Nikon D800 at 36mp, Will Canon Respond?

[macfly]

Why not live on the wild side, and actually upgrade your camera, and give yourself the option of making a giant print, or crop into a frame of that random plane crash on the other side of the river you didn't have time to change lens for?

The cost of storage has come down so much these days that it just doesn't make sense to penny pinch on your sensor size, and I will not here any complianing about storage cost. A roll of 35mm purchased, processed and contacted used to be around $15-17, so for the cost of 15 rolls of film you can store the equivilant of 900 rolls shot in high rez Raw and low rez Jpeg.

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10177

 

[Zuuyi]

The cost of storage has come down so much these days that it just doesn't make sense to penny pinch on your sensor size, and I will not here any complianing about storage cost. A roll of 35mm purchased, processed and contacted used to be around $15-17, so for the cost of 15 rolls of film you can store the equivilant of 900 rolls shot in high rez Raw and low rez Jpeg.

Agreed. A 2TB Hard Drive is $80 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245; external version is $100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148662

So for a max of $100 dollars you can house 40,000 or so ~50MB raw files. So Nikon & Canon feel free to push MP to 50 or 100 MP. I will deal with needing a cheap HDD so I can crop to a relatively small portion of the picture and still blow it up for commercial usage.

If you have issues with the MPs go get a Canon 1D (4 MP) and give up the 5D2.

 

[rowanlamb]

I want the 5D3 or this new "other" FF to be super-good at high-ISO, and I'd be delighted to sacrifice all video functionality in the "lower" model to facilitate that, price-wise. 24MPix would be fine for me.

+1 on this - my customers never ask for video, and to be honest, I'm not interested in offering it. I would, however, love love love love to be able to shoot totally noise free at 6400.

 

[torger]

I think 36 mp is a really nice number, pixel size corresponds to about 14 megapixels on APS-C. It seems to suit quite nicely the resolving power of today's lenses. It would be nice if they do away with the AA-filter too.

Of course for hand-held action and photojournalism 36 mp is meaningless, but I personally rather want a still life and landscape optimized product, closing in on digital medium format.

 

[Flake]

It's not the resolving power of lenses which is the problem, it's the border & corner performance. On a 12MP camera it's much less noticeable as the resolution across the frame is more or less uniform, it becomes an issue though as the MP count increases. The 5D MkII using a 17 - 40mm F/4 at the wide end wide open really shows this problem - plenty of resolution in the centre, no measureable resolution at all in the corners, it's a dramatic fall off which is really noticable. Up the MP count higher and it'll become even more noticeable as centre performance increases, while border & edge stays the same.

To counter this a new lens mount is needed (plus some new lens designs), but who in all honesty wants to see all their EF lenses obsolete? Cropping is not the answer because the widest zoom only goes to 16mm, if everything needs cropped then you might as well abandon wide angles.

Hopefully Canon will not overdo the MP race with the next camera

 

[Bob Howland]

Do you think this would keep (almost) everybody happy?

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php/topic,1719.msg25265.html#msg25265

In retrospect, I should revise the timing of the 5D3 and 7D introduction to February-March 2012. That was what I was thinking, but not what I wrote.

 

[kubelik]

Based on Moore's Law, Canon should be able to get four times as many pixels in their sensor, now, as they could have, three years ago. Of course, it's not always about more pixels, as has been pointed out. There are trade-offs, such as reduced heat, power, noise, etc. Still, I would be surprised if Canon couldn't make a FF sensor that is one or two stops better and still increase the pixel count.

The most misquoted law around

Moore's law is that the quantity of transistors in silicon will double for a given price point every 18-24 months.

There are some similarities with digital camera pixels over recent years but it's definitely not Moore's law.

wait, what are your sensors made of? mine are ... transistors in silicon.

 

[Canon 14-24]

Since there is talk about storage, I am curious myself on the experience of others.

Knowing external hard drives have the possibility of failure in the future, and at times even for amateurs the need for firewire over a cheaper usb alternative doesn't cut it, the convenience of wanting a mirror drive to back up files, and the backing of a reputable brand (LaCie or Western Digital?)...the costs easily add up. I am currently using western digital firewire 800 studio versions that are 2TB or 1TB (after mirrored) and they are running just under $200 each and I am hesitant to buy a cheaper brand/model and possibly put my image library at risk - what have you guys been doing? On a side note I'd say for almost the 3rd year I've used a 5d2 as an amateur, I am currently on my 2nd 2tb/1tb studio drive.

On another note of megapixels increase, there is that issue to those that choose to do a little heavier post processing (DxO, photomatix, photoshop/layering/panos?, etc). I also don't like to batch process my images and go through them individually. With my current desktop setup of a 3.0ghz quadcore and 8gigs of ram, I have noticed increased processing times and occasional freezing in my work flow (after making the step up from a 5d to 5d2). I am hesitant on how my current setup will hold up to a 36+mp raw file size for post processing.

It's not the resolving power of lenses which is the problem, it's the border & corner performance. On a 12MP camera it's much less noticeable as the resolution across the frame is more or less uniform, it becomes an issue though as the MP count increases. The 5D MkII using a 17 - 40mm F/4 at the wide end wide open really shows this problem - plenty of resolution in the centre, no measureable resolution at all in the corners, it's a dramatic fall off which is really noticable. Up the MP count higher and it'll become even more noticeable as centre performance increases, while border & edge stays the same.

I've noticed this too and the corner sharpness has been a big issue for me. Stopping down to f/16 with the trade off of diffraction is not cutting it for me either. I am sincerely hoping for some new ultra wide lens designs to improve corner performance - hopefully in a 14-24 zoom focal range!

 

[epsiloneri]

Re: Too many megapixels?

As I have previously pointed out, the number of megapixels have increased much slower than harddrive storage space.

In 2000, a D30 had 3 Mpix and the harddrives were 10 GB.

In 2010, the 60D had increased the pixel number by a factor of 6 to a total of 18 Mpix, but the harddrives had increased in storage size by a factor of 100 to 1 TB.

Harddisk space is thus a factor of 15 less of an issue now compared to 10 years ago, so please let go of the argument that raw files take too much space. There are more interesting things to argue about.

 

[eos650]

I handle my storage and backup, as follows.

• I shoot the images (only copy is in camera)
• As soon as possible/practical, I import the images into my PC (now I have two copies, the camera and the PC)
• I have a low power file server that is available 24/7. I immediately run a script on my file server to pull a copy of my images from the PC (now I have three copies)
• Each evening, my file server makes a backup of my new and changed images to a second drive. (now I have 4 copies)
  • At this point, I'm comfortable deleting the images from the camera. I have multiple memory cards that I rotate through, so I don't usually delete the images until I need the card, again. (once deleted from the card, I'm back down to three copies)
• After I accumulate 25GB or so of images on my PC, I burn and verify, three copies to blu-ray data discs. These discs run about .75 each. I store two of these in a safe and take the third to another location. (now I have six copies)
• I then delete the copy from my PC, leaving me with 5 copies. My copies are the file server main copy, the file server backup and the three blu-ray data discs. I retain the copy on the file server for easy access and the file server backup copy for easy recovery. The blu-ray discs are my insurance policy, in case of total file server failure or destruction.

Also, I know that a memory card can fail at any time. There isn't much that you can do about that. I would like to see a camera with dual memory slots that could be configured as raid 1 (mirrored), or independently (pictures/video), etc., based on your shooting situation. For now, any time I introduce a new memory card into my workflow, I do it on a non-critical shoot and avoid using it for anything important, until I feel comfortable with it.

This is probably pretty anal, but I can sleep at night.

Disk space is cheap. In fact my entire file server cost less that most Canon accessories.......

NOTE: I always get my blu-ray discs from at least two different spindles, preferably from two different brands and I burn on two different burners. This reduces the risk of having all of my copies go bad, due to a bad batch or burner. ..... Ok, so I'm really anal.... What can I say?

 

[JonJT]

Since there is talk about storage, I am curious myself on the experience of others.

Knowing external hard drives have the possibility of failure in the future, and at times even for amateurs the need for firewire over a cheaper usb alternative doesn't cut it, the convenience of wanting a mirror drive to back up files, and the backing of a reputable brand (LaCie or Western Digital?)...the costs easily add up. I am currently using western digital firewire 800 studio versions that are 2TB or 1TB (after mirrored) and they are running just under $200 each and I am hesitant to buy a cheaper brand/model and possibly put my image library at risk - what have you guys been doing? On a side note I'd say for almost the 3rd year I've used a 5d2 as an amateur, I am currently on my 2nd 2tb/1tb studio drive.

On another note of megapixels increase, there is that issue to those that choose to do a little heavier post processing (DxO, photomatix, photoshop/layering/panos?, etc). I also don't like to batch process my images and go through them individually. With my current desktop setup of a 3.0ghz quadcore and 8gigs of ram, I have noticed increased processing times and occasional freezing in my work flow (after making the step up from a 5d to 5d2). I am hesitant on how my current setup will hold up to a 36+mp raw file size for post processing.

It's not the resolving power of lenses which is the problem, it's the border & corner performance. On a 12MP camera it's much less noticeable as the resolution across the frame is more or less uniform, it becomes an issue though as the MP count increases. The 5D MkII using a 17 - 40mm F/4 at the wide end wide open really shows this problem - plenty of resolution in the centre, no measureable resolution at all in the corners, it's a dramatic fall off which is really noticable. Up the MP count higher and it'll become even more noticeable as centre performance increases, while border & edge stays the same.

I've noticed this too and the corner sharpness has been a big issue for me. Stopping down to f/16 with the trade off of diffraction is not cutting it for me either. I am sincerely hoping for some new ultra wide lens designs to improve corner performance - hopefully in a 14-24 zoom focal range!

You're paying a bit much at $200 each for your 2TB externals. I've been eying a set of internal Hitachi Deskstar 3tb drives that come in at just under 200 each. Their 2tb equivalent drives are 120 dollars, each. You can have a mirrored backup external setup for under 300 if you go with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153112
300 is a lot of money but, is parsimonious in comparison to the cost of the camera you shoot with.
Western's drives (and whatever Lacie uses), don't have monopolies on reliability. I use mostly Western but, I also have Seagate drives, both of which have failed on me at some time in the past. I usually buy whatever meets the specs I need and, has decent reviews at a reputable retailer like newegg or zipzoomfly. Avoid individual drives (not manufacturers) with a known QC problem and make sure to back up your data regularly. That's the best insurance against failure, far better than sticking with a particular brand of drive.

My workflow isn't as detailed as yours is as I'm very much a newbie. But, I'm using Lightroom and GIMP on an ancient overclocked Opteron 165 with a paltry 2 gigs of RAM. I don't have issues with freezing while editing a single image at one time or, batch processing a whole bunch of photos. I shoot with a 60D. I doubt the extra 3 megapixels would take a much better bit of hardware to its knees simply because of the increased load. I'd wager that your instability issue is a software problem, not a hardware one.

Having said that, I will still upgrade my computer, mostly because it's nearly 6 years old and the hardware doesn't function like it used to. That, and I need to build a flexible backup NAS to insure all the music, video, pictures and data I've accumulated over the years.

Edit: With the NAS, I'll have 6tb of redundant storage space. One copy on my workstation, one copy on my NAS. The most important data (financial information, personal documents, music and photos) with be triple redundant with a second local copy at my work station. Aside from a ravaging house fire, I don't see my data going anywhere for decades to come (knock on wood).

 

[awinphoto]

It's not the resolving power of lenses which is the problem, it's the border & corner performance. On a 12MP camera it's much less noticeable as the resolution across the frame is more or less uniform, it becomes an issue though as the MP count increases. The 5D MkII using a 17 - 40mm F/4 at the wide end wide open really shows this problem - plenty of resolution in the centre, no measureable resolution at all in the corners, it's a dramatic fall off which is really noticable. Up the MP count higher and it'll become even more noticeable as centre performance increases, while border & edge stays the same.

Not trying to rock the boat or start a debate, but I just wanted to get this off my chest... People like to pick apart Canon's ultrawides (i.e. 17-40, 16-35) for example that the corner sharpness is bad, especially at the extremes... Mkay... At the end of the day, what are you shooting in which corner sharpness, especially if used on a Full Frame camera, do you need that corner sharpness? architecture? Landscape? If you are, then why aren't you saving up to use a T/S lens which you would get that corner sharpness such as the new 17mm TS? That lens is geared for pro architecture/landscape photographers. 17-40, on a crop body, is kinda like a short stubby all around lens however on a full frame, it's as close to a fish eye and you get without the fisheye effect. That lens is a good lens but has it's place within the professional photographers bag. I know i'm one to talk and battle this battle on a daily occurance with the costs and everything, but in the end, using a 17-40 or even the 16-35 on a detail critical architecture shoot and then griping about corner sharpness, to me, is like someone using a hack saw to cut off branches off a tree and complaining it's taking to long... It can get the same job done but isn't the correct tool to use.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The Microsoft Translator does a slightly better translation of the japanese post.

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=Internal&from=&to=en&a=http://digicame-info.com/2011/09/d800d7003600.html

If I intrepret it correctly, announcement is rumored for October 26 with availability on November 24.

It makes the big Canon announcement on November 3 sound more interesting. A pixma product and a EOS product if you believe the logo, coupled with a WPPI connection surely is hinting at a 5D MK III.

 

[kubelik]

Knowing external hard drives have the possibility of failure in the future, and at times even for amateurs the need for firewire over a cheaper usb alternative doesn't cut it, the convenience of wanting a mirror drive to back up files, and the backing of a reputable brand (LaCie or Western Digital?)...the costs easily add up. I am currently using western digital firewire 800 studio versions that are 2TB or 1TB (after mirrored) and they are running just under $200 each and I am hesitant to buy a cheaper brand/model and possibly put my image library at risk - what have you guys been doing? On a side note I'd say for almost the 3rd year I've used a 5d2 as an amateur, I am currently on my 2nd 2tb/1tb studio drive.

On another note of megapixels increase, there is that issue to those that choose to do a little heavier post processing (DxO, photomatix, photoshop/layering/panos?, etc). I also don't like to batch process my images and go through them individually. With my current desktop setup of a 3.0ghz quadcore and 8gigs of ram, I have noticed increased processing times and occasional freezing in my work flow (after making the step up from a 5d to 5d2). I am hesitant on how my current setup will hold up to a 36+mp raw file size for post processing.

well, I've been using 1TB hard drives as backups, which cost somewhere between $100 and $150 apiece. each of these holds about 28,000 images (RAW+JPG, average 35 MB), which as a hobbyist, is about as much as I shoot in a year. if I double that so I have a backup, I'm spending ~$250/year on storage. which is an affordable amount as far as I'm concerned. film development cost me way more back in the day. again, as the cameras double their file sizes, storage becomes at least equally cheaper so while there may be some brief see-sawing in dollars-per-image-stored, but it will even out in the long run.

in terms of processing, I predominantly use my laptop, which is a dual-core 2.6GHz processor, 4GB ram, and budget graphics cards. it crunches through 5D II files at an acceptable rate with no freezing, and I do use Photomatix, Color Efex Pro, and other software. when I do large stitches, I take it onto a graphics workstation with a quad-core 2.8GHz, 12 GB RAM, and Crossfire 2GB AMD Radeon 6950 cards. this thing will stitch 8 TIFF images out of the 5DII together with no problem.

you might want to look into getting some production graphics cards to augment your machine, as your base specs seem to be pretty good and shouldn't warrant any freezing. the only other thing I can think of is boosting your RAM futher so that you don't run out of cache. Photoshop and other Adobe applications have a nasty habit of building up detritus in your RAM memory and eventually freezing themselves out.

 

[JonJT]

It's not the resolving power of lenses which is the problem, it's the border & corner performance. On a 12MP camera it's much less noticeable as the resolution across the frame is more or less uniform, it becomes an issue though as the MP count increases. The 5D MkII using a 17 - 40mm F/4 at the wide end wide open really shows this problem - plenty of resolution in the centre, no measureable resolution at all in the corners, it's a dramatic fall off which is really noticable. Up the MP count higher and it'll become even more noticeable as centre performance increases, while border & edge stays the same.

Not trying to rock the boat or start a debate, but I just wanted to get this off my chest... People like to pick apart Canon's ultrawides (i.e. 17-40, 16-35) for example that the corner sharpness is bad, especially at the extremes... Mkay... At the end of the day, what are you shooting in which corner sharpness, especially if used on a Full Frame camera, do you need that corner sharpness? architecture? Landscape? If you are, then why aren't you saving up to use a T/S lens which you would get that corner sharpness such as the new 17mm TS? That lens is geared for pro architecture/landscape photographers. 17-40, on a crop body, is kinda like a short stubby all around lens however on a full frame, it's as close to a fish eye and you get without the fisheye effect. That lens is a good lens but has it's place within the professional photographers bag. I know i'm one to talk and battle this battle on a daily occurance with the costs and everything, but in the end, using a 17-40 or even the 16-35 on a detail critical architecture shoot and then griping about corner sharpness, to me, is like someone using a hack saw to cut off branches off a tree and complaining it's taking to long... It can get the same job done but isn't the correct tool to use.

I donno man. I think it is wasteful to only consider the most specialized tools for a particular job, particular when the less specific tool has some advantages over the more particular one.

Photographers, both "prosumer" and professional don't have unlimited resources. And, sometimes the 17mm TSE just isn't going to cut it, for whatever reason. That's where those zooms step in. Nikon understands this, in my opinion. That's why the 14-24 exists. Crop shooters have the super sharp Tokina 11-16. Why can't FF shooters have better performing glass, too?

 

[kubelik]

and by production graphics cards, I mean Nvidia Quadro or AMD Firepro cards ... don't get the stuff your buddies use for gaming if you're concerned about per-dollar performance in graphics applications.

 

[pedro]

+1 on this - my customers never ask for video, and to be honest, I'm not interested in offering it. I would, however, love love love love to be able to shoot totally noise free at 6400.
[/quote]

@rowanlamb:
ISO 6400 noise free: That means at least 3 stops better high ISO's than my trusty "rusty" 30D. I took some candids during a wedding reception this past weekend (mostly candle light and some artificial light) at ISO 1600 to 3200. Applied some Chroma noise reduction in PP (DPP Chroma NR: @+13) and I am quite happy with the outcome. I was not the main photographer...;-) So ISO 6400 would be my dream ISO for low light shooting well exposed to the right. I'd pay USD 3500 for a 5Diii being able to do that.
Question:
How likely is noisefree ISO 6400 on a next 5D body? I do not know too much about physics and camera tech anyway. So, your suggestions are very welcome. Cheers, Pedro.

 

[kubelik]

pedro ... everyone's definition of acceptable "clean" ISO is different, and often can be off by as much as 1 or 2 stops. I know people that are comfortable shooting the 5D2 at ISO 3200, others that refuse to shoot above ISO 800. personally, I find ISO 1600 is pretty much as high as I prefer to go in most circumstances, but ISO 3200 can work with some noise reduction applied and downres-ing.

If the 5D Mark III can deliver noise-free 1600 and clean 3200, a gain of 1 full stop, I'd be pretty darn happy with that. I'm sure others will be pickier. frankly, I think a 2-stop gain is asking for miracles in technology, which 3 years is not quite enough for.

 

[pedro]

Thanks for your update on tech, kubelik. Especially for your differentiation of noise free and clean, which appearantly isn't the same. So I hope for clean ISO 3200 on my future cam and some very usable ISO 6400 to follow your line. As my low-light photography often aims at robert frank type b/w, it will suit me fine. Pedro

 

[Loswr]

pedro ... everyone's definition of acceptable "clean" ISO is different, and often can be off by as much as 1 or 2 stops. I know people that are comfortable shooting the 5D2 at ISO 3200, others that refuse to shoot above ISO 800. personally, I find ISO 1600 is pretty much as high as I prefer to go in most circumstances, but ISO 3200 can work with some noise reduction applied and downres-ing.

Post processing matters here, too. I'm comfortable shooting at ISO 3200 on my 5DII as long as I am shooting RAW and processing images with DxO Optics Pro (and I alway shoot RAW and process with DxO). But with DPP, I'd keep it to ISO 1600, and with in-camera JPGs, probably even lower.