Review: Canon ME20F-SH by B&H Photo Explora

[Canon Rumors Guy]

B&H Photo has completed a review of the soon-to-be-released Canon ME20F-SH, the “see in the dark” video camera Canon announced back in July which caught everyone off guard. This camera is capable of a maximum ISO of 4,560,000.</p>
<p>What I find most exciting is the possibility that some of this technology is going to spill over into other parts of the Canon lineup, most notably the EOS-1D X Mark II and EOS 5D Mark IV.</p>
<p>The summary and noise performance examples are after the break.</p>
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<p>From B&H Explora:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Canon ME20F-SH presents itself as a unique tool for a wide range of applications. Part cinema camera, part surveillance tool, part studio camera, the camera is ready to serve anyone who wants to capture images in extremely dark conditions without having to sacrifice color or resort to infrared lighting and sacrifice nature color reproduction. <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/hands-review/canon-me20f-sh-full-frame-video-camera-sees-dark/bi/2466/kbid/3296" target="_blank">Read the full review…</a></p></blockquote>
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[neuroanatomist]

How dare you imply that Canon is innovating where sensors are concerned, Sir. How dare you!!

 

[RGF]

How dare you imply that Canon is innovating where sensors are concerned, Sir. How dare you!!

Don't you think Canon could do better, if they really tried?

 

[neuroanatomist]

Oh, sure...ISO 72,960,000 at least!

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Oh, sure...ISO 72,960,000 at least!

Shooting at ISO 100 and push the shadows for 25 stops?

 

[neuroanatomist]

;D

 

[RGF]

Oh, sure...ISO 72,960,000 at least!

Shooting at ISO 100 and push the shadows for 25 stops?

72.6MM is only 19.5 (approximately) stops

25 stops would be 3,335,433,200 ISO.

Now that would be an accomplishment. Of course the camera would have a resolution of 300 x 200.

 

[JMZawodny]

When the Mark II comes out and this one drops to $2k, I could be tempted. Pop a superwide or fisheye on it and you'd have a killer meteor cam. Pixels that big can hide a lot of coma.

 

[Bennymiata]

I reckon it would be killer for surveillance. No lights and a perfect video of the culprit in action.

 

[Local Hero]

We had one of these cameras at work on demo a few months ago.

It is amazing.

Gives a really nice image in almost complete darkness.

Canon should make this into a production camera.
It is too good just for surveillance.

They will sell a heap of these cameras for industrial uses.

I guess that is where the money is.

It has great remote control too.
Like in-built filters and remote lens control.

Has the same locking EF mount like on the C500 and C300 MK II.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Google has me pegged for that camera. B&H ads pop up advertising it several times a day. I guess Googles finely tuned ad engine is not so good as they might have people believing.

 

[dolina]

Was able to fiddle with it for a bit. I think for whoever needs the feature set will be amazed by it.

 

[Maiaibing]

Would have liked to see something saturated colors to see how applicable this tech is to photography.

It could be great to have a super high-iso Canon DSLR offering like the SONY with maybe a little more MPIX such as 18-20. I'd buy one for sure.

 

[pedro]

Would have liked to see something saturated colors to see how applicable this tech is to photography.

It could be great to have a super high-iso Canon DSLR offering like the SONY with maybe a little more MPIX such as 18-20. I'd buy one for sure.

+ 1 Count me in...

 

[GuyF]

Meh. Totally blows out the highlights when you ramp up the gain. Another Canon failure.....

 

[MickDK]

Meh. Totally blows out the highlights when you ramp up the gain. Another Canon failure.....

"up to 12 stops" - meh! A specialist tool when you don't need DR ;D

Really given the pixel size and the skyhigh price I'm not impressed.

 

[pedro]

Meh. Totally blows out the highlights when you ramp up the gain. Another Canon failure.....

"up to 12 stops" - meh! A specialist tool when you don't need DR ;D

Really given the pixel size and the skyhigh price I'm not impressed.

I guess, making stills you'll take a different approach. So, nothing Meh about that. They just wanted to present us quickly how things look like at 4 Mio ISO! And that's incredible. I guess, an 18 MP sensor with this tech would be good for more or less clean 104K ISO?

 

[scyrene]

The IR filter was something I'd not heard about before, very impressive - I can't help but wonder what this camera could do for certain astro subjects.

I have a general question for the technical experts - given the same amount of light is being gathered by a full frame sensor regardless of the pixel size, and in some contexts we are told a higher resolution sensor downsampled should actually be cleaner (as pixel-level noise can be averaged out to a degree), how come this is so good? I thought I had a good basic understanding of stuff, but I'm back to being confused

 

[George D.]

What I find most exciting is the possibility that some of this technology is going to spill over into other parts of the Canon lineup, most notably the EOS-1D X Mark II and EOS 5D Mark IV.

Kubrick was there exactly 40 years ago with Barry Lyndon. For the common people, say 5D4 18/20Mp, ISO 1Million we shall have to shoot Milky Way stills all over again? ??? And if 5D5 comes with ISO 2Million all over again? I say bring a stunning ISO 100k, the rest is for spec lovers.

 

[scyrene]

What I find most exciting is the possibility that some of this technology is going to spill over into other parts of the Canon lineup, most notably the EOS-1D X Mark II and EOS 5D Mark IV.

Kubrick was there exactly 40 years ago with Barry Lyndon. For the common people, say 5D4 18/20Mp, ISO 1Million we shall have to shoot Milky Way stills all over again? ??? And if 5D5 comes with ISO 2Million all over again? I say bring a stunning ISO 100k, the rest is for spec lovers.

Well he used f/0.7 lenses, that's not quite the same thing.