Canon is gearing up to finally release a high megapixel camera with 100+ megapixels [CR3]

unfocused

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...it's easier to find smaller subjects in the frame at 1.6x and easier to keep a focus point over a bigger subject in the viewfinder than trying to use even the spot focus point on a tiny subject...
This. When photographing smallish subjects at a distance, the focus accuracy is significantly improved by using the crop mode.
 
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gmon750

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Jan 30, 2015
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Storage manufacturers are salivating at the prospect of selling more disk storage to those new owners of extreme megapixel cameras.

I just upgraded to an R5 (from a 5DM3) and going from 22MP to 45MP, and faster frame rates has seen my disk usage explode. I can only imaging what a 100MP image will do.

I have two Promise RAID arrays (R8 and R6) and I'm seriously replacing all the drives in one tower to the largest 20TB drives I can get to keep me happy for the next few years.

How would one even manage 100MP images?
 
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Even at 120mp, 120 would mean a crop mode of 45 megapixels.. That would be one serious camera for wildlife and birding depending on the frame rates available.

I said it in the R7 post, but I think Canon is in a position to give professionals more options for reach/cropping in the form of the R5s for wildlife photographers who need pro features, a fully pro build, and lots of reach.

A 120mp full frame camera that could crop to 45mp at 20 fps could definitely make a lot of people happy. Especially when you consider the need to save on as much space as possible for air travel, you'd have both a super-high-res landscape/full frame camera, and a super-high-res crop camera both in the same body.

It's one of my favorite features of my R5--I'm not personally ever in the market for a crop camera, but the 17mp 1.6x crop mode is more than adequate for my uses when I can't get close to a subject and need to turn the crop mode on. 45mp in the crop mode would be a whole different story.
I am sure there are some people that would take a $10,000 camera out in the wild to shoot birds. But with a massive recession coming on I am not sure there will be that many.
 
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davidcl0nel

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Jan 11, 2014
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How would one even manage 100MP images?
If you don't make a lot of pictures, this is no problem.
I have my R5 now for 16 months, and the pic counter (starting with 000) is now at about 8000. And of this I have 5k remaining on my hard drive. I delete some already in camera, another during selection. I will delete some in the future too, so storage is no issue here.
But if you store all pictures or do it professional then maybe you might have a bigger problem, yes... but if you are professional, somebody pays for it, right? ;-)
 
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Storage manufacturers are salivating at the prospect of selling more disk storage to those new owners of extreme megapixel cameras.

I just upgraded to an R5 (from a 5DM3) and going from 22MP to 45MP, and faster frame rates has seen my disk usage explode. I can only imaging what a 100MP image will do.

I have two Promise RAID arrays (R8 and R6) and I'm seriously replacing all the drives in one tower to the largest 20TB drives I can get to keep me happy for the next few years.

How would one even manage 100MP images?
I'd cull I think. I really don't shoot that many frames per year and when I do shoot, I shoot the same scene over and over again to fine tune composition and wait for conditions to change/improve. At the end of the day, a 60-100 image block of the same scene could easily boil down to like 5 raws that actually get used. I could toss the rest of them without much regret. Obviously that doesn't fit all shooting styles, but I'd happily sacrifice my unused images to increase quality in the few I keep. With that said, even without discarding my unused frames, the file size generated by the PSBs from working on these images far far outweighs the thousands of unused images sitting on my hard drives. I'm honestly more concerned about processing power and RAM for how big those PSBs would be with the underlying images being 100+mp.
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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Currently, Leica are developing new improved lenses for their M11's 60 MP, on the basis of already extremely sharp ones.
What about Canon?
100 MP need extreme definition lenses, like RF 1,2/50-85. But the rest of the RF line???
Which lenses can actually take FULL advantage of the 100 MP?
Not even an f/1.2 will take full advantage of the sensor! What matters is that the overall resolution depends on the resolution of the sensor times the resolution of the lens. So, increasing the resolution of the sensor increases the apparent resolution of any lens.
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
CR Pro
Aug 16, 2012
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Storage manufacturers are salivating at the prospect of selling more disk storage to those new owners of extreme megapixel cameras.

I just upgraded to an R5 (from a 5DM3) and going from 22MP to 45MP, and faster frame rates has seen my disk usage explode. I can only imaging what a 100MP image will do.

I have two Promise RAID arrays (R8 and R6) and I'm seriously replacing all the drives in one tower to the largest 20TB drives I can get to keep me happy for the next few years.

How would one even manage 100MP images?
Are you using C-RAW? The file sizes are about the same as from a 5DIII, with no perceptible loss of quality.
 
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Currently, Leica are developing new improved lenses for their M11's 60 MP, on the basis of already extremely sharp ones.
What about Canon?
100 MP need extreme definition lenses, like RF 1,2/50-85. But the rest of the RF line???
Which lenses can actually take FULL advantage of the 100 MP?
They did release a list of recommended lenses for the 5DSR, so maybe they'll do the same here? I kind of wonder if they'd launch this with the rumoured tilt shifts because as a landscape use case I'd expect that depth of field needs would quickly push many images into the DLA territory. Those TS-Es could be the answer to "how do I maximize image quality with this many pixels in play"
 
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I don't disagree with you. I don't own an R5 but under the premise that its weather resistance is equivalent to a 5D IV, I'd be satisfied with that as I haven't gone past what my 5DIV can manage despite several full-on soakings. With that said, I wouldn't complain if it had R3-equivalent weather sealing (if there was no grip), however, and I'd be open to paying more for it. Obviously weather sealing is somewhat difficult to quantify independently, until you realize you don't have enough of it. For instance, I have no way of knowing if my gear could have taken worse soakings/sand blastings than I have given it or if I've just been lucky and already gone past what's reasonable for the camera. Regardless, my use has shown that the 5D series sealing has thus far been sufficient for my needs.
I have shot the R5 in 40 mph sandstorms and in -32 degree F weather for three hours. It performed well in both conditions. No issues, failures or shortcomings. If a 100 mp R camera has equivalent weather sealing I am all in.
 
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They have deviated from that in the past though - the R5 and R6 were launched together as were R7 / R10, and m6II / 90D to name a few. I think when there is reason to announce two bodies together (i.e. similar bodies that could arguably be cross-shopped) they have been less weary of announcing two at a time. If their plan is to go back to a top-end line divided between high resolution and high frame rate I could see them announcing them together.
True, they have announced two cameras at once in the past, but not two true flagships.

The R6 was announced alongside the R5, but the development announcement (8k etc) were solely about the R5. Imho, I guess the R6 was announced alongside the R5 because theirs was a pressing need for a more affordable and capable camera. At the point of the announcement, canon had a „flawed“ R, many people were unhappy with it. It was accompanied with the cheap RP and the headscratcher Ra. It was make or break for canon, so a huge announcement was needed.

The two-flagship theory sounds intriguing, but in the past those two flagships were announced separately. Imho, the R6 is not a flagship, so a double flagship announcement would be a premier.

Furthermore, I believe that the flagship R1 will be more like the A1/ Z9. Underneath canon will have a flagship made for speed (R3) and the high MP camera (R5s or so). If, and only if the high MP camera cracks 100mp, I could imagine an R1 with about 70-75mp.
 
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Bigger buffer, smaller filesize means less memory used, easier to compose the shots the way you'd actually like them at 17mp. There's several reasons I'm a big fan of having crop mode. I have it mapped to a button on the back of the camera so that I can quickly snap between 1.6x crop and full frame if my subject gets close enough for full frame to be useful.
A lot of times when I'm photographing wildlife or breaking news, you're just so far away from the subject that you'd be wasting quite literally dozens of gigabytes on empty space. It's a lot faster and easier when you're in crop mode to cull 2000 images of a distant subject at 17mp than have to hassle with 2,000 45mp images that only are using a small portion of the frame.

If we're talking about a 120mp camera, that's going to be a *serious* difference in filesize. That's easily saving hundreds of gigabytes of empty space and making the buffer far more usable, no matter what the buffer is.

Add to that, it's easier to find smaller subjects in the frame at 1.6x and easier to keep a focus point over a bigger subject in the viewfinder than trying to use even the spot focus point on a tiny subject.

It doesn't make sense for a lot of people to use, but for the times when a 1.6x crop camera makes sense to begin with, it definitely has its place. I personally enjoy the ability to use the camera as a full frame 45mp camera, and then in the instances when I need the reach, turn it into a 1.6x crop camera.
This is the best explanation I’ve seen for using the 1.6x crop in camera for wildlife. You make good points about having all that data that’s essentially empty anyway with distant subjects. And having the larger subject for tracking. Makes sense to me. Personally I think a faster buffer was more of an issue back in the day; even higher MP cameras move data plenty quickly for my use with moving critters, but to each their own.

It’s difficult to wrap my head around having a camera that can capture a ton of data and not using it—being stuck with 17MP on that photo forever. The FOMO of “what if” that subject suddenly fills the frame while flying towards me or another subject quickly darts into the scene, and I can’t switch back quickly enough for that photo of a lifetime. Perhaps a refinement that experienced wildlife shooters evolve to—not there yet personally.

I’ve generally been against the in-camera crop with the R5 but you’ve shifted my perspective a little and going to give it a whirl now. Thanks for the post.
 
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entoman

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May 8, 2015
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I'd cull I think. I really don't shoot that many frames per year and when I do shoot, I shoot the same scene over and over again to fine tune composition and wait for conditions to change/improve. At the end of the day, a 60-100 image block of the same scene could easily boil down to like 5 raws that actually get used. I could toss the rest of them without much regret. Obviously that doesn't fit all shooting styles, but I'd happily sacrifice my unused images to increase quality in the few I keep. With that said, even without discarding my unused frames, the file size generated by the PSBs from working on these images far far outweighs the thousands of unused images sitting on my hard drives. I'm honestly more concerned about processing power and RAM for how big those PSBs would be with the underlying images being 100+mp.
It's good practice to set a personal limit on the number of photos that one keeps. Since switching to digital in 2002, I've been shooting around 15-20,000 images per year, but I decided long ago to restrict the total number of images in my collection to a maximum of 25,000. It pays to review older images regularly and compare them to current work, throwing out anything that is sub-par, and raising the overall standard.

I'll typically take around 30 shots of each subject on a given occasion, trying to get the best possible composition, lighting etc. After downloading to my computer, I compare images side by side in LR, whittling them down until I'm left with just 2 or 3 shots of each subject that get edited. After editing I then compare the final results with any similar but older shots that I have, and usually find that the latest "version" is better, so the older ones get thrown out.

If I had a 100MP camera (I don't want or need one, 45-50MP is enough for me), I'd still keep to a maximum of 25,000 images, but upgrade my storage capacity.
 
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Jun 29, 2016
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Well, such a camera will be great for modeling, portraits, landscape, architecture, however, it will have lower ISO and FPS, which will, unless resolved, a draw back for any action photography.

I just wonder, about the lenses such camera will need to have to produce as sharp images. Cause, as seen before, less pixels still can tolerate optical errors, and images that are sharp on the R6 are not so on the R5 just because the R5 has double the number of pixels on the sensor.
 
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24 megapixels at full frame are already on the high end of what is acceptable for me. I would love to see the other direction: A 12 megapixel full frame stacked BSI sensor. Or even a monochrome sensor.
Well if you go to 12MP.. it should be global shutter..

However, I don't think any camera manufacturer will go to that direction, as today, the minimum sensor size is 20MP-24MP (the R6 and the R3 respectively), where the main purpose is to increase electronic shutter to reach 30FPS or even more.

On the other hand, you can always use the camera as B/W. It is not something you can't do right now.
 
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If you don't make a lot of pictures, this is no problem.
I have my R5 now for 16 months, and the pic counter (starting with 000) is now at about 8000. And of this I have 5k remaining on my hard drive. I delete some already in camera, another during selection. I will delete some in the future too, so storage is no issue here.
But if you store all pictures or do it professional then maybe you might have a bigger problem, yes... but if you are professional, somebody pays for it, right? ;-)
Do as I did, external disks of 4Tb... still hold about 15K RAW images... :cool:
 
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