Camera Body Breakdown [CR1]

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Canon is receiving quite a lot of bashing for not having the same low light performance as Nikon, and not so much appreciation for having higher resolution.

If you're a landscape photographer or studio photographer it seems to me that low ISO performance is key, and then resolution is an important factor. Some use medium format just for the resolution.

For my personal photo style, I'd rather go for higher resolution at low ISO and slightly worse high ISO performance. Needing large DOF and therefore often working around f/8 - f/11 which makes resolution generally diffraction limited I'd still could use as much as ~50 megapixels on a full frame sensor before additional pixels does not give significant value.

The exceptionally low noise at ISO100 in the sensor of Nikon's new D7000 shows that low noise (at low ISO) is indeed possible with small pixels.

However, if you need to shoot in non-ideal lighting conditions with short shutter speeds, then good high ISO performance is necessary of course. I don't really think that these conflicting goals can be combined into a single camera body today. Either you optimize for high res at low ISO, or low noise at high ISO. It's unfortunate that 35mm camera bodies are not modular as larger formats, then you could have two digital backs, one for high res and one for high ISO (and you could actually upgrade a body instead of having to buy yet a new magnesium alloy body).

Anyway, for me personally, I'm not particularly worried about the rumors of 5Dmk3 having as much as 32 megapixels, rather the opposite, it seems quite attractive to me. Closing in on medium format.

I also think the view on resolution will change in the coming years. Current resolution guidelines is based on more or less obsolete film and print standards. DOF calculators use acceptable resolution as 30 microns - meaning 1 megapixel. Saying that is a sharp image is like saying 8 bit audio is clear. In some circumstances yes it is true. However, not too many years from now we'll probably have monitors with 9000x6000 pixels rather than 1920x1200.
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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dilbert said:
Yup, I've bought one (S95) too and it now lives in my jacket pocket.

It's the perfect small camera.

Seconded (or is that thirded?). I really like my S95, and have taken great pictures with it in situations where bringing one of my dSLR bodies and a bag full of lenses isn't feasible. I'm sure the G12 is also a nice camera, but the advantage of the S95 is it's small size. The advantage of both those P&S cameras over the many other models available is the larger sensor, which means better IQ and lower noise, and the fact that they shoot RAW.
 
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Catastrophile

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about mirrorless + 600D and/or 2000D:

Canon has said that the point of mirrorless cameras is not whether or not you have a mirror but that people want the image quality of a large sensor camera in a lighter package than conventional entry-level DSLR's and that canon think they can design lighter/smaller cameras without having to remove the mirror. Probably if this is coming soon, it may come in the 600D (or 2000D), with the 60D being considerably lighter than previous x0D, the Rebel line can easily and is likel to get lighter too, I won't be surprised to see this achieved by something similar to Sony's SLT design, specially that the Canon spokesman when he talked about a lighter design w the mirror, said something like (we have done it before and we can do it now), i guess he meant they did pellicle mirror before and they can do it again. I can't think of any other way to make the rebels any more compact than what they already are, SLT with EVF and the mirror fixed means that you remove a lot of bulk and weight from the traditional SLR design.
 
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torger said:
Canon is receiving quite a lot of bashing for not having the same low light performance as Nikon, and not so much appreciation for having higher resolution.

a) In the first place it was the Canon's idea about such a product differentiation, no wonder people expect a sports camera to perform exceptionally well at high ISOs.
b) forget seeing differences in print 16MP vs 12MP. However, what makes the difference here is that those 16MP are more concentrated (denser) meaning better magnifications in the end.
 
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