Canon's 120mp DSLR Two Years Away?
- Thread starter Canon Rumors
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I'm not buying this rumor at all.
Strategically, gang, why would Canon unleash something in two years time whose principal performance breakthrough is in the same improvement area as the current FF rig they are trying to launch?
If true -- if Canon backed this up with a 'yes, it will be out in two years' statement -- all of the following would occur:
I think that a 120 MP rig is a real product that we will see, but it's just a piece of a larger strategy for Canon. They can't keep hammering us with pixels and leave other areas unaddressed, and they sure as hell won't telegraph to the industry what they're up to. I'm taking any rumors with this rig with a massive skepticism until test units are in the field in one chosen form factor.
- A
Strategically, gang, why would Canon unleash something in two years time whose principal performance breakthrough is in the same improvement area as the current FF rig they are trying to launch?
If true -- if Canon backed this up with a 'yes, it will be out in two years' statement -- all of the following would occur:
- 5DS and 5DS R sales would plummet. Why get in on the high res rig you (may) have been waiting for when Canon will blow that out of the water in two years?
- Most EF lens sales will plummet. Why buy a lens that may not be 'rated for' / perform well for such a high res rig?
- Anyone pondering leaving Canon for reasons other than pixel count will feel the walls closing in on them. 'Canon's only concerned with resolution', 'There is nothing equivalently exciting coming on the DR front, on the high ISO front, etc.' In some foolish way, smacking the market with a 50 MP rig and then a 120 MP rig in relatively close proximity would imply that Canon does not give a flying #$%@ about anything else.
I think that a 120 MP rig is a real product that we will see, but it's just a piece of a larger strategy for Canon. They can't keep hammering us with pixels and leave other areas unaddressed, and they sure as hell won't telegraph to the industry what they're up to. I'm taking any rumors with this rig with a massive skepticism until test units are in the field in one chosen form factor.
- A
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dilbert said:
It's not like those numbers are set in stone anyway. Didn't the"standard" pair used to be 28-80 and 80-200 instead of 24-70 and 70-200? I know I've seen other zoom ranges in older lenses that seem oddball compared to the ones for sale now, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see the "standard" ranges change in the future... even in an alternate universe where resolution was, for whatever reason, arbitrarily capped.
From looking back, it seems like aperture ranges for zooms also didn't used to be more variable than now, with most of the current range being on exact f-stops (except for a few that start at f/3.5).
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unfocused
Photos/Photo Book Reviews: www.thecuriouseye.com
I think two years may be optimistic. Nonetheless, I welcome any and all development and "real" announcements, as they can only mean better products in the future.
A 120 mp camera is still going to need to perform at ISOs above 400 in order to be viable. Looking at what Canon has done with the 7DII and 5Ds, I can get very excited about high ISO performance in the 5DIV and in future generations if this technology does come to pass.
I don't understand why people get upset when Canon announces an advancement in technology. It's not like they are going to suddenly drop all their existing lines and produce only 120 mp cameras. If this isn't the camera for you, so what? Unless your expectations are totally unrealistic or you have a burning desire for some small niche camera, chances are they will produce something that works for you. And if they don't, someone else will.
A 120 mp camera is still going to need to perform at ISOs above 400 in order to be viable. Looking at what Canon has done with the 7DII and 5Ds, I can get very excited about high ISO performance in the 5DIV and in future generations if this technology does come to pass.
I don't understand why people get upset when Canon announces an advancement in technology. It's not like they are going to suddenly drop all their existing lines and produce only 120 mp cameras. If this isn't the camera for you, so what? Unless your expectations are totally unrealistic or you have a burning desire for some small niche camera, chances are they will produce something that works for you. And if they don't, someone else will.
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The original post says AT LEAST 2 YEARS AWAY... it could be 3 years away, or 5 years, or 1500 years....
In other words 'do not expect to see this camera soon'.
For all those saying that this is too much resolution, I can put it another way quite simply (for those people):
A 120 megapixel image (using a bayer filter like nearly all digital sensors ever made), does not give you proper color information for each pixel.
Resizing it down to 50% width and 50% height now gives you a 30 megapixel image, with full color information for each pixel, with the benefits of noise averaging from downsizing, with sharpness benefits from downsizing.
Think of it as a razor sharp and clean 30 megapixel image, as opposed to a 120 megapixel image.
^This is your improvement in image quality... achieved by putting a huge number of pixels on the sensor and then downsizing the image.
This is usually the workflow for video (for those who want the best results).... shoot at consumer 4k for full hd production.
Ideally, people will shoot 8K for 4K production... but until now 8K was so astronomically huge that it was impractical for many various technical issue... but times are changing and we are moving towards that.
In other words 'do not expect to see this camera soon'.
For all those saying that this is too much resolution, I can put it another way quite simply (for those people):
A 120 megapixel image (using a bayer filter like nearly all digital sensors ever made), does not give you proper color information for each pixel.
Resizing it down to 50% width and 50% height now gives you a 30 megapixel image, with full color information for each pixel, with the benefits of noise averaging from downsizing, with sharpness benefits from downsizing.
Think of it as a razor sharp and clean 30 megapixel image, as opposed to a 120 megapixel image.
^This is your improvement in image quality... achieved by putting a huge number of pixels on the sensor and then downsizing the image.
This is usually the workflow for video (for those who want the best results).... shoot at consumer 4k for full hd production.
Ideally, people will shoot 8K for 4K production... but until now 8K was so astronomically huge that it was impractical for many various technical issue... but times are changing and we are moving towards that.
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ahsanford said:
I'm sure canon knows it's market and knows what will happen far better than you. lenses plummeting? oh please.. any lens will perform better with higher resolution, as long as you keep the same sensor to magnification ratio - the higher MP sensor will look simply better.
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mistaspeedy said:
Yeah who knows. They already demoed a 120MP high-speed sensor with on chip column parallel ADC 5 years ago. But not one bit of that tech has yet appeared in sensors that they mass produce and sell to EOS users. They still build everything, as far as it seems, on the old 500nm process that can't seem to handle anything of that tech.
I think they won't spend the money to upgrade the manufacturing ability to make truly new sensors until after their sales tank, and not a minute sooner. So long as people go on about "DRoners" and praise to the hills whatever they release and keep buy, buy buying every single new model that comes out.... they will just play it conservatively and be a follower rather than leader for such things. It's not run by photographers, artists, videographers, visionaries, etc. but conservative MBAs. The fact that they have now waited past the stagnation and decline in DSLR sales, unfortunately means they may be even more cautious and more likely to sit around milking the old processes for longer.
maybe, maybe the dual gain read can get them around the low ISO DR issue although it remains to be seen if they can manage that at 500nm at more than 12-25MP or so, if not the fast 4k over-sampled without over-heating stuff.
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unfocused said:
I'd say I'm more "bothered" by the fact that Canon announced a ridiculously high (in the same ballpark as this one I believe) MP sensor several years ago. This feels like a repeat, though now it's only a little more than 2x what they're already shipping.
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LetTheRightLensIn said:
it's always nice to see / hear from someone with exact and intimate knowledge of canon's manufacturing capabilities.
of course .. you don't have any knowledge - so that entire dissertation is prefaced with a "IMO"
I'm curious .. how did a 2012 chipworks article make you an expert?
since that article the 6D and 5Ds full frame cameras were released and canon introduced dual pixel sensors.
all of which aren't covered by chipworks blog.
let me also fill you in on patents. that dual slope ADC patent was just approved this year, more dual slope patents finally cleared the patent office and were approved this august just past. a patent application is worth the same as toilet paper. Just because they R&D a sensor, does not mean they have the legal right to commercially produce.
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dilbert said:
they just held an every 5 year "future looking" event called Canon EXPO.
two announcements were made of products showcased at that event.. 120MP camera, and 8K video.
the announcements were made just days before the event.
is it really this hard to figure out?
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rrcphoto said:
So despite the fact that ever sensor that has been verified has been built on the old 500nm plant so far and there has been not a single leak about them having moved to source their DSLR sensors on a different plant and no expenditures showing anything new beyond the copper pipe plant where again, nobody has been able to find any source saying they are doing DSLR stuff on yet you just know they have moved to a modern fab?
And if so, isn't that still as bad, if not worse? Since then they actually could already be matching Exmor and without even having to spend any money to do it but they are holding back just to milk people along on old designs a few more times and to suck another bit of old money out of the decrepit 500nm fab.
How would that scenario even be better, if it were even somehow true?
and plenty of times they know what they have and work on products at the same time and release them around the same time as the patent
plus the more Exmore-like ways of doing it they already had set for a long while
also you don't need a patent to be able to legally produce something! all the patent does is protect you so that someone else can't then also run off and produce your design too. but sure as heck can produce whatever you want without a patent (so long as someone else doesn't have a patent on it), they are not permission slips or licenses as you make it sound to let you be allowed to produce your own design
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LetTheRightLensIn said:
news flash - canon's TWO fabs always had the ability to do more than 500nm. Canon had 180nm in there since the start. Not to mention what design rules canon used, and what the systems are capable of producing are really two different things. part duex of this news flash is that D800 sensor was produced with 250nm design rules.
secondly the fab equipment to produce even a D800 class sensor is around 20 years old - not exactly "modern" fab equipment.
Thirdly, the chipworks only went up to sensors fabricated in early 2012. Excludes all 70D (probably not 500nm out of something called common sense) and nor 7DII and nor 6D and nor 5Ds.
Fourthly - canon never divulges every last expenditure - and certainly not to you or I. This equipment isn't expensive. we're not talking a leading bleeding edge 22nm high yield and throughput chip manufacturing facility here. Canon has a 700 million or more per year R&D budget - these systems are rounding error - and can be purchased used from existing fabs.
fifthly - you don't have to move to a new fab to upgrade one.
as a matter of fact, Chipworks 2012 covers no current APS-C canon sensors, and only 50% currently in production full frame sensors.
but yes, i'm sure according to you .. canon managed to produce sensors with 500nm with 3.7um pixel pitch, 4.1 pitch (split in half even - with 500nm design rules? LOL right), and of course the 5Ds sensor with 4.14 microns.
Your information is out of date and woefully lacking and you're treating it as gospel. So again, you don't even have a clue to what you are talking about.
and I'm LOL'ing at your patent stuff. Like I said, what you can produce in a lab in R&D and what you are legally able to manufacture are two different things.
Exmor double CDS and ADC is patented by Sony btw - alot of Sony's lack of low ISO noise isn't "on chip ADC", but more to do with the double sampling.
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rrcphoto said:
Besides a few exceptions, all digital image sensors use a Bayer filter.
Please have a read through the Wikipedia article about Bayer filters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
To save everyone some time, I have taken the key sentence out and pasted it here, along with an image of what the filter looks like:
"Since each pixel is filtered to record only one of three colors, the data from each pixel cannot fully specify each of the red, green, and blue values on its own. To obtain a full-color image, various demosaicing algorithms can be used to interpolate a set of complete red, green, and blue values for each pixel. These algorithms make use of the surrounding pixels of the corresponding colors to estimate the values for a particular pixel."
Here you can see the photosites (grey) being covered by different colored filters... each 'pixel' is either green, red or blue... therefore none have full color.
The Bayer filter and accompanying demosaicing algorithms do a pretty good job, but they are, as stated in the article, an estimate for the values of each pixel.
In other words - no camera using a Bayer filter gives truly accurate RGB information for each pixel. Virtually all cameras use a Bayer filter.
Another source is this link:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-sensors.htm
Here, it is better explained that the photo sensitive 'photosites' cannot distinguish color information. This is why we need a Bayer filter in the first place, because the photosites cannot record color information, just brightness information.
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My obvious first question is if the 5Ds / 5Ds R have issues with keeping the image sharp becase of pixel size, and the difraction limitations mean the sweet spot is f7.1 not f11 or f16 landscape photographer like me prefer how the hell are we going to use 120MP? Canon would need to impliment some kind of image stabilised sensor in partnership with the in-lens image shift and very clever processing but how you get around difraction is another issue.
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jeffa4444 said:
Do you get sharp images from your iPhone and P&S? They have pixel density ratios of several hundred when put on a FF camera. Years ago the Canon made P&S sensors were in the 400MP (per FF sensor) range and because they were back light designs had excellent per area noise characteristics.
The only letdown will be lens performance in the >200MP sensor area, no stabilization needed and diffraction will be what it always is, more pixels doesn't make diffraction worse or more visible, it just means you are resolving it better.
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