Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

[Canon Rumors]

<p>CPN has posted an interview with Tsunemasa Ohara, the Senior General Manager of Camera Research and Development at Canon Inc. He’s the man behind the development of this high resolution DSLR.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>CPN:</strong> What do you see as the potential future for Canon high-resolution cameras? Where might the technology be in five years time?</p>
<p><strong>TO:</strong> “There is a demand for high-megapixel (cameras) and high-resolution and, of course, we will continue on this quest in the future and to try to satisfy this demand. As you know, in August 2010, we announced a 120-million pixel APS-H CMOS sensor… so we have shown that we have the technology to produce even higher resolution sensors, but we must also focus on high image quality, too. So DIGIC processing, and all the other algorithms that contribute to high image quality, we need to work on too. It is the overall package that makes Canon EOS digital cameras so successful.”</p></blockquote>
<p><strong><a href="http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/interviews/developing_eos_5ds_and_eos_5ds_r.do" target="_blank">Read the full interview</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>

 

[fotoray]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Are current lenses ready for this? There must be a cross-over point where you can no longer take advantage of more mega-pixels. How can this be quantified?

 

[jebrady03]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

I hate when people do this but...

In before dynamic range comments...

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Are current lenses ready for this? There must be a cross-over point where you can no longer take advantage of more mega-pixels. How can this be quantified?

The ability to take advantage of (truly) more resolution depends on each lens model. Highly demanding photographers will stop down your lenses (2 or 3 stops) to reach the sweet spot.

In recent years, Canon has updated the old 16-35mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 100-400mm and primes non-USM. Even the cheap 40mm pancake has extremely sharp image when used in F5.6.

I believe that the lenses that Canon has released over the past 5 years can make good use of a resolution above 80 megapixel.

Who has old lenses, you should upgrade to see the benefits of resolution 5DS cameras and 5DS-R. However, there are some treasures of the 1990s, as 100mm F2, 135mm F2, 200mm F2.8.

 

[SoullessPolack]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Are current lenses ready for this? There must be a cross-over point where you can no longer take advantage of more mega-pixels. How can this be quantified?

Older lenses may not take full advantage of the high resolution sensor. The newer L lenses, since 2010 with the 70-200 f2.8 II IS, certainly do, as do some non-L's (35mm f2 comes to mind). The important thing to remember is that the 5Ds offers so much more resolution than any current Canon camera, that even if the old lens can't fully resolve the 50mp sensor, it will still have some improvement over your current camera.

 

[SoullessPolack]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Are current lenses ready for this? There must be a cross-over point where you can no longer take advantage of more mega-pixels. How can this be quantified?

Furthermore, realize this: there will always be one side of your gear that out-performs the other. If your lenses outresolve the sensor, well, your sensor is the lagging component in your camera system. If your camera sensor outresolves the resolution of the lens, your lens is the lagging component in your camera system. This is always true. People get hung up on this way too often. There's never going to be a perfect balance. You'll always have a weak spot. Complain if you want, but it doesn't change the fact. It doesn't matter whether it's Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Leica, etc, this holds true for every camera manufacturer. It's inherent to photography.

People are always going to be complaining about that. It's rather funny. There's no way to avoid what's inherent in the field. If you have a stellar sensor with bleeding edge technology, your lens may be behind, and then you have the potential to have better image quality if only your lens was better. Conversely, a new lens may come out that outresolves the sensor, and then you have the potential to have better image quality if only your sensor was better. There will always be a weak point in the system. Again, you can complain, or you can recognize it's simply what you have to deal with, and not worry about it.

 

[privatebydesign]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

I do wish people would stop saying this. Lenses do not out resolve sensors, sensors do not out resolve lenses, they are in symbiosis and neither will ever achieve 100% of their potential however good the other is.

Put a 50 f1.8 @ f5.6 on a 50MP camera and you might get 25MP of usable resolution, put a 200 f2 on it and you might get 45MP; put either on a 100MP camera and you might get 45MP and 80MP; put them on a 8MP camera and you will get 6MP and 7.5MP

The sum of the whole is equal to less than the maximum potential of the worst. More MP will give you more resolution if you use the technique needed to get it.

 

[privatebydesign]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

I do wish people would stop saying this. Lenses do not out resolve sensors, sensors do not out resolve lenses, they are in symbiosis and neither will ever achieve 100% of their potential however good the other is.
...

I beg to differ.

If you put a lens on a camera that can only generate 1lp/mm on a camera that has 100 pixels per mm then I can say that the camera outresolves the lens.

In that instance you would be correct, but we are not talking about theoretical 1lp/mm lenses, we are talking about EOS lenses and even a very modest 18-55 kit lens will resolve more on a 7D MkII (the resolution of the 5DS) than it will on a 20D with 8MP.

 

[jyrbba]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Damn that was a useless interview ;D ;D

It's like the interviewer and the one being interviewed was the same person, but what can you expect from a Canon site.

 

[StudentOfLight]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

If you were in that situation, what questions would you have asked the head of R&D?

(Bearing in mind that his personal assistant told you you are not allowed to ask about dynamic range. Directly asking about dynamic range would bring the interview to an abrupt end.)

 

[fragilesi]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

If you were in that situation, what questions would you have asked the head of R&D?

(Bearing in mind that his personal assistant told you you are not allowed to ask about dynamic range. Directly asking about dynamic range would bring the interview to an abrupt end.)

If only that worked here . . .

 

[zim]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

(Bearing in mind that his personal assistant told you you are not allowed to ask about dynamic range. Directly asking about dynamic range would bring the interview to an abrupt end.)

Then it would have been a more interesting if somewhat shorter interview.

I'm sure that there are more questions than boring old DR that would fall into that catagory.

 

[mackguyver]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

So they ran out of room for the headphone jack? It's not something I care about, but why did they use that huge double USB port??? According to what I can find, it's the micro-B type of cable for USB 3.0 and it's only needed to be backwards compatible with USB 1.0. Yes, 1.0. How many people buying an expensive body like this are still using a standard that was superseded 15 years ago???

 

[crashpc]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Yes, lenses are prepared. Not all of them, but many. If one goes after resolution, he will get it. New APS-C sensors in M3, 750D and 760D has even higher resolution per area. And If I look on my old M, where with wide angle lens at WIDE (which I used to hate all wa lenses for very low resolution) I can see moire on AA filtered body, I´m pretty sure we can go much further. It data storage is large enaugh, and your computer fast enaugh, and you don´t shoot sports, you need to get more resolution until it´s really blurry at pixel level. Only then you´ll max out your lens resolution. I will be really happy to see 64Mpx APS-C sensor one day. It will outresolve all fullframes untill D800 and younger.

 

[dstppy]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

If you were in that situation, what questions would you have asked the head of R&D?

(Bearing in mind that his personal assistant told you you are not allowed to ask about dynamic range. Directly asking about dynamic range would bring the interview to an abrupt end.)

If only that worked here . . .

But we have a few persistent people that keep bringing that up for no good . . . . ooooooooooooooooh I see what you did there.

 

[rfdesigner]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

What I noticed is that he talked about Mega-pixies and image quality, and for him a key determinator for image quality was the processor.

I think he may be making a mistake there.. won't most 5Ds users be shooting RAW?

The only user I can think of who would choose in camera processing are wedding photogs.. maybe they will be most of the customers for this but I though this was a studio/landscape camera, both of those users would want a RAW image surely?

 

[3kramd5]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

So they ran out of room for the headphone jack? It's not something I care about, but why did they use that huge double USB port???

You need the A/B connector for a device to act as a host (e.g. for the print button everyone uses).

I'm not certain the standard connector would fit any better. However, I don't suspect that top hole goes a long way towards keeping the door closed. Seems that they could have deleted the top one and added a headphone jack in its place.

 

[Marsu42]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

Put a 50 f1.8 @ f5.6 on a 50MP camera and you might get 25MP of usable resolution

You forgot a decimal point: The 50/1.8 equals 2.5mp of usable resolution wide open :->

What I noticed is that he talked about Mega-pixies and image quality, and for him a key determinator for image quality was the processor. I think he may be making a mistake there.. won't most 5Ds users be shooting RAW?

Canon lives in the past here (or in a modern niche) - or they would have a raw *histogram* like Magic Lantern adds it for all supported cameras. But Canon still optimizes for video and jpeg :-\

As you know, in August 2010, we announced a 120-million pixel APS-H CMOS sensor… so we have shown that we have the technology to produce even higher resolution sensors

It's true! Of course the cost of this sensor at that die yield would be prohibitive, but they *can* produce it. For whatever it's worth.

Reminds me of former East Germany, they also said they were able to produce computers as advanced as the West. Only that they could only produce it in one-digit quantities, and nobody could afford it :->

 

[tphillips63]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

So they ran out of room for the headphone jack? It's not something I care about, but why did they use that huge double USB port???

You need the A/B connector for a device to act as a host (e.g. for the print button everyone uses).

I'm not certain the standard connector would fit any better. However, I don't suspect that top hole goes a long way towards keeping the door closed. Seems that they could have deleted the top one and added a headphone jack in its place.

But look at the 7D Mk II ports, it is basically the same size and has USB 3.0 and HDMI and has the headphone and mic, PC and remote so they could have added the headphone.
To differentiate all the lines they just do stuff like this. I am not a video shooter so does not bother me but there is no other good reason to keep the port out.

 

[rfdesigner]

Re: Interview With Head of EOS 5Ds & EOS 5Ds R Development

So they ran out of room for the headphone jack? It's not something I care about, but why did they use that huge double USB port???

You need the A/B connector for a device to act as a host (e.g. for the print button everyone uses).

I'm not certain the standard connector would fit any better. However, I don't suspect that top hole goes a long way towards keeping the door closed. Seems that they could have deleted the top one and added a headphone jack in its place.

But look at the 7D Mk II ports, it is basically the same size and has USB 3.0 and HDMI and has the headphone and mic, PC and remote so they could have added the headphone.
To differentiate all the lines they just do stuff like this. I am not a video shooter so does not bother me but there is no other good reason to keep the port out.

It may have been space on the inside they ran out of. A headphone port will require a headphone driver, often these are integrated into other chips, but as many chips inside canon cameras are canon chips, that may not be so.

It may be just an excuse, it may be real