Rumors of a 75mp Canon ... REALLY !!!

[Gavin Slabbert]

Rumors and sightings of a what is currently being called a 1dS has started surfacing in the last week, is there anyone in the know that can validate this or at least has more insight.

http://petapixel.com/2013/07/22/canon-may-drop-nuke-in-megapixel-war-with-a-75-megapixel-pro-dslr/

[arash_hazeghi]

these rumors are always around, they are mostly baseless... engineers who know about products under development are obliged by strict NDA not to say a word. The rest is mostly just internet fantasy...

[Gavin Slabbert]

Thanks Arash, thought that it was weird, got a flood of it in my mailbox today

[Robert Hardy]

It would take a very powerfull computer to run files that big .
Rob.

[John Chardine]

An editor of a prominent British science journal said a few years back that all the major discoveries in science had already been made. Needless to say history has proven him wrong.

I would not underestimate where digital camera technology is going. I also don't believe every rumour I read either.

By the way, I've read that a future high-MP camera from Canon may have a layered sensor analogous to Sigma's Foveon sensor. R, G, and B pixels are underneath each other rather than side by side. If Canon follows Sigma's lead, the size of the sensor in MP is the number of R pixels x B pixels x G pixels so a 75MP layered sensor would produce an image equivalent to a 25MP Bayer sensor (75/3). However, because there is no "smudging" of the image due to Bayer interpolation or anti-aliasing filters, it would produce an image of a quality equivalent to a much higher MP Bayer sensor. As an example of this, my Sigma DP2 Merrill produces 46MP files, consisting of about 15MP of R, B, and G pixels. However, the image quality from the DP2 is considered to be equivalent to a Bayer sensor of about 30MP.

[Norm Dulak]

An editor of a prominent British science journal said a few years back that all the major discoveries in science had already been made. Needless to say history has proven him wrong.

I would not underestimate where digital camera technology is going. I also don't believe every rumour I read either.

By the way, I've read that a future high-MP camera from Canon may have a layered sensor analogous to Sigma's Foveon sensor. R, G, and B pixels are underneath each other rather than side by side. If Canon follows Sigma's lead, the size of the sensor in MP is the number of R pixels x B pixels x G pixels so a 75MP layered sensor would produce an image equivalent to a 25MP Bayer sensor (75/3). However, because there is no "smudging" of the image due to Bayer interpolation or anti-aliasing filters, it would produce an image of a quality equivalent to a much higher MP Bayer sensor. As an example of this, my Sigma DP2 Merrill produces 46MP files, consisting of about 15MP of R, B, and G pixels. However, the image quality from the DP2 is considered to be equivalent to a Bayer sensor of about 30MP.

It's always good to hear this kind of techno-babble; it can brighten an otherwise dull day. But I wonder whether this, if true, may be going a little too far.

Around 2000 or 2001, I purchased my first "pro" camera, the Nikon D1. It had 2.74 mp resolution. But from that camera I was able to produce sharp, high quality 10 x 15 inch prints. My understanding is that film cameras produced the equivalent of about 30 mp resolution. Whether that is correct or not, the resolution of digital cameras has steadily progressed, to a point where I believe practical excellence had been achieved some time ago.

I am not convinced that further advances in resolution, such as has been suggested in this thread, have practical value, other than to purveyors of increased computer memory capacity.

Opinions to the contrary are welcome.

Norm

[John Chardine]

It's always good to hear this kind of techno-babble; it can brighten an otherwise dull day. But I wonder whether this, if true, may be going a little too far.

Around 2000 or 2001, I purchased my first "pro" camera, the Nikon D1. It had 2.74 mp resolution. But from that camera I was able to produce sharp, high quality 10 x 15 inch prints. My understanding is that film cameras produced the equivalent of about 30 mp resolution. Whether that is correct or not, the resolution of digital cameras has steadily progressed, to a point where I believe practical excellence had been achieved some time ago.

I am not convinced that further advances in resolution, such as has been suggested in this thread, have practical value, other than to purveyors of increased computer memory capacity.

Opinions to the contrary are welcome.

Norm

babble= To utter a meaningless confusion of words or sounds

OUCH.

[Norm Dulak]

babble= To utter a meaningless confusion of words or sounds

OUCH.

Interesting, John. But do you have anything to say about my comments on practical limits to increased camera resolution? Or do you view the sky as the limit?

BTW, Wikipedia defines technobabble as a form of jargon that uses buzzwords, esoteric language, specialized technical terms, or technical slang that is incomprehensible to the listener. The term "Bayer sensor," e.g., may not be familiar (read, incomprehensible) to many.

[John Chardine]

I think there are practical limits but I don't think we are there yet Norm. Digital surpassed film at about the 10-15MP stage of development and I agree that "practical excellence" has been achieved. However, this does not mean that further development is not needed or demanded by digital camera consumers. At this stage of the discussion though, there is an important fork in the road: to print or not to print. If you do not print large images at full resolution, 3MP is perfect. If all you do is print 4" x 6"s or post to BPN or send images by email, you are throwing away most of the information modern digital cameras are capable of giving you. If you print large images at full resolution then I have to disagree with you Norm, 3MP does not cut it, at least not in 2013 with all the fabulous, modern inkjet printers out there.

Many cameras on the market are yielding enough pixels to produce beautiful, sharp, large prints, although with the almost inevitable cropping that occurs I often need (for printing) more pixels than my 1D4 produces. Nikon has played the MP battle very well with a 36mp FF camera and at least a couple of APS-C sensors running at 24MP and they are running ahead of Canon and other companies in that regard. Canon needs to play catch-up and I don't think you need a crystal ball to predict that the company will produce several higher MP cameras in the future.

I dislike jargon too but it never occurred to me that folks would not at least roughly know what a Bayer sensor was. For those who don't I suggest reading a few of the 1000s of articles on the subject on the web. Although it is often argued that you don't really need to know anything about what goes on "under the hood" of your camera to make good images, I think understanding this particular bit of technology is very useful, and apart from anything else, quite fascinating.

[Dperkell]

When is enough, enough? How many mp do we need? Really how many of us are producing images as large as a house? Isn't 12mp good enough to produce a great 20X24" print?

[John Chardine]

When is enough, enough? How many mp do we need? Really how many of us are producing images as large as a house? Isn't 12mp good enough to produce a great 20X24" print?

I hate "yes and no answers" but it is appropriate in this case. My old Canon 5D was a 12mp camera and had a resolution of 4368 x 2912. My Epson R2000 printer has a "native" resolution of 350 DPI. At this resolution, the printer would produce a print roughly 8" x 12", so definitely a lot smaller than 20 x 24". If you had to crop some, the print would be even smaller. To produce a print that big from the 5D I would have to send a 182 DPI image to the printer, or a little over half the resolution of native. Would that print look "great"? Probably. Would it look as good as a print made at 300 DPI or 350 DPI in a side-by-side comparison? Definitely not. Could you upsample the 12mp image to print at 300 or 350 DPI and produce acceptable results? Yes. Would the print look as good as a native resolution print? Probably close but hard to say, never done the test.

So, the question boils down to this- do you want to produce the best print you can or just a "great" print? Personally, I try to optimise everything I do with photography (I'm not always successful!) so I am always striving for the best. This means for me that short of upsampling, or stitching images, a 12MP image is not enough to produce the prints I like to make.