Slashdot Mirror
Canon Mistakenly Announces 11-Megapixel Digital Camera
RichardtheSmith writes " PC Magazine just confirmed
that Canon
mistakenly announced a new 11-Megapixel digital camera that wasn't
supposed to be announced for another two weeks. This caused quite a
stir on the digital photography message boards like DPReview, where Canon
apparently tried to have all links to the press release taken down.
The PC Magazine article is here.
The original press release can be found here."
I would like to see comparison images taken with a low level megapixel device compared with this one.
11 megapixels is an impressive number - but means nothing to me until i see what that actually translates to - picure. 1K words. etc....
When will a consumer version be anywhere near that, and why do we really need to have 11mpixels for most shots, after 2mpix it was really hard to tell the difference anyway.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
At least by pretending they announced this by mistake, they just generated more buzz about it. :)
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
though this camera will undoubtedly be used by pros. Most people don't realize how big a file an 11mp camera would produce at the highest quality setting, not to mention raw mode! I have a D30 (3.25mp) and the best quality jpg's are around 1mb. The D60 doubles that. Once you get a large number of images, size matters. I have 10+GB of D30 images. It means you have to have a good backup solution (read: not CD-ROM).
Pretty impressive, but you still can't get the constrasts and subtle shadows and depth that you can get with film. I still happily use a 2mpixel camera. I don't usually print my photos and my monitor can't go past 1200x1600 anyway.
Perhaps what's most impressive about this leaked announcement is that Canon is not playing the release only in small increments game that companies usually do. Why release a product 4 times better than your competitors when you can keep releasing disabled products for the next 4 years that will still beat your competitors by 10% every year. Do you think Intel would just go ahead and release a 40 Ghz processor next week if they could figure out how to do it? The question is are they going to have 11mpixel cameras in their consumer and prosumer lines or just in their professional cameras?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The real news here is that the sensor is full-frame 35mm. That means that they can make a digital back for a standard 35mm camera (or a digital camera in a 35mm body, like most small pro cameras), and you will get full frame shots (ie, what you see in the viewfinder is the same as what will be on disk).
The other good news is that they didn't reduce the pixel size to increase the resolution. This gives better image fidelity (contrast and color saturation). That's the funny part about digital camera resolution - they keep increasing the number of pixels in roughly the same sensor area - they get fewer photons per pixel, but more pixels per frame.
This should be cool (I'll check it out at Photokina)
- The Sigless Wonder
It also might be interesting if you want to enlarge some detail in the photograph.
People go on and on about how high the resolution on a camera is, but I rarely take a picture with my 2 megapixel camera that's sharp enough to take advantage of all 2000 of those pixels. If I jitter the camera just slightly, I cut the effective resolution in half. Most of the time I could've taken the picture at a lower resolution and scaled the picture up in the GIMP and gotten the same damn picture.
What I really want is a more sensitive CCD that can take sharper pictures with less light and more brilliant color. A razor sharp 1600x1200 picture can be printed at nearly any size and look great. Unless you have nerves of steel to hold the camera steady, you're not going to be able to take a picture sharp enough to take advantage of 11 megapixels. Unless it's high noon in Arizona and the blinding sun is at your back, your CCD just won't be fast enough.
Erik
"Taking even a very high-resolution (for a desktop) monitor, say 1600x1200, is less than 2 Megapixels."
And don't assume that this will always be the case in the future. I predict that someday 1600x1200 screens will seem as quaint as 640x480 screens are now.
mahlen
History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.
--Clarence Darrow
High pixel digital cameras allow for better security cameras. being able to resolve the liscense plate numbers off a car outside a store. ie. Things further away are resolvable to a useful level. There are a lot of implications to this, i think.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Considering that this camera will sell for six thousand dollars ... and this is the important bit ... how likely is it that Canon intends it for "everyday photos or for vacation photos"?
This camera isn't intended to replace film for "every-day use". It's intended to replace film for professionals.
Taking even a very high-resolution (for a desktop) monitor, say 1600x1200, is less than 2 Megapixels. So anything higher than that will have to be downsampled to display on a monitor anyway (either that or you'll have to scroll around). The main advantage in going higher than that is for high-quality printing. Printing a standard 3x5" photograph at 300 dpi requires a bit less than a 5 Megapixel camera, though something less will probably do okay too.
Keep in mind that pixels on a digital camera are for one primary color only; i.e. 1 megapixel = number of red + green + blue elements = 1,000,000. Often times the ratio of green to red to blue is 2:1:1 which means that for certain images, the number of effective pixels might be 1/4 of what you'd expect. Assuming this, a digital camera would have to be a 7.68 megapixel device to fully tax your 1600x1200 monitor for all possible images.
A better comparison between monitors and digital cameras would count phosphers in the monitor against the elements in the camera's CCD.