Nikon D800 at 36mp, Will Canon Respond?

[Canon Rumors]

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<strong>The megapixel war is on

</strong>We were <a href="http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/08/big-megapixel-camera-next-week/">told a while ago</a> about a big megapixel camera coming from Nikon, the date of the announcement was wrong, but it doesn’t appear the camera is.</p>
<p>Nikon Rumors is <a href="http://nikonrumors.com/2011/10/03/the-name-will-be-nikon-d800-the-sensor-will-be-36mp-99-probability.aspx/">reporting a 36mp D800</a> coming in the next 30-60 days at a 99% probability.</p>
<p><strong>Why does a Canon site care?

</strong>Lots of people speculated Canon was waiting for a Nikon announcement to decide how to proceed. If Nikon announces this camera and is able to delivery before the year closes out, I don’t think Canon has any choice but to respond in some way.</p>
<p>What about responding to a big megapixel camera with a small megapixel, high ISO performance full frame camera <strong>[<a href="http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/09/more-new-full-frame-rumors-cr1/">here</a>]</strong> & <strong>[<a href="http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/09/a-new-entry-level-full-frame-camera-cr1/">here</a>]</strong>?</p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>

 

[TW]

Here we go folks, the ride is starting. Hold on tight!

 

[tt]

Which Canon line best matches the D800? Price wise, in the UK the D700 seems to match the 5D MkII on sale at the moment. Maybe the 7D's successor at initial full price?
Presumably, now with a DIGIC V PowerShots out of the bag, the Canon response will need to be the first proper Canon DIGIC V dSLR?

 

[Canon 14-24]

The big question is how the current lenses will hold up to a 36mp+ camera

 

[tt]

And also the differences between lenses for video, and lenses for stills. Aren't current L lenses hindered by their small relative rotation of the focus ring to go from close up to infinity? Ease of focusing for video, AF, optical qualities, price and weight seem opposing characteristics! Is it to say Canon could have made better L lenses already optically, or just that they'd need an even more expensive super-L range?

 

[Bob Howland]

The big question is how the current lenses will hold up to a 36mp+ camera

How well do the current lenses hold up to a 16-18MP DX APS-C sensor? I think the proper way to look at this isn't that a marginal lens suddenly becomes a piece of junk if you exceed some resolution threshold but, rather, that you don't see all of the improvement theoretically made possible by a higher resolution sensor. There's always room for improvement in lens resolution but what will have to be foregone: having to use a prime instead a zoom, having to pay a lot more for the lens, having to carry around a heavier lens, etc?

 

[obyphotography]

36mpx RAW files are really huge! I'm a 5DII user and I have to fight everyday with storage space and performance with my Macs. 5DII it's "only" 21mpx!

Honestly I agree more with the previous Nikon's philosophy: Less pixels, more ISO quality at hight ISO.

 

[caruser]

The big question is how the current lenses will hold up to a 36mp+ camera

How will my harddisk hold up to 50-60 MB RAW files?

Srsly, I'm quite happy with 21 MP and hope they don't jump too far ahead, more DR and better high ISO would be much more welcome than more pixels.

 

[Loswr]

More MP? Bring 'em on, especially for a FF camera. Not so densly packed that diffraction starts to affect IQ at f/5.6, like the new 24 MP APS-C from Sony, but a 36 MP FF sensot would be just fine.

36mpx RAW files are really huge! I'm a 5DII user and I have to fight everyday with storage space and performance with my Macs. 5DII it's "only" 21mpx!

Storage is cheap. Do you really need every RAW image you've ever shot on your HDD, all the time? Aperture manages multiple libraries, including ones stored externally. My 17" MB Pro handles the 21 MP 5DII files with ease, even when they bloat to edit as TIFs in CS5. Frankly, even my 13" MB Air does fine, especially with the performance boost of an SSD instead of a spinning platter.

 

[awinphoto]

neuro, you know more about the nitty gritty but if a 5dii roughly matches a 20D crop, then a 36mp would roughly come out to a 13.7mp sensor crop? Am i on the target... the 40D (12mp) was infamous for image quality and the 50D (15mp) was starting to break apart... perhaps this will fall in that happy medium. Regarding the storage, I just bought a 1tb hard drive with 800 firewire connectivity for a hair over $100... I'm sure I could pick up a 2TB USB for about that price... I know it's an inconvenience, but just like how you had to organize film in the old days, you got to organize digital files. Plus unlike film, we can delete the bad images to save space... I'd say bring it on provided image quality and ISO performance doesn't suffer...

 

[Meh]

The big question is how the current lenses will hold up to a 36mp+ camera

How well do the current lenses hold up to a 16-18MP DX APS-C sensor? I think the proper way to look at this isn't that a marginal lens suddenly becomes a piece of junk if you exceed some resolution threshold but, rather, that you don't see all of the improvement theoretically made possible by a higher resolution sensor. There's always room for improvement in lens resolution but what will have to be foregone: having to use a prime instead a zoom, having to pay a lot more for the lens, having to carry around a heavier lens, etc?

Bob is correct. The lens will continue to resolve what it always resolved and that will represent the resolution limit in the system (lens + sensor). I recall reading somewhere on this forum that Canon's stated goal with the new lens designs was to resolve to 40MP in FF. Does anyone know if that was an official statement from Canon?

 

[Tarrum]

I think this will be a fine camera, basically an improved D3x at a lower price.

First, there's going to be a gap at Nikon, the D700 is right now at $2600, the D800 will be $4000. I think something at $$2600-3200 wouldn't be bad to release, especially because I think many Nikon users want a new FF camera, just not with that many pixels. So either a D800, D700x that has 24-30MP with faster performance.

That means Canon has to announce a 5D Mark III and another camera, either 5Ds Mark III that could have also improved video, or perhaps a 3D/6D line to compete with Nikon's second model (not the D800).

And about file sizes - luckily it has USB 3.0 so at least at transferring it won't be so long. Editing and saving - well, that's horrible but no one is forcing you to buy the camera. SSD disks are getting cheaper (though not as cheap as most of us would want them to be), speeds are getting better and sizes are increasing.

And about lenses not resolving details - I am very confident all lenses out there, especially prime, will be able to match up to such high pixels.

 

[awinphoto]

I think this will be a fine camera, basically an improved D3x at a lower price.

First, there's going to be a gap at Nikon, the D700 is right now at $2600, the D800 will be $4000. I think something at $$2600-3200 wouldn't be bad to release, especially because I think many Nikon users want a new FF camera, just not with that many pixels. So either a D800, D700x that has 24-30MP with faster performance.

That means Canon has to announce a 5D Mark III and another camera, either 5Ds Mark III that could have also improved video, or perhaps a 3D/6D line to compete with Nikon's second model (not the D800).

And about file sizes - luckily it has USB 3.0 so at least at transferring it won't be so long. Editing and saving - well, that's horrible but no one is forcing you to buy the camera. SSD disks are getting cheaper (though not as cheap as most of us would want them to be), speeds are getting better and sizes are increasing.

And about lenses not resolving details - I am very confident all lenses out there, especially prime, will be able to match up to such high pixels.

What makes you think that the D800 isn't the D700 replacement at it's rough price point and the D700 will drop in price, just like when the 5d mark II came out and dropped the 5d in price? Nikon and Canon has done that in the past such as when the D300 took over the D200 series and such... I dont think the D800 would be just a new camera in the series but a replacement for the D700...

 

[Meh]

More MP? Bring 'em on, especially for a FF camera. Not so densly packed that diffraction starts to affect IQ at f/5.6, like the new 24 MP APS-C from Sony, but a 36 MP FF sensot would be just fine.

True but you'd still have the improved resolution wider than tha f-ratio limit and be no worse off narrower. Besides you only start to resolve it at that limit... I think it's a few more stops before the improvement in sensor resolution is completely offset by resolving the diffraction and we can never do better than a diffraction limited optical system anyway. Do you know of any paper that attempts to define a sensor spatial-resolution limit above which there is no value from the increased resolution?

Besides, that Sony sensor scaled up to FF would be about 60 MP and not likely we're getting anywhere near that with FF in the foreseeable future.

 

[wockawocka]

I'm willing to bet it falls over on IQ

 

[Polansky]

I find this rumour very hard to believe.

If true it would kill ALL sales of Nikon 3Ds and 3Dx.
A Prosumer camera that would have more megapixels than its top of the line model for 1/3 of the price.
Probably would have better ISO performance as well then above mentioned two camera's due to technology progressment.

Though Mr. Nikonrumours is 99% sure... I think he misses 298% of his brains to think that Nikon would kill all of its professional equipment overnight.

If true (very hard to believe) and Canon doesn't respond, then Canon will loose all of its userbase within month.
Lets be fair the 5D2 has a supergood sensor and changed the cameramarket with its video capabilities, but its AF sucked from the beginning.

Either the D800 is crippled by e.g. lack of a proper AF system, or this camera will make many Canon users to hop over to the other side.

But lets wait and see.
(Meaby Mr. Nikonrumors was misinformed and got the specs of a new Canon camera to be released on the 26th of october).

 

[Meh]

I'm willing to bet it falls over on IQ

Maybe but don't be so sure. Taking the new Sony sensor as an indication of what's possible the full well saturation is almost as high as some current FF sensors and they got the noise way down leading to very large DR. A similar design used for a 30-40 MP FF sensor might just result in improved DR, ISO performance, etc. than what we have in FF sensors today.

As I'm digesting Nikon possibly releasing a 36 MP FF sensor, I'm considering Nikon's historical position that they would not sacrifice IQ for resolution. So the question is have they caved to the MP race or has technology advanced to the point they can offer 36 MP without sacrificing IQ. I suspect the latter is the case.

 

[Flake]

I wonder how Nikon users will deal with the double think a camera like this will have them spouting. For years they've been saying that 12MP is in fact better, less is more and other such- more images per GB - clients don't need or want such big files, bigger pixel sites etc etc. A 36MP camera will suddenly turn all that on its head, and they'll be having to argue the same words that Canon FF users have been using all these years.

They do have a point with some of their defence of low MP counts 36MP files will triple the processing time needed, 100 images on a D3 pushed through DxO or Capture one will take 3x as long, many will be forced to upgrade PCs and buy new storage which won't hold as much.

I'm happy with 21MP I've never yet been asked for more MP (though I know Nikon users who have been), I'd rather see the technology advances give me better dynamic range / noise; more fps; more shots in the buffer; than a similar performing camera with more MP. Alternatively I'd be happy for a choice of two cameras one 21MP 7-8fps and a 40MP camera at 3-4fps

 

[awinphoto]

I wonder how Nikon users will deal with the double think a camera like this will have them spouting. For years they've been saying that 12MP is in fact better, less is more and other such- more images per GB - clients don't need or want such big files, bigger pixel sites etc etc. A 36MP camera will suddenly turn all that on its head, and they'll be having to argue the same words that Canon FF users have been using all these years.

I was wondering the same thing

 

[bchernicoff]

If true (very hard to believe) and Canon doesn't respond, then Canon will loose all of its userbase within month.

This cracks me up. You really think that pro photographers are chomping at the bit to be able to take 7,311 x 4,874 pictures instead of 5,616 × 3,744? They will cast off all their thousands of dollars in Canon lenses and flashes and go buy the equivalent Nikon gear? Taking pictures that are 1700 pixels wider is an overwhelmingly compelling feature to a pro? I guess they feel limited artistically by the extra resolution? Get real.