A Big Megapixel Discussion

[Normalnorm]

Again it depends what you shoot. More MP sure are helpful for distant wildlife shots. A 38-48MP FF camera would put a lot more pixels on your duck than the 5D3. Just look at how the 7D does better than the mighty 5D3 when you are distance limited (under most circumstances, and under ANY if you compare to the 5D2).

If you want crazy crisp landscapes where you can walk right up and admire every last little marvelous texture in the rocks and tree bark, etc....

For me the DR most of all and then the MP hitting like 38MP say (might be better for video than more) would mean infinitely more than higher speed flash sync which I might use once in a blue moon.

I take your points.
In that case it would seem a high res version of the current 1D body would set you up just fine. For me, I came from a Hasselblad studio background where ultimate image quality and the sync speed (coupled with glorious lenses) were king. Weatherproofing? Shoot inside or bring an umbrella. High frame rate?(How fast can you wind?)Rugged build? Bring  a hammer. Even then ultimate image quality for some clients was 8x10 transparency.
Once I have the IQ (5Dmk3 is just fine thanks) all I want is sync speed.

[thomas2279@hotmail.com]

Could be battling with the Rumoured D4x - D800 sensor / 2nd generation 36mp Sony FF chip ?

[wockawocka]

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

you obviously don't have a medium format! they are a pain in the ass to use, so far behind in technology. price isn't everything, i want it to do the best job it can, price isn't the most important factor for a big chunk of the market.

what i need as an advertising photographer is more speed, more iso and lots of megapixels. my p65+ has enough pixels, it just cant be used in many situations. if canon can release a decent high megapixel camera that can do iso 800 at 3-5 fps, they will own the high end of the market.

paul

You noticeably didn't read my sig. I use a H4D50 for wedding, studio and landscape photography.

Medium format is cumbersome to use but well worth the grief. The Hasselblad lenses are the best in the world, the colour, also world class.

The majority of people using such large file sizes will be studio and landscapers. Run and gun wedding togs just don't have the need (in general) for such high file sizes. I use mine for wedding stuff for things like flowers, panoramic building shots, group shots but the rest the 1DX is used for.

I would trade down my H4D50 but the camera would have to be CHEAP because I know for a fact I would be losing out on the quality medium format affords me. When it comes to high resolution sensors I'm not fussed about ISO performance but ultimate IQ. I know that to squeeze than many pixels onto 35mm is a compromise. As are the lenses. They just aren't good enough compared to H series stuff.

Heck I may even buy a big mp Canon and keep the Hassy. It's that good. I wouldn't dream of shooting a whole wedding on a big MP Canon though. I hear about D800 owners downsizing all their image files to fit onto a DVD.

[unfocused]

If they had made a duplicate version with no video, I would have bought that instead even if it was the same price.

Why??? How does having it hurt you? At the very least you'd be a fool since you'd pay the same for something that would have less retail value and yet behave EXACTLY the same in hand for you.

Why do so many still photographers have such hatred for video? I thought photographers were supposed to be creative, open-minded types always wanting to explore new things? Even if you don't want to, all the talk about paying as much or even more just to get a body with video disabled sounds utterly nuts to me.

It's even more nuts when you realize that DSLRs are really video cameras anyway. You can't "take out" video unless you just want to use the camera as a doorstop. And, as has been discussed many times on this forum, the video recording features reduce the per unit cost of the camera. People who say they would "pay more" for a camera that can't do video recording have no idea just how much more they would have to pay.

[RVB]

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

you obviously don't have a medium format! they are a pain in the ass to use, so far behind in technology. price isn't everything, i want it to do the best job it can, price isn't the most important factor for a big chunk of the market.

what i need as an advertising photographer is more speed, more iso and lots of megapixels. my p65+ has enough pixels, it just cant be used in many situations. if canon can release a decent high megapixel camera that can do iso 800 at 3-5 fps, they will own the high end of the market.

paul

You noticeably didn't read my sig. I use a H4D50 for wedding, studio and landscape photography.

Medium format is cumbersome to use but well worth the grief. The Hasselblad lenses are the best in the world, the colour, also world class.

The majority of people using such large file sizes will be studio and landscapers. Run and gun wedding togs just don't have the need (in general) for such high file sizes. I use mine for wedding stuff for things like flowers, panoramic building shots, group shots but the rest the 1DX is used for.

I would trade down my H4D50 but the camera would have to be CHEAP because I know for a fact I would be losing out on the quality medium format affords me. When it comes to high resolution sensors I'm not fussed about ISO performance but ultimate IQ. I know that to squeeze than many pixels onto 35mm is a compromise. As are the lenses. They just aren't good enough compared to H series stuff.

Heck I may even buy a big mp Canon and keep the Hassy. It's that good. I wouldn't dream of shooting a whole wedding on a big MP Canon though. I hear about D800 owners downsizing all their image files to fit onto a DVD.

Don't sell your Hassy,you will regret it.the file's from the H4d-50 are fabulous and I doubt any 35mm camera will give the same look,Having both the new high res canon body and the H4D sounds like the charm..

[expatinasia]

There seems to be an awful lot of wishful thinking going on in this thread, with many hoping it will be in a 5D-type body - especially as that could indicate a more affordable price as compared to a 1D ?.

Personally I cannot see that happening. The 1D S makes more sense from where I am sitting. They make a flagship studio camera to go along with the flagship sport / high fps camera, and then remove certain features to eventually get down to a 5D Mark IV.

Do they want to sit there with nothing to compete with D800 until 2015 or 2016 though? If it is some giant $8500 1DsX that will hardly compete with the D800.

Good point, though if they did release a big (1D) mp camera in 2014 then a watered down 5D Mark IV - which could compete with this D800/D800E - could follow soon after.

Personally, unless the new high mp camera has very goof fps then I am much more interested in what they have planned for the new 1DX ii. Plenty of time for them to get that right (just hope they remember a headphone jack this time!). 

[The Flasher]

16bit RAW image capture, not megapixels, would define progress in the DSLR market.

J

[bdunbar79]

There seems to be an awful lot of wishful thinking going on in this thread, with many hoping it will be in a 5D-type body - especially as that could indicate a more affordable price as compared to a 1D ?.

Personally I cannot see that happening. The 1D S makes more sense from where I am sitting. They make a flagship studio camera to go along with the flagship sport / high fps camera, and then remove certain features to eventually get down to a 5D Mark IV.

Do they want to sit there with nothing to compete with D800 until 2015 or 2016 though? If it is some giant $8500 1DsX that will hardly compete with the D800.

Depends on what you mean by "compete."  If you're talking about sales, the 5D3 was already way ahead.

[chauncey]

If you don't need more MP, why are you even in this sandbox...some of us want/need those MP...why berate us?

High res allows down sampling which creates a cleaner file

Add "superior" to "cleaner"...downsizing a large file creates a better image than does native resolution. And cropping a large file increases DOF for macro shooters.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

There seems to be an awful lot of wishful thinking going on in this thread, with many hoping it will be in a 5D-type body - especially as that could indicate a more affordable price as compared to a 1D ?.

Personally I cannot see that happening. The 1D S makes more sense from where I am sitting. They make a flagship studio camera to go along with the flagship sport / high fps camera, and then remove certain features to eventually get down to a 5D Mark IV.

Do they want to sit there with nothing to compete with D800 until 2015 or 2016 though? If it is some giant $8500 1DsX that will hardly compete with the D800.

Depends on what you mean by "compete."  If you're talking about sales, the 5D3 was already way ahead.

Maybe so, but that still wouldn't sell an $8500 1Dsx, that would just sell more 5D3 and a few more D800 for those who want that and gave up on Canon at that point because of the price or nothing as some wait for the 5D4.

But I guess they could try to gouge out some big profits on however many 1Dxs they could manage to sell and then quickly dump out a top 5D4. I suppose. That would probably gun shy most 1Ds users from anything such in the future though.

[Don Haines]

A 46 megapixel FF camera will have the same pixel density as an 18 megapixel APS-C camera.

The most critical limitation on the camera will be the glass used. On an APS-C camera, if you want a sharp picture you have to use top-of-the-line lenses, the sharpest lenses that canon offers. Use anything else and image quality suffers.... perhaps this is why there has been so much effort updating Canon Lglass.... so that when a high megapixel camera comes out, it can have glass that works with it. (Are you listening Nikon?)

The second limitation is caused by the smaller area of the pixels. You can expect the same IQ as that of any of the APS-C cameras, unless the release of this new camera is coupled with newer and better sensor technology.

I do not believe the doom and gloom predictions of slow frame rate because of a larger sensor. The time spent reading a sensor is small enough to be ignored.... time spent processing the data and storing the data onto a memory card are the big killers.... but one can increase the buffer memory enough to allow a string of several dozen pictures to be taken at a high frame rate... and the speed of compact flashes is steadily going up... you can now get ones that write at 145MB/second. I have some 4X speed (600KB/s) 1MB cards.... It has come a long way since then and I will be very surprised if we do not soon see 2000X speeds. Likewise, we now have Digic6. How long before we see dual Digic6... or even quad or hex?. A data processing/storage system able to handle files twice the size is not a big jump.... After all, the world did not end when cameras jumped from 10Mpixels to 18...

[LOALTD]

Wasn't the whole point of the 1Dx was that it was going to consolidate the two 1D models into one model to rule them all?  Would a high-megapixel camera in a body with a stupid permanent grip (can you tell my opinion on this yet?) go against this philosophy?

I hate vertical grips, and 1D bodies are way too heavy and cumbersome, no thanks!

Echoing what everyone else has said, yes, DR improvements are more important than megapixel improvements.  But other companies have proven you can, indeed, have both.

*tangent: anyone else think it was odd that the 1Ds models were the ones NOT intended for sports?  dumb. confusing.

[art_d]

16bit RAW image capture, not megapixels, would define progress in the DSLR market.

J

Well...not really. Not unless those 16 bits are actually used for something other than just quantizing noise. That's all the current 16 bit systems do. Those extra bits don't really carry useful data. In practical terms the only thing 16 bits provides over 14 bits is: 1) making the raw file unnecessarily larger; and 2) give marketing people stuff to talk about that really doesn't affect image quality.

[art_d]

I am really hoping they opt for the 5D series body. I think that would make more sense because the 1D series cameras are built for people who shoot high volume work. High megapixel shooters tend to do low more low volume work.

Plus, for all the 5DII users who didn't upgrade to a 5DIII because of a lack of megapixel or IQ improvements, a higher megapixel 5Dx would finally give them a reason to buy a new Canon camera.

[TAF]

Either 34.56mp (4800x7200) or 56.62mp (6144x9216; extra credit for seeing why I chose the latter numbers).

1920*3=5760

5760*1.6(crop)=9216

So it's the same pixel density as a 1.6 crop sensor with three horizontal pixels per output horizontal pixel in full HD video mode.

Fascinating.  That was not what I was looking at at all.

I was thinking 256 pixels per mm (vice 200 pixels per mm for the 7200).  I like your answer better.  Well done.