Canon must hurry up on FF mirrorless, Sony's new A9 is killer

Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set. I think such a technology is possible to implement but I wonder why noone hasn't done it yet.

Because most people care more about whether eyes were open and children were smiling than how sharp it is.

Moments > Sharpness.

- A
 
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ahsanford said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set. I think such a technology is possible to implement but I wonder why noone hasn't done it yet.

Because most people care more about whether eyes were open and children were smiling than how sharp it is.

Moments > Sharpness.

- A

Cue the HBC quotes!
 
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Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set. I think such a technology is possible to implement but I wonder why noone hasn't done it yet.
Because some times, a picture can be so bad that it is art.....
 

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Jack Douglas said:
Crosswind said:
Cthulhu said:
davidhfe said:
Sabaki said:
Alternatively one can learn their gear, observe animal behaviour and grab excellent images with 7, 8, 10, 14 fps.

I'm not sure what the masses think but I enjoy the idea that I deliver some skill in getting a good image. Would we want a 100fps to guarantee a shot?

Are you asking if I'd want a camera that can shoot 100fps with full AE/AF at full resolution? Yes. Absolutely.

That'd be a nightmare choosing keepers.

You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set. I think such a technology is possible to implement but I wonder why noone hasn't done it yet.

Probably because there are a lot more subjective factors than contrast and sharpness.

Jack

You don't need AI based micro-anything to solve the core problem here.

I see two things needed. First, a burst id written when the picture is taken. Whereas the file name increments with every frame, burst id would increment only when the shutter is pressed for the first time. Single shot? Burst of 1. Hold down the shutter for 2 seconds on a 10fps camera, then again for 1 second? 30 shots, 2 bursts. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised this isn't already on some cameras (I checked my 7D2 files, but didn't see 'em).

Second, when you load up in your processing tool, it could stack/group by burst instead of frame. When selecting keepers, if you hit a stack you scrub through frames until you hit the peak of action—the moment a baseball is compressed on a bat, the moment before a diving bird hits the water—and flag that as the keeper. Processing tool would automatically reject all others in the burst and they get removed next cleanup.

I get it, the very concept of spray and pray is anathema to pro photographers, and I shoot sports like 3 times a year on a rented 7D2. The point though is that I don't think fairly mundane stuff like "hard to select keepers" should stop camera manufactures from pushing the envelope. These are easily solvable problems (and honestly I would love to have a feature like this at even at 7fps)
 
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Crosswind said:
Jack Douglas said:
Probably because there are a lot more subjective factors than contrast and sharpness.

Jack

What subjective factors do you mean?

Not everyone is cherry-picking their sharpest shot. Some folks want to capture a critical moment, others want to ensure everyone in the family has their eyes open at the same time, etc.

- A
 
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benkam said:
20 fps with 24MP sensor
blackout-free EVF
fully silent, vibration-free operation
5-axis in-body IS
693 AF points
AF joystick
2.2X bigger battery than A7-series
dual UHS-II SD slots
among other new features

$4500, priced just above the 5D4 and well below the 1DX2

Why does Canon need to hurry? Sony doesn't have the lenses that the people who would buy this camera actually need.

Even if the a9 turns out as amazing as its specs would imply, the lens problem is a very BIG problem.

It's a cool camera, but honestly, Sony should have focused on their a7 series, until they actually had the required lenses available. This would also allow the technology to mature even more for their a9 series.

That's not to say that I don't want Canon to accelerate their camera development, I absolutely would, I'm simply saying that it isn't nearly as dire as some make it out to be.
 
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ahsanford said:
Crosswind said:
Jack Douglas said:
Probably because there are a lot more subjective factors than contrast and sharpness.

Jack

What subjective factors do you mean?

Not everyone is cherry-picking their sharpest shot. Some folks want to capture a critical moment, others want to ensure everyone in the family has their eyes open at the same time, etc.

- A

Yes. But I mainly do landscape/travel photography. Very often I have bursts of 20 images of the same subject. But they all have a very long shutter speed because I wanted to lower the ISO to get less noise. Now there might be 2-3 sharp images out of the 20. So I always have to pick the sharpest manually.

And if you do that very often, you end up with lots and lots of photos to weed throgh later. Here I'd love to have an automated process which marks the sharpest photos of a burst if you so desire. So that you have less time consuming cherry-picking later on when you fine tune everything in LR.

Of course you could argue I should use a tripod instead, but then I could say that I don't always have it with me because it is additional weight and bulk.
 
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Don Haines said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set. I think such a technology is possible to implement but I wonder why noone hasn't done it yet.
Because some times, a picture can be so bad that it is art.....

Beautiful Don ! You are quite right.
 
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Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set.

This is so wrong that it hurts.

No. No. and NO again.

This is NOT what you should do in a camera. This is a perfect tool that could be added into Lightroom (or whatever your favourite post-production/workflow management tool is) but anyone who tries to do this sort of thing on a camera deserves to be slapped around the face.

Don't even try to identify which images are the better ones on your camera. You can't do it, not with the crappy screens you have on the camera and certainly don't think of relying on in-camera algorithms to help you.

Put in a big card, take lots of photos, and don't delete ANYTHING until you get home. Then, on a big screen, you can do this job properly.

Rather than messing around in the field trying to do this in the camera simply use the time to TAKE MORE PHOTOS.


Honestly, some people...
 
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aero1126 said:
benkam said:
20 fps with 24MP sensor
blackout-free EVF
fully silent, vibration-free operation
5-axis in-body IS
693 AF points
AF joystick
2.2X bigger battery than A7-series
dual UHS-II SD slots
among other new features

$4500, priced just above the 5D4 and well below the 1DX2

Why does Canon need to hurry? Sony doesn't have the lenses that the people who would buy this camera actually need.

Even if the a9 turns out as amazing as its specs would imply, the lens problem is a very BIG problem.

There are two EF to Sony E adapters, one by metabones, which makes it the big problem a wee smaller.

aero1126 said:
That's not to say that I don't want Canon to accelerate their camera development, I absolutely would, I'm simply saying that it isn't nearly as dire as some make it out to be.

My impression is Canon could have been a step or two further along the way.

With Delkin making a UHS-II v90 card, and other companies making UHS-II cards with writing speeds up to 260MB/s (and higher), I think it was conservative of Canon to release the 5DmkIV with a UHS-I slot, rather than UHS-II.

I can see why video people say the same about the 5DmkIV not having 4K HDMI out.
 
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jolyonralph said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set.

This is so wrong that it hurts.

No. No. and NO again.

This is NOT what you should do in a camera. This is a perfect tool that could be added into Lightroom (or whatever your favourite post-production/workflow management tool is) but anyone who tries to do this sort of thing on a camera deserves to be slapped around the face.

Don't even try to identify which images are the better ones on your camera. You can't do it, not with the crappy screens you have on the camera and certainly don't think of relying on in-camera algorithms to help you.

Put in a big card, take lots of photos, and don't delete ANYTHING until you get home. Then, on a big screen, you can do this job properly.

Rather than messing around in the field trying to do this in the camera simply use the time to TAKE MORE PHOTOS.


Honestly, some people...

"Slapped around the face!!!" Extreme!!! What you having a bad day? Get this: It is possible to judge and delete photos on the small screen of the camera in emergency if you know what you looking for in the photo. But I would never let camera judge what is a good photo. A good photo is a combination of technology and art. Camera can't judge art. What if the shot is blur but the photographer wants it that way, the camera can never know.
 
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jolyonralph said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set.

but anyone who tries to do this sort of thing on a camera deserves to be slapped around the face.

It's ok if you and some others don't like it. Everyone is doing it differently. The end result is what really counts. And what counts much more, is respectful choice of words. Think about that next time.

Your attitude is mostly fitting into this forum (sadly). Sometimes I question myself, why I am contributing to CR anymore.
 
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jolyonralph said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set.

This is so wrong that it hurts.

No. No. and NO again.

This is NOT what you should do in a camera. This is a perfect tool that could be added into Lightroom (or whatever your favourite post-production/workflow management tool is) but anyone who tries to do this sort of thing on a camera deserves to be slapped around the face.

Don't even try to identify which images are the better ones on your camera. You can't do it, not with the crappy screens you have on the camera and certainly don't think of relying on in-camera algorithms to help you.

Put in a big card, take lots of photos, and don't delete ANYTHING until you get home. Then, on a big screen, you can do this job properly.

Rather than messing around in the field trying to do this in the camera simply use the time to TAKE MORE PHOTOS.


Honestly, some people...

I agree completely with your comments about in-camera processing and judging images on screen. It's impossible to judge an image properly on a small screen in variable ambient lighting. At home you have a good monitor, better post-processing software, and equally importantly, a stable lighting level in which to judge images on the computer (if you do your image-editing in the evenings by room lighting, as I do).

What I absolutely do NOT agree with is your "face-slapping" comment. Internet forums are full of unnecessarily offensive and provocative comments like that, and all they do is to make the person who issued the comments look rude and immature.
 
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jolyonralph said:
Crosswind said:
You could implement an in-camera process which - on demand - automatically looks through a selected set of images and highlights only those pictures with the highest achieved micro-contrast/sharpness compared to all the other images in this set.

This is so wrong that it hurts.

No. No. and NO again.

This is NOT what you should do in a camera. This is a perfect tool that could be added into Lightroom (or whatever your favourite post-production/workflow management tool is) but anyone who tries to do this sort of thing on a camera deserves to be slapped around the face.

Don't even try to identify which images are the better ones on your camera. You can't do it, not with the crappy screens you have on the camera and certainly don't think of relying on in-camera algorithms to help you.

Put in a big card, take lots of photos, and don't delete ANYTHING until you get home. Then, on a big screen, you can do this job properly.

Rather than messing around in the field trying to do this in the camera simply use the time to TAKE MORE PHOTOS.

Honestly, some people...

You're absolutely right, in the same way that anyone who shoots jpg instead of RAW should be slapped in the face. Use a proper, powerful RAW converter on a computer, rather than messing around relying on the camera algorithms. I mean, it's not like it's anyone needs to select and deliver images in near-real-time...modern wedding photographers —slap—...professional sports photographers —slap— (stupid Canon, why do they put LAN ports on 1-series cameras, anyway?).

Oh, and while we're at it, here's a —slap— for you. Maybe it will wake you up to the reality that not everyone's needs are the same as yours.
 
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Re: Canon must hurry up on FF mirrorless, Regardless of Sony's new A9

ahsanford said:
Jack Douglas said:
Fair enough but when my resulting IQ is less than my finicky nature tolerates, it's in the bin; meaning I have nothing. I'm sure you agree we need it all.

Jack

Sure. We each have our own chain of priorities, and they are based on what we think we need to get the output we need.

But I think very few of us, if any, are truly 'one issue voters' when it comes to buying gear. Everything is a trade off, and we count on many more of a camera's features that we might prioritize in an internet forum. :D

- A

This is dangerously reasonable for these forums!
 
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neuroanatomist said:
You're absolutely right, in the same way that anyone who shoots jpg instead of RAW should be slapped in the face. Use a proper, powerful RAW converter on a computer, rather than messing around relying on the camera algorithms. I mean, it's not like it's anyone needs to select and deliver images in near-real-time...modern wedding photographers —slap—...professional sports photographers —slap— (stupid Canon, why do they put LAN ports on 1-series cameras, anyway?).

Come on Neuro.... get real! If that was important to people, they would start putting WiFi interfaces on cameras....
 
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Re: Burst shooting for landscape...umm

slclick said:
Spray and pray in landscape/static shots? Help me out with that one.

It's funny, people come out with these seemingly 'silly' notions, then a few people come up with actual good reasons for doing it.

Anyway, I shoot a lot of real estate, I shoot 7 and 9 bracket shots all set up on a tripod, leveled, remote release etc etc. You'd think there was no need for speed right? Well I shot a model home the other day and I can't use a lot of the sequences because the weather was strong sun, it was windy with plenty of thick clouds, if I timed the burst wrong the ambient light levels changed enough to screw up my bracket, and I shoot in burst mode but only 5 fps.

A second reason, I shoot environmental portraits often in low light with long shutter speeds, if I do a burst mode I find some shots much sharper than others even at crazy low shutter speeds. This applies to places where tripods are not allowed and don't move, things like anywhere near the Taj Mahal (or anything interesting in India), inside most temples, museums, etc etc.

One thing I have learnt in my nearly 40 year photography path, as new features allow for different approaches people come up with different ways to use their cameras and do get shots we had never thought of before. I have subscribed to National Geographic since I don't know when, if you look back through them you will see that even though we marveled at the photography from 15 and 20 years years ago it is vastly outclassed by the more modern images. Wildlife images, low light images, high speed images, flash images, AF, frame rate et al have all taken quantum leaps in the last 10 or so years. Olympic quality photographs from the 80's and 90's can be achieved by parents with a modicum of time and modest gear at junior school events. College sports photographer output now is easily on a par with Super Bowl photography back then.

Do I like the idea of 100mp images at 100fps? No! But I'm sure it will happen and those that apply that technology well will get images that we dream of now on a regular basis. It doesn't mean those that get to nicer places, have better lighting more interesting subjects and are 'better' photographers won't make more compelling images with that tech, it just means the bar will be raised higher still.
 
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