The Mess That is the Canon Full Frame Mirrorless Rumor Mill

Don Haines said:
slclick said:
Help me out. Why is the MP war back on...after all, all the talking heads here have argued that MP desires above the high teens are irrelevant and the 1DX was always proof of their argument. Are folks now buying bodies to support lenses as opposed to the other way around as in years past? You cannot seriously tell me it's for printing purposes, we all know the average forumite rarely prints larger than 11 x 14. YMMV of course. (99.9% of your images are for SM)

Virtually all the images that I have shot for work have gone into reports (with most of them printed at 4 or 5 inches across), or are viewed on computer monitors. Very few of them require more than a 8Mpixel camera.....

High megapixels has great benefits: more room to crop, reduced noise by downsizing, larger prints, reduced moire and aliasing issues. But this requires faster processors in both camera body and computer, and more storage space. These disadvantages shrink every year as tech improves, so high megapixels will deliver better results as the years roll by. Bring it on
 
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After using both 200D and M50 during a trip to the netherlands I must say that I couldn't
decide which one is better.

Both cameras have similar price, weight and size.

The EVF of the M50 is very fast and therefore mostly a joy to use but: In very bright environments
the OVF of the 200D is much much better. And the OVF shows more detail.
Flying seagulls ware easier to capture with the 200D but maybe I do not know well enough to configure
the M50 correctly. But capturing flying birds (30 km/h or so) which fly in my direction and then overhead
isn't that easy.

On the other hand I made some movie clips for use in teaching: Breaking waves and flying birds @ 100 fps
in HD (1.3k) resolution (with EF f/4.0 70-200 IS USM mark i @200mm): Very usable and possible only with M50
because the EVF was very helpful: Seeing what you record + stabilizing the camera with a third point!
Another good feature is the use of the EVF to do settings while looking through the camera like AF field position and sometimes other params via the menu.
At the end he M50 is a well designed camera to take photographs with a well implemented touch screen driven interface - and if I want very good ergonomics for manual jobs I use adapted FD lenses where you have very very good focusing and a ring for f-stop settings.

After all my dream cam would have a switchable EVF / OVF system to combine the best of both worlds
and I hope that there will be at last one camera from Canon which provides that. Maybe not now but
perhaps in 5 years ... ? Maybe Canon is still thinking what to present to the (really?) frustrated Canon & mirrorless loving community.
 
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Don Haines

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Etienne said:
Don Haines said:
slclick said:
Help me out. Why is the MP war back on...after all, all the talking heads here have argued that MP desires above the high teens are irrelevant and the 1DX was always proof of their argument. Are folks now buying bodies to support lenses as opposed to the other way around as in years past? You cannot seriously tell me it's for printing purposes, we all know the average forumite rarely prints larger than 11 x 14. YMMV of course. (99.9% of your images are for SM)

Virtually all the images that I have shot for work have gone into reports (with most of them printed at 4 or 5 inches across), or are viewed on computer monitors. Very few of them require more than a 8Mpixel camera.....

High megapixels has great benefits: more room to crop, reduced noise by downsizing, larger prints, reduced moire and aliasing issues. But this requires faster processors in both camera body and computer, and more storage space. These disadvantages shrink every year as tech improves, so high megapixels will deliver better results as the years roll by. Bring it on


At home, and particularly with bird photography, more megapixels is a great thing. In good light, it is amazing what you can get away with! I find it interesting how at work I have zero need for anything bigger than 8, yet for recreation, I always seem to need more...

Similarly, at work I have zero need/desire for a mirrorless camera, yet for home, I am very interested...

And this is why there are different bodies with different capacities :)
 
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bgoyette

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slclick said:
tmroper said:
slclick said:
Help me out. Why is the MP war back on...after all, all the talking heads here have argued that MP desires above the high teens are irrelevant and the 1DX was always proof of their argument. Are folks now buying bodies to support lenses as opposed to the other way around as in years past?

Not everyone's needs are the same. For those doing a lot of retouching, especially skin retouching, the more pixels to work with, the better (everything else being equal). People shooting sports on a 1DX wouldn't care about that one bit, while someone shooting beauty shots would care about that a whole lot.

So were fashion shots simply unusable until the newer high MP bodies of the past couple years? I cannot believe that. Or are you saying current fashion and portrait studios hold themselves to different standards? Your response was bordering on the tired premise that you can't do anything good unless you buy _____ product. (Which disregards 100+ years of incredible photography with older gear) I didn't say you said exactly that just that you didn't convince me with your reasoning. Maybe if you just said pixel peepers with money created a market, then I'd say "ok"

Well he was talking about beauty shots, not fashion shots...but seeing as you asked. Those of us who shoot fashion professionally see our images used on the web, in full page fashion ads, large format retail graphics, and billboards. Most of us, until recently, shot with medium format high MP camera's because, frankly, the clients really like seeing the weave of the expensive fabric they are using, something that lower MP cameras, with AA filters cannot show in a full body photograph. So...yeah..given that..lower MP, AA challenged, fashion photos from 5-10 years ago "were" unusable. Today, we have FF DSLR's capable of shooting at detail levels largely equal to the MF cameras available (my 5dsr beats my Hasselblad h5d in this respect), but can also do it at higher ISO's and much faster frame rates, things also important in fashion photography.

You may find for your needs that 12 or 18mp is terrif. For my needs today...around 50mp is just fine. Others may need or just want more. How bout we leave it at that.
 
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It's been very interesting seeing the amount of responses to the Mirrorless rumor trail. It turely amazes me the amount of energy put into what I feel (and many others have stated) is an insignificant product evolution. Beyond a silent shot/ shutterless capture, I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Smaller form factor? Have you seen the reviews of the new Sony 400mm 2.8? It's literally comical IMHO to see those guys with a huge lense and that tiny body! Pehaps because I'm a larger person that it just doesn't make sense to think you can effectively work with a square little box and Good Canon glass. The trend is NOT smaller glass. All this fuss reminds me of the pre 5d mark IV rumors, the forum created so much chaos, that nothing would have been good enough. Yet the Mark 4 is a great camera, that any EF lens professional or prosumer would want. I'm 100 times more curious as to what the new glass announcements are than what the next box is going toe, sepecially if it comes in to small of a form factor for my hands or lens balance.
 
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I agree its a small increase in many ways.

For me though, I have seen enough of the EVF features on the M5, that Id like a better version of that. Touch screen for af movement, preview of exposure I like a lot. Light amplification for darker scenes is nice too as my nightsight isnt great. Great for scuba diving too, a bit niche yes, but a DSLR underwater is uh, interesting, had to buy a $1000 viewfinder to make it workable. For nature silent is very nice, my 7D2 on hispeed is very noisy.

None of this I 'need' but I do look forward to them when I decide its time for a new toy. But for birds in flight, theres still a way to go, so Ill probably end up using two cameras for a bit, unless a real surprise is coming with AF acquisition.
 
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I am mostly curious about the mount. Don't want EF. I see no point in getting into Canon full frame mirrorless if it is saddled with 44mm of pointless EF backspace. We don't need everything to be huge distagon lenses like, say, some of the Sigma Arts or Zeiss Milvuses. Without that backspace more options open up at some focal lengths.

I sold almost all my (large, heavy) EF stuff and am happily using an M5, getting by with the available EF-M lenses, plus an EF adapter and a couple of remaining small EF lenses. (In this context the "small" EF 70-200 f/4 isn't small - just compare it with the EF-M 55-200.)

But I am not a pro, just take images for the fun of it, to please myself. I just wasn't using my (large, heavy) full frame DSLR any more, after having an APS-C Fuji setup for a while and then back to Canon EOS-M. So I am actually hoping more for the rumored 32mm f/1.4 EF-M and updated M5 than anything full frame.

And I guess I would offer this thought for those who just don't see the point of mirrorless: IMHO the mirror box is already an expensive anachronism, and it's going away. Why focus someplace else besides on the sensor? I would guess that complex DSLR mechanisms with mirrors and prisms and mechanical shutters and fiddly plus/minus focus adjustments on individual lenses and so forth will go away surprisingly quickly, too. Expensive top-end DSLRs, for telephoto sports and wildlife, will be the about the only holdouts.
 
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Ozarker

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Cali Capture said:
It's been very interesting seeing the amount of responses to the Mirrorless rumor trail. It turely amazes me the amount of energy put into what I feel (and many others have stated) is an insignificant product evolution. Beyond a silent shot/ shutterless capture, I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Smaller form factor? Have you seen the reviews of the new Sony 400mm 2.8? It's literally comical IMHO to see those guys with a huge lense and that tiny body! Pehaps because I'm a larger person that it just doesn't make sense to think you can effectively work with a square little box and Good Canon glass. The trend is NOT smaller glass. All this fuss reminds me of the pre 5d mark IV rumors, the forum created so much chaos, that nothing would have been good enough. Yet the Mark 4 is a great camera, that any EF lens professional or prosumer would want. I'm 100 times more curious as to what the new glass announcements are than what the next box is going toe, sepecially if it comes in to small of a form factor for my hands or lens balance.

Best post I've read in awhile. Some of these guys could fall into a $10,000,000 pile of money and then would complain about the paper cut.
 
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Cali Capture said:
It's been very interesting seeing the amount of responses to the Mirrorless rumor trail. It turely amazes me the amount of energy put into what I feel (and many others have stated) is an insignificant product evolution. Beyond a silent shot/ shutterless capture, I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Smaller form factor? Have you seen the reviews of the new Sony 400mm 2.8? It's literally comical IMHO to see those guys with a huge lense and that tiny body! Pehaps because I'm a larger person that it just doesn't make sense to think you can effectively work with a square little box and Good Canon glass. The trend is NOT smaller glass. All this fuss reminds me of the pre 5d mark IV rumors, the forum created so much chaos, that nothing would have been good enough. Yet the Mark 4 is a great camera, that any EF lens professional or prosumer would want. I'm 100 times more curious as to what the new glass announcements are than what the next box is going toe, sepecially if it comes in to small of a form factor for my hands or lens balance.
Yes I agree, but that Sony 400mm F2.8 would look great on my 5D mk4. It is smaller and lighter than the Canon equivalent and it has lots of interesting features.
There are plenty of adapters allowing you to mount Canon glass on a Sony body, but is it possible to mount a Sony lens on a Canon EF full frame body?
 
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well, if mirrorless were "just another, small evolutionary step in the drvelopment of imaging gear", then why the heck is it taking Canon and Nikon so long to get rid of mirrorslapping? Especially when "tiny iterative steps" are at the core of their business model? :p ;D

bdbender4 said:
I am mostly curious about the mount. Don't want EF. I see no point in getting into Canon full frame mirrorless if it is saddled with 44mm of pointless EF backspace. We don't need everything to be huge distagon lenses like, say, some of the Sigma Arts or Zeiss Milvuses. Without that backspace more options open up at some focal lengths.
...
And I guess I would offer this thought for those who just don't see the point of mirrorless: IMHO the mirror box is already an expensive anachronism, and it's going away. Why focus someplace else besides on the sensor? I would guess that complex DSLR mechanisms with mirrors and prisms and mechanical shutters and fiddly plus/minus focus adjustments on individual lenses and so forth will go away surprisingly quickly, too. Expensive top-end DSLRs, for telephoto sports and wildlife, will be the about the only holdouts.

exactly!

it is just this forum which has some "over-reprentation" of folks with big lenses and/or big hands, who have a very hard time accepting this reality. mainly because they are concerned about the (economic) value of their big lenses they spent big bucks on, once these are relegated to "legacy shard status".

they are also unable or unwilling to accept the fact that overwhelming majority of all images are made using focal lengths that will greatly benefit from the removal of mirror boxes from the lightpath.

that's why they constantly try to obfuscate, downplay or ridicule the very real and significant benefits of mirrorless camera systems and are happy with the mirrorslapping status quo and "conservative Canon" dragging their feet.
 
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bdbender4 said:
I am mostly curious about the mount. Don't want EF. I see no point in getting into Canon full frame mirrorless if it is saddled with 44mm of pointless EF backspace.

Well I believe most Canon users actually don't care about these technicalities. This forum is full of photo-geeks (which I like) but even I care more about my $$$ EF lenses than 44mm of the flange distance. If Canon abandons EF one way or another, I'll be very angry.
 
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Hector1970

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Cali Capture said:
It's been very interesting seeing the amount of responses to the Mirrorless rumor trail. It turely amazes me the amount of energy put into what I feel (and many others have stated) is an insignificant product evolution. Beyond a silent shot/ shutterless capture, I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Smaller form factor? Have you seen the reviews of the new Sony 400mm 2.8? It's literally comical IMHO to see those guys with a huge lense and that tiny body! Pehaps because I'm a larger person that it just doesn't make sense to think you can effectively work with a square little box and Good Canon glass. The trend is NOT smaller glass. All this fuss reminds me of the pre 5d mark IV rumors, the forum created so much chaos, that nothing would have been good enough. Yet the Mark 4 is a great camera, that any EF lens professional or prosumer would want. I'm 100 times more curious as to what the new glass announcements are than what the next box is going toe, sepecially if it comes in to small of a form factor for my hands or lens balance.
Everyone has a different perspective on this topic depending on how long you are in photography and how much gear your have acquired so far. If you have a XXD or XD camera you are probably less interested in the new mirrorless camera. You would also be less interested if you are not pushing gear to its absolute maximum. For ordinary run of the mill shooting the existing gear is just fine. A EOS M series camera may be all you need. There are others who have the best equipement already. The members here would be (compared to the average Canon user) pretty well equipped with high end gear. If you have a 1DX II or a 5DIV and you are hitting limitations then of course you are very interested in what Canon are going to do with Mirrorless because this will be the next technological advance. There isn't much left for Canon to do on mirrored cameras. If you want more FPS and EVF and truely silent shooting you want a good mirrorless camera from Canon. The mount matters alot to people heavily invested in Canon glass. If you only have one or two lens a new mount would be a great thing. If you have lots of glass a new mount would be an inconvenience as adapters are usually not as good as native EF. On camera size If you have small slow lens a smaller body would be ideal. If you have fast heavy glass you need at least a 5D IV body to comfortably grip it or your'll have wrist issues.

I've all the Canon glass I need. I think Canon is running out of road there too. The new 70-200mm III is an example. Canon couldn't upgrade it much. The big whites are so good only making them lighter would be an improvement. Sigma are now a very substantial competitor in glass. Before they were a cheaper less quality brand but they are very good now. That's why the mirrorless is so important at this moment in time. Its the most significant improvement Canon can make and it indicates their ability or not to make a relevant mirrorless full frame camera.
 
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Hector1970 said:
If you have a 1DX II or a 5DIV and you are hitting limitations then of course you are very interested in what Canon are going to do with Mirrorless because this will be the next technological advance. There isn't much left for Canon to do on mirrored cameras. If you want more FPS and EVF and truely silent shooting you want a good mirrorless camera from Canon.
It's not true. There is not much to do in "mirrorless" that couldn't be done in "mirror-up". Of course, that may require a hybrid viewfinder.
 
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Hector1970 said:
I've all the Canon glass I need. I think Canon is running out of road there too. The new 70-200mm III is an example. Canon couldn't upgrade it much. The big whites are so good only making them lighter would be an improvement. Sigma are now a very substantial competitor in glass. Before they were a cheaper less quality brand but they are very good now. That's why the mirrorless is so important at this moment in time. Its the most significant improvement Canon can make and it indicates their ability or not to make a relevant mirrorless full frame camera.

very good point. Mirrorless systems with both - APS-C and FF sensor size - are indeed the most significant improvement Canon can make to stills imaging gear today.
 
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