 2008's 5DII to release their D700 into that market segment.

[Stone]

As an example, why would any big pharma cure HIV even if they could?  For the good of humanity?  LOL!!!  There's no ongoing revenue stream in the cure but there's a constant revenue stream from the treatment, would you sacrifice your multi-billion dollar company for the good of humanity? 

Two drugs just approved by the FDA (boceprevir and telaprevir) have a reasonable cure rate for hepatitis C.  Pharma companies develop vaccines to prevent disease, because that's better than treatment.   Is that for altruistic reasons?  No, it's for profit.  To use your example, big pharma would cure HIV if they could, again, for profit.  Pharma and health insurance companies can tell you to the penny what HIV patients pay for lifelong treatment.  A cure would be priced substantially higher than maintenance drugs, but still lower than lifetime cost - the result?  Whichever pharma gets there first rakes in the bucks, because they get the whole pie, instead of the standard course of treatment, which comprises different drugs from different makers, and usually at least one generic that clearly eats into pharma's profits.

That's really what it's about - profit.  If Canon had game-changing technology, they would bring it to market.  Canon had the technology to mass produce a FF CMOS sensor.  Did they sit on that?  No.  They released the 1Ds in 2002, and effectively monopolized the FF dSLR market share for the next 5 years, releasing MkII and MkIII versions of the 1Ds by the time Nikon made it to the FF game with the D3 in 2007.  By then Canon had already scooped up two years of profits from the FF 'prosumer' market they created when they launched the 5D in 2005 - and Nikon would wait until 2008's 5DII to release their D700 into that market segment.

It's true Canon wanted to be the first to mass market a production FF sensor, but Pentax had announced a FF sensor 2 years earlier that never went into production.  I'm not arguing that companies never innovate and push the market forward but I argue that they do it at their own pace when it will have the biggest impact on their bottom line  and that it has far more to do with what you as a consumer will accept as opposed to the absolute best they have to offer at any given point in time.  I learned a loong time ago, that marketing guys have a saying "don't give away now what you can sell later".  Throughout my 20+ year consulting career, I've done business with a large number of fortune 5s from pharmas to defense contractors.  You'll just have to trust me when I say, they sit on tech all the time, choosing instead to release incremental improvements.

Regarding boceprevir and telaprevir, you'd be amazed at how long ago those drugs were fully developed excluding clinical trials and the time it took to gain fda approval.

[neuroanatomist]

The fact that an item is announced or a prototype can be produced does not necessarily mean that the same item can be put into mass production, perhaps for technical reasons, perhaps for economic reasons.  So, companies may 'sit on tech' not out of a desire to hold it back, but because it's not yet feasible to produce it.  You say Pentax announced a FF sensor that never went into production.  So?  Canon announced a 120 MP APS-H sensor in 2010.  By your logic, the 1D MkV should have that sensor, right?  Else, Canon is 'sitting on their tech' and 'incrementally releasing it'.  I'm pretty sure there are other factors that preclude mass production of a 120 MP APS-H camera, and will for some time to come.

Regarding boceprevir and telaprevir, you'd be amazed at how long ago those drugs were fully developed excluding clinical trials and the time it took to gain fda approval.

No, I wouldn't - but the companies that developed them (one large pharma, one mid-sized pharma/biotech) certainly didn't 'sit on them'.  In drug development, molecules that will eventually become drugs are patented long before a human is dosed with them, and every day that goes by prior to a drug launch is one less day at the other end - the patent expiration where a generic version will dramatically reduce revenues from that drug.  'Sitting on' Lipotor before it launched would mean a loss to Pfizer of $27 million per day after the patent expires this year.  No one is sitting on anything in that industry. 

[Stone]

The fact that an item is announced or a prototype can be produced does not necessarily mean that the same item can be put into mass production, perhaps for technical reasons, perhaps for economic reasons.  So, companies may 'sit on tech' not out of a desire to hold it back, but because it's not yet feasible to produce it.  You say Pentax announced a FF sensor that never went into production.  So?  Canon announced a 120 MP APS-H sensor in 2010.  By your logic, the 1D MkV should have that sensor, right?  Else, Canon is 'sitting on their tech' and 'incrementally releasing it'.  I'm pretty sure there are other factors that preclude mass production of a 120 MP APS-H camera, and will for some time to come.

A prototype is a proof of concept, a display of the feasibility of a piece of tech.  I'm referring completed tech that is either ready or can be immediately made ready for mass production.

As to your example, the current APS-H sensor is 16MP so you think they just decided to jump from 16 to 120? Or would it be more logical to assume that they incrementally increased the MP count until they reached the current stable maximum of 120MP?  You can continue to believe that you get the absolute best that your favorite manufacturer is able to produce every year, and you would be no different than the rest of the populace that's a good thing, it means your favorite company's marketing department is doing its job.  Unfortunately for me and a few of my peers, we learned differently many years ago, it really puts a damper on all these exciting press releases you see every day.  We can just agree to disagree....

[unfocused]

The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they can never be proven wrong, because any evidence to the contrary is just taken as further proof of how the conspirators are fooling everyone but the handful of people who "know" the truth.

It's the same whether it's 200 mpg carburetors, Elvis is still alive, black helicopters, fluoridated water or super secret superior camera technology that's being purposely withheld from consumers.

[neuroanatomist]

We can just agree to disagree....

I don't know that we're actually disagreeing.      My point is that a manufacturer is going to release a technology/product at the time when they predict it will yield the greatest profit.  Likewise, they're not going to 'waste' money on R&D with no expectation of an ROI - and as a general rule, an early ROI is better than a delayed ROI, unless it's predicted that there's substantially more profit to be gained from a delayed release. 

In the example of the 120 MP APS-H sensor, I actually doubt they produced incrementally increasing versions - that may not have been cost effective.  If it were my R&D money, I'd have had a team do some computer modeling to suggest the maximum feasible density, then attempted to produce three versions - that predicted max, and something lower and something higher.  Three shots on goal, simultaneous, rather than racheting it up with repeated costs for each increment.  But honestly, I can't speak to any sort inside knowledge of how they did it.

Certainly, in some industries technology is 'held back' - you mentioned defense, so compare consumer GPS systems with military GPS systems.  The latter is always ahead of the former (although the companies are still making a profit from their technology, albeit from a different sector.

Back to releasing a product when it will generate the maximum product, I do think that's the key driver - and I definitely acknowledge that that is not always as soon as the technology is available and producible.  In the specific case of boceprevir and telaprevir, and the general case of drug development, the maximum profit results from the earliest possible release.  If a cure for HIV were developed (and some are being actively worked on), it would be released as soon as possible (and I do speak from direct knowledge in this case - I happen to hold a senior position in a large pharma company). 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Little doubt that companies are for profit.  There are still those who claim gasoline companies are holding back inventions that let a automobile run on water!  The flat earth society is pretty well defunct though.

Everyone would like a camera that can do everything, high ISO capable, high resolution, improved DR, and super high quality high speed video, plus a lot more.

However, its a tradeoff, to improve one area often makes another worse, and increasing the speed and bandwidth of the processor requires more power, so its a balancing act.  By designing cameras that focus more closely on specific users, you can shift the balance say towards higher fps, or you can make a studio camera with higher DR and resolution, or one optimized for video.  Try to do them all, and compromises will be made.  I'd prefer having different camera models that are specialized to having one that is compromised but does a little of everything.

[Stone]

The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they can never be proven wrong, because any evidence to the contrary is just taken as further proof of how the conspirators are fooling everyone but the handful of people who "know" the truth.

It's the same whether it's 200 mpg carburetors, Elvis is still alive, black helicopters, fluoridated water or super secret superior camera technology that's being purposely withheld from consumers.

You REALLY think this is a conspiracy theory in the realm of things like we never went to the moon and the illuminati?  It's not that serious, try a conspiracy of marketing and it won't seem so devious..LOL!!! 

I guess once a "sane" person labels something as a conspiracy theory, they no longer have to think critically, nothing I've said is out of the question once you know what drives a corporation and to whom they owe their allegiance.  I'll give you a hint, it ain't you, and that's well known, no conspiracy necessary.    

[Stone]

We can just agree to disagree....

I don't know that we're actually disagreeing.      My point is that a manufacturer is going to release a technology/product at the time when they predict it will yield the greatest profit.  Likewise, they're not going to 'waste' money on R&D with no expectation of an ROI - and as a general rule, an early ROI is better than a delayed ROI, unless it's predicted that there's substantially more profit to be gained from a delayed release. 

In the example of the 120 MP APS-H sensor, I actually doubt they produced incrementally increasing versions - that may not have been cost effective.  If it were my R&D money, I'd have had a team do some computer modeling to suggest the maximum feasible density, then attempted to produce three versions - that predicted max, and something lower and something higher.  Three shots on goal, simultaneous, rather than racheting it up with repeated costs for each increment.  But honestly, I can't speak to any sort inside knowledge of how they did it.

Certainly, in some industries technology is 'held back' - you mentioned defense, so compare consumer GPS systems with military GPS systems.  The latter is always ahead of the former (although the companies are still making a profit from their technology, albeit from a different sector.

Back to releasing a product when it will generate the maximum product, I do think that's the key driver - and I definitely acknowledge that that is not always as soon as the technology is available and producible.  In the specific case of boceprevir and telaprevir, and the general case of drug development, the maximum profit results from the earliest possible release.  If a cure for HIV were developed (and some are being actively worked on), it would be released as soon as possible (and I do speak from direct knowledge in this case - I happen to hold a senior position in a large pharma company).

Well put and I do see your point, we're not that far off.  If that large pharma is one of the ones located in Princeton, NJ then we may very well have done business either recently or in the past, I was last out there in Oct 2010.

[nova_dream]

Very strange. The actual 7D is placed right in the middle between the 60D (with its lacks of pro options) and the 5D Mark II (with its complete pro bundle). Now the 7D Mark II would enter the Full Frame category and even partially replacing the 1D Mark IV? Now I don't see the point of getting a 5D Mark III if the 7DII will be doing what a 5DII can.

[Stone]

Very strange. The actual 7D is placed right in the middle between the 60D (with its lacks of pro options) and the 5D Mark II (with its complete pro bundle). Now the 7D Mark II would enter the Full Frame category and even partially replacing the 1D Mark IV? Now I don't see the point of getting a 5D Mark III if the 7DII will be doing what a 5DII can.

I don't think the 7D would get a FF sensor, that would definitely screw things up in the lineup making it a far better buy than the 5DIII due to it's high performance characteristics.  I will however argue that the current 5DII does not represent a pro bundle, yes, many, many pros use it daily and it arguably has the best video in the lineup, the build quality, weather sealing and ancient AF based on the 20D disqualify it as a pro build.  Have a look at the D700 which is the closest competitor and it's very solidly built with a far more modern auto focus system.  I know many pro photogs who will use nothing but the center af point on a 5DII.  It's definitely in need of a substantial overhaul....