http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0612/tech-tips.html The December 2006 Issue of Digital Journalist has been posted. In the Tech Tips Column Mr. Westfall clears up some information that has been swirling around about Canon's future plans. Naturally he can not specifically state anything but he does quell some rumors. Food for thought.
Rob Eckert

Yes, this is especially interesting regarding the comments on the merger of the 1D and 1Ds cameras; looks like that was a misunderstanding and is not supposed to happen. (Or it's a great marketing trick to make people believe it's not going to happen and then surprise them, who knows ...)

Maybe this will teach everyone not to treat Chuck Westfall's word as gospel

Well, this should jump-start the pre-PMA rumor churn nicely... Seriously though, it sounds like an extended form of: "I just can't say, so don't ask".

1.3X will probably stay. Good. I like it.

Posted web based interviews with the Canon "Big Wigs," they stated, for the record, they intended to have two and only two formats; 1.6X and FF in their product "pyramid". They also stated, empatically, for the record, that they intended to bring the two bodies together into one. Yes, things change but Canon's execs are in disagreement with Chuck's comments.

Chuck is well known for not acknowledging marketing facts. No disrespect but if Chuck came out and stated, for the record, that Canon is definitely going come out with a blended 1DMk II and a 1DsMkII, 1-Series body sales would pretty much tank and Canon dealers would be stuck with a bucket load of bodies they wouldn't be able to sell; not smart on Canon's part.

Chuck is a wonderful source of Canon tech information but historically based, I wouldn't put stock in his future cast marketing information.

Cool, now they're "alleged" comments.

"I never said that the EOS-1D and 1Ds model lines would be merged. As best as I can tell, this line of thinking is based on the alleged comments of another Canon executive (Mr. Takaya Iwasaki) who was interviewed a couple of years ago by a European digital camera Web site."

http://www.e-fotografija.com/artman/publish/article_440.shtml

About the time the new Rebel was announced Canon published two new white papers, one on the Rebel and the second about CMOS sensors.

The sensor paper provided a surprising amount of detail about the manufacturing process. Canon makes all of its own sensor fabrication equipment, so development in that realm goes hand-in hand with what winds up in the cameras.

Canon's commitment to CMOS rather than CCD started back with the first AF sensors. The 1.3 crop APS-H size was the largest sensor which can be manfactured with single die per chip exposures. The FF sensors require three dies per chip exposure, which increases the complexity of the manufacturing process and spoilage percentage per wafer exponentionally.

The overt message of the white paper was the superiority of CMOS vs CCD for large sensors. The underlying message was also that the FF 5D is really a tremendous bargain considering the engineering involved and we shouldn't expect to see any huge price drops for FF cameras until there is some new breakthrough in the fabrication technology which allows FF sensors to be made with fewer dies per exposure.

That link was the first time I've seen a photo of CW. You think with all his experience and resources he'd manange to come up with something better than a broad lit headshot with a nasty distracting nose shadow

BeeMan458 wrote:
Posted web based interviews with the Canon "Big Wigs," they stated, for the record, they intended to have two and only two formats; 1.6X and FF in their product "pyramid". They also stated, empatically, for the record, that they intended to bring the two bodies together into one. Yes, things change but Canon's execs are in disagreement with Chuck's comments.


Actually, the second interview with the exec backs up chuck's comments. He also addresses the first who seemed to indicate that a merge would happen (simple 'yes' answer to a question that was two parts, non native english speakers). So we have:

Exec 1 A: 'yes' (in answer to will the next generation be one high speed and high resolution camera)

Exec 2 A: "We feel that the ability to use different sensor sizes is a strong point of digital cameras. Rather than consolidating into fewer sensor sizes, we feel that different sensor sizes offer various strong points to different users. For users who wish to make use of the full range of their EF lenses, full-frame sensors are best. For those searching for the fastest frame rates, 1.3x is best. For the most cost-sensitive users, the APS-C 1.6x size is ideal."

Chuck's A: "Canon's digital SLR design philosophy is to provide a range of camera models to cover clearly defined market segments. For the foreseeable future, this is going to involve a range of sensor sizes from APS-C (as in EOS Digital Rebel and 10D) through APS-H (as in EOS-1D) to full-frame (as in EOS-1Ds)."

Exec A could have misunderstood. A 'yes' answer is difficult to glean much information from since it requires he be completely honest, completely understand the question, and completely in line with the 'high speed and high resolution= one 1 series body. He could have just indicated that the next 1.3crop will be higher resolution AND the FF faster.

The other exec's comments are far more specific and detailed. In light of all the comments, I think we can safely say 1.3 crop is here to stay for now. I sure hope so.

Its also imporant to mention that execs are rarely in agreement. I've worked in development before and its often that there exist several 'plans'. Development and Marketing often have different ideas about the future. Even within those groups the ideas differ. Who knows if they have a decided plan in place even now.

I give Mr Westfall a lot of credit for what appears to be some difficult aspects of his role with Canon USA.

If you read through all of his comments in previous editions (and what is still available from Rob Galbraith's old forum), it's pretty clear that A. Mr Westfall is not free to tell all he knows about the future plans of Canon Inc and B. Canon Inc doesn't tell Mr Westfall all their future plans.

There is sometimes an air of "us versus them" in his comments when it comes to he as the media interface of Canon USA explaining the the less scrutable actions of Canon Inc.

There was also, however, another remark made by a senior Canon Europa official when the 5D was announced:

Brian Worley, product manager of D-SLR cameras at Canon Europa, said that it's a long way before all EOS models will have a full size sensor, but Canon's aim is to equip all models, except the cheapest, with a 35mm sensor in the future. http://www.digit.no/wip4/detail.epl?id=59456

That would strongly suggest all of the "professional" and "premium" models are to have 24x36mm sensors in the future.

Notice that none of the statements by Mssrs Iwashita, Iwasaki, or Worley is in conflict considering when they were made. Mr Iwashita was speaking of the sensors available at that time. Mr Iwasaki was speaking of the "next generation," and Mr Worley was speaking of a planned--but not specified--future.

Its also imporant to mention that execs are rarely in agreement. I've worked in development before and its often that there exist several 'plans'. Development and Marketing often have different ideas about the future. Even within those groups the ideas differ. Who knows if they have a decided plan in place even now.


Mr Iwashita has said before that Canon is a "traditional consensus-driven Japanese company." That would mean the public would never see a difference of internal opinions. The Japanese are far less loosey-goosey about such things than Westerners in general and Americans in particular.

i highly doubt we'll see merged bodies anytime soon, regardless of what canon has or hasn't said.   most sports photography doesn't need high resolution and most studio photography doesn't need to be shot at over 4~5 frames-per-second.   8 megapixels is plenty for a full-page newspaper/magazine spread and 1.3x seems to be working well for many of the world's magazine/newspaper photogs, especially with telephoto lenses.

merging the two bodies would leave sports photogs with huge RAW/jpeg files which are cumbersome to manage/edit/send and would leave studio photogs with speed that they probably won't use -- although the latter would be much less of a problem.   an 8~10 mpx 10 FPS 1.3x (or FF) sports body and a 22 mpx 4+ FPS FF studio body would make much more sense to me.

-erik

I think we can learn much from this column by Mr. Westfall. Because this is a "Column" and not an interview per se, we can assume that this is a Topic Mr. Westfall has chosen to discuss. He is trying to set expectations to the right order of magnitude for the near term. That being said, I think he is telling us that the 1Ds and D2n lines will remain as individual product lines. It does seem to give some added weight to the generaly held notion that the 1Ds will be the body to be replaced next. Perhaps by the time they get around to replacing the 1Dn, they will have a way of accomplishing a variable full frame-crop frame body? Just my $.02.

I agree that merging would be a bad thing for the majority of consumers.

First, it has to do with cost. If the 1Ds is already $8k (currently $6800), then making it high speed would easily add a couple of thousands to the cost. The amount of super high speed ram with faster CPUs to move data from one place to another and to be fast enough to compress more pixels. If they used Nikon's technique of cropping, then it would still somewhat add to the cost of the camera because they would need to redesign the CMOS chip.

Also, if the next 1Ds is 24 or so megapixels, the price will be pretty high already. Anything above 5k is high for a lot of pros so to keep the two 1 series separate makes more sense.

I have to agree with flatdraft on this one. Canon has targeted the two 1 Series cameras at two different groups. Who would charge out and buy this combination camera even if it was available at 6 to 7 thousand? I doubt if newspapers and magazines would be interested. They couldn't justify the extra cost over the MKII. Studio photographers, maybe if the image quality was much improved, but they would be paying for sports features they would likely never use.

Most event and sports shooters I talk to list high ISO performance, improvements in AF, and lighter weight as their wish list. FF and more megapixels are almost off the radar.

I am not saying a combination camera wouldn't be interesting. I'm just wondering who would buy it.

Richard K.

Basically what this means, is that like any large company/large organization not everybody got the memo. They also don't disclose anything fullly (for obvious reasons) so there is probably a third choice that is not obvious that makes ALL the statements true in some fashion.

On top of that, you have the cultural issues/language issues which serve to makes things much less clear as well.

Basically - go out and shoot pictures and wait and see what they announce.

J.

I disagree that it would add to cost to make full-frame sensor camera frame rates comparable to the 1.3x sensor camera frame rates. Moore's law applies to that aspect of it -- CPUs and memory get faster and cheaper all the time. Westfall implying that 1.3x is required for high frame rates is bogus with current technology. That may have been true 3 or 5 years ago, but it certainly is not true now. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the DIGIC III could handle it already.

Despite his comments I believe Canon will do away with the 1.3X crop within a year or two.

I hope that Canon keeps the APS-H sensors and put them into more bodies like a EOS 3D and possibly even a 30D style camera. The crop of the APS-H makes it useful for both shooting wide, and also gives you that extra bit of reach when using your teliphoto lenses.

I don't see the two 1 series cameras merging, Unless Canon uses a high speed crop mode on the full frame sensor like Nikon uses (On there crop sensor of course).

moondigger wrote:
I disagree that it would add to cost to make full-frame sensor camera frame rates comparable to the 1.3x sensor camera frame rates. Moore's law applies to that aspect of it -- CPUs and memory get faster and cheaper all the time. Westfall implying that 1.3x is required for high frame rates is bogus with current technology. That may have been true 3 or 5 years ago, but it certainly is not true now. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the DIGIC III could handle it already.

Despite his comments I believe Canon will do away with the 1.3X crop within a year or two.

Except that Moore's law presumes you use the density increases to go to smaller die sizes. FF requires the same die size regardless of how many pixels. Therefore, unless defect densities drop dramatically, it is hard to drop the cost fast or much.

The intermediate sensor size, unless a sizeable market will be an incremental cost to maintain.

J.

And 'if' the limit of resolution is approached - now or in the near future - on a FF sensor then the only way to go is a bigger sensor (with all that that implies.......).
Think about it.

Some people here are assuming all these CTO's and Product Managers are equally briefed and coordinated. Yes, there are product roadmaps, but that doesn't stop a CTO or Product Manager or R&D Director from adding their own opinion. And then we try to read between the lines of what somebody says in another country when English is not their first language If you've work in a large global company, then you know how risky that can be.

JohnJ80 wrote:
Except that Moore's law presumes you use the density increases to go to smaller die sizes. FF requires the same die size regardless of how many pixels. Therefore, unless defect densities drop dramatically, it is hard to drop the cost fast or much.

I was referring only to the ability of a camera to process 8 FPS or faster of greater-than-8-megapixel frames, not to the cost of the sensor itself. 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.

John Black wrote:
Some people here are assuming all these CTO's and Product Managers are equally briefed and coordinated. Yes, there are product roadmaps, but that doesn't stop a CTO or Product Manager or R&D Director from adding their own opinion. And then we try to read between the lines of what somebody says in another country when English is not their first language If you've work in a large global company, then you know how risky that can be.

, no kidding!

Getting all the execs in an multinational company on the same page is like herding cats. They are not trying to be misleading, they just are.

J.

RDKirk wrote:
Its also imporant to mention that execs are rarely in agreement. I've worked in development before and its often that there exist several 'plans'. Development and Marketing often have different ideas about the future. Even within those groups the ideas differ. Who knows if they have a decided plan in place even now.


Mr Iwashita has said before that Canon is a "traditional consensus-driven Japanese company." That would mean the public would never see a difference of internal opinions. The Japanese are far less loosey-goosey about such things than Westerners in general and Americans in particular.

Perhaps but the company I worked for was global and I worked closely with them on several occassions, our last VP was from Japan as well. While the Japanesse were certainly the most rigid of all the regions, they still had a bit of loosey goosey in them. Besides, thats your interpretation of his statement anyway. It could mean their plans are driven by consensus, but opinios may vary (and publically).

moondigger wrote:
JohnJ80 wrote:
Except that Moore's law presumes you use the density increases to go to smaller die sizes. FF requires the same die size regardless of how many pixels. Therefore, unless defect densities drop dramatically, it is hard to drop the cost fast or much.

I was referring only to the ability of a camera to process 8 FPS or faster of greater-than-8-megapixel frames, not to the cost of the sensor itself. 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.

not so if you have these mega die sizes. It is all about getting the defect density down. Historically, that has come down much, much slower than the density has gone up.

The reason that you get more profitable and the yield goes up over time is that you do die shrinks to reduce the die size (getting the same amount in a smaller die size) and the gains that you get from beating the defect density. Yield enhancement on larger die that don't change size, does not parallel what happens in the merchant IC world where you are buying, say, the same size DRAM for a much lower price 6 months later. You do get yield benefits from learning curve etc... but those are smaller (a lot smaller) than what you get from die shrinks.

Die shrinking on a FF sensor is meaningless since it would no longer be a FF sensor then. In point of fact, the "major" cost reduction that was done in DSLRs was going to the crop formats.

Talking to a Phd friend of mine who designed and processed camera sensors for years, the sensor still is coming in at about 55% of the cost of the camera (that's cost, not retail sellign price).

J.

JohnJ80 wrote:Basically - go out and shoot pictures and wait and see what they announce.

J.

I second that...all in favor...motion passes.

click clikc click....