Canon Asking Select Professionals What They Want in a Mirrorless Camera

Jun 20, 2013
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Sithaputh said:
#### Canon ####

I hope you are reading this.

You guys need to stop short cutting us. I've been a long time loyal canon user. Give us 4k full frame with usable codec. Make dual native ISO. Make it a user friendly Hybrid for photo and video. Add 5axis stabilizer. MUST be EF mount, otherwise I won't invest in a newer mount, and newer lenses. Make C-log as standard, or have a very good dynamic range. Must be Touch AF, phase detect, not contrast detect. Your lack of innovation makes me want to buy a Sony or Panasonic.

1. Full Frame with EF mounts
2. 4K full Frame with "usable" codecs @ 60fps
3. Pro-res, C-log as standard not upgrades
4. Dual native ISO
5. 20-ish Megapixel with great Low light performance.
6. Touch Autofocus
7. Articulating LCD Screen
8. 5 axis stablizer
9. 12 FPS
10. Focus Peak, zebra, etc.
11. 4:2:2 - 10bit video
12. Weatherseal
13. High Flash sync maybe up to 1000/s without HSS
14. Timecode
15. Better phone app
16. Faster Wifi/bluetooth
17. New touchscreen menu system, similar to any modern phone
18. New digital LCD on top Screen. The old style is outdated since the 80's
19. Big Battery life
20. Hybrid EVF with optical viewfinder

what did you do? take every rumor and spec sheet item and toss it together?

canon's not going to do 1/3 of that .. especially IBIS. get a sony now if you want that.
 
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When I was poking at the sore-wristed-right-hand-grippers, I didn't mean to say a tiny grip was a good thing--only that mirror-less doesn't preclude good ergonomics. Why can't you put a good stout grip on a mirrorless camera? I used a Nikon FM for years before DSLR. That's a very small camera by 5Div standards, and it felt great in my hand--with a battery grip. And there's the illustration: a camera's grip is a thing that literally can be bolted on after the fact. Just make a mirror-less camera with a good grip! That's one of the few things Canon doesn't have to design from scratch on this camera--they've been making grips on cameras for decades. It's all the teeth-nashing about something that doesn't exist yet that I find entertaining. We're all up in arms about that horrible tiny grip that Canon has not yet and probably won't condemn us to.
 
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ahsanford

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Aug 16, 2012
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Nik said:
- No dropping to 12 bit in continuous
- No lossy compression in high speed

In fairness to Sony, they have been listening to folks who get butt hurt on fine print preventing them from getting full max burst speed with uncompressed RAW. You can now opt out of mandatory compression nonsense in the menus.

Reporting testing from Imaging Resource below:

A99-II: Max advertised = 12 fps JPEG or compressed RAW, and they tell you right in the manual it will slow down with uncompressed RAW. But when tested with uncompressed RAW, it still delivered 11.1 fps.

A7R3: Max advertised = 10 fps for JPEG or compressed RAW, and they tell you right in the manual it will slow down with uncompressed RAW. But when tested with uncompressed RAW, it still delivered 9.2 fps.

A9 is a soup of conditions because of that mechanical / electronic shutter setup. Max advertised = 20 fps JPEG or compressed RAW (elec) / 12 fps uncompressed RAW (elec) / 5 fps (mech) for all files, and that's exactly how it tests.

So only in one instance above is fps seriously hit for wanting uncompressed RAW output. Sony is improving on this front, and let's tip our cap here -- 42 x 11.1 uncompressed RAW is an impressive accomplishment. When we talk about this latest round of supercameras (D850 / A9 / A99-II / A7R3), they move a ton of data.

- A
 
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snoke said:
Why GFX50? Cant understand it. Color? Noise? Controls?

Because the price point of the rumored rangefinder (and less expensive) version of the GFX 50S body may begin to encroach on the 5DsR (and future 5Ds Mk II) price point. Also once the 100S version is released in 2019, the 50S price will drop substantially. And the GF lenses are not any more expensive than Canon's best L lenses, yet they can resolve up to 100 MP.

Canon may think if they're going to bother with mirrorless, why not go all-out? If they went medium format, then creating a new mount and lens line would make a lot of sense.

The real question is, why did they wait so long to start asking? :eek:
 
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ahsanford

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duckshots said:
I want a 40 mm fixed lens, full frame. I'd settle for a 35mm, 1.4. Flash optional, but I want a shoe, a tilt screen and a high quality EVF.

FF + 1.4 breaks a fixed lens concept*, IMHO -- see below comparing Canon/Sony 35 f/1.4 options on mirrorless vs. what a fixed lens 35 f/2 or 28 f/1.7 can deliver.

*I appreciate that a fixed lens design would be tucked inside of the body thickness and not quite as big as what is shown on the left, but it's clear that there's an big inflection point in size for primes moving from f/2 to f/1.4. The one exception might be a 50 f/1.4 prime, of which some double gauss designs are rather famously tiny compared to other FLs. But there's a reason every cell phone is 28-35mm FF equivalent -- if you are stuck with a single FL for all time on a camera, those focal lengths are the right ones. 50 would be too long as the only option for a lot of people.

- A
 

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ahsanford

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Aaron D said:
When I was poking at the sore-wristed-right-hand-grippers, I didn't mean to say a tiny grip was a good thing--only that mirror-less doesn't preclude good ergonomics. Why can't you put a good stout grip on a mirrorless camera? I used a Nikon FM for years before DSLR. That's a very small camera by 5Div standards, and it felt great in my hand--with a battery grip. And there's the illustration: a camera's grip is a thing that literally can be bolted on after the fact. Just make a mirror-less camera with a good grip! That's one of the few things Canon doesn't have to design from scratch on this camera--they've been making grips on cameras for decades. It's all the teeth-nashing about something that doesn't exist yet that I find entertaining. We're all up in arms about that horrible tiny grip that Canon has not yet and probably won't condemn us to.

Oh, okay, I get you now. Yep, some folks think that going thin with the mount is part and parcel with a tiny grip, and that a tiny grip means terrible controls, RIP the top side LCD, etc.

So, in some chain-of-events logic, thin mount = ergonomic disaster. That is faulty logic. I do believe a tiny grip undermines a host of ergonomic considerations for a FF camera, but there is no mandate for a thin mount to have a tiny grip. This notion that 'if Canon goes small, they need to go small every way possible' is insane. In fact, folks would be much better off entirely decoupling the words 'thin', 'grip' and 'small' from their mental Venn diagrams on this subject.

For me:

Thin mount + thin grip = fail
Full mount + thin grip = fail
Thin mount + thick grip = fine
Full mount + thick grip = fine

See attached terrible photoshoppery on my part. This is ugly as sin and I'm not proposing this as a concept, but the idea is clear: if even a slow crop lens will stick past the front of a chunky 5D grip, Canon FF mirrorless should have a chunky 5D grip. There is zero space savings in your bag to put the grip on a diet unless you only pack the body with no lens attached (something I presume most of us only do when we travel or if we're using really heavy glass), so why not avail yourself of all these good things and delight your customers? To please a small percentage of people who want to believe a small gripped camera will better fit in a small bag despite the unavoidable size of the lenses?

Grip = go big.

- A
 

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Oct 26, 2013
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The size of the camera is dictated more by the size of the grip than the removal of the mirror and reducing the flange distance - especially for anyone who has a wide array of lenses which most likely includes lenses that are large. Generally speaking, the grip will be wider than any reduction in width due to the removal of the mirror, so creating a new mount in order to get "smaller" just doesn't work if you want to keep a good ergonomic grip.

If people want smaller, they have plenty of mirrorless choices. APS-C cameras such as the M series will more than fit the bill for those folks looking far a major size reduction advantage. Or you can go 4/3rds. If you are looking at FF cameras - and the fact that the level of photographer who is going FF is also looking at fast lenses and often large zooms - FF cameras whether mirrorless or not will not be small.

In my opinion, based on the above, changing the mount will have absolutely no advantage. Hopefully, Canon has come to a similar conclusion!
 
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FramerMCB

Canon 40D & 7D
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Sep 9, 2014
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snoke said:
Good story. Canon see threat in A9/GFX50?

A9 no shutter noise. Perfect many places. Church. Wedding. Tennis.

Why GFX50? Cant understand it. Color? Noise? Controls?

Who they ask important. Explorer of Light/professional = 1DX & 1DX Mark II. Not small body.

A lot of those "explorer's" use 5D III's and Mk IV's, and 5DS r's too...just sayin'.
 
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Sure, and without any photoshopping, you can set a 5D next to an A7 and there's your comparison. A useful FF mirrorless grip has already been done! And then assume Canon will do it better than Sony and Bob's yer uncle.

And yes the A7 is a smaller camera. Believe your eyes. Not you AH, I mean anyone...
 
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Jun 20, 2013
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Don Haines said:
ahsanford said:
rjbray01 said:
I beg to differ ... simply taking a 5D4 and swapping [OVF + Mirror] for an EVF will in many people's opinion produce a worse camera, simply because an EVF is laggy and the viewfinder image quality is terrible compared to "real life" directly through the lens.

You drove right by my point. Mirrorless isn't about being categorically better/worse than SLRs -- it's another option that can do other things.

Like burst mode.....

A 1DX2 tops out at 14
A 7D2 tops out at 10

A mirror less should be able to hit 120

your aperture blades would fly out of the lens and kill people at 20 paces.

unless you want to pull a Sony and do stop down shooting (good luck in a studio environment or when you need to stop down for depth of field then)
 
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ahsanford

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highdesertmesa said:
snoke said:
Why GFX50? Cant understand it. Color? Noise? Controls?
Because the price point of the rumored rangefinder (and less expensive) version of the GFX 50S body may begin to encroach on the 5DsR (and future 5Ds Mk II) price point. Also once the 100S version is released in 2019, the 50S price will drop substantially. And the GF lenses are not any more expensive than Canon's best L lenses, yet they can resolve up to 100 MP.

I went on a mini rant about medium format's appeal to FF users recently: post 1 / post 2

In my mind, it's a very hard sell to FF users. Many more takeaways than advantages, and the hotness the bigger sensor brings isn't that much hotter than what FF can deliver today.

I'm not saying that there is not benefit to MF -- leaf shutters and bigger sensors are not bad things at all. But I feel one is walking away from so much more than they are walking towards in a FF --> MF conversation.

But a total agreement / +1 on the 100 MP arriving to change things there. That's a clear selling point that FF will not have for some time.

- A
 
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Aaron D said:
Here's my request list, and I really honestly would buy at least one of these immediately and use it to earn my livelihood (I'm an un-invited professional, but I figure they already know what I like, I've said so here lots of times!):

1) Please DON'T be compelled to stick to an EF mount! This is an opportunity to optimize an entire system to a short flange-distance mount! I know I'm going to rile up the "I've got a hundred old lenses I can't bear to use an adapter with" faction... But to build-in permanent dead space for a non-existant mirror box is ludicrous.

2) Include an EF adapter!

3) A built-in viewfinder as in the Leica M9 or Hasselblad X1D, ie: no bump, or minimal if absolutely necessary. It doesn't have to be centered on top.

4) A 4:3 aspect ration would be wonderful (without wasting cropped-out pixels) but I'd be happy with the ol' 2:3

5) Lots of resolution, like 5DS ballpark, no more than that is necessary.

6) I personally don't need blazing autofocus or burst rates, or video for that matter. But that's just me.

7) This is a big one: To go with, develop a razor sharp 20 mm or so TSE that will take front filters (or a built-in polarizer!).

eight) No built-in flash. Wasted body volume for a camera that will have modern super-high ISOs. Buy a real flash if you need one!

OK, I've probably pissed-off enough people--my apologies to the world.

(and Bean's idea of a dual-format body sounds great...)

In other words, create a 21st-century photography camera that does not get loaded with features that create hype, not benefits. Real innovation is in finding the real needs and satisfying them, not a smorgasbord of features that are at the fringes or provide no perceived benefits. Please, please, stick to the core photographic ideas and needs.

An optical viewfinder for at least a limited range of focal length will be truly innovative on a mirrorless camera, it is hard to replicate the view in an optical viewfinder. But, everything else articulated by Aaron D sound on the mark.
 
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ahsanford

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drjlo said:
You know, I always wanted a Sony RX1R, and it's a good time to track down a used one at good price ;)

Good luck with that. The price for a new one has not budged from official resellers in 2+ years of time on the market. It's a very 1%-er sort of product going after Leica dollars: "You know what this is and you are going to pay for it, Senator/Trust-funder/Kardashian/Celebrity Instagrammer/etc."

RX1R = A7R internals
RX1R II = A7R II internals

...is an RX1R III coming based on the A7R3? Goodness knows Sony loves updating all of its RX1/10/100 cameras.

- A
 
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Mar 27, 2012
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ahsanford said:
RX1R = A7R internals
RX1R II = A7R II internals

Small correction. RX1R=A7 internals (24 MP) not A7R (36 MP).

I already have A7R and FE 35 f/2.8 but always wished Sony made that Zeiss 35 f/2 lens detachable for FE mount instead. I wish the FE 35 f/2.8 was a smidge sharper and smidge wider aperture, and the 35 f/1.4 is simply too big (and expensive) for portability.
 
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Oct 26, 2013
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ahsanford said:
I went on a mini rant about medium format's appeal to FF users recently: post 1 / post 2

In my mind, it's a very hard sell to FF users. Many more takeaways than advantages, and the hotness the bigger sensor brings isn't that much hotter than what FF can deliver today.

People seem to forget that the 35mm camera pretty much killed medium format in it's day because it gave the photographer so many more advantages. Today, with DSLRs available with high MP counts and medium format shrinking towards 35mm size, there is virtually no reason left to go medium format, in my opinion. Sure there will always be an extreme fringe element that wants more than the typical pro who is using a DSLR. Let other companies cater to the fringe.
 
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RGF said:
Interesting that ask Pros. After all they will buy a few hundred copies. While amateurs will drive the volume w/ 10,000s. I guess numbers don't matter too much.
+1
I love shooting beetles so I need a crop DSLR with a sensor that is able to decrease the diffraction effect at f/16 or smaller and has better noise performance than the currently existing ones. See my specifications of the 9000D. :)
On the other hand Pros can ask for features that amateurs will find useful as well.
 
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