Silly question by a noob

[johndoe]

Ok I know this is not the best way to present myself in a forum for professionals users. BUT since i got stuck in DSLR film making for about a year now, i want to clear my mind about some strange ideas of mine.
So let's suppose that Mr Canon wants to create a new camera just to record videos at 2k(~ 2 Mp) 24p in raw format. Can he eliminate the mirror parts, reduce the number of pixels, make them bigger filling the 36*24 sensor size? Will he maintain the same shallow DOF, low light capabilities, s/n ratio(about this one I guess not because, from what I know, its about pixels number) and so on?
Thank you in advance, please go easy with insults!

 

[Shnookums]

They could do that. Bigger pixel means less noise, DOF would be the same. But, they won't do that for a DSLR. They might put a sensor like this in a dedicated video camera that support changing lens.

 

[Enrico]

If I would be Mr Canon I would really have a huge discussion internally (and with costly advisors...) how to separate the pure video products from the pure photo dito.

I personnaly don't think they expected so many pros/semipros to start using 5DII for pure video.

Sure the DSLR will still have video capabilities, but I would go for a pure video camera with changable lenses that does not (or even should not) look like a DSLR.

 

[dr croubie]

a) you have 21MP in a FF sensor, and put 9 (or so) of them together into one 'video pixel' across the whole sensor.
b) you just make a 2MP FF sensor.
All things being equal (like using the same technology, gapless microlenses etc), and using the same lens, you get exactly the same DOF, Noise, Sensitivity etc. (maybe a bit less power draw? if so maybe a bit less noise from self-heating?

If you eliminate the mirror, take out the shutter (ie remove stills capability) then it'll be cheaper too. But then you've just made a dslr-shaped video camera...

Smart thing for canon (or anyone) to do in bringing out a dedicated interchangeable-lens video camera is to make it either use their dslr-mount (like EF-mount), or make an adaptor so that you can mount dslr lenses on the new video camera.
And there's only one real interchangeable video lens-mount, Arri PL, and that's got a long enough flange distance that you can mount it on almost any new-mount video camera to come...

 

[awinphoto]

There's a few issues... first, as dr crouble mentioned, it would still be the same size sensor and regardless how much pixels it has, costs wont be any cheaper to produce and you wont have the superior resolution of 21mp (for lets say 4k video comes out, etc... It's much easier for Mr Canon (not that he will) but to throw in a patch or firmware to record that size vs recreating the sensor (again).

Secondly, the bigger pixels, the less noise is sorta a myth... With that thinking, the 10D/20D should have less noise than the 7D, but the 10D got noise past iso 200... (But in it's defense it was actually very close to film tolerances and most photographers using it had a film background so we didn't think anything of it). Plus, with the smaller pixels you have finer resolution hence you can SEE the noise easier whereas the noise on lower resolution cameras would have to be big enough to take up the majority of said pixel to show, and with those cameras it didn't take much.

Now with that out of the way, they definitely can put together a barebones no frills super video camera dslr but they would have to make it at a price point (full frame) and cheap enough to produce where it would be profitable and where they are comfortable that it would have enough of a demand to warrant it. Dont forget struggles including jello cam/rolling shutter, frame rates, buffer and recording limitations, sound options, etc... I couldn't see that kinda camera until they get those dslr quirks sorted out. If they're going to invest in creating a camera they dont want any of these issues to ruin the camera.

 

[Dave]

If I would be Mr Canon I would really have a huge discussion internally (and with costly advisors...) how to separate the pure video products from the pure photo dito.

Imo it is too late for a seperation. Mr Canon & Co did (and still do) their best to keep the semi-pro users away from vid cams with changeable lenses. And now you can produce with a 500 Euro-Cam á la 600D (or even 1100D) much better movies than with a video cam that cost ten times as much.

 

[Edwin Herdman]

Mr Canon & Co did (and still do) their best to keep the semi-pro users away from vid cams with changeable lenses. And now can produce with a 500 Euro-Cam á la 600D (or even 1100D) much better movies than with a video cam that cost ten times as much.

While I do hear that many users have sworn off Canon camcorders for the time being, saying that DSLRs make much better movies is kind of ridiculous. These are for entirely different kinds of applications - camcorders have quiet and continuous focus and DSLRs don't. It's ENG versus what Canon has been treating as a nifty toy that may or may not be acceptable for some controlled shooting situations.

 

[Dave]

saying that DSLRs make much better movies is kind of ridiculous

You don't make good movies with your equipment, you make good movies with your creativity. And if you have a budget < 1000 Euro, you have much more options to play with that creativity than with a camcorder.

Of course... DSLRs have many(!!!) weaknesses in the video area but despite of that weaknesses they are being used by many(!!!) professional (!!!) video producers. The cheapest camcorder from canon with changeable lenses is at about 5000 Euro. And for that amount of money you can buy a lot of cool stuff for a DSLR

 

[awinphoto]

Mr Canon & Co did (and still do) their best to keep the semi-pro users away from vid cams with changeable lenses. And now can produce with a 500 Euro-Cam á la 600D (or even 1100D) much better movies than with a video cam that cost ten times as much.

While I do hear that many users have sworn off Canon camcorders for the time being, saying that DSLRs make much better movies is kind of ridiculous. These are for entirely different kinds of applications - camcorders have quiet and continuous focus and DSLRs don't. It's ENG versus what Canon has been treating as a nifty toy that may or may not be acceptable for some controlled shooting situations.

The whole continuous focusing thing is totally blown way out of proportion.... To say a DSLR cant be as good of a tool because it doesn't continual focus is ridiculous. How may professional VJ or professional film makers use autofocus? What's that, 0? How many have a several man crew (1 person to run the camera, one person to do follow focus, 1 person to direct, etc.... )... almost all. When you're doing a paid gig, you DO NOT want your camera making the focus up for you. If it just shifts focus a tiny bit (thinking the subject has changed) that could royally screw up an entire scene wasting time and money.

 

[Edwin Herdman]

Mr Canon & Co did (and still do) their best to keep the semi-pro users away from vid cams with changeable lenses. And now can produce with a 500 Euro-Cam á la 600D (or even 1100D) much better movies than with a video cam that cost ten times as much.

While I do hear that many users have sworn off Canon camcorders for the time being, saying that DSLRs make much better movies is kind of ridiculous.

Okay, then how about those EF mount lens ergonomics? I just mentioned continuous focus as an example. If you are filming a movie with trained actors and preplanned stage directions (which, news flash, most camcorder / DSLR video users are not), pulling focus manually is perfectly acceptable. But trying to pull focus on an EF lens with a long focus path is absurd.

I'm sure that using the Zeiss CP.2 and LWZ lenses in EOS mount is a different matter and you still possibly gain some cost savings using (or renting) those over renting full-size equipment, not to mention it's more compact. But once again these things are more suited for traditional film-like applications. If that is your application then of course you know what you need and don't need to post here. If that isn't your application, I question whether the results will be to your liking.

Back on the original topic, one thing that Canon could do, I suppose, is try to make a large sensor with far fewer photosites, but I'm not sure it makes sense. The traditional path of sensor technology (more photosites equaling more noise) suggests that you really would still want a sensor with more megapixels and just bin the results together (of course that's expensive in terms of data rates). This is not a problem for the RED style cameras because they generally seem to record each unique incoming photosite as part of a pixel, as opposed to dropping information, in the regular shooting modes. However they also have huge camera bodies with stacks of hard drives attached - dealing with the bulk of data and physical equipment required is simply not feasible for the average DSLR shooter at any stage of the production process. Canon conceivably could do better than 1920x1200 with current or maybe next-gen technology and that would be useful, but I'm not sure they could go significantly farther yet (say to 4K resolution right out of the gate).

 

[Bob Howland]

Mr Canon & Co did (and still do) their best to keep the semi-pro users away from vid cams with changeable lenses. And now can produce with a 500 Euro-Cam á la 600D (or even 1100D) much better movies than with a video cam that cost ten times as much.

While I do hear that many users have sworn off Canon camcorders for the time being, saying that DSLRs make much better movies is kind of ridiculous. These are for entirely different kinds of applications - camcorders have quiet and continuous focus and DSLRs don't. It's ENG versus what Canon has been treating as a nifty toy that may or may not be acceptable for some controlled shooting situations.

The whole continuous focusing thing is totally blown way out of proportion.... To say a DSLR cant be as good of a tool because it doesn't continual focus is ridiculous. How may professional VJ or professional film makers use autofocus? What's that, 0? How many have a several man crew (1 person to run the camera, one person to do follow focus, 1 person to direct, etc.... )... almost all. When you're doing a paid gig, you DO NOT want your camera making the focus up for you. If it just shifts focus a tiny bit (thinking the subject has changed) that could royally screw up an entire scene wasting time and money.

The home improvement and science documentaries that I see on TV typically have such huge depth of field that a small shift in focus wouldn't even be noticeable, much less important. This makes me think that they are being shot using relatively small sensors (1/3" to 2/3"), quite possibly with automatic focus.