New Canon Hi-pixel Medium format...?

[LewisShermer]

So with all the rumours about the High megapixel body coming next year, what if canon has something really neat up their sleeves and it turns out to be medium format and square?? Is this a possibility?

Is there a gap in the market for a high-end Canon (low end in comparison to hasselblad) medium format in the £6000 - £8000 range? if you're going to pay more than that for medium format you might as well get a leaf/Phase 1/mamiya combo but a slightly less expensive system from canon could do well especially for product/advertising work which the 1D and 5D series are still very much just about getting away with it...

People are commenting that for a high megapixel full frame there'd be interference on the chip and the current lenses wouldn't be able to keep up with the quality needed so with a medium format camera comes a new line in larger chips and new super-duper lenses?

kinda makes sense. I'd like to shoot medium format again without having to take out a life time mortgage.

 

[zim]

I'd like to see them come out with a 35mm FF sensor in a 2 1/4 sq, modular body type design geared towards those high mp HI IQ pre users.
I suspect Canon wouldn't really want to create another lens catalogue for a bigger sensor. If they did why assume any cheaper that a hassy!

 

[paul13walnut5]

They won't do it. EF is the key to their success.

 

[MrFotoFool]

Will not happen and if it did would not be as cheap as you hope. Best bet for affordable (but still out of my price range) digital medium format is Pentax 645D.

 

[viggen61]

I don't think Canon has anything medium format up their sleeves. IMO, it would be a waste of effort, not to mention a huge effort on their part. So many things need to be different if you are expanding the sensor size that much. Even to 65x45mm. A whole new lens mount, mirror box, etc. And then there would be the entirely new line of lenses...

As it is, the EOS-M may not be progressing as well as hoped. And that's for a format "everyone" is clamoring for!

People are commenting that for a high megapixel full frame there'd be interference on the chip and the current lenses wouldn't be able to keep up with the quality needed so with a medium format camera comes a new line in larger chips and new super-duper lenses?

I don't know what they mean by "interference". Remember, a 46.7 MP full frame sensor can be made using the same pixel size and density of the 18MP APS-C sensor in a 7D. Using the 70Ds 20MP sensor density, a FF sensor of 51.1MP would be possible! So, if they can get great images from APS-C sensors why would FF at the same pixel size and density be a problem? Maybe it'll take 4 DiG!C chips to read the sensor, but...

Same thing for lenses. If the high-density APS-C sensors work with the current crop of lenses, why would they not work as well with a high-MP FF sensor? Maybe some will need improvement at the edges, but that's part of a regular revamping of any line of lenses, as well as a continual trade-off with other factors such as size, weight, cost...

 

[Seanlucky]

The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

So with all the rumours about the High megapixel body coming next year, what if canon has something really neat up their sleeves and it turns out to be medium format and square?? Is this a possibility?

MF camera companies are going out of business right and left. Don't expect Canon to spend a billion dollars (probably more) to develop a new camera and a new line of lenses that have a extremely limited market.

Canon's strong point is their mass marketing and high production rates that enable them to make a profit when others are faltering. They are not likely to enter a niche market which has no clear future. Its about the safest bet you can make.

 

[CarlTN]

Agree that Canon will not go medium format any time soon. Also disagree with LewisShermer's premise that if Canon would provide a medium format camera and lenses, that it would not "break the bank". Frankly, it would break the bank! A Canon medium format body, would cost more, not less than existing bodies. And each lens might cost close to what cinema lenses cost...In other words, I don't see Canon delving into the format, nor would they turn medium format into "mass market", even if they did.

I have some decent older medium format film cameras and lenses for sale, if you are interested. I will sell these for a lot less than new rebel bodies and ef-s lenses are selling for!

 

[LewisShermer]

I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...

 

[LewisShermer]

The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.

square was the professional standard for medium format before digital for hasselblad users. it prevents you having to turn your camera around for portraits. you do have to be mindful of cropping in post while you're actually doing the shoot though. It also works better with tripods.

 

[CarlTN]

I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...

That Canon is rumored to be investing in Phase One? I guess it's plausible, but we're not going to see an affordable "Rebel" medium format series selling under $3000 (or even $5000) anytime soon...which was part of the premise of this thread. Perhaps under $8000 eventually...but not before Canon's new "full frame" 40+ MP 1 series camera has had a couple of years to sell at $10,000 + ...

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...

The rumor is so low rated that it doesn't have a CR number. Its there because there is interest. If Canon bought say Phase One, as the rumor goes, nothing would change, at not least for 3-5 years. You would still buy 645 mount lenses for phase one bodies, or phase one backs for your existing MF system.

That does not seem to meet Canon's strategy of having everything in house.

 

[Seanlucky]

The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.

square was the professional standard for medium format before digital for hasselblad users. it prevents you having to turn your camera around for portraits. you do have to be mindful of cropping in post while you're actually doing the shoot though. It also works better with tripods.

Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else. As it was, that was a little impractical for a lot of things since you'd almost always have to leave extra space for cropping. The, "flipping to portrait," issue only made sense when we were using waistlevel viewfinder, an issue that Mamiya had no problem fixing with their rotatable film back on the RZ series. Now days, we simply use an L bracket so that the centre of gravity is still directly on the tripod.

I think if Canon were to not go with the 645 format, they'd be screwing themselves.

 

[Jeffrey]

Being lucky enough to own a 1D-X and a Phase One IQ280 with the 645 DF body, I can speak to the major differences in shooting with both cameras; focusing, set up, controls, and on and on are so different between the cameras. Much like oil and water. Be assured the Phase One is miserable in shooting birds in flight. Be assured that the Phase One in the studio will outperform the 1D-X by miles.

Canon buying Phase One makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Stu_bert]

Hmmm....

No sense some of you say?

The lens problem is solved in the short term by the 645 lenses, they get access to tech. and if they've done their research, they're buying a profitable company and associated expertise cheaper / quicker than developing it initially in-house.

If they've been investing previously in Phase 1, maybe they already have their own "entry-level" MF camera using a combination of phase-one and Canon tech ready to release when they buy it fully ;D. Maybe over time, they can indeed either make their own lenses or phase 1 sensors.

Not everything needs to be a perfect fit, be instantly "converted to Canon manufactured" or developed from scratch.

Two other observations... the low end of the market (the high vol side) is being impacted a lot. So is overall sales. Do you invest now in a market which is not going to be threatened by smartphones and the like, while you still have the cash reserves? I think Canon need to innovate in the entry level - I think like Tom Hogan says, it's about the ecosystem and opening it up so it is not a closed system. It's about inviting in the CHKD and ML teams by providing them with a nice API. It's about providing seamless interfacing with not just your phone, but if you pop in a sim like you can with a tablet, then you can do so much more from your camera and a touch screen (especially if you could interchange the sim with the one from your tablet).

It's about unleashing, not crippling your hardware so Canon gear's output quality is just a world away from smartphones in video and stills. Its about adding something like Android onto it, because then you really can add quite sophisticated sw to edit and do clever things on your camera with images.

Canon, Nikon etc need to play to the strengths of dslrs but also learn from smartphones and the like.

I'd love to be able to use my camera as a webcam - the quality would be awesome. Any chance of that Canon? uh-err. Hook two of them up to shoot 3D - stills or video? uh-err. All the innovation is in an open ecosystem, not a closed one.

Sorry, carried away and off thread. :-[

Buying Phase 1 is plausible. Taking Canon manufacturing and apply it to MF to bring it into the sub $10K for a 60MP beast of Phase-1 quality is achievable and would disrupt the market. But only if they're prepared to adopt a different lens mount. Lens range to cameras is like apps libraries to smartphones - starting from scratch does not accelerate market penetration and allows your competitors to react before you've captured the market...

 

[Drizzt321]

The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.

square was the professional standard for medium format before digital for hasselblad users. it prevents you having to turn your camera around for portraits. you do have to be mindful of cropping in post while you're actually doing the shoot though. It also works better with tripods.

Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else. As it was, that was a little impractical for a lot of things since you'd almost always have to leave extra space for cropping. The, "flipping to portrait," issue only made sense when we were using waistlevel viewfinder, an issue that Mamiya had no problem fixing with their rotatable film back on the RZ series. Now days, we simply use an L bracket so that the centre of gravity is still directly on the tripod.

I think if Canon were to not go with the 645 format, they'd be screwing themselves.

Actually, Mamiya had the rotating back with the RB series, which stood (even if just in the minds of people) for Rotating Back. But dang it's a heavy camera! I'm thinking of getting one of the older 645 SLR models for when I want to walk around.

I don't recall if the original reason for 1x1 format was to avoid the need to rotate for portraits or because it makes full use of the larger sizes of the lenses that were needed.

 

[dr croubie]

Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else.

Hasselblad / Kiev 88, Pentacon Six / Kiev 60, Rollei 66, Rollei 6008, Rolleiflex and Rolleicord TLRs, Zenza Bronica, Mamiya C330 and variant TLRs, Mamiya 6, Minoltaflex, Yashica Mat, not to mention all the other ones I've never heard of. Hell, you can still buy a Rollei Hy6 brand new.

I've used my Mamiya 645AF in portrait mode. It sucks, big time, especially handheld. I'm not sure if there's a vertical grip for the 645AF but I sure could use one (although it's already unwieldy, a grip would make it a monster). I find myself using my Hasselbladski more and more these days with the WLF and external lightmeter, so much more comfortable. Cropping is actually easier from square, you can decide later if you want to crop to portrait, landscape, or leave it square (which I do most of the time).

The biggest downside to square formats is the cost. With 120/220 film, getting 12/24 square shots to a roll wasn't that much more expensive than getting 16/32 645-shaped shots, especially for a decent-sized modelling studio. But turn that into a digital sensor and suddenly an $80k 645-sensor is a $150k 6x6-sensor, costs increase exponentially with sensor size (ie a FF-sensor is a lot more than a few APS-C and a few FFs are miles cheaper than an MF sensor).
Rollei got it right with the Hy6, a 6x6-sized hole in the body for 6x6 film, rotatable back for 645 sensors, and future-proof for a 6x6 digital sensor. (But leaf, phase one, and mamiya being all the same company, digital 6x6 is just never going to happen because it won't fit on their 645DF).
Mamiya's RB/RZ67 is the same deal, but it's a 6x7 rotatable back, that can also take digital backs. Biggest problem is that Mamiya killed it off to focus on 645, even though the lenses and bodies are excellent.

Canon buying Rollei (or at least the Hy6 from whomever owns the name) makes more sense than buying Leaphasemiya, they'd get great glass and great bodies, leaf-shutters are one thing canon don't do, and a slowly-dying Hy6 community looking for an upgrade-path. Canon can bring in more lens experience, in-house sensors and AF, the capital to be able to compete with leaphasemiya (and above all, fanboys on internet forums to drool over the new stuff).

 

[deleteme]

The market is just too small for a company like Canon to bother with. If they think of it as a "halo" product then one has to ask just who are they trying to appeal to?
If they buy an existing brand then everyone who may be faintly informed would know its not really a Canon.
If they build it from scratch then they will be adding gigantic overhead to theur operation.

I am almost of the belief that they may be looking at the books of a MF company just to prove to some of the enthusiasts just how poverty stricken the format is.

 

[Drizzt321]

Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else.

Hasselblad / Kiev 88, Pentacon Six / Kiev 60, Rollei 66, Rollei 6008, Rolleiflex and Rolleicord TLRs, Zenza Bronica, Mamiya C330 and variant TLRs, Mamiya 6, Minoltaflex, Yashica Mat, not to mention all the other ones I've never heard of. Hell, you can still buy a Rollei Hy6 brand new.

I've used my Mamiya 645AF in portrait mode. It sucks, big time, especially handheld. I'm not sure if there's a vertical grip for the 645AF but I sure could use one (although it's already unwieldy, a grip would make it a monster). I find myself using my Hasselbladski more and more these days with the WLF and external lightmeter, so much more comfortable. Cropping is actually easier from square, you can decide later if you want to crop to portrait, landscape, or leave it square (which I do most of the time).

The biggest downside to square formats is the cost. With 120/220 film, getting 12/24 square shots to a roll wasn't that much more expensive than getting 16/32 645-shaped shots, especially for a decent-sized modelling studio. But turn that into a digital sensor and suddenly an $80k 645-sensor is a $150k 6x6-sensor, costs increase exponentially with sensor size (ie a FF-sensor is a lot more than a few APS-C and a few FFs are miles cheaper than an MF sensor).
Rollei got it right with the Hy6, a 6x6-sized hole in the body for 6x6 film, rotatable back for 645 sensors, and future-proof for a 6x6 digital sensor. (But leaf, phase one, and mamiya being all the same company, digital 6x6 is just never going to happen because it won't fit on their 645DF).
Mamiya's RB/RZ67 is the same deal, but it's a 6x7 rotatable back, that can also take digital backs. Biggest problem is that Mamiya killed it off to focus on 645, even though the lenses and bodies are excellent.

Canon buying Rollei (or at least the Hy6 from whomever owns the name) makes more sense than buying Leaphasemiya, they'd get great glass and great bodies, leaf-shutters are one thing canon don't do, and a slowly-dying Hy6 community looking for an upgrade-path. Canon can bring in more lens experience, in-house sensors and AF, the capital to be able to compete with leaphasemiya (and above all, fanboys on internet forums to drool over the new stuff).

To be fair, the Mamiya RB/RZ are pretty freakin' big and unwieldy. Granted, with MF you often aren't swinging it around like you do with a 35mm format camera, but from the pics I've seen the 6x4.5 format cameras are much handier and easier to shoot with not from a tripod.

 

[RLPhoto]

What if canon made CMOS sensors in MF format bodies? Edge out the CCD dalsa sensors?