More Full Frame Mirrorless Talk, Maybe Some Surprises? [CR1]

[crazyrunner33]

Why make a DSLR form factor with focus on video??? Such form factor cameras are for photography first....

Whats not to like: Interchangeable lens video camera in a much smaller package. Does both photos and videos well and easily. One camera to do it all reasonably well... Sounds great to me

Do you shoot video much? I mean have you shot video with a dedicated video camera? DSLR form factor is for still photos first.

I've been using the DSLR as a primary video camera for around 8 years now, it's my go to form factor since I started with photography. The Sony and GH5 is is great for run and gun without drawing the attention of a video camera. The IBIS combined with the camera strap allows for smooth interview shots that are hand held. Then I can rig it out for studio work when I need to, or fly it on a Ronin gimbal.

I'd love to have a 5D with IBIS and a decent codec, the 5D and 7D body feels like a natural extension of my hand. And a smaller rangefinder style camera would work well as a B camera and for low profile run and gun where attention is the last thing you need.

 

[fullstop]

i am convinced it would be good for Canon if they were to offer some "fully video-enabled" compact/small cameras at much lower prices than their bigger video/cine series cams. but not each and every model in the lineup! for myself i have never and will bever capture video other than for what any smartphone suffices.

i would really prefer Canon to take a similar approach to Sony's split in A7 / R and /S model versions. But even more radical: one "base" model with no video-out at all at base price, possibly one higher rez stills-only model at a higher price and one fully video enabled "convergence" model - at an even higher price. me - and presumably many other stills shooters would be happy with one of the stills only models, and video folks could put their wallet where their mouth is and get the latter model. if stills plus video is essential to them, perfectly fine - Canon has some models for you. of course additional functionality costs something extra. as always in life. you want more, you pay more.

what those "4k video has to be in every f*cking camera"-whiners really want is a free lunch: full video capability in each and every camera, PAID FOR by ALL purchasers including the many stills photogs who have no interest whatsoever in (serious) video capture. that's what all this forum and internet "4k-whining" really is all about.

 

[BillB]

i am convinced it would be good for Canon if they were to offer some "fully video-enabled" compact/small cameras at much lower prices than their bigger video/cine series cams. but not each and every model in the lineup! for myself i have never and will bever capture video ither than for what any smartphone suffices.

i wokld really prefer Canon to take a similar approach to Sony's split in A7 / R and /S model versions. But even more radical: one "base" model with no video-out at all at base price, possibly one higher rez stills-only model at a higher price and one fully video enabled "convergence" model - at an even higher price. me - and presumably many other stills shooters would be happy with one of the stills only models, and video folks could get the latter model. of course additional functionality costs something extra. as always in life. you want more, you pay more.

what those "4k video has to ve in every f*cking camera whiners" really want is a "free lunch": full video capability in every camera, PAID FOR by all purchasers including the many stills photogs who have no interest whatsoever in (serious) video capture. that's what all this whining really is all about.

The free lunch crowd is a piece of the puzzle. There is also the magic number syndrome, where you need a camera with one or more magic numbers to take ever so much better videos. And then there is the closely related Sony and Panasonic envy. Every Canon needs to have it because the other guys have it. And then there are the plain old Canon bashers. Most of this is just plain old internet buzz, and has very little to do with actual photography. Canon is going to do what Canon is going to do.

 

[fullstop]

with totally crippled 4k video in the M50, Canon is answering the "magic mumber spec sheeters". a poor compromise: still shooters still have to pay for and live with "video clutter" in the camera and those interested in inexpensive, but fully usable 4k video are also disappointed - and have some legitimate reasons to rant and whine.

in my opinion a much better aporoach would be to offer
A.) M50 sans video for 599,- and
B.) M50v with truly usable APS-C/S35 4k video including serious codec and all other video shenanigans from mic abd headphone ports to whatever video-out connectors, zebras and whatever ... for 999.

that would be a very competitive and affordable price point for a "convergence product" with large sensor (rather than puny GH5 big body, tiny mFT dwarf sensor), good stills, DPAF, good 4k video, no slapping mirror in lightpath, small form factor, EF compatible mount, Canon colour goodness, Canon UI goodness (rather than Fuji retro-mania), with excellent touchscreen and decent, intuitive menu system (rather than Sony or Oly menu hell).

and put an immediate end to any sort of legitimate "Canon no 4k"-whining.

 

[BillB]

with totally crippled 4k video in the M50, Canon is answering the "magic mumber spec sheeters". so us still shooters still have to pay for and live with "video clutter" in the camera and those interested in inexpensive, but fully usable 4k video are also disappointed - and have some legitimate reasons to rant and whine.

in my opinion a much better aporoach would be to offer
A.) M50 sans video for 599,- and
B.) M50v with truly usable APS-C/S35 4k video including serious codec and all other video shenanigans from mic abd headphone ports to whatever video-out connectors, zebras and whatever ... for 999.

that would be a very competitive and affordable price point for a "convergence product" with large sensor (rather than puny GH5 big body, tiny mFT dwarf sensor), good stills, DPAF, good 4k video, no slapping mirror in lightpath, small form factor, EF compatible mount, Canon colour goodness, Canon UI goodness (rather than Fuji retro-mania), with excellent touchscreen and decent, intuitive menu system (rather than Sony or Oly menu hell).

and put an immediate end to any sort of legitimate "Canon no 4k"-whining.

Well, at the M50 price point, there are people out there who want some video capability, but not $400 worth of video, and that is likely a significant part of Canon's target market for the M50. Maybe Canon has a guess at how much it would cost them to make a video free M50, and has a guess at how many it could sell. Be that as it may, they decided to go with "crippled" 4K and decent 1080.

 

[Durf]

i am convinced it would be good for Canon if they were to offer some "fully video-enabled" compact/small cameras at much lower prices than their bigger video/cine series cams. but not each and every model in the lineup! for myself i have never and will bever capture video ither than for what any smartphone suffices.

i wokld really prefer Canon to take a similar approach to Sony's split in A7 / R and /S model versions. But even more radical: one "base" model with no video-out at all at base price, possibly one higher rez stills-only model at a higher price and one fully video enabled "convergence" model - at an even higher price. me - and presumably many other stills shooters would be happy with one of the stills only models, and video folks could get the latter model. of course additional functionality costs something extra. as always in life. you want more, you pay more.

what those "4k video has to ve in every f*cking camera whiners" really want is a "free lunch": full video capability in every camera, PAID FOR by all purchasers including the many stills photogs who have no interest whatsoever in (serious) video capture. that's what all this whining really is all about.

The free lunch crowd is a piece of the puzzle. There is also the magic number syndrome, where you need a camera with one or more magic numbers to take ever so much better videos. And then there is the closely related Sony and Panasonic envy. Every Canon needs to have it because the other guys have it. And then there are the plain old Canon bashers. Most of this is just plain old internet buzz, and has very little to do with actual photography. Canon is going to do what Canon is going to do.

It's almost hilarious watching the internet buzz and/or frenzy over mirror-less cameras. You're right, it actually has little to do with actual photography when it comes to the bigger picture of things (no pun intended).

A million people or so freaking out on the internet and thinking that they must no matter what go mirror-less to have the better camera and to take better photos or those that think that if a camera doesn't do 4k that its a piece of junk is a small number when you think that there's probably several 100 million people world wide that just want to take some pictures and perhaps sometimes make a quick home video in which 1080p is just fine for them. Then there's a really small number compared to that that are pro's and know they can get awesome results with the gear that they have right now regardless of what it is.

Canon is targeting those several hundred million casual shooters and the top end pros and not paying much attention to the internet cult of complainers that'll never be happy no matter what they do.

 

[Viggo]

So the big rumors of Canon “finally stepping up” and putting out a FF mirrorless, and it’s a video camera?? Dear god....

 

[dak723]

It's almost hilarious watching the internet buzz and/or frenzy over mirror-less cameras. You're right, it actually has little to do with actual photography when it comes to the bigger picture of things (no pun intended).

A million people or so freaking out on the internet and thinking that they must no matter what go mirror-less to have the better camera and to take better photos or those that think that if a camera doesn't do 4k that its a piece of junk is a small number when you think that there's probably several 100 million people world wide that just want to take some pictures and perhaps sometimes make a quick home video in which 1080p is just fine for them. Then there's a really small number compared to that that are pro's and know they can get awesome results with the gear that they have right now regardless of what it is.

Canon is targeting those several hundred million casual shooters and the top end pros and not paying much attention to the internet cult of complainers that'll never be happy no matter what they do.

Actually, it is probably about 57 people on the internet - not a million - that need mirrorless and 4K. They just post a million times on every photo forum!

And, no doubt, those folks will attack your comments despite their obvious truth!

 

[stevelee]

Be that as it may, they decided to go with "crippled" 4K and decent 1080.

What do people mean by crippled 4K? Or do they know what they mean, rather than just passing along something they saw on them interwebs?

They don’t like the compression method, or it’s really only 3.7K, or it won’t open in their video editor because of faulty data, or every other byte is 00101101 or something, or what?

I don’t know whether to write them off as ignorant complainers or conspiracy nuts, or if there is some technical matter I might be interested to know, with some kernel of truth in what they say.

 

[Viggo]

Be that as it may, they decided to go with "crippled" 4K and decent 1080.

What do people mean by crippled 4K? Or do they know what they mean, rather than just passing along something they saw on them interwebs?

They don’t like the compression method, or it’s really only 3.7K, or it won’t open in their video editor because of faulty data, or every other byte is 00101101 or something, or what?

I don’t know whether to write them off as ignorant complainers or conspiracy nuts, or if there is some technical matter I might be interested to know, with some kernel of truth in what they say.

They probably mean that it’s severely cropped, and not FF.

 

[fullstop]

Be that as it may, they decided to go with "crippled" 4K and decent 1080.

What do people mean by crippled 4K? Or do they know what they mean, rather than just passing along something they saw on them interwebs?
They don’t like the compression method, or it’s really only 3.7K, or it won’t open in their video editor because of faulty data, or every other byte is 00101101 or something, or what?
I don’t know whether to write them off as ignorant complainers or conspiracy nuts, or if there is some technical matter I might be interested to know, with some kernel of truth in what they say.

you should really better read up on the SPECS and FACTS first before lashing out like this.

4k video on the EOS M50 is "highly crippled" in a number of ways. I just link to the dpreview conclusions, all the details are on previous pages and in the text of Canon spec sheet and reviews. You just need to read before you type.

* Substantial crop in 4K makes wide-angle shooting nearly impossible
* No Dual Pixel AF when recording 4K
* 4K video softer than peers
* very obvious rolling shutter and 'jello'
* Digital IS increases video crop even more with noticeable drop in quality

any more questions?

in case you do want to read up, here's the link: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-m50/9

or here the relevant section on EOS M50 crippled 4k video:

As mentioned above, the EOS M50 is the first non-professional Canon camera to capture 4K video. Unfortunately, there are so many tradeoffs that come along with shooting at this resolution that the much-anticipated feature is a major disappointment.

On the positive side, the camera offers full manual controls, exposure compensation with Auto ISO, and audio level adjustment to go along with its external mic socket.

And now the bad news. To start, the video quality just isn't very good. It's softer than most of its peers and suffers from strong rolling shutter. The latter manifests itself in two ways: straight lines will 'lean' as the camera is panned, and if the camera shakes, the video takes on a 'jello' effect.

If you want to do any wide-angle video capture, 4K is out of the question
On top of that, the M50's crop factor in 4K is a whopping 2.7x (including the standard APS-C crop,) which means that the company's widest EF-M lens, the 11-22mm F4-5.6, is equivalent to 30-60mm F11-F15 equiv. in 4K. Thus, if you want to do any wide-angle video capture, 4K is out of the question. If you turn on the camera's digital IS modes the crop gets even larger and quality drops precipitously. The 4K footage also appears to be upscaled from 3.5K footage at best, given the crop factor.

For reasons described by Canon as 'technical' – likely related to heat and processing power – Dual Pixel AF is unavailable when shooting 4K. Thus, you end up with standard contrast detection, which means you'll frequently see the video 'wobble' as the camera tries to maintain focus. Dropping down to 1080p will bring Dual Pixel back, with much better AF performance. Video quality at this resolution is a lot more competitive, assuming that digital IS is off.

 

[fullstop]

so instead of implementing such cr*ppy video, why not split models into "stills only" and "stills + real video" versions? It would be win-win-win, for stills shooters, for video/convergence folks and for Canon.

 

[stevelee]

My question was really intended more generally, since I’ve also seen the 4K on the flagship FF models referred to as “crippled.” But, yes, the M50’s implementation doesn’t sound very good from that review. So it would look bad compared to the 4K I shoot on my iPhone? Its sensor is minute even compared to the severely cropped M50, right?

 

[Talys]

Why is there so much talk of the M50? That is comparing what is probably the cheapest 4k ILC with what with a full frame video-centric enthusiast/semiprofessional offering.

But anyways:

- anyone who can't shoot wide enough with a 11mm lens, even with the crop, is doing something wrong because pro camcorders can't typically gi wider than that either.

- crop is a benefit for people who want to get more reach, so one person's loss is anorher's gain.

- what $750 ILC has 4k dpaf?

- it's $750. Why shouldn't devices that cost more have the possibility of better quality of 4k video?

- what other $750 ILC can do 4k and and has a fully articulating touchscreen?

Just because the M50 isn't the best at everything including price doesn't mean it isn't a great offering. In fact, nothing needs to have the best specs and the lowest price and work the most smoothly. That's just a fantasy of people who want to spend less and get more just because it is technology related.

 

[dak723]

My question was really intended more generally, since I’ve also seen the 4K on the flagship FF models referred to as “crippled.” But, yes, the M50’s implementation doesn’t sound very good from that review. So it would look bad compared to the 4K I shoot on my iPhone? Its sensor is minute even compared to the severely cropped M50, right?

Folks using the word crippled are obviously trolls or so incompetent with the English language that their comments lose all credibility. People love bashing Canon, that is the jist of it and quoting DPReview is almost laughable as they may be the number 1 Canon critic.

Are their shortcomings with the 4K on the Canon m50 compared to other brands and models - sure. Does that mean it is crippled? Of course not. People and review sites absolutely rave about Panasonic cameras and their 4K despite the 2.6 crop factor of the GH4 and the 2.4 crop factor of the GH7. Canon's crop factor (which at least 3 other sites describe as 2.56 not the 2.7 that DPR gives, will give you a 28mm wide angle with 11-22mm lens. That might not be wide enough for some, but I bet it is plenty wide enough for many. So why not just give the correct info and let others decide it the specs and performance is good enough. My bet is that it will be plenty good enough for many or most folks. So calling it "crippled' is just the type of language propagandists have been using for decades - in other words, BS that shouldn't be welcome here.

 

[dak723]

Why is there so much talk of the M50? That is comparing what is probably the cheapest 4k ILC with what with a full frame video-centric enthusiast/semiprofessional offering.

But anyways:

- anyone who can't shoot wide enough with a 11mm lens, even with the crop, is doing something wrong because pro camcorders can't typically gi wider than that either.

- crop is a benefit for people who want to get more reach, so one person's loss is anorher's gain.

- what $750 ILC has 4k dpaf?

- it's $750. Why shouldn't devices that cost more have the possibility of better quality of 4k video?

- what other $750 ILC can do 4k and and has a fully articulating touchscreen?

Just because the M50 isn't the best at everything including price doesn't mean it isn't a great offering. In fact, nothing needs to have the best specs and the lowest price and work the most smoothly. That's just a fantasy of people who want to spend less and get more just because it is technology related.

Very well said. Too bad we can't get the trolls to shut up. And the moderators don't have the guts to throw them out. Too bad.

 

[BillB]

My question was really intended more generally, since I’ve also seen the 4K on the flagship FF models referred to as “crippled.” But, yes, the M50’s implementation doesn’t sound very good from that review. So it would look bad compared to the 4K I shoot on my iPhone? Its sensor is minute even compared to the severely cropped M50, right?

For another perspective on M50 video there is Brian Carnathan's review on his "the digital picture" site. https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-M50.aspx

DPR's reference to the supposed lack of sharpness with the M50 (and other Canon)video seems to come from DPR's insistence on using Canon's default settings and not adjusting the camera to improve sharpness.

 

[Durf]

Why is there so much talk of the M50? That is comparing what is probably the cheapest 4k ILC with what with a full frame video-centric enthusiast/semiprofessional offering.

But anyways:

- anyone who can't shoot wide enough with a 11mm lens, even with the crop, is doing something wrong because pro camcorders can't typically gi wider than that either.

- crop is a benefit for people who want to get more reach, so one person's loss is anorher's gain.

- what $750 ILC has 4k dpaf?

- it's $750. Why shouldn't devices that cost more have the possibility of better quality of 4k video?

- what other $750 ILC can do 4k and and has a fully articulating touchscreen?

Just because the M50 isn't the best at everything including price doesn't mean it isn't a great offering. In fact, nothing needs to have the best specs and the lowest price and work the most smoothly. That's just a fantasy of people who want to spend less and get more just because it is technology related.

...it's a given that all new cameras from Canon will be bashed and trashed by certain groups of peoples.

but,

from what I gather that in this price range this M50 might just be the best little compact run and gun 1080p vlogging camera yet, capable of limited 4k, and it also can take great photos.

Personally I'm more of a picture taker than a video maker and this camera is too tiny and not me but I bet it'll sell like crazy to youtubers and those that do like small cameras.

It's almost like an enhanced 80D shrunk down in to a tiny package......

 

[fullstop]

Again, am ot interested in video capture myself. But 4k recording definitely is "crippled" on the EOS M50. True, it is a lower level, comparatively inexpensive camera, not a hi-end one. But up to now it is the ONLY Canon EOS camera that has 4k video capture (except 1Dc). And by 2018 standards 4k on the EOS M50 sems to be - "underwhelming". or "crippled".

Things are not necessarily better on all comptetive products. Similarly priced and positioned new Fujifilm X-T100 for example has 4k recording only at 15fps. i'd call that "why even bother", "useless" or "more than just crippled".

Same theme on both cameras: "4k" added as a "spec sheet tick box" only, trying to fool not-so-well-informed potential buyers. companies like Canon or Fujifilm should not have to resort to such marketing tactics. why not be honest and offer low-price "base version" with no video-out for stills shooters and "video-enhanced" versions of some cameras - with "fully useable" 4k video capture - at a higher, but still "affordable" price. Instead of "window dressing"?

That said, EOS M50 is the first EOS M camera to meet my personal criteria to upgrade from my currently used EOS M 1st gen: viewfinder, compact form factor, much better AF, much better IQ and (relatively) "inexpensive". So I am going to get one. For "stills only", of course.

 

[MayaTlab]

so instead of implementing such cr*ppy video, why not split models into "stills only" and "stills + real video" versions? It would be win-win-win, for stills shooters, for video/convergence folks and for Canon.

Very few technical reasons to do so, particularly for a mirrorless camera, as there is a convergence of needs between a good mirrorless camera and a good video/photo camera. Both benefit from a sensor with a fast readout speed, which is Canon's main problem right now.

Basically, a good mirrorless camera naturally is a good video/photo hybrid.