Patent: 83mp full-frame image sensor from Canon

Jul 21, 2010
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Why would high pixel count sensors lead to more motion blur and require a faster shutter speed or a tripod to prevent it?

The image being projected on the sensor is the same size, isn’t it? Wouldn’t the blur just be spread across more pixels on a lower resolution sensor?
The higher the pixel count for a given sensor size, the smaller the pixels. Pixel size determines the arc of image space captured by that pixel, smaller pixels subtend a smaller part of the image space.

Think of it this way – if the image of a moving subject crosses a 16 micron distance on the sensor while the shutter is open (or if your shaking hands move the camera 16 microns, same effect), a camera with 8 micron pixels (e.g. the original 5D) will show two pixels of blur, while a camera with 4 micron pixels (e.g. 7DII or 5Ds) will show 4 pixels of blur. If you double the shutter speed on the 7DII/5Ds (e.g., 1/500 s instead of 1/250 s), the moving subject will only travel half as far across the sensor while the shutter is open, and the blur goes down to two pixels.

The additional blur is evident only at higher or maximal viewing size (i.e., viewing at 100% on a monitor). If you view the higher MP image at the same resolution as the lower, or for example you view both as ‘fill screen’ on the same display, the additional blur isn’t evident.
 
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DrToast

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The higher the pixel count for a given sensor size, the smaller the pixels. Pixel size determines the arc of image space captured by that pixel, smaller pixels subtend a smaller part of the image space.

Think of it this way – if the image of a moving subject crosses a 16 micron distance on the sensor while the shutter is open (or if your shaking hands move the camera 16 microns, same effect), a camera with 8 micron pixels (e.g. the original 5D) will show two pixels of blur, while a camera with 4 micron pixels (e.g. 7DII or 5Ds) will show 4 pixels of blur. If you double the shutter speed on the 7DII/5Ds (e.g., 1/500 s instead of 1/250 s), the moving subject will only travel half as far across the sensor while the shutter is open, and the blur goes down to two pixels.

The additional blur is evident only at higher or maximal viewing size (i.e., viewing at 100% on a monitor). If you view the higher MP image at the same resolution as the lower, or for example you view both as ‘fill screen’ on the same display, the additional blur isn’t evident.

Okay, I think I follow. So if you matched the final resolution of the images, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference?

Edit: Specifically, if you down-sized the larger image to match the lower resolution sensor. Not the other way around.
 
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Jul 12, 2014
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For me as a nature photographer, the big deal breaker will be the camera's speed. With the D850 at 9 fps (with grip) and now the A7R4 at 10 fps you can have a high res camera that's versatile....meaning it can be used for landscapes as well as wildlife including action. I have the 5DS R and it's great but too slow for most wildlife at 5 fps. If this is anything less than 7 fps it's probably not going to work for most wildlife folks. I would love to be able to use this...especially for large prints.
I agree. Hopefully it will not have the anemic buffer of the 5DSR.
 
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Just the other day I was trying to photograph a twitchy green heron with strong side lighting and it kept front focusing with a 500 f4 calibrated prime.
I also have this problem, my Canon 500mm IS 1 even after calibrating suffers front focusing. Especially when shooting through bushes. Same lens same shooting scenario swapped with my friends 1Dx2 and no AF issue.
 
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Jun 29, 2016
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That's like saying you can't shoot the 90D handheld. Or, heaven forbid, a compact or a cellphone camera. The PowerShot G7 X III has a pixel pitch of 2.4 microns; on the 90D, or this theorized 83MP FF body, it is 3.2 microns.
When you hold you camera at hand, your hand shakes a little all the time, it is not something you can control. However, those little movements causes the camera to move also, and then, the narrow the field of vew, the larger displacement on the sensor pixel this will make. In the "film" age, the "rule" was that the minimal speed you shoudl use (hand held) with a certail lense is no smaller than the lens focal length. For example, a 200mm lense you should not (again - hand held) take pictures with shutter speed under 1/200sec. However, once the digital sensors went beyond the resolution of the film, it meant that you need to take pictures in a faster sutter to avode the "smear" cause by those little shakes. I could take pictures at 1/15 with the digital rebel (6.3MP), but that was impossible with the 7D. It depends on the sensor resolution and the angle of the lens, the wider the lens the less the effect. It is not a matter of "pixel size", it is a matter of the angular differnce they have in the picture, the smaller the angular differnces, the more those little shakes will be visible. You can test it yourself to see the effect on your own camera and what are your "body limits" in that field.
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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When you hold you camera at hand, your hand shakes a little all the time, it is not something you can control. However, those little movements causes the camera to move also, and then, the narrow the field of vew, the larger displacement on the sensor pixel this will make. In the "film" age, the "rule" was that the minimal speed you shoudl use (hand held) with a certail lense is no smaller than the lens focal length. For example, a 200mm lense you should not (again - hand held) take pictures with shutter speed under 1/200sec. However, once the digital sensors went beyond the resolution of the film, it meant that you need to take pictures in a faster sutter to avode the "smear" cause by those little shakes. I could take pictures at 1/15 with the digital rebel (6.3MP), but that was impossible with the 7D. It depends on the sensor resolution and the angle of the lens, the wider the lens the less the effect. It is not a matter of "pixel size", it is a matter of the angular differnce they have in the picture, the smaller the angular differnces, the more those little shakes will be visible. You can test it yourself to see the effect on your own camera and what are your "body limits" in that field.
It is a matter of pixel size all else being equal - the same angle of shake spreads the movement over more pixels for a high density sensor. You can compensate in the absence of IS for the smaller pixels by increasing the shutter speed by the ratio of the size of pixels. For 6.3 Mpx Rebel and a 20 Mpx 7D, the difference in size is a factor of 1.8. So, shooting at 1/25 - 1/30s with the 7D will spread the shake over the same number of pixels in each linear dimension as 1/15s for the rebel. A 5DS has the same pixel size as a 7DII, and an 83 Mpx sensor has a pixel size only about 25% smaller. So, increase the shutter speed you would use for a 5DS by 30% and you will compensate for the smaller pixels in the 83 Mpx sensor. Add IS and IBIS into the equation and the effects may be less. Bottom line is that takes only modest increases in shutter speed to compensate for increasing the number of Mpx.
 
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Jun 29, 2016
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It is a matter of pixel size all else being equal - the same angle of shake spreads the movement over more pixels for a high density sensor. You can compensate in the absence of IS for the smaller pixels by increasing the shutter speed by the ratio of the size of pixels. For 6.3 Mpx Rebel and a 20 Mpx 7D, the difference in size is a factor of 1.8. So, shooting at 1/25 - 1/30s with the 7D will spread the shake over the same number of pixels in each linear dimension as 1/15s for the rebel. A 5DS has the same pixel size as a 7DII, and an 83 Mpx sensor has a pixel size only about 25% smaller. So, increase the shutter speed you would use for a 5DS by 30% and you will compensate for the smaller pixels in the 83 Mpx sensor. Add IS and IBIS into the equation and the effects may be less. Bottom line is that takes only modest increases in shutter speed to compensate for increasing the number of Mpx.
I wonder if 1/30 to 1/15 is such a "modest" change, but IS and IBIS does reduce the effect dramatically. I can take sharp pictures (at similar shppter speed) with the 400mm IS which I could not in the non IS 300mm.
 
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Mar 26, 2014
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We don't know whether the coming Canon body is going to have IBIS or not. The ~10% difference in linear resolution isn't exactly massive. Whether the extra stop in DR is worth the 3x price and inability to use potential existing EF lenses… well, I guess YMMV.

I think the claim about inability to use existing EF lenses is speculative. The issue is optical IS not being coordinated with IBIS, which would be an issue only for lenses that have IS. For lenses with IS, there would probably be a choice to turn off either IS (AFAIK an option for all existing EF lenses with IS) and/or IBIS. Finally, some EF lenses might be made compatible with a firmware upgrade, depending on whether the coordination between IS & IBIS requires the bandwidth of the RF mount.
 
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I agree. Hopefully it will not have the anemic buffer of the 5DSR.

The 5DSR was never really intended for needing buffer. Most who use it shoot one shot on a tripod, with some exceptions. Talking about buffer and the 5DSR in the same breath is almost pointless. Buffer is discussion topic for the likes of the 1DX mk ii, 7D or maybe 5D mk iv.

It would be like saying the Ford F150 can't corner like a Corvette or Ford Fusion. Everybody in the room would stare at someone saying such things that don't correlate.
 
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Joules

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I'm amazed at the number of people that seem angry about Canon giving us more options. Nobody forces you to make use of the full detail such a sensor could deliver, right? If you view your images at the same size as you do now, the motion blur will be the same regardless of resolution. And if you view them at larger sizes, you still at least have a chance of getting more sharpness / detail on a higher res model, while you are limited by the sensor on a lower res one.

For file sizes, there's always down scaling. An oversampled image should still look nicer. There's always so much praise about how good Canon is at making sure they only put out features that can be used in a practical way, unlike Sony who seem to put a lot of half baked stuff in their cameras. If that is true, I would assume we won't see a high res body unless Canon has options for making it practical if used in file size constrained scenarios.

As far as motion blur goes, there's also some room for finally introducing some computational photography in cameras, like a coded shutter or the method where you take a short exposure to get the desired shape and a long one to get the signal and then use deconvolution to get from the long exposure with less noise to the sharp image.

With Smartphones like the Google Pixel series already doing so much with this tech, it is hard to understand why 'real' cameras at much higher cost can't incorporate some software features. I still have to do a fair comparison with a trypod, but the Nightsight mode in the Pixel 3a beats anything I can get out of my 80D + 16mm 2.0 handheld. If that body had IBIS or the lens was stabilized, maybe the DSLR could catch up.
 
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Interesting. I use OneDrive sparingly. I kind of detest it. lol

I use Amazon Prime storage - unlimited RAW CR2 storage. However, they do not support unlimited CR3's yet from my understanding.

My entire laptop SSD storage is getting a christmas gift with new SSD's..
So my laptop is going to 4TB SSD + 2TB NVMe. That should do me for a while.
I'm migrating my external HD's (backup and cold storage files) to SSD, with my only HDD being a 5TB for backups.

Well, online storages are not all that cheap, once you go over the TB, at least here. We've went with in-house Synology drive, which we use for multiple purposes, has two harddrives. So basically we keep our photos on the SD cards for several shoots, then few actual shoots on the notebook and a copy / archive on the Synology.

As we've got the 5DIV, we use 128 GB SD card for RAWs and 64 GB CF card for jpeg backups. For many years, owning just a 70D, I was thinking about some kind of live backup during the shoots. I wonder noone mentions Canon CS100 for e.g.? I never used it, but wonder if it would work? So e.g. during the wedding, moving the camera close to such wi-fi storage, would back-up your actual photos? If there would be some semless way of how to quickly back-up your photos on the go, the point of having a two cards camera would not be so strong.
 
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Sharlin

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I think the claim about inability to use existing EF lenses is speculative. The issue is optical IS not being coordinated with IBIS, which would be an issue only for lenses that have IS.

Oh, I meant that you can’t use EF lenses with the Fuji bodies (or other MF cameras for that matter, not without vignetting anyway).
 
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Sometime in the next 20 years the average photographer will take one frame from a short video and refocus it/change the aperture using some future version of photoshop, lightroom or other software. Everything will be shot at f/16 or something ridiculous and all bokeh will be simulated. The google pixel and iPhones already do a limited version of this. What will be disturbing is that if every photo is essentially a deeply photoshopped version of a real scene, how would you ever spot deep fakes? [insert bad photo edit sleuthing scene from the judge dredd movie here]

So if self-driving cars and Google glasses record just about everything we and our cars see around us (and storage becomes cheap enough for it to all be held in high resolution) then photography would be reduced to selecting frames which have already been captured and manipulating them away from "reality" ... Weird !
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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People who complain about not having 2 card slots are the same people that panic buy 14 cans of spam when a storm is forecast.
They are also the ones who are getting paid for their work, and sued for a lame excuse like having a defective memory card. If your work is not valuable enough to need a backup card or you can just do it over, that's fine, but some don't have that luxury and need belt and suspenders because they have a lot riding on getting and keeping a shot. Trying to make them seem stupid somehow works in reverse.
 
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dtaylor

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Jul 26, 2011
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I'm amazed at the number of people that seem angry about Canon giving us more options.

If Canon gives us options, Canon is doomed. If Canon does not give us options, Canon is doomed. Ergo...CANON. IS. DOOMED.

Everyone who reads this hear's a ghostly voice crying in the distance: DOOOOOOOOMed.
 
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