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Archive 2006 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

BeeMan458
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p.4 #1 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

"It is widely believed, ..."

Yes, ya got me on that one sport.

I've reading 22MP.

Either which way, you're right as to it being a new sensor and until Canon quits jacking up the pixel count, one body isn't going be a reality unless Canon decides to do the software crop thingy and put the one body on the market for under a $4,500.00 (USD) street price.

Any bets on that happening?

------------------------------------

"It also occurs to me that Canon would make more money selling two or three camera bodies at different price points ..."

To be offset by additional manufacturing costs Vs profits of a one product manufacturing line.

If I lose one sale, because I charge twenty dollars more for my services, it will take eight additional service calls, at the twenty dollar more price point, to simply make up for that one lost sale. So, as you probably already know, in business, less can be more.

If Canon can sell an equal number of bodies, at lesser profit, yet not have the manufacturing costs of several body lines, they're money ahead because of what they've saved in manufacturing/administrative costs. One product line costs tens of millions of dollars to set up and tens of millions of dollars to maintain. Two seperate lines cost more than one plus one cause you have administrative overhead; economy of scale isn't always a gimme. It's a pyramid's nightmare if you throw a third/fourth manufacturing line into the mix cause now you're managment intensive as wall as being buried by part manufacturing/supply administrative details. Simple is good.

Edited by BeeMan458 on Dec 05, 2006 at 06:48 AM GMT

Dec 05, 2006 at 02:38 PM

moondigger
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p.4 #2 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

I doubt it. If one body did it all, what would people have to upgrade to?

Dec 05, 2006 at 02:42 PM

BeeMan458
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p.4 #3 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

"I doubt it. If one body did it all, what would people have to upgrade to?"

Better quality lenses and MF bodies and backs.

Can you say 39MP's?

Okay, got greedy on that one. I'll just be happy with better WA lenses.

Dec 05, 2006 at 02:49 PM

cljtam
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p.4 #4 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

Heard a rumor from someone working in Cxxxn that the following is a spec for the 1DIII...

- 21mp
- FF / 2x mode
- 4 fps @ FF ... 10 fps @ 2x

......

Dec 05, 2006 at 03:05 PM

BeeMan458
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p.4 #5 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

Momma! We're talking 100+MP TIFF files.

Momma!

Can you say, major HDD upgrade. Will a 500gig drive be enough or will one need four 500gig drives for storage and backup?

Dec 05, 2006 at 03:16 PM

moondigger
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p.4 #6 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

cljtam wrote:
Heard a rumor from someone working in Cxxxn that the following is a spec for the 1DIII...

- 21mp
- FF / 2x mode
- 4 fps @ FF ... 10 fps @ 2x

Seems unlikely to me. 2X crop would mean the 10 fps pictures would be about 5 megapixels; an awfully big reduction from 21 megapixels.

Dec 05, 2006 at 03:17 PM

danmitchell
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p.4 #7 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

"Can you say, major HDD upgrade. Will a 500gig drive be enough or will one need four 500gig drives for storage and backup? "

Drives are cheap and getting cheaper all the time, and are readily available now is sizes up to 700+ GB. I would wager that the cost for storing, say, a 16MP RAW files is now less than when the first 16MP DSLRs were available.

Dec 05, 2006 at 03:51 PM

BeeMan458
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p.4 #8 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

"I would wager that the cost for storing, say, a 16MP RAW files is now less than when the first 16MP DSLRs were available."

What I was asking about is in regard to the amount of storage as opposed to cost of storage.

500gigs seems might small when compared to hundred plus magabyte TIFF files. It would talke 4000 files to fill a HDD and some folks take that many shots in a week.

Dec 05, 2006 at 04:11 PM

timbop
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p.4 #9 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

moondigger wrote:
It also occurs to me that Canon would make more money selling two or three camera bodies at different price points than it would selling one camera body.

Absolutely true statement. Canon either has to charge $8000 for the new camera, in which case many sports/bird shooters won't buy it; or, they will charge $4000 which means all those 1Ds shooters get a huge price cut. Either way they lose money. It doesn't make economic sense to reduce a highly successful product line.

Dec 05, 2006 at 04:18 PM

BeeMan458
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p.4 #10 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

"or, they will charge $4000 which means all those 1Ds shooters get a huge price cut. Either way they lose money."

Canon charged $3,000.00 for the D30 and charges how much for the 30D?

Canon charged, $6,500.00 for the 1D and charges how much for the 1DMkII?

Canon charged, $8,000.00 for the 1Ds and charges how much for the 1DsMkII?

The point, Canon has been cutting it's pricing (things are even cheaper if inflation is taken into consideration) all along as they develop and pay for their R&D.

Dec 05, 2006 at 04:54 PM

Koivulehto
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p.4 #11 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

moondigger wrote:
cljtam wrote:
Heard a rumor from someone working in Cxxxn that the following is a spec for the 1DIII...

- 21mp
- FF / 2x mode
- 4 fps @ FF ... 10 fps @ 2x

Seems unlikely to me. 2X crop would mean the 10 fps pictures would be about 5 megapixels; an awfully big reduction from 21 megapixels.

My first thought was also "Why to go so low as 2.0 crop?" However, there are two possible technical explanations for it (just possible, not trying to claim that they would be probable):
1. It would be very straightforward to implement 2.0 crop in software, i.e. to calculate the mean value (or even something a bit more sophisticated) of 4 pixels, or
2. It might alternatively be feasible to implement 2.0 crop directly in the sensor, i.e. to calculate the mean value on the sensor chip.

Both methods are inherently simpler in 2.0 crop than in 1.6/1.5/1.25 crop. Both methods also help in reducing the noise, since they effectively quadruple the pixel size.

Dec 05, 2006 at 05:51 PM

moondigger
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p.4 #12 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

Koivulehto wrote:
1. It would be very straightforward to implement 2.0 crop in software, i.e. to calculate the mean value (or even something a bit more sophisticated) of 4 pixels, or

That's not a 2.0x crop. It's averaging a 2x2 matrix of pixels into a single large pixel, sometimes referred to as binning. It wouldn't result in a 2.0x crop factor -- the full image circle would still be used, and the only difference between an image taken in "regular" mode and an image taken in this mode would be that this mode is lower resolution (5 megapixels) with (possibly) better low-light performance. There would be no telephoto effect at all. It would also be a lot more work for the CPU to handle, as it would have to capture all the pixels then perform calculations on each 4x4 matrix prior to writing to the card. Seems counterproductive if the idea is to increase frame rate.

2. It might alternatively be feasible to implement 2.0 crop directly in the sensor, i.e. to calculate the mean value on the sensor chip.

This would avoid the CPU overhead problem, but again isn't actually a crop.

Dec 05, 2006 at 06:30 PM

cgardner
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p.4 #13 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

moondigger wrote:
Obviously a full-frame sensor costs more to manufacture than an APS-C or APS-H sensor, and yields are lower. But the cost comes down steadily over time as processes improve. The cost difference between a 1DsMk2 and a 1DMk2N is not solely due to sensor size. A significant part of it is simply profit padding. You want the highest resolution? You pay a premium.

Actually there is a significant difference between FF and 1.3 and 1.6 crops.

According to the Canon CMOS sensor white paper the 1.3 is the largest size sensor which can be imaged from a single die exposure. The Canon FF sensors are made by superimposing three separate dies exposures, multiplying the number of manf. steps x 3 and greatly increasing the defect rate.

Dec 05, 2006 at 07:01 PM

The Image
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p.4 #14 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

alot of people in this thread have posted saying that a merged high speed ultra high res camera would not be a good idea being sports and photojournalists would have to huge a file to deal with and also that studio photogs dont need the speed, i agree with these things but the merged camera would be great for both if canon designed it right...meaning that for sports/pj's there would be a reduced resolution mode which produced smaller files for them to transmit , and for the studio photog all he would have to do is lower the frame rate setting....so how can this not be a good thing, if canon designed the reduced resolution mode then this camera would be perfect for both studio and sports/pj's alike, as for the cost i would hope it stays at its regularly introduced price of $8000 or less.
when i speak of reduced resolution mode im not talking about jpeg compression, im talking in that the feature would have variable pixel settings such as 3024x2016 and 3504x2336 ect.

Dec 05, 2006 at 07:06 PM

SoundHound
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p.4 #15 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

With the price of the 5D full frame going lower and lower Canon could use its FF sensor in a new sports/press (midrange cost) body with faster frame and focusing speeds.

Dec 05, 2006 at 08:09 PM

Koivulehto
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p.4 #16 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

moondigger wrote:
Koivulehto wrote:
1. It would be very straightforward to implement 2.0 crop in software, i.e. to calculate the mean value (or even something a bit more sophisticated) of 4 pixels, or

That's not a 2.0x crop. It's averaging a 2x2 matrix of pixels into a single large pixel, sometimes referred to as binning. It wouldn't result in a 2.0x crop factor -- the full image circle would still be used, and the only difference between an image taken in "regular" mode and an image taken in this mode would be that this mode is lower resolution (5 megapixels) with (possibly) better low-light performance. There would be no telephoto effect at all. It would also be a lot more work for the CPU to handle, as it would have to capture all the pixels then perform calculations on each 4x4 matrix prior to writing to the card. Seems counterproductive if the idea is to increase frame rate.

2. It might alternatively be feasible to implement 2.0 crop directly in the sensor, i.e. to calculate the mean value on the sensor chip.

This would avoid the CPU overhead problem, but again isn't actually a crop.

Sorry about not thinking clearly after a hard day at work (it's now evening here ...).

No beer this time, so I am running low on excuses.

So this leaves us no 2.0 crop, and thus no connection what so ever with the rumor. Nevertheless, the alternative 2 (= binning in sensor) would have some benefits:
- This might make some sense for high speed mode, like 8.5 fps (or whatever the mirror & shutter can do), and even a higher optional speed (like 16 fps) if the mirror is let to stay up after the 1st image & the shutter is capable for this speed. That would result in dark viewfinder during the burst. Of course, this kind of high speed implementation is not at all probable, but might be possible in theory.
- Better low noise - at least this binning principle has been used in microphone etc. sensitive pre-amplifiers to reduce their noise.
- Some existing or announced P&S might already use this binning IIRC

For the actual 2.0 crop as suggested in the rumor, I can't think of any concrete reason why it couldn't be any other crop instead. I mean, if Canon would decide to modify the sensor chip to collect only the center part of the image in high speed mode, they could include exactly as many pixels as they like.

Dec 05, 2006 at 08:29 PM

The Image
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p.4 #17 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

i would be incredibly disapointed if canon did use a 2x crop mode such as nikons d2x..just looking through a 1.6x crop is claustrofobic.

Dec 05, 2006 at 08:35 PM

tuantran
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p.4 #18 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

Everybody here thinks combining the two camera would be easy for Canon and makes perfect economic sense for Canon.

Here are the facts but I could be wrong:
1. FF sensor are much more expensive than either 1.3x or 1.6x sensor. How much none of us know.
2. Canon 1D MkII image size of the sensor is 36,834,048 bytes.
3. Canon 1D MkII needs to move 36,834,048 bytes off the sensor at 8.5 times / second because 8.5 fps. So the memory needs to be pretty darn fast. I think the PC4200 can easily handle this because it can handle 525MB/sec.
4. Canon 1D Mark II's buffer needs to be big enough to hold 22 of these images so it needs to hold 810,349,056 bytes.

Design facts:
1. Canon CPU must be fast to process the images. It needs to apply proper sharpening, color adjustments, etc. The CPU cannot heat up, cannot have a fan and must be small enough to fit inside a cameara.
2. Canon Memory must be small and fast too. At the same time, it also need to run cool.

Now putting those things into account and using a 5D sensor, can Canon make it at $4500 price point or less? How about $6000? At what price point would PJs not buy the new camera? If they don't, what other options do they have?

Dec 06, 2006 at 06:41 PM

DavidP
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p.4 #19 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

Expanding on the binning concept, why not something like this:

Combined 1d-II and 1Ds-II (let's call it the 1Dc for combined), with 24 megapixels total.

For PJ use, one could elect to have the camera spit out a 6 megapixel JPG (24 / 4) from the binning used to create the lower-res, but lower-noise file.

If the camera could do THIS at 8 fps, then it could surely ALSO do 8 fps in the full 24 megapixel mode. After all, the camera still has to READ all 24 megapixels off the sensor before it can do any of the binning.

Dec 06, 2006 at 06:53 PM

moondigger
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p.4 #20 · New Chuck Westfall Comments

DavidP wrote:
If the camera could do THIS at 8 fps, then it could surely ALSO do 8 fps in the full 24 megapixel mode. After all, the camera still has to READ all 24 megapixels off the sensor before it can do any of the binning.

That's what I was getting at previously when I said binning would impose more CPU overhead than just processing the full resolution anyway. If Canon wanted to save CPU cycles as a way to offer higher framerates at lower resolution, they'd have to implement the lower resolution as a crop, not by binning. In that scenario, they would ignore the outer areas of the sensor and just process the center 6 or 8 megapixel block, as if the camera actually had a smaller sensor. This would introduce a crop factor in the same way that using a smaller sensor does, but it would be user-selectable. 22 or 24 megapixels at 3-4 frames/second, or 6 - 8 megapixels at 8+ frames per second.

For various reasons I doubt Canon will combine the actual cameras that way, and think it more likely the 1.3x crop will go away in favor of a full-frame 12-13 megapixel camera that can handle 8 fps. If they used a non-moving pellicle mirror instead of a standard mirror, maybe they could even push the frame rate to 10 or 12 fps.

Dec 06, 2006 at 07:06 PM

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