Canon Actively Testing Third Party Sensors [CR2]

ajfotofilmagem said:
George D. said:
I'd say is there any intention Canon to be using next generation Foveon/Sigma. Note Sigma SD1 is 46Mp APS-C dSLR... Sony is also moving towards the direction, has released a foveon-like patent in June.
Sigma calculates the resolution of Foveon sensor using a different mathematical :o ... Each pixel is counted three times, once for each color.

In fact the 46 megapixel Foveon sensor has only 15 megapixel.

+1 - Sigma's attempt to win the MP war by lying.

Incidentally, some time back Canon had a patent for a Foveon-like sensor.
 
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George D. This doesn´t make much of sense to me.
If they needed to differentiate so much, they wouldn't make Sony RX100 competition with the same sensor, and then another products with the same sensor. They wouldn´t go 24Mpx for their APS-C sensors, but stay at 18 or go to 32-36Mpx. They could even pretend that they are not selling cameras, but //add some other random object//

It is the same blind shooting as it was before 7D II - "They could not use higher resolution sensor for lower end camera. After 7D II, they did it twice actually!

Market is rapidly changing in this sector, and there is no clear roadmap to be made. Things can turn pretty quickly. Don´t expect long term patterns in companies behavior. These act and response in operational manner.
 
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RGF said:
Like to see Canon use Sony's 42MP (or slightly lower res version) in the 5D M4.

I would say very unlikely but my wish.
I can understand your intention. But this only could have happened with the 5DS/R.
Canon will definetly not make a 5D4 so close to the 5DS/R.

Maybe your wish will be fullfilled with the 5DS/R Mk II... (within some 3 to 5 years...).
 
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TeT said:
Would hate to give up the higher ISO Low Light performance for a cheaper sensor in the 6DII for.. READY here it comes

If anything it would be a more expensive sensor since they wouldn't just dump another in house old sensor off their old sensor plant in the 6D2 then but would be paying a little extra for someone else's sensor.
Although it might be less expensive than upgrading their manufacturing to be able to make a sensor as good or better than someone else's.
In either scenario I don't see anything about losing performance.

Look at A7R II sensor. Where is the poor high iso performance? Look at A7S/A7S II at high ISO? How is that giving up high iso? where it the poor video performance (it can read 4k video without line skipping OR binning plus do it with oversampling at aps-c crop size plus off a very high MP sensor, what canon sensor can do that?)?
 
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RGF said:
Like to see Canon use Sony's 42MP (or slightly lower res version) in the 5D M4.

I would say very unlikely but my wish.

Yeah if they did that and took full advantage of the 4k video it can produce and let it hit 6fps FF (or at least in a crop RAW mode 6-7fps), I'd dump the A7RII and 5D3 in a second and go with that.
I'm still not sure that it likely at all though. Oh well. At least the A7RII is awesome for some video and more static landscape/general scenery stuff for now, although not having to drag both a7RII and 5D3 around would be nice and save money and then you'd always have the best of both world's at once, but hey at least there is this great split option now. And if Canon won't combine the Nikon, I think Nikon will very soon, sure their lenses and UI are worse and all but might be worth it, although expensive to swap that fully and again the UI and lenses, but if Canon makes it clear they won't do it next year it's also an option. Anyway, at least there are various nice options now, some like a7rii+canon pairing even let you stick with your same lenses .
 
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TeT said:
Would hate to give up the higher ISO Low Light performance for a cheaper sensor in the 6DII ..

That may have been true in previous generations but there's little difference in hi ISO performance across the brands. If anything, the recent exmor types perform better at hi ISO by a small margin from the data I've looked at.
However, things can change in Canon's favor with longer exposure times at high iso... sometimes.
 
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Maximilian said:
RGF said:
Like to see Canon use Sony's 42MP (or slightly lower res version) in the 5D M4.

I would say very unlikely but my wish.
I can understand your intention. But this only could have happened with the 5DS/R.
Canon will definetly not make a 5D4 so close to the 5DS/R.

Maybe your wish will be fullfilled with the 5DS/R Mk II... (within some 3 to 5 years...).

I would like to see Canon come out with a 5Dish mirrorless 12 MP cam, not as fast and kicking as the 1 DX but a cam built and ready for extreme astro and lowlightscape use...okay, this one might have less bells and whistles than the a7sII and surely no 4K video...
 
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unfocused said:
Sooner or later Canon is going to have to retire the 18mp sensor from the original 7D. It doesn't surprise me at all that they might be auditioning replacements. As the original post states, they aren't likely to use a third party sensor for their flagships, which I take to mean the 1Dx, 5D and 7D.

Does anyone else make a suitable 1.6x crop sensor? I guess it would be possible to use a 1.5x sensor and use just 88% of the sensor area and resolution, but this doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me.
 
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dilbert said:
using the Sony product allows for a shorter time tomarket than waiting for Canon's internal sensor business to produce a part.

Not necessarily; they would need to fundamentally redesign their signal chain. It's not plug and play, and nobody on the outside can credibly say what is quicker to adapt.

I could be wrong (since I'm feeling too lazy to look it up, so feel free to correct me), but it seems like Canon turns out sensors more frequently than it turns out DIGIC chips.
 
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A 3rd party sensor makes sense for a slow selling model that does not have enough sales to justify the very high cost of development. A 1 series camera falls in this class. The Rebels usually share the same sensor, and the 5D series sells well. The 6D using a different sensor does not make much sense to me, it should be using the same as the 5D series.

In any event, the 1D MK XI design should have long been locked up by now, the same for the 5D MK IV and possibly the 6D.

I'm sure that designs can be changed, but it can cause a year or more delay.

With Sony now operating the sensor business as a separate entity, they should be willing to sell the latest tech to anyone. However, there are other fabs that produce sensors. Canon might very well farm out the sensor fab business to a outside company.
 
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If this rumor is true, the 6DII is the only candidate for having a Sony sensor, IMO.

I don't see Canon using a Sony sensor in upper-tier models: the 1DXII, 5DIV, or 5DSII.

It's possible, though, that the 1DX-II and 5DIV will have the same new Canon sensor - say 28mp - with 4K video and whatnot.
And in that case, Canon could put the 24mp Sony sensor from the A7II into the 6DII.
Doing that will allow them to better differentiate the 6DII from the 5DIV.
Also, it will probably be cheaper than making a separate 6DII sensor.

If not that, I can't t see Canon using a Sony sensor.
Like I said, it's very unlikely that the other FF models will ever use a non-Canon sensor.
 
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Aglet said:
TeT said:
Would hate to give up the higher ISO Low Light performance for a cheaper sensor in the 6DII ..

That may have been true in previous generations but there's little difference in hi ISO performance across the brands. If anything, the recent exmor types perform better at hi ISO by a small margin from the data I've looked at.
However, things can change in Canon's favor with longer exposure times at high iso... sometimes.

Yeah I guess if you do astro or really long high iso exposures for whatever then canon can be better at high iso, otherwise nothing to worry about and you might even end up a little better for all you know.
 
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Some people think Canon going to Sony for all their sensor needs will kill innovation. I completely disagree.

Sony would be Sony's main competitor when it comes to convincing photographers they need to upgrade their gear. Canon would be sending some serious cash their way which could possibly help R&D for new tech. Current cameras can last for 10+ years of use, so there needs to something other than the reason of "my camera died, I need a new one" for people to upgrade. Canon by themselves can probably only afford to do major upgrades to their core tech and fabs every 15 years or longer. That doesn't cut it for the users who desire significant increases in some way or other.
 
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dilbert said:
Canon has only 1 flagship model, the 1DX. Or maybe 2 if you count the 5Ds/R. The 5D, 6D, 7D are not flagship.

As Canon have already moved to Sony sensors for the G series cameras with a 1" sensor, maybe this gave Canon some insight as to what could be achieved with 3rd party sensors: better than the competition using the same and about the same as the next step up from Canon.

So maybe the next step is to try out 3rd party sensors in the next model up - entry level Rebel (XXXD) model DSLRs. From an IQ perspective, they would be on a par with Canon's full frame cameras but camera purchasers are a snobby bunch and nobody that owns a full frame camera is going to "downgrade" so bringing in the Sony sensor in a lower end model won't threaten full frame sales with Canon sensors. Sure there will be an insignificant number that won't buy a full frame because of this but that's not a problem.

But...

Canon need to be looking at how to get all of their 2016 model DSLRs (and later) doing 4K video.

Personally, I'd be happy with either the Sony 36MP or 42MP sensor in (say) the 5DIV or 6DII but will the 36MP sensor support 4K video?

From a business perspective, why would Canon want to develop its own 42MP sensor from scratch when it could just buy Sony's? Why would it want 42MP? It is close to the perfect resolution for 4K video and using the Sony product allows for a shorter time to market than waiting for Canon's internal sensor business to produce a part.

Imagine that you're Canon and you've got a Canon full frame sensor ready for the 5DIV in the 20-30MP range that won't deliver 4K ability and is going to deliver about the same (or fewer) MP than Nikon's previous generation FF cameras (D810, D750, D610.) Somehow Canon needs to map the 5Ds/R, 5D and 6D models up against Nikon's D810, D750 and D610 - or rather, the 5Ds/R vs D820, 5DIV vs D760, 6DII vs 620D. Maybe bringing in a 3rd party helps hit each of those price points more effectively with a sensor that is more competitive with other cameras.

Flagship is just one. No?
 
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