Leaked: Canon EOS M50 Image & Specifications

[neuroanatomist]

OTOH, this lioness seems quite happy with a mere 4 MP...

 

[Don Haines]

OK......

Here is what you could do with a 2.1 Megapixel P/S camera with 8 stops of DR in 2001.....

I firmly believe that the major limitation with ALL cameras is the person using them.

All cameras today are better..... but people remain the same.

It looks good small sized. I appreciate your skill, it's a nice picture, colours and composition - no problem.

Opened full size 1600x1200 - sorry, the image quality is below mediocre. First of all it's not sharp... looks ok at 800x600 maybe. Also there's two blown out patches in the sky (thanks to low DR).

So it's good enough as an Instagram post, but not really usable if you want to print it or view on a big screen. Taken with a better modern camera, it could've been so much better/usable.

Thank you for the compliment, and you are bang on right about the limitations of the image....

I did not explain myself well. The point I should have made was, this this is where we were 17 years ago with a cheap P/S camera and a plastic lens....

14 years ago I had an 8Mpixel DSLR..... Things changed fast....

10 years ago I had an 18Mpixel DSLR.....

Now I have 20.....

We are seeing diminishing returns. As new models come out, the differences are less and less. The only way left to differentiate between into and advanced models is features.... the basic IQ is approaching convergence. The M50 is being marketed as an introductory level camera and, at least to my mind, we should expect limitations on what it can do and what features it has.

 

[Talys]

We are seeing diminishing returns. As new models come out, the differences are less and less. The only way left to differentiate between into and advanced models is features.... the basic IQ is approaching convergence. The M50 is being marketed as an introductory level camera and, at least to my mind, we should expect limitations on what it can do and what features it has.

I couldn't agree more.

The problem is the technology expectations game. People expected that the 6D2 would be a cheap 5D4, for example, simply because that's how it works in smartphones and tablets and laptops: today's cutting edge is tomorrow's midrange is next year's entry level.

High end cameras, especially by Canon, have been very stubborn in this respect, as Canon does not trickle down many of its professional features into less expensive bodies.

Instead, Canon trickles up many minor (though extremely useful) technological improvements -- by virtue of fast refresh cycles on their low end models -- while only adding significant features that are highly desirable to enthusiasts in only their most expensive flagship models, which have a long refresh cycle.

I think it works for people who look at cameras as tools, who don't want to buy a new tool unless it really produces better images or dramatically increases efficiency; and it doesn't work for people who look at cameras as luxury gadgets. Of course, there are lots of us who value both aspects of that (tool and gadget), and depending on where your priorities lie, you may find those refresh cycles appealing or horrendous.

 

[ahsanford]

The problem is the technology expectations game. People expected that the 6D2 would be a cheap 5D4, for example, simply because that's how it works in smartphones and tablets and laptops: today's cutting edge is tomorrow's midrange is next year's entry level.

High end cameras, especially by Canon, have been very stubborn in this respect, as Canon does not trickle down many of its professional features into less expensive bodies.

...except for on-chip ADC on crop cameras while the 6D2 is passed over. :

I largely agree with your post, but Canon -- in all of its considerable market wisdom -- occasionally makes some knuckle-headed decisions.

- A

 

[ethanz]

occasionally makes some knuckle-headed decisions.

Don't we all

 

[dak723]

Those old cameras were only good for old style snap shots, and then only barely. Anything larger than that and they look pretty terrible. So you would not be able to view them on any monitor and still look decent for example. Besides having low resolution, other issues were compression artefacts and debeyering (which reduces effective resolution)

The minimum for decent shots is about 8 megapixels.

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

 

[Don Haines]

Those old cameras were only good for old style snap shots, and then only barely. Anything larger than that and they look pretty terrible. So you would not be able to view them on any monitor and still look decent for example. Besides having low resolution, other issues were compression artefacts and debeyering (which reduces effective resolution)

The minimum for decent shots is about 8 megapixels.

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

and interestingly enough, all those improvements have yet to give us a decent photo of bigfoot or Nessie....

 

[Talys]

I largely agree with your post, but Canon -- in all of its considerable market wisdom -- occasionally makes some knuckle-headed decisions.

- A

I sure can't find a fault with that statement, LOL.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

OTOH, this lioness seems quite happy with a mere 4 MP...

I don't think she cares about megapixels at all, but we do

That's a good example of a shot that'd probably need further cropping - I believe it's cropped already, but not enough. Zoomed in, this shot would be much more impressive, but given the current resolution, further cropping will make the IQ unacceptable. So no, I'm not convinced 4Mp isn't enough, but again it depends on the purpose of the shot.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

Prints of what DPI? say 300DPI, 8*300*12*300 = 8640000, it's 8.6MP, a bit larger than 6MP, but well within the capacity of the 6D.

If you print at 150DPI (which in my opinion is too low for 8x12 prints), then yes the prints will look roughly the same.

 

[Talys]

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

Prints of what DPI? say 300DPI, 8*300*12*300 = 8640000, it's 8.6MP, a bit larger than 6MP, but well within the capacity of the 6D.

If you print at 150DPI (which in my opinion is too low for 8x12 prints), then yes the prints will look roughly the same.

The normal standard for excellent, high quality 8x10 output is 240ppi (pixel per inch) source. That's distinct from dpi, or dots per inch, of the printer, which will usually be much higher than that (especially color inkjets), because colors aren't printed in a ratio of 1 dot to 1 pixel. It takes many dots to represent 1 pixel, because pixels can have any color value, whereas each dot may only have one of a few ink colors, and it is a pattern of dots to recreate a pixel.

For photographic prints, there is almost never a reason to go over 300 pixels per inch for the source source. Even when printing at resolutions upwards of 4800 dpi (like a Pixma Pro 100, which is 4800 horizontal and 2400 vertical), a 300 and 600 ppi image will be indistinguishable printed out.

So to get a really sharp 8x10 print, you'd be ideally looking for somewhere between:

1920 x 2400 = 4.6 megapixels @ 240 ppi to
2400 x 3000 = 7.2 megapixels @ 300 ppi

I'll bet that on most photographs, even 240 vs 300 ppi will be really tough to distinguish. Even if you expand that to fit a letter sized (8.5" x 11") print with no bleeds or A4, it's not going to matter.

That's still not to say that a 20 megapixel image isn't a good thing, because life doesn't end with 8x10's -- it's pretty easy to print 11x17 now, for example.

Personally, I've never had a great 6 megapixel crop print out poorly as 8x10, and to the contrary, I've used much lower than that (out of necessity) and still gotten good results.

 

[dak723]

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

Prints of what DPI? say 300DPI, 8*300*12*300 = 8640000, it's 8.6MP, a bit larger than 6MP, but well within the capacity of the 6D.

If you print at 150DPI (which in my opinion is too low for 8x12 prints), then yes the prints will look roughly the same.

8" x 12" prints from my old 6 MP Digital Rebel were about 250 ppi, which as Talys mentions is plenty good enough. And as he also mentions, if you want to go bigger, than, of course, 20 MP is better.

In fact, with my 6 MP rebel, I could get excellent quality prints printing as low as 180 ppi. I have a cropped pic that's approx. 3.2 MP (2046 x 1536) printed to approx. 8.5 x 11. The larger pixels seemed to make it possible to print at a lower ppi and still get really good results. When I got an 18 MP camera a few years ago, I felt that somewhere around 220-240 ppi was as low as I could go to make a sharp print. Of course, now we will hear how the size of the pixels doesn't matter. Well, maybe not always, but in my experience with the cameras I have had - it does.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Ha Ha Ha! I guess I will have to give a refund to all those folks that bought 8" x 12" prints taken with my 6 MP 300D! Those prints, by the way, are indistinguishable from the prints made with my 20 MP 6D. Always fun to see someone so wrong as they try so hard to make a point.

Prints of what DPI? say 300DPI, 8*300*12*300 = 8640000, it's 8.6MP, a bit larger than 6MP, but well within the capacity of the 6D.

If you print at 150DPI (which in my opinion is too low for 8x12 prints), then yes the prints will look roughly the same.

8" x 12" prints from my old 6 MP Digital Rebel were about 250 ppi, which as Talys mentions is plenty good enough. And as he also mentions, if you want to go bigger, than, of course, 20 MP is better.

In fact, with my 6 MP rebel, I could get excellent quality prints printing as low as 180 ppi. I have a cropped pic that's approx. 3.2 MP (2046 x 1536) printed to approx. 8.5 x 11. The larger pixels seemed to make it possible to print at a lower ppi and still get really good results. When I got an 18 MP camera a few years ago, I felt that somewhere around 220-240 ppi was as low as I could go to make a sharp print. Of course, now we will hear how the size of the pixels doesn't matter. Well, maybe not always, but in my experience with the cameras I have had - it does.

Sorry I'm guilty of mixing up dpi vs ppi. Yes I meant ppi of course.

I'm a pixel-peeper and also short-sighted so usually examine the prints closely, 240ppi doesn't feel enough for an A4-sized print. I.e. 240 may be fine if you hang it on the wall, but I'm not sure about putting it into an album where people would see it at a close proximity.

As to your experience with large vs small sensor pixels, this post http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=34536.msg710338#msg710338 is a good illustration, the image looks ok downscaled but evidently blurred at full res, and it's not a focus issue. That is, 6MP camera doesn't necessarily do 6 actual megapixels, neither does 18MP camera. It depends on multiple conditions, including the lens quality and how the image is processed in camera and how noisy it is.
Still 18MP should be better than 6MP (literally 3 times better) in most cases, I don't know why you experienced the opposite.