26.4mp 5D Mark III Mid-year? [CR1]

[hsoftdev17]

I'm actually kinda surprised to see Digic V without CFast being mentioned anywhere.  It seems to me that if Digic V is proclaiming amazing throughput, it would need the amazing throughput of CFast behind it.

[ronin8600]

So, to not must have a crop as second body for better reach FF must currently have 46MP. They absolutely must fix this because I don't always want to carry a second body.

I'm new to digital photography so the following could be a stupid questions.

Are you talking about doing the crop in post to simulate the same effect of a crop sensor?

Also I read an interesting article the other day from a National  Geographic photographer (http://photocinenews.com/2010/10/22/nat-geo-shooter-ben-horton-compares-canon-glass-to-zeiss-glass/) saying that the 5d mark II sensor can capture more detail than the Canon L lens can give it, so would we really benefit from 46 MP with the current lenses?

Would Canon need to make new and more expensive lenses to take advantage of 46MP?  I looked at the prices for some medium format camera lenses and they seem to be significantly more expensive

Since the only drawback of more pixels is file size and possibly frame rate, which both may be addressed in different ways, there is no reason to not fix this very severe problem.

Does ISO performance/sensitivity get sacrificed at the cost of higher pixel densities since the pixels are a lot smaller?

[yellowbull]

What about Exposure Bracketing improvements? Nikon will go up to 9 increments!

[transpo1]

I don't see how it would be possible for Canon to crank up manufacturing for a new camera over the summer when they are straining to meet current production needs...unless they are hoarding components for a yet to be announced model.

[gmrza]

" 19 point AF system, 3 cross-type points"
That is a few steps backward from the 7D. 7D is ALL 19 points cross.

I think they meant f/2.8 cross-type points, with the rest being f/5.6.

This is the one spec that kind of stands out to me; where would the 3 be? Seems kind of odd...I would think 5 would make more sense (1 center, 4 corners or 1 center and 1 on each side of the center). Being 3 it might be Center, then the one directly to the left and right of it.

The various comments about "3 focus points" makes for interesting reading because those who've been using Canon SLRs for longer than the "digital years" will be familiar with how Canon arranged auto-focus points on SLRs with of 3 them. Strange as it may seem, when there were only 3 auto focus points, I was still able to take photos that were in focus.

Strange as it may seem, people took good photos of all sorts of things before the viewfinder was full of autofocus points - heck, how many auto-focus points do you think Ansel Adams had? Photographers that are children of the Internet revolution are such babies.

Seconded.

I mostly use just the central focus point... all the other are just used to confirm focus on ladnscapes.

I was actually wondering how many people only use the centre auto-focus point. 
For subjects that are not moving, I still tend to prefer to focus and recompose.  I have to admit that the 7D's cluster of focus points in the centre is a nice-to-have feature.
Better low-light performance is probably far more important to more autofocus points. - Even for people like wedding shooters.

[DuLt]

@ gmrza
With slow-lenses (f4 and up) it's quite faster than pressing all the buttons required to select a point.

[traveller]

Yes, 5D3 needs significantly improved AF.
However 21MP is not enough for anyone who likes tele photo. When you crop a little you soon end up in less than 5MP. For anyone who sometimes use a 1.4x tele converter double number of pixels seems to be a very much perfered option since you will always have it on and don't have to change anything.
Increasing the number of pixels is one part of improved image quality. All PP, cropping, angeling, resampling, whatever you want to do, will benefit to start from higher resolution.

OK, but telephoto users are often the most demanding of a cameras AF system, so boosting the resolution without addressing AF and fps is surely pointless because the camera will not appeal to them. 

[Bob Howland]

High ISO performace is not affected in a negative way by higher pixel density (within reasonable manufacturing possibilities).  7D has much higher pixel density than 5D2 but performs equaly or better than 5D2 per area at high ISO. High ISO performance is correlateded to sensor size and efficiency not pixel size.

So the 5D3 will be as good at ISO 51200 as the Nikon D3s. We'll see.

[HughHowey]

High ISO performace is not affected in a negative way by higher pixel density (within reasonable manufacturing possibilities).  7D has much higher pixel density than 5D2 but performs equaly or better than 5D2 per area at high ISO. High ISO performance is correlateded to sensor size and efficiency not pixel size.

Yeah, but the sensor sizes in the 5D and 7D are fixed, so adding pixels == increasing density == worse high ISO performance. The only way manufacturers have been able to get around this is to increase pixel sensitivity and decrease bleed-over. Also, the crystalline structure of the sensors have been improved, creating channels for the light to enter each pixel and not its neighbor.

This is really is the nano-engineering from yesterday's science fiction. It just crept up so slowly, it doesn't seem as amazing as it should.

[Etienne]

So, to not must have a crop as second body for better reach FF must currently have 46MP. They absolutely must fix this because I don't always want to carry a second body.

I'm new to digital photography so the following could be a stupid questions.

Are you talking about doing the crop in post to simulate the same effect of a crop sensor?

Also I read an interesting article the other day from a National  Geographic photographer (http://photocinenews.com/2010/10/22/nat-geo-shooter-ben-horton-compares-canon-glass-to-zeiss-glass/) saying that the 5d mark II sensor can capture more detail than the Canon L lens can give it, so would we really benefit from 46 MP with the current lenses?

Would Canon need to make new and more expensive lenses to take advantage of 46MP?  I looked at the prices for some medium format camera lenses and they seem to be significantly more expensive

Since the only drawback of more pixels is file size and possibly frame rate, which both may be addressed in different ways, there is no reason to not fix this very severe problem.

Does ISO performance/sensitivity get sacrificed at the cost of higher pixel densities since the pixels are a lot smaller?

Yes, I'm talking about cropping myself.

The author of the article unfortunately don't know what he is talking about. 

High ISO performace is not affected in a negative way by higher pixel density (within reasonable manufacturing possibilities).  7D has much higher pixel density than 5D2 but performs equaly or better than 5D2 per area at high ISO. High ISO performance is correlateded to sensor size and efficiency not pixel size.

5DII high ISO performance is much better than the 7D, it will take you 30seconds with google to find the evidence.

[EYEONE]

So, to not must have a crop as second body for better reach FF must currently have 46MP. They absolutely must fix this because I don't always want to carry a second body.

I'm new to digital photography so the following could be a stupid questions.

Are you talking about doing the crop in post to simulate the same effect of a crop sensor?

Also I read an interesting article the other day from a National  Geographic photographer (http://photocinenews.com/2010/10/22/nat-geo-shooter-ben-horton-compares-canon-glass-to-zeiss-glass/) saying that the 5d mark II sensor can capture more detail than the Canon L lens can give it, so would we really benefit from 46 MP with the current lenses?

Would Canon need to make new and more expensive lenses to take advantage of 46MP?  I looked at the prices for some medium format camera lenses and they seem to be significantly more expensive

Since the only drawback of more pixels is file size and possibly frame rate, which both may be addressed in different ways, there is no reason to not fix this very severe problem.

Does ISO performance/sensitivity get sacrificed at the cost of higher pixel densities since the pixels are a lot smaller?

Yes, I'm talking about cropping myself.

The author of the article unfortunately don't know what he is talking about. 

High ISO performace is not affected in a negative way by higher pixel density (within reasonable manufacturing possibilities).  7D has much higher pixel density than 5D2 but performs equaly or better than 5D2 per area at high ISO. High ISO performance is correlateded to sensor size and efficiency not pixel size.

5DII high ISO performance is much better than the 7D, it will take you 30seconds with google to find the evidence.

I agree. It doesn't really take much research and you can see that the 5DII has at least a 1 stop advantage over the 7D in terms of ISO performance.

[prestonpalmer]

I bought a 2nd 5DII instead of the 7D.  I was NOT impressed with the 7D's iso handling.

[dilbert]

Is your primary subject dead-center in all your shots?  To me, that would make for boring, monotonous, and poorly composed shots.  If I wanted that special Bob-the-American-tourist snapshot look, I'd just use a point-and-shoot with a fixed AF box right in the center.  On the other hand, if you want to compose a shot with an off-center subject and you're shooting with a fast lens wide open (e.g. 85mm f/1.2), focus/recompose will get you a blurry shot every time - thus the need for off-center AF points, and frankly, on the 5DII those just aren't adequate in terms of performance.

When I'm tripod mounted, I quite often don't even use any of the focus points - instead I open up live view, move the rectangle to the appropriate location and press the AF-on button when zoom'd in at 10x. Then if the lens calibration is slightly out for the lens/distance combination, I can tweak it a little. Or even just manually focus using live view anyway.

What value does 45 focus points have for me when I'm tripod mounted and I can put the focus square anywhere I want in the frame?

[dilbert]

If this is true it's not very. 26MP is way to little.

Cripes, do posters in this forum just plain refuse to use their brains?

What was the time lag between the 20D and the 5D Mark II?

That time lag is an indication of the amount of time required to go from an 8MP APS-C to 21MP FF. The 20D was released in August 2004. The 5D Mark 2 was September 2008. 4 years.

The 40D (10MP) was released Aug 2007. The full frame version of that sensor is 25.6MP. 4 years from Aug 2007 is Aug 2011. Not very far away...

I don't expect that you will see the 7D's sensor in a full frame camera any time soon.

One definition of superstition is seeing a pattern of correlation and/or causality where none actually exists.

I imagine that folks might have said the same thing when people first started saying that the 5DM2 would be ~3 years after the 5D. And it was and so too it looks like the 5D3 after the 5D2.

[dilbert]

If these specifications are true, I can see the D800 selling well.

Uh, perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but the factory where Nikon makes all of its pro-level DSLRs was seriously impacted by the earthquake earlier in the year. If that factory is responsible for the D800 then there could be a significant delay to it and other D? series cameras.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case and Canon knows it and is pouncing early because of it.