Canon's new 16.7MP Digital SLR, with WiFi 546
LoudMusic writes "Canon has recently announced the EOS 1Ds Mark II, successor to their previous excellent professional cameras. What makes this one so cool is that it can network. The early review over at dpreview.com says there is an optional part that gives it both 802.11a/g and wired networking capabilities. I can see photographers shooting sporting events with a 12" Powerbook in a backpack receiving images to its 80GB drive and automatically uploading them to SI. And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film. I wonder if it plays mp3s too ..."
Live Pr0n (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Live Pr0n (Score:3, Interesting)
It's great that we have digital cameras making leaps and bounds on resolutions, but the monitors on our desktop are not making such high leaps. I mean, a 16 megapixel image is nice and everything, but not so much useful unless you have a 16.7 megapixel monitor to enjoy it on.
It will be fun to see the next generation of digital imagery with 500+ dpi displays. maybe someday.
Re:Live Pr0n (Score:5, Insightful)
samples (Score:5, Insightful)
Sample 1 [dpreview.com]
Sample 2 [dpreview.com]
The rest of samples can be found here [dpreview.com]. I don't want to slashdot poor dpreview. I'm sure as progress marches on, their bandwidth prices skyrocket.
Re:samples (Score:5, Funny)
Re:samples (Score:3, Funny)
Re:samples (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Live Pr0n (Score:5, Insightful)
Other folks have mentioned the value of high-resolution images when doing large format printing. The other significant benefit is in cropping. If you take a high-res photo, you can crop and zoom in without noticing a drop in image quality.
Re:Live Pr0n (Score:4, Informative)
Presumaly they paired this high a megapixel CMOS with some nice optics, so you're probably right in this case. But it's not always true that higher megapixel indicates better cropping ability.
Re:Live Pr0n (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of Pr0n.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Playboy has a tradition of using view cameras with photographic plates to do such shots, and given the extremely high resolution of photographic plates used on view cameras, such a camera is necessary for pictures that are sometimes is printed at the equivalent size of four pages at the page size Playboy uses!
Gota love those upgrade (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gota love those upgrade (Score:3, Interesting)
I've wondered when the MP increase will stop. When is there enough data? Lets say we hit 50MP in the next couple years - one would think that that might be enough data to replicate a picture into any printed size. So then what? How do we make cameras better?
I guess it's the same with the home PC. 600
Me too! (Score:3, Interesting)
While I'm kidding, I'm sure it's just a matter of time...
Full size sensor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Full size sensor (Score:3, Interesting)
Look here for pics I shot with the Kodak SLR/n:
http://www.onemodelplace.com/djs3
Re:Full size sensor (Score:3, Insightful)
Initial post [slashdot.org]: "And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film."
At first I read that significant "and" as signifying:
16.7MP + full-size sensor = effective reproduction of 35mm film.
From dpreview.com [dpreview.com]: "For the first time, medium format image quality combines with access to the world's most extensive range of professional lenses, spanning from 14mm to 1200mm."
Looks like they're saying:
16.7MP + full (35mm)-size sensor = effective reproductio
Original 1Ds review (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Full size sensor (Score:3, Informative)
And this new camera has even higher resolution. Although film is still better for the really low ISO values and some other cases. For mos
Re:Full size sensor (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the article closely, you'll see that it doesn't say that this is the first one with a full 35mm sensor; it's the first one that can "effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film". Of course that isn't necessarily true, either. There's considerable argument about film vs. digital quality. The 1-Ds Mark II still may not be able to match the resolution of the best film, but DSLR's absolutely crush film for signal to noise. Depending on which of those matters more to you, digital may have surpassed film some time ago, or it may not have done so yet. Of course that assumes that you're restricting yourself to 35mm format digital cameras. There have been digital backs for medium and even large format cameras that have resolution far surpassing 35mm film for a fair while.
The comparisons are marketing fluff (Score:5, Informative)
If we consider "resolution" to be the maximum size one can blow up an image before noticable grain (in the case of film) or pixelation (in the case of digital), low-ISO film still "wins". I still don't think this a fair comparison though because pixels are not grains.
Digital cameras, regardless of ISO used, output the same resolution across all speeds. Film on the other hand, changes. At higher ISO's, the grain becomes visible at much smaller print sizes.
There are some specialty films out there that can easily create a many meter sized print without noticible grain.
But, in the end, for general purpose film, even a 6 mp digital SLR camera will give you better performance. Especially at higher ISO's, if you shoot in RAW. The real catch so far has been competing with the likes of velvia...
Re:The comparisons are marketing fluff (Score:4, Interesting)
For photographers on the move (like myself), the following make up the initial capital investment of a digital camera:
-instant feedback on exposure. If you know how to read a histogram, you can get vastly better pictures.
-no film/development cost
-the ability to shoot different ISOs on the fly. Some cameras allow you to set a minimum shutter speed and will increase (or decrease) the ISO incrementally if lighting conditions change rapidly. This is invaluable.
Shooting RAW requires more post processing work by the photographer, but at least you dont have to deal with scanning slides/negatives and cleaning up dust and scratches.
Re:Full size sensor (Score:3, Interesting)
I once read in a book on sensors that Fuji Velvia slide film has a theoretical resolution of over 19 megapixels.
The problem is finding a lens that can resolve that much detail... so in practice (especially when shooting hand held) you might expect to get more like 10 megapixels out of a Velvia slide. Then if you want to digitize it, you have to scan it....through yet another optical system, onto a sensor, sacrificing more quality.
If
Noise (Score:5, Informative)
A few questions: What does noise look like on photographs? What causes noise when you take photographs? Why are digitals better at handling noise?
Depending on whether you're talking about a digital original or a film original, noise looks different from one to the other. On a digital original, noise shows up as "blotchiness" for lack of a better description. Shoot a field of something that's generally the same color (a baseball field at night, for instance) on a digital camera at its highest ISO setting. If the noise is noticeable (which it is on most digital cameras), you'll see random patches where the color doesn't quite match.
Noise in film is different. I'm no photographic expert, but as I understand it film noise is usually caused by the grain itself obscuring some of the detail in the photograph. The shape of the grain is not 100% uniform, and neither is the orientation of the individual grain particles. So you won't get consistent detail throughout an image. I might be wrong on this, but that's my understanding. Regardless, the higher the ISO of the film, the higher the noise level.
Keep in mind that even those photographers who shoot film usually end up needing to get those film negatives scanned so that the photographs can be digitally manipulated. It's a rare photographer these days who can shoot, develop, print and enlarge exclusively with optics and chemicals. The scanning process itself introduces some noise into the photo image, further reducing the quality of the film image, and even the best optics introduce some noise into an image, so people using optical technologies stick to first-generation copies whenever possible.
In a digital camera, the sensor has a fixed amount of light-gathering capability. At higher ISO equivalency settings, the effective sensitivity of the sensor is increased by amplifying whatever signal is detected. The signals are amplified somewhat at all ISO settings on most digital cameras, but the amplification level is higher at higher ISOs. It's this amplification process that introduces noise in a digital camera.
BTW: Digitals aren't automatically better at handling noise than film cameras. It depends on the sensor in the digital and the film used in the film camera.
The larger the sensor is in a digital camera, the more native light-gathering capability it has, and the less amplification is required to get a usable signal from the sensor. This leads to lower noise in the image at any ISO. For instance, Canon's Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) digital SLR has an APS-C-sized sensor (370 sq mm) with 6.3MP, while Sony, Olympus and even Canon sell "prosumer" digital cameras that use sensors that are 2/3" in size (58 sq mm). The 2/3" sensor's got about 1/6th the total area of the 300D's APS-C sensor. Factoring in the difference in resolution, that means that the 300D's APS-sized sensor has a little more than 8 times the area per pixel for gathering light than does a "prosumer" 2/3" 8MP sensor. This adds up to dramatically lower noise for the 300D at any ISO, as I can personally attest. I bought a KonicaMinolta Dimage A2 and returned it because the noise at virtually all ISO settings was objectionable (all my pictures looked blotchy). The Canon 300D has lower noise than the A2 at all settings, and the noisiest the Canon ever gets (1600 ISO) is still lower than the noise levels I saw from the A2 at 400 ISO.
Now, imagine going from an APS-C sized sensor (370 sq mm) to a full-frame 35mm sensor (864 sq mm). That 35mm sensor is about 2.3 times bigger than the APS-C sensor. Even with 2.7 times as many pixels, the 35mm sensor still has enormous light-gathering power per pixel. In addition, I'm betting that Canon's putting its most advanced sensor technology in the 1Ds Mark II, meaning that the sensor is more sensitive than the sensors used in most other cameras, again requiring less amplification and thus generating less noise.
Compared with a comparable Canon 35mm body with the same lens, a picture sho
oh great! (Score:5, Funny)
I posted first but
moblogging tool? (Score:4, Interesting)
i could see someone walking around a city taking shots and as they walk around the camera is uploading those shots to a website and resizing and posting them to their photoblog. hot.
Independent reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Independent reporting (Score:3, Interesting)
Uploading the photos before police shoot bean bag bullets above your eye would be nice. Did anybody see that horrible video? Carl Kesser's story, or GIS his name. [saveourciv...erties.org]
Re:Independent reporting (Score:5, Informative)
Well, let's do the math, shall we?
14,000,000 pixels @ 24 bits/pixel = 336,000,000 bits (raw, uncompressed)
336,000,000 bits @ 54,000,000 bits/second = 6.22 seconds (not counting overhead of 802.11g)
So I'd say that 1 full resolution, lightly compressed photo every 10 seconds is a no brainer. I'd also say that getting 1 photo per second with good compression and perhaps lower resolution would be almost trivial. Compressing a photo to 1/6 its size in storage space can be done with very little degradation.
-Adam
Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't most of the pro-level DSLRs already have 35mm sensors? Maybe they're trying to say it's the resolution that gets it to 35mm film, but it sounds like they're implying it's the sensor size...
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:2)
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:4, Informative)
The camera doesn't magically convert/multiply a 100mm lens into a 160mm lens (on a 1.6 crop factor camera) -- the lens is the same, the sensor is smaller.
Across different cameras, the lens is still projecting the same image based on whatever lens size, but depending on the size of the sensor, not all of it is getting captured (i.e. some of the full image is being cropped out)..
See here --s tanding-series/dslr-mag.shtml [luminous-landscape.com]
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/under
Scroll a little more than half-way down and look at the pic of the bird with the blue and red boxes.
If you squeeze 50 megapixels on a 5mm CMOS, there's still gonna be a crop factor because the 5mm CMOS is a lot smaller than the film negatives these lenses were originally intended for..
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Image quality of 35mm film? (Score:5, Informative)
Good comparison between medium format and the old 1Ds here [luminous-landscape.com].
Hrrr (Score:2, Insightful)
Or any laptop with a 802.11 card.
No. (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, no... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Actually, no... (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hrrr (Score:5, Funny)
[/plug]
Innovation that I didn't see coming. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nikon (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, Canon (for once) took a technological idea from Nikon. The D2H [dpreview.com] had wireless FTP support back in July 2003.
Also there have been 35mm sensors before, including Canon's own 1Ds [dpreview.com].
Re:Nikon (Score:3, Insightful)
Perspective of a DSLR user. What are your goals? (Score:5, Interesting)
For 98% of the slashdot crowd, I'll assure you that 6 megapixels is enough.
Ask yourself, what is your goal? For probably half the people, it's a shot that looks decent on your monitor or in email. Well, even 2 megapixels will do that in style.
For the other half of the users, they want to be able to make prints. This is where resolution comes in, the more, the better. With the 3 megapixel cameras, I was able to do nice 8"x10" prints. Anything bigger and it for sure suffered when compared with a print from the 21 megapixel slide scans.
Since 6 megapixels came out, my 8x10 prints don't comparatively suffer next to slide scans printed at the same size. They both look killer.
Now, I like to make prints on Super-A3 sized paper ( at 12" x 18" ) and at that size, I can still easily see the advantage that 21 megapixel slide scans have over the 6 megapixel DSLR shots. But, the big prints are beautiful in either case and I still make them all the time and never feel too cheated resolution wise.
With this 16 megapixel camera, the results would be superb next to the big slide scans. There would be no problem printing at 12"x18" or larger. I would be seriously wanting one of the larger format Epson's that do 20" wide prints or even the 3 and 4 foot wide printers. This camera has the resolution.
So whats your goal? This is kind of a swag but:
computer screen/TV pictures: 2 megapixels
8"x10" prints: 3 megapixels and up
12"x18" prints: 6 megapixels and up
bigger prints: the more pixels the better
Sensor and optical resolution wrt cropping (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you and have made similar explanations for camera-shopping friends, but I've started being swayed by the cropping crowd.
Basically yes, nearly all hobbyist photographers will print 8x10 or smaller, and 3 or more megapixels will give you a great 8x10. But what if you want to blow up just a quadrant of your frame to that size? Then you want enough sensor resolution to give you at least 3 megapixels in that quadrant.
With consumer lenses, optical resolution will start to lag sensor resolution, but pro SLR glass will almost certainly beat sensor resolutions up to 20 or 30 megapixels. Being able to print sharp 8x10's of a sixth of your entire image is kind of appealing.
Of course if you're a former slide photographer and believe that what you frame and shoot is the photo, then cropping is distasteful to you. But the option is there.
Re:Perspective of a DSLR user. What are your goals (Score:4, Insightful)
8"x10" prints: 3 megapixels and up
12"x18" prints: 6 megapixels and up
bigger prints: the more pixels the better
You have low standards. To make quality 11x14 prints and bigger, I use 4x5" large format film. Although 6x7cm medium-format film would work just as well up to 16x20". In my opinion, a 6 megapixel camera does not make a good 11x14" print...especially some B&W fine art prints.
Of course it is all subjective.
Re:Perspective of a DSLR user. What are your goals (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, I wont argue with you. Individual tastes vary, and lots of photographs which undoubtably are "fine art" are anything but high resolution.
And don't misinterpret my standards to be "low". I love high resolution. I love the look of my 21MP slide scans printed corner to corner on 12x18 paper. Like I said, I can see that my 6 megapixel can't keep up with the resolution. But I'll show those prints to 9 out of 10 people and they'll be more than happy with the resolution.
And, if I could, I'd make 11x14 print
To be the Paparazzi (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To be the Paparazzi (Score:5, Funny)
Minor Issue... (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't... I'm pretty sure all PowerBooks go to sleep when you shut the computer lid. Assuming you shut it correctly, of course. You can 'trick' the computer into thinking the lid is open when it's really not, but I don't recommend it, because you don't really know what the computer's going to do when it comes to going back to sleep or staying awake. :-) I've tried.
Nonetheless, being able to set up a 'base station' of sorts with a computer receiving pictures off the network is pretty neat. About damn time, too... I'll be waiting for the $250 version.
Re:Minor Issue... (Score:2)
If you have a kybd attached to it, if you type with the lid closed, it wakes up...
This is done in lieu of a docking station.
Still, I'd be interested to see if someone hacks a snooper that will sniff photos out of the air and display them...
Re:Minor Issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should this be the case? Isn't perfectly reasonable to want to use your laptop while it is closed? Could it be that they sacrificed some functionality to avoid a non-sexy vent on the back?
In any case, I don't have this problem with my laptop running Windows 2000. Like a poster above said, I can make it do precisely what I want when I close the lid, or push the power button, or send it a sleep command.
Yeah, you need that with a Windows laptop (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the time, nothing. So Apple optimized (as they so often do) for the common case.
Furthermore, Apple also realized that at some point you might want the computer back again and open the lid. And when you did so, you'd want the computer to be ready right away.
So, they optimized for that case as well and made sure the laptops wake up as fast as you can open the lid. I have seen and used Windows laptops that NEVER woke up, and guys
not the first full frame sensor (Score:5, Informative)
The Canon 1Ds (11 megapixel) has a full frame sensor (in other words, does not have the 1.6:1 cropping of the 300D, 10D, and now 20D).
The original Mark II was 8 megapixels and its biggest advantage was its ability to rapid fire shots - like 8 or 9fps, out to 20 frames... something like that.
The 1Ds was the king of image quality. Now it seems like Canon is offering the best of both worlds. If you have 8 or 10 grand or whatever they are pricing it at
ID (not 1Ds) will be used by sports photographgers (Score:3, Interesting)
The submitter is a bit mistaken that the 1Ds Mark II will be used by "photographers shooting sporting events" as the 1D Mark II (with the higher frame rate and focal length mu
Re:not the first full frame sensor (Score:3, Informative)
Price... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.rupertphotography.com
Not the first... (Score:5, Informative)
Not the first (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not the first (Score:3, Interesting)
unfortunately the MP count on that camera was offset by the ridiculous amount of noise it produced. its basically been ignored in the photo community.still, i'd wait to see pics from this thing to make sure it doesn't have the same problem
Cough (Score:4, Informative)
The 16.7MP of this camera is getting very close to medium format (if not already there).
Again awesome camera!
see
not file [luminous-landscape.com]
like-it-is [luminous-landscape.com]
shootout [luminous-landscape.com]
This guy is one of the best. If you don't believe me check out dpreview or google
Re:Cough (Score:4, Informative)
> medium format (if not already there).
Not really, i'd say it's getting close to 35mm though.
Even a consumer grade 4000 DPI scanner gives you a 21MP image from 35mm film, and drum scanners can go higher than 8000DPI and still get detail.
Medium format film - even say 4x5" film scanned at a modest 3300 dpi gives you over a 200MP image with plenty of detail to spare.
In the end though the amount of detail you can get is limited not just by the sensors but also by the amount of light coming in the lense, and a 35mm equivalent digital camera is only receiving roughly a 1/4 the amount of light of a medium format camera.
Re:Cough (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:6MP is not enough, not even close! (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, you did say black & white film, and I couldn't find a comparo for that.
digital cameras with wifi are cool (Score:5, Interesting)
It was definitly pretty neat.
If all cameras had this (or any sort of net connection, even via GPRS) it would be great to use a script like galleryadd to pump the photos into your Gallery from the road. I do it via procmail, shell scripts, and galleryadd now with my hiptop's camera (although I suppose you could do it with any camera that allows photos with email attachments).
Who needs the computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I can see uploading straight from the camera to SI. The computer is an intermediary today because it's a necessity. When every device has is on the internet, the intermediary function of computers will disolve.
Film Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
It had been generally accepted that this camera's predecessor, the 1Ds, was close to the quality of medium-format film. We've been beyond the quality of 35mm film for quite some time now...
Re:Film Quality? (Score:5, Informative)
What bugs me is that 35mm is considered 1, and all other sizes have to be converted. Maybe we need a better standard that could accomidate different sensor / film sizes while using standard nomenclature for lenses. I doubt it is even possible, but some genius somewhere could do it I bet...
Ob: Whine about price (Score:4, Insightful)
Engadget Article (Score:3, Informative)
Link [engadget.com]
who would ever need 640k? (Score:3, Insightful)
But it doesn't look like they have embraced Adobe's new DNG format yet, wonder who is going to be first with that one? http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html [adobe.com]
Same Image Quality?!? (Score:4, Informative)
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=M
From here.
4992 x 3328 pixels over a (36 x 24 mm) 1.4 x
http://science.howstuffworks.com/film3.htm [howstuffworks.com]
here says that "The imaging layers contain sub-micron sized grains of silver-halide crystals that act as the photon detectors". That's submicron.
So it's a nice camera. That doesn't mean it's a fantastic sensor - it still suffers from the same attributes that other CMOS/CCD sensors do. They've got phenomenal ADC's but the sensors just can't be packed as tightly as silver can be.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~fyiglover/articles
says that "All three silver microfilm manufacturers (Agfa, Fuji & Kodak) certify their medium speed microfilms to have the ability to achieve 800 lines/mm of resolution."
Re:Same Image Quality?!? (Score:5, Informative)
First, even very expensive, excellent quality lenses for 35 mm cameras do not have resolutions better than 100 lp/mm (5 micron spot) and system resolution is roughly the root-mean-sum-of-squares of the limiting factors.
Second, the "medium speed microfilms" you cite are specialty films for black-and-white duplicating. The medium speed color negative films that most people are going to be using have MTFs that fall below fifty percent before they reach 60 lp/mm (8 micron spot size).
Third, unless shooting is done at very high shutter speeds or a massive tripod is used or a strobe flash freezes motion, motion blur will dominate the loss-of-resolution mechanisms at this quality level.
For practical purposes of general high quality amateur and similar use, this new Canon product meets the resolution of 35 mm film products and doesn't suffer from the randomness of film.
Sample Images... (Score:4, Informative)
35mm Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is less common is having a 35mm-sized sensor, but even that is already available (in fact you can get digital backs for medium format cameras, if you have enough money).
Sounds great except for one thing (Score:4, Informative)
Except Powerbooks don't work when they're closed. Think Toughbook.
Major impact for law enforcement and politics. (Score:5, Interesting)
Two pieces of background:
Item 1: The microwave-linked minicam (where the picture was on people's screens before the billyclub finished smashing the lens) made a MAJOR change in news reporting. No longer could a corrupt administration use its police or troops to block coverage of an event by siezing or destroying the camera that had recorded it.
(This first hit - big time - during the protests->police riot->general rioting associated with the Democratic Convention of 1968. The live images of the police brutalizing the protesters and reporters couldn't be blocked by camera-smashing. This turned the general population in mass from a "silent majority" going along with the war to a radicalized population appalled by the government's treatment of the anti-war protesters. It had a major effect on the presidential election and the ending of the Vietnam (un)War.)
Item 2: The amateur videocam footage of the Rodney King beating - taken from nearby - created a simlar outrage against the police involved. (And led to laws against photographing "public officials in the performance of their duty" to try to head off further such incidents. B-( ) But personal videocams and still cameras still suffer from the pre-minicam issue: Destroying or confiscating the camera prevents the distribution of the image. So while such photography has some potential to expose official misconduct, it is still limited.
A personal camera with a WiFi link can dump the image up a hotspot and across the net or to a nearby (and not easily discoverable) digital recording device. Now the image can no longer be suppressed.
Imagine a hundred thousand people armed with such cameras, feeding images to, say, The Drudge Report, Power Line, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, Move On dot Org, politics.slashdot.org, and the rest of the political blogosphere.
In the next crisis this could be a significant step in the rise of the net as a news source and its replacement of the establishment media.
Will also work with the Canon 20D and 1DmkII (Score:5, Informative)
Rob Galbraith has a much more information here [robgalbraith.com], as Canon's site appears to still need an update.
For the non-pro enthusiast, the 20D looks to be a great camera. It can handle 5 frames per second, instant on, and has ISO 3200 performance that beats most ISO 400 digicams. They are finally trickling into the market, and Calumet [calumetphoto.com] likely has a few in stock (they have several kits locally here in Boston). Just give them a call.
Missing Feature (Score:3, Interesting)
that's a lot of megapixels (Score:3, Funny)
Just wondering.
Re:that's a lot of megapixels (Score:3, Interesting)
Rip of Britain. And Europe. (Score:3, Interesting)
Gaaad. With a GBP/USD exchange rate of almost 2:1, it should be about £3,999. We get stiffed. Again. I bought an EOS300D, and I was thinking about going over the US to get it. If it wasn't for the warranty issues, I would have. And that was only to save £200, (when the flight costs were taken out).
Shooting sporting event (Score:3, Informative)
Effectively the quality of 35mm film? NOT. (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong, wrong, wrong....
First, this isn't the first camera to have a full-frame sensor, as others have pointed out.
But let's look at resolution, which is far more important and what people are talking about. And lets convert so we can compare oranges to oranges.
Let's limit our discussion to color negative film... Color Transparency, Black and White, and high resolution (Technical Pan or Gigabit) films are even higher resolution and will cloud the issue.
Film resolution is measured in Line Pairs per Millimeter (lp/mm)... and most consumer color film resolves from 40-65 lp/mm. Doing the math, this equals 1000-1625 lp/inch. To resolve a line pair, you must have 2 lines with a space between them, and to resolve 1 line pair from another, you need to discern a space between the line pairs.... so you need 4 points to resolve a line pair, the equivelent of 4 pixels giving us an effictive film resolution of 4000-6500 pixels per inch.
Continuing the process, a 35mm film frame is approximately 1x1.5 inches, so the effective resolution of normal color film in digital terms is on average 24 to 64 megapixels. Let's take just below the middle and say that Film has an effective resolution of 40 megapixels.
Let's now look at color depth.... The camera actually resolves 8 bits per pixel, and interpolates up to 12 bits from there. Actual depth is only 8 bits or 256 colors. Each grain of film however can register a 1000/1 contrast range, across it's spectrum of sensitivity. If you just consider the single grain you get a 1000 color depth. Since multiple grains are involved in one of the effictive pixels, the reality is closer to 3000 colors per pixel.
References to data avilable upon request.
I'm not a film snob..... but we're still years away from digital resolution approaching the resolution and color depth of film.
Re:Effectively the quality of 35mm film? NOT. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your entire argument hinges on lpm measurements. These measurements are, of course, taken on high-contrast black and white targets -- typically 1000:1 contrast ratios.
Now, it is true that when you are taking pictures of closely spaced 1000:1 contrast black and white lines, film still kicks the crap out of digital. But suppose, just suppose, that the average photographer will NEVER IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE take such a picture. The performance in such circumstances might then be pretty meaningless, huh?
The simple fact is that film's resolution is highly contrast dependent. It shows extremely high resolution while dealing with extreme-contrast targets, but performs much worse in real-world conditions. Digital sensor resolution, on the other hand, is largely insensitive to contrast. For real-world scenes and not 1000:1 test targets, a 16MP sensor absolutely annihilates 35mm film in terms of overall image quality.
Re:Effectively the quality of 35mm film? NOT. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the real world, on print, where it matters to 99.9% of all users, high-end digital capture equals or exceeds film capture. My images run full-bleed across large-format layouts in W Magazine, Vogue, and you can't see the difference between the shots I used to take on my RZ67 and the ones I now take on my 1Ds. That's all that matters. You will never meet an editor who asks you what kind of line-pair resolution you can provide.
Could I get a theoretically sharper result with large format and film? Who cares? I've got a job to do, and digital does it better than film did. It's only about where the rubber meets the road.
Subscribers, Ads... (Score:4, Funny)
No point (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise your camera is out of service while you're copying several GigaBytes to another medium.
Pro photographers won't leave the house with only one card.
Besides, it's got FireWire.
Re:Features vs Function (Score:5, Funny)
11MP 1Ds soundly thrashed 35mm: some links (Score:3, Informative)
Some of the comparisons(these are the 11MP comparions, not new 16MP which is better
Re:For pros and commercial photogs? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've worked with a lot of professional photographers whom work for magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, etc. who use the generation prior Canon, as well as Nikon's high end digital - all for print work.
Also, I remember using a digital film back for the Hasselblad about 10+ years ago for a lot of catalog work (you couldn't shoot people with it, it was incredibly slow, one shot per color plane).
These "devices" are hardly amateur.
Re:For pros and commercial photogs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Any "enlargement" above this would mean either using "interpolation" (which reduces resolution, or texture), or adding noise and/or distortion/pixelation.
This is not professional or commercial 35-mm quality yet.
For someone with such extensive photographical expertise, you're making a very amateur mistake. You're comparing the method of photo production (laser printer vs. projection), not the method of photo aquisition.
In other words, just because your laser printer doesn't compare to film doesn't mean that the digital image doesn't compare to film. I've only used a few color lasers, but I've never seen one that did a very decent job of photos.
Even though your 1200-DPI laser doesn't cut it, I've seen photos from a 400-DPI dye-sub which take extremely close examination to tell if they're film or not. By "extremely close", I mean that you have to either (a) have significantly better than 20/20 vision and be able to focus very closely, or (b) have a magnifying glass. And at a 400-DPI resolution, this camera would be producing prints larger than 8"x12" without any interpolation whatsoever.
steve
Re:Its still a sampled image (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Silver halide photography is still safe (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there are ways in which "regular" photography is still better. But there are ways in which it isn't. It's like ethernet: Do you want it wired or wireless? The "best" choice depends on the circumstances.
Are you taking a wedding/bridal photo that will be blown up to 16x20, and hang on someone's wall as a priceless memento? Bring your medium- or large- format camera.
Need to shoot a sporting event, and have the pictures in the paper or on the news within hours? Leave the film at home.
Re:35mm sensors are overrated (Score:3, Informative)
not so much faster (Score:4, Informative)
Smaller sensors with small photosites receive much less light, and thus are susceptible to stray photons (particularly infrared) from the electronics and ambient air. This is why your point and shoots have a max ISO of 400 and look utterly terrible, while a DSLR can go up to ISO 1600 or higher, and have considerably less noise!
This is why a 6 megapixel DSLR has pictures vastly better than one of those new 8mp.
Or check out the nasa rovers.. large sensors, excellent optics, superb electronics, but with only 1 megapixel. Ultra sharp pictures!
Re:35mm sensors are overrated (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice, but. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
digital photography is taking over not only the commercial photography world but also the art photgraphy world, both of which demand the highest of quality. spend $2000 on something like a canon 10d and an epson r800 and i think you'll find very different results - except for the crappy lighting and composure for which you'd only have yourself to blame.