Canon EOS 3D X [CR1]

[art_d]

And the idea that few people understand all the tech behind it, I agree. I am one of them, trying to learn more. But I'm definitely not convinced that the progression to 16 bit is a bad idea. It needs to be implemented properly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became something we all understood a bit better in the coming year or two...

Going to 16 bit wouldn't hurt anything in the imaging process. It just isn't going to help anything. It's not going to record better color transitions, just extra random noise. All it would do is make RAW files larger, because the files would now contain extra information on the random noise which previously was not being recorded. Larger files without any actual benefit to images is not something we should be asking for.

 

[marekjoz]

And the idea that few people understand all the tech behind it, I agree. I am one of them, trying to learn more. But I'm definitely not convinced that the progression to 16 bit is a bad idea. It needs to be implemented properly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became something we all understood a bit better in the coming year or two...

Going to 16 bit wouldn't hurt anything in the imaging process. It just isn't going to help anything. It's not going to record better color transitions, just extra random noise. All it would do is make RAW files larger, because the files would now contain extra information on the random noise which previously was not being recorded. Larger files without any actual benefit to images is not something we should be asking for.

Why are you so sure it will record just extra noise but no more useful information?

 

[AmbientLight]

I believe that the point about random noise coming in applies only if you compare a high quality, high MP sensor with a low quality, high MP sensor assuming of course that lens quality is similar. The question is of course left in the open, from where this high quality sensor may come from?

To me the answer is obvious:
On one side you have some small companies trying to survive in a specialized market niche, while on the other hand you have big corporations with disproportionate amounts of money to invest in R&D out to annihilate annoying niche market competitors. I have seen this situation in other lines of business and the end result is rather easy to predict.

 

[art_d]

And the idea that few people understand all the tech behind it, I agree. I am one of them, trying to learn more. But I'm definitely not convinced that the progression to 16 bit is a bad idea. It needs to be implemented properly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became something we all understood a bit better in the coming year or two...

Going to 16 bit wouldn't hurt anything in the imaging process. It just isn't going to help anything. It's not going to record better color transitions, just extra random noise. All it would do is make RAW files larger, because the files would now contain extra information on the random noise which previously was not being recorded. Larger files without any actual benefit to images is not something we should be asking for.

Why are you so sure it will record just extra noise but no more useful information?

People have studied this issue. See the following technical explanation related to noise and bit depth: http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/noise-p3.html

Also, see this rather lengthy discussion: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=60672.0

In short, represntatives from a medium format digital back dealer essentially concede that when the term "16 bit" is applied to MF sensors, it is done so as marketing shorthand in order to convey to potential customers that the MF sensor will have better tonal qualities compared to DSLRs of equal megapixels, even though the actual reasons for those better tonal qualities lie elsewhere. This may be fine for MFDB buyers since they are not being misled and their camers do produce better tonal qualities. However the problem which has resulted from this seemingly innocent bit of marketing is that some people have been led to think that if you make DSLR sensors 16 bit they will produce the tonal qualities of MF.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

So, if the 3D is supposed to between the 5D and 1D series, that also means the price will be somewhere between $3500 and $6800. If this is supposed to compete with the D800(E), then I think Canon seriously missed its price-point.

If this is supposed to compete with medium format cameras a price between 3000$ and 6000$ is not a bad idea.

So you would pay thousands more to get from 36MP to 46MP while giving up the high DR at low ISO of a D800?

EDIT: OK i misread the rumor, it mentions industry leading LOW ISO so forget what I wrote above. If it has industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP it will be a landscape and studio beast! ;D

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

However this camera turns out, 5D3 owners will be burned.

Not if it has the same old DR (i.e. not close to low ISO Nikon or MF), much slower fps, no chance for magic lantern, costs a lot more. You'd get better reach and detail but give up a lot since Canon won't give it cropped modes with speed or stay at a more reasonable 36MP to keep some speed and doesn't seem to have the sensor tech to deliver top quality low ISO pixels. I'd rather keep the 5D3 and wait for a 5D4 or D900 myself.
Of course, who knows, maybe they finally spring their miracle new sensor with this or it does have fast crops modes or better fps (46MP dual digic should go 4.7fps not 3.7fps and it could hit 6fps if they cut MP down a little).


EDIT: OK i misread the rumor, it mentions industry leading LOW ISO so forget what I wrote above. If it has industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP it will be a landscape and studio beast! ;D

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Being CR1, this is just someone's fantasy camera. It has no more credibility than any of us just randomly emailing the CR guy with what we'd like to see in a big megapixel camera. With the 1DX, 5DIII, T4i, and mirror less I just don't see another body being released so soon.

There were tons of CR2's for months prior to all the previously mentioned cameras and not one for this camera, we would have heard something by now if there was a camera this big on the immediate horizon.

true enough, surely someone is sitting somewhere laughing at the 9, 10, 30, 100 pages being written on his random rumor submission. ;D

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

If you're that bothered by the skin tone reproduction by today's DSLRs, hire a professional processing lab to do the final touches on your shots.

If you're recommending something like that, you're really not getting my point...

I get the feeling some are obsessed with matching Nikon and their mega pixels and not worried about the conversation of how a photo can look... however minute the change can be.
I hear it time and again, when you have MF quality, the difference is there. When you have a dslr, most will try to appease themselves and insist MF, for some tech/scientific/'I read somewhere' reason, is not worth it and not even advantageous anymore.
I'm very happy with the 5dmkiii, very happy... it's much better than I thought it would be over the 5dmkii. But, there's always room for improvement, usually in aspects very difficult to make better, unlike MP which is where all the attention gets placed.
You don't have to be a high paid fashion/car photographer to be able to appreciate that.

I've never used MF (well not in digital) or even looked at any test data from them but they might be using very tight color filters, perhaps, that make them less color-blind so they can distinguish more subtle shading differences in color and may have better DR at low ISO.

 

[justsomedude]

Nikon fanboys dislike this news ;D

why?? I'd rather 36MP a tons of DR than 46MP and old school DR. I'd rather options for 5 and 6fps than stuck at 3.7fps no matter what. I'd rather a 5D3 or D800 than these potential specs.

You've made reference to poor DR in two posts now, regarding a possible 3DX sensor's performance. First, a huge caveat - we're all arguing about a presently fictitious/rumored camera body - so claiming the status quo will remain, or that Canon will make some giant leap is in the realm of pure speculation. That said, I'm going to speculate...

The key thing I draw from the "leaked specs" is the point about it having improved heat dissipation for "industry leading low ISO performance." This is supported by the leaked specs capping ISO at 6400, with ISO 50 being native, expandable to ISO 25. As a result, I would anticipate significantly improved noise and DR over existing sensors. Otherwise, Canon would be dead in the water with a 46 MP camera that is essentially a 5D3 with double the resolution. Not much to gain there, and no one would dump the money on it. But hammer home some sick new low ISO performance, and it could be a hot item. I think this will be an offering on an entirely new level ... something we haven't seen yet from Canon.

As I've stated before, I just hope it's real.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Nikon fanboys dislike this news ;D

why?? I'd rather 36MP a tons of DR than 46MP and old school DR. I'd rather options for 5 and 6fps than stuck at 3.7fps no matter what. I'd rather a 5D3 or D800 than these potential specs.

You've made reference to poor DR in two posts now, regarding a possible 3DX sensor's performance. First, a huge caveat - we're all arguing about a presently fictitious/rumored camera body - so claiming the status quo will remain, or that Canon will make some giant leap is in the realm of pure speculation. That said, I'm going to speculate...

The key thing I draw from the "leaked specs" is the point about it having improved heat dissipation for "industry leading low ISO performance." This is supported by the leaked specs capping ISO at 6400, with ISO 50 being native, expandable to ISO 25. As a result, I would anticipate significantly improved noise and DR over existing sensors. Otherwise, Canon would be dead in the water with a 46 MP camera that is essentially a 5D3 with double the resolution. Not much to gain there, and no one would dump the money on it. But hammer home some sick new low ISO performance, and it could be a hot item. I think this will be an offering on an entirely new level ... something we haven't seen yet from Canon.

As I've stated before, I just hope it's real.

OOPS my bad, I was so used to Canon being behind at low ISO and doing very well at high ISO that I read the 'specs' too quickly and thought it said industry leading HIGH ISO but you are entirely correct about everything. I agree with all you say above.

Well, first off these specs are probably just from some random person making stuff up, but whatever, yeah between ISO50 standard and "industry leading low ISO" and all you are correct, if we take the rumor at heart at does hint at superb low ISO so ignore all my posts above, oops.

If it had industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP that WOULD be a total landscape and studio beast! ;D
In that case the 3.7fps for FF mode wouldn't be so bad at this point in time.

Once again ignore my series of dumb posts earlier in the thread.

(Although it would still be awesome if Canon gave it a crop mode at more fps, ala D800, because then it could be a total wildlife shooting camera beast as well as just a landscape/studio beast.)

 

[Caps18]

Canon just wants to get me to give them my money. It looks like it would be really good.

If it was medium format, it would be very tempting. But I would have to save up for 2 more years probably... It will be interesting if there is a megapixel 'war' and a pixel quality 'war' at the same time.

I also need to get at least 5 years of life out of my current camera.

 

[Cali_PH]

As a landscape guy that's recently gotten into printing stuff 24"x36" and possibly larger, this interests me. Sure, I realize people can print large With lower mp's but if this rumor is true there'd be increases in low iso perfornance and DR, good stuff for landscape.

Many Canonites had dismissed the D800 simply because it had 'too many mp's,' would slow down pp, files take up too much space etc. All valid considerations, but I'm guessing more than a few of those people would suddenly consider this Canon

 

[marekjoz]

And the idea that few people understand all the tech behind it, I agree. I am one of them, trying to learn more. But I'm definitely not convinced that the progression to 16 bit is a bad idea. It needs to be implemented properly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became something we all understood a bit better in the coming year or two...

Going to 16 bit wouldn't hurt anything in the imaging process. It just isn't going to help anything. It's not going to record better color transitions, just extra random noise. All it would do is make RAW files larger, because the files would now contain extra information on the random noise which previously was not being recorded. Larger files without any actual benefit to images is not something we should be asking for.

Why are you so sure it will record just extra noise but no more useful information?

People have studied this issue. See the following technical explanation related to noise and bit depth: http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/noise-p3.html

Also, see this rather lengthy discussion: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=60672.0

In short, represntatives from a medium format digital back dealer essentially concede that when the term "16 bit" is applied to MF sensors, it is done so as marketing shorthand in order to convey to potential customers that the MF sensor will have better tonal qualities compared to DSLRs of equal megapixels, even though the actual reasons for those better tonal qualities lie elsewhere. This may be fine for MFDB buyers since they are not being misled and their camers do produce better tonal qualities. However the problem which has resulted from this seemingly innocent bit of marketing is that some people have been led to think that if you make DSLR sensors 16 bit they will produce the tonal qualities of MF.

I've read this article from Chicago some time ago and thanks - I've read it again It's hard not to agree with it's contents written by prof Martinec (the more that I've got just a master and engineer degrees in computer science, not a professor ) but let me point to some circumstances:

1. Examples showing no difference between the original image and image with clipped 2 bits don't make sense in this discussion - there it was to indicate no difference on screen while viewing, we are talking about the useful information used later for image manipulation. If we intend to get one picture 14 bits deep and another 16 bits deep, convert them directly to 8bits jpegs and display on a screen, then most probably we won't see too much difference, I'd say - no difference. But if you'd like to manipulate it in PS, then depending on how much you want to manipulate, you'll see the difference sooner or later.

2. The long part of the article regarding noise is based on real values measured in real devices like 1d3 or 40d and compared to other devices. The read noise in sensor plays an important part. How about changing it a little in next generation of sensors? I mean - what if? What if in a new sensor some other technology would be used? Let's assume they would find a method to read each pixel's value not once after exposing it to light but could introduce sampling with frequency let's say 1MHz, which could eliminate some read noise and improve DR? I'm not saying that such sampling would help but I indicate, that some conclusions might not be same true in such a new type of sensor. So what if those additional bits were not just to record more noise?

3. I don't think that 16bit RAWs would make my photos any better than 14bit RAWs because in most cases I wouldn't know what to do with this. At the same time I think that guys at Adobe could know

4. I think that everyone here has heard that there was a world market for no more than 5 computers and that 640KB of computer memory was enough So why not 32 bit RAWs?

BTW: In the era of 386s@40Mhz and 486s@50Mhz if I would say to my professor that in 20 years there will be processors working at 2.4GHz and a graphics memory would utilize 7GHz clock it would be the best joke he'd hear that week. In one cycle of 2Ghz clock light (or other electromagnetic wave) travels like 15cm in vacuum...

 

[DarkKnightNine]

There is a real hole in the Canon lineup at $2,000 advanced amateur level . The 60D and the 7D are both rounding 3 years and are showing their age. This thing looks like a $5,000 camera. There are plenty of $5,000 cameras I can't afford already. Maybe this is a response the the Nikon 800E but it certainly doesn't fill the advanced amateur hole in the Canon line up. I can't afford this camera, can you?

The D800 is NOT a Medium Format killer, it is merely an imitation and possibly an introduction, but Medium Format cameras have much larger sensors than 35mm and perform on a level not capable even by the D800. The only camera that comes close is the Leica S2.

 

[Aglet]

To me the answer is obvious:
On one side you have some small companies trying to survive in a specialized market niche, while on the other hand you have big corporations with disproportionate amounts of money to invest in R&D out to annihilate annoying niche market competitors. I have seen this situation in other lines of business and the end result is rather easy to predict.

so why does it take Canon this long to start producing a camera with serious DR? (assuming they can and will from this latest rumor)

After all, they’ve been solidly kicked by the D90, D5100, D7000, D800, D4 and a few Pentax bodies along the way since the K10D thru K5, some of those, I believe, still used a CCD sensor and managed to deliver better DR and color range. They've certainly had a few years to show they could catch up.
If they intended to annihilate the competition, they’re certainly taking their sweet time about it.

Still, however baseless this rumor may be, I hope Canon can pull a rabbit out of their hat here - and allow us to take a picture of the deep dark black felt lining inside that hat without all the attendant red-channel noise we’re accustomed to seeing from their current cameras.

 

[RLPhoto]

However this camera turns out, 5D3 owners will be burned.

Not if it has the same old DR (i.e. not close to low ISO Nikon or MF), much slower fps, no chance for magic lantern, costs a lot more. You'd get better reach and detail but give up a lot since Canon won't give it cropped modes with speed or stay at a more reasonable 36MP to keep some speed and doesn't seem to have the sensor tech to deliver top quality low ISO pixels. I'd rather keep the 5D3 and wait for a 5D4 or D900 myself.
Of course, who knows, maybe they finally spring their miracle new sensor with this or it does have fast crops modes or better fps (46MP dual digic should go 4.7fps not 3.7fps and it could hit 6fps if they cut MP down a little).


EDIT: OK i misread the rumor, it mentions industry leading LOW ISO so forget what I wrote above. If it has industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP it will be a landscape and studio beast! ;D

Yes, 5D3 owners will be burned. :-X

 

[bdunbar79]

However this camera turns out, 5D3 owners will be burned.

Not if it has the same old DR (i.e. not close to low ISO Nikon or MF), much slower fps, no chance for magic lantern, costs a lot more. You'd get better reach and detail but give up a lot since Canon won't give it cropped modes with speed or stay at a more reasonable 36MP to keep some speed and doesn't seem to have the sensor tech to deliver top quality low ISO pixels. I'd rather keep the 5D3 and wait for a 5D4 or D900 myself.
Of course, who knows, maybe they finally spring their miracle new sensor with this or it does have fast crops modes or better fps (46MP dual digic should go 4.7fps not 3.7fps and it could hit 6fps if they cut MP down a little).


EDIT: OK i misread the rumor, it mentions industry leading LOW ISO so forget what I wrote above. If it has industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP it will be a landscape and studio beast! ;D

Yes, 5D3 owners will be burned. :-X

Burned? Why? Just b/c a better camera comes out doesn't make the one I have worse does it? I'm a 5D3 owner and I don't want a 46 MP camera. I don't want a 36 MP camera. I want a 22 MP camera with a great AF system. There's a reason I kept my 5D Mark III and sold my 1Ds Mark III.

 

[RLPhoto]

However this camera turns out, 5D3 owners will be burned.

Not if it has the same old DR (i.e. not close to low ISO Nikon or MF), much slower fps, no chance for magic lantern, costs a lot more. You'd get better reach and detail but give up a lot since Canon won't give it cropped modes with speed or stay at a more reasonable 36MP to keep some speed and doesn't seem to have the sensor tech to deliver top quality low ISO pixels. I'd rather keep the 5D3 and wait for a 5D4 or D900 myself.
Of course, who knows, maybe they finally spring their miracle new sensor with this or it does have fast crops modes or better fps (46MP dual digic should go 4.7fps not 3.7fps and it could hit 6fps if they cut MP down a little).


EDIT: OK i misread the rumor, it mentions industry leading LOW ISO so forget what I wrote above. If it has industry leading low ISO DR and 46MP it will be a landscape and studio beast! ;D

Yes, 5D3 owners will be burned. :-X

Burned? Why? Just b/c a better camera comes out doesn't make the one I have worse does it? I'm a 5D3 owner and I don't want a 46 MP camera. I don't want a 36 MP camera. I want a 22 MP camera with a great AF system. There's a reason I kept my 5D Mark III and sold my 1Ds Mark III.

Canon could have done better.

 

[bdunbar79]

I agree, the 5D Mark III could have had better DR. That's the shortcoming I see and can understand. Historically though, the 1Ds line has had that, and we sort of lost that with the 1DX and again I'll say, the 1DX doesn't replace the 1Ds3 at all.

 

[cliffwang]

Many Canonites had dismissed the D800 simply because it had 'too many mp's,' would slow down pp, files take up too much space etc. All valid considerations, but I'm guessing more than a few of those people would suddenly consider this Canon

LOL. I was also thinking how come those people not complaining this high MP camera.