Is Canon adding a high ISO Pixelshift mode to the EOS R7?

[Richard CN]

A strange report from DCW surfaced describing an announcement at the China International Public Security Products Expo, Canon announced a new feature for the R7, dubbed as per DCW's image as ISO+.

Is Canon adding a high ISO Pixelshift mode to the EOS R7?

A strange report from DCW surfaced describing an announcement at the China International Public Security Products Expo, Canon announced a new feature for the R7, dubbed as per DCW’s image as ISO+.

www.canonrumors.com

 

[HMC11]

This is shocking! Is Canon ditching the famous cripple hammer? . On a more serious note, it sounds good for landscape photography, but wouldn't this make using the R7 to take handheld bird photographs a tad more difficult?

 

[Aldherrian]

I have no experience about this pixel-shift thing (thanks for the diagram !) but I'll wait on a direct Canon announcement before making any assumptions on what exactly is going to be in the upgrade, when is that upgrade and if it will actually be released

 

[Canon Rumors]

This is shocking! Is Canon ditching the famous cripple hammer? . On a more serious note, it sounds good for landscape photography, but wouldn't this make using the R7 to take handheld bird photographs a tad more difficult?

I will miss the cripple hammer, I built so many things with it.

 

[Zadak]

Canon needs more of this kind of tech. The hardware is there to enable it, just need smarter uses of software imo to squeeze more quality out in specific scenarios

 

[blackcoffee17]

Pixel shift is great to increase details of static shots but to reduce noise? It will need a tripod so at that point why not just use ISO 100? It won\'t work for astro or long exposures and won\'t work for action shots either. And I doubt that Canon will make it fast enough to be used handheld.

 

[Bob Howland]

I'm not sure I understand the benefit. You're taking four exposures then combining them. Why not take a single exposure, four times as long as one of them at a two stop lower ISO?

 

[LSXPhotog]

I'm not sure I understand the benefit. You're taking four exposures then combining them. Why not take a single exposure, four times as long as one of them at a two stop lower ISO?

Yeah, in the case of the original R5's hi-res shot mode, I also believe this will be a JPEG only feature, so it's unlikely to be a feature I'll use for how I would shoot.

As you mentioned, I’ve been successfully using the R6II in manual mode with auto ISO, shooting bracketed exposures at 40fps for real estate photography. For static subjects, I stack 3-5 exposures in Lightroom to create extremely clean DNG files with rich detail.

I understand that many people prefer to get nice, clean JPEGs straight out of the camera, so if that feature becomes available, I’m sure some users will appreciate it. It would be great to see Canon continue adding features like this to its cameras, especially since Fujifilm and Sony now appear to be offering firmware updates that risk causing issues over introducing new features. Let's just hope Canon doesn't also introduce unstable firmwares as well. Nikon has been doing very well adding features to its mirrorless cameras over the past few years.

 

[Richard CN]

I'm not sure I understand the benefit. You're taking four exposures then combining them. Why not take a single exposure, four times as long as one of them at a two stop lower ISO?

it entirely depends on how they handle subject motion there could be benefits.

again, this could be a April 1 article that came out a 6 months early. I didn't really understand it much but could "see" if canon did something like this, and it's not backed up anywhere yet.

though i haven't had enough coffee to check around this morning.

 

[koenkooi]

I'm not sure I understand the benefit. You're taking four exposures then combining them. Why not take a single exposure, four times as long as one of them at a two stop lower ISO?

To get less visible noise you can even take the same shot with the same exposure, then combine them in Photoshop using a median filter.

Using IBIS to shift each frame one subpixel would, in theory, improve colour accuracy as well.

I can imagine this would improve static JPEG/HEIC images a lot, I’m not convinced it will beat RAW+Dxo/Topaz.

 

[Toamelicious]

Just talking out my arse here, but would the higher pixel density make the process of the Ibis shifting take less time/motion, making this technique more usable than it is in the R5?

 

[R5boy]

If I were Canon CTO I'd tell my dev to not bother to write a single line of code if the result is Jpeg, that's wortthless

 

[Trout Bum]

As you mentioned, I’ve been successfully using the R6II in manual mode with auto ISO, shooting bracketed exposures at 40fps for real estate photography. For static subjects, I stack 3-5 exposures in Lightroom to create extremely clean DNG files with rich detail.

You can stack images in Lightroom? I can do that in PS, but how do you do that in LR?

 

[koenkooi]

You can stack images in Lightroom? I can do that in PS, but how do you do that in LR?

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/hdr-photo-merge.html

You can also mix that stack with panoramas, which is a nice time saver. Not much control, but it works well enough for me to avoid using PS

 

[juststeve]

Seems this would work best with high readout speed cameras. Cameras with stacked sensors.

 

[Trout Bum]

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/hdr-photo-merge.html

You can also mix that stack with panoramas, which is a nice time saver. Not much control, but it works well enough for me to avoid using PS

Thanks! So would that technique work for bracketed depth-of field as well?

 

[RobbieHat]

I have seen this concept example using Sony’s pixel shift technology and when blown up and compared to a high resolution (medium format) image of similar megapixels, the image has a stairstepping effect along any edge. I know pixel peeping isn’t all that valuable of a way to evaluate some technologies but that effect put me off. I would think upresolutioning using AI or just living with the native resolution would be a better outcome.

It seems this technology only benefits those that print extremely large and anyone that does this professionally would just buy a higher resolution camera.

 

[koenkooi]

Thanks! So would that technique work for bracketed depth-of field as well?

No, you need PS or specialized software like Helicon or Zerene to get the result you want.

 

[[email protected]]

Pixel shift is great to increase details of static shots but to reduce noise? It will need a tripod so at that point why not just use ISO 100? It won\'t work for astro or long exposures and won\'t work for action shots either. And I doubt that Canon will make it fast enough to be used handheld.

Panasonic had this nailed way back when they launched the S1R. Loved that camera. Even when taking photos of something moving, like a waterfall, it would figure things out. Saved as DNG files. Yes, it was useful for ISO stuff. There were situations where long exposure effects weren't desirable (like water smoothening). Sophisticated versions of this will identify portions of image that contain movement and choose the most appropriate single frame to fill it.

Canon's recent attempt at it got about 30 percent there, but I expect they'll get at least as good as Panasonic's tech eventually.

Sony's version never matured into anything useful. About 3/4 of the time, the images fail to merge, and you couldn't even do it in the field. Had to use their - gulp - proprietary imaging software. That said, I haven't shot Sony in a few years. May have improved since.

The upshot: the tech can be pretty useful for many situations. Can be used for either increasing effective resolution, or for decreasing effective ISO. It's essentially a form of stacking.

 

[TwoWheeler]

No, you need PS or specialized software like Helicon or Zerene to get the result you want.

Canon’s own DPP will do depth composites, too.

The UI is horrid, but it does work and is well worth the price*, for the desktop version.


*it’s free.