Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Canon Mistakenly Announces 11-Megapixel Digital Camera

Posted by timothy on from the lots-of-pixels dept.

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."

10 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. Just curious... by bravehamster · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What is the resolution of the human eye? Have these cameras begun to approach or even surpass the amount of visual data the human eye is capable of collecting. I'm no biology major, but I know there's a finite number of rods, cones and whatnot in there.

    --
    ---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
  2. Re:Megapixel shmegapixel by daedalus22 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What most people don't realize is how important the optics are in a digital camera. When you have more than a couple of megapixels, the advantages of better lenses becomes starkly clear.

    Having a high senstivity (higher ISO, such
    as ISO 800 or ISO 1600), as seen in high end
    digital cameras, lets you take picture under
    even the most demanding light conditions.

    Higher shutter speed (1/2000 or fasters) lets
    you eliminate handshakes and take clear pictures
    of action shots.

    All this of course, requires that your lens passes
    ample light, and produce low chromatic and spatial aberrations. A good SLR lens, though, we cost you more a thousand dollars.

    Having said that, the advantages of greater pixel count scales the picture quality linearly given good enough optics.

  3. Guessing at the pixel dimensions by Spire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given that the camera was quoted as having "11.1 megapixel" resolution, and that the nominal aspect ratio of 35mm film is exactly 1.5:1, I'd guess that the pixel dimensions of an image from this camera are 4096x2688. (This works out to 11,010,048 pixels.)

    To get as close as possible to 11.1 megapixels while retaining a nice horizontal dimension of 4096 pixels, the vertical dimension would have to be 2710 pixels. However, 2710 isn't a typical "round" binary number, so the actual dimension is likely to be 2688 (11.01 MP), 2752 (11.27 MP), or 2816 (11.53 MP).

    --
    begin 644 .sig22&%I;"P@9F5L;&]W(&=E96 LA`end
  4. Big deal. Sinar has a 22 megapixel camera by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Sinar announced a 22 megapixel camera last week. All Canon has is the biggest sensor that's compatible with 35mm lens systems.

    Of course, you have to divide those pixel numbers by 3 or 4 to get a useful pixel count. Camera makers like to count each color as a separate pixel. Tacky.

    I'm waiting for Foveon technology to go mainstream. All the colors for each pixel are sensed at the same location, so you don't get color artifacts on sharp edges like you do with other digital cameras. So far, they only make super high end cameras, but I went to a talk by their CTO, and the device isn't inherently expensive if made in volume.

    1. Re:Big deal. Sinar has a 22 megapixel camera by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Foveon tech has a couple major problems, manufacturing cost is the most important to the company, but really high noise for the pixel count is the ones that most DP people are talking about. A few of the test images from a near production foveon got released and someone did a noise measurement on it, it was about as bad as a $200 2MP camera.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:Big deal. Sinar has a 22 megapixel camera by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All Canon has is the biggest sensor that's compatible with 35mm lens systems.

      The Contax N1 has the same size one, the cool trick is it's the same size the image area of a 35mm film frame. Meaning that a 50mm lens on this camera has the same effective focal length than on a 35 mm film camera, and not subject to the infamous digital camera multiplier effect. Anyone with a decent investment in lenses, especially wide angle ones, will drool over the sensor size more than the pixel count.

  5. My Camera w/Lasers by Myriad · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    I think the issue you are having is more to do with your particular camera or camera model & lense than it is to do with the megapixel count.

    I took these pictures of a laser I'm selling on eBay. Lasers are notoriously difficult photography cleanly without then photo editing them. I shot them with a Canon Powershot G2 4.0 megapixel camera and they look great.

    Previously I had been shooting with a Canon Powershot Pro IS90 which did 2.6 MP. Even when shooting the G2 at lower resolutions the images are consistently better than the IS90. Why? Better lens and CCD.

    However, you say:

    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.

    Stability isn't the issue. Exposure is. If you use a faster shutter speed blur will be less of an issue. The resolution you set the camera to will have nothing to do with it.

    Additionally, if you plan to print at higher than 72dpi (yetch) you will need a higher resolution image to get the same width & height dimensions on the printed page. Which means more pixels!

    I'd be interested to know what kind of camera that you are using that needs such a slow exposure to generate a decent picture. It sounds to me you have a camera that is doing less than midrange digitals currently can. Nevermind highend ones.

    --
    "They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
  6. Re:it depends what you want to do with it by 5KVGhost · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's right. It's also useful to have "extra" resolution for cropping purposes. Like if your original photo isn't framed just right and has distracting/ugly junk off to one side, or if you want to work with just a part of a larger photo. (Many of the famous photographic prints we've all seen are cropped from the original negatives for reasons like these.)

    Anyway, the more image resolution you have overall, the more pixels you have to work with in that cropped portion, and the better your final results will be. That can give a photographer a lot more "darkroom" flexibility with their digital image.

  7. Re:it depends what you want to do with it by NortWind · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I print 5X7 prints with my 2.1 Megapixel Cannon all day long at 1200dpi and get 35mm 1hour processing quality prints.

    Even if you've got a bottom-of-the-barrel $49 printer, it will do at least 600x600DPI. A 5"x7" print will use 3000x4200 pixels at that resolution, or over 12 megapixels. Dye sublimation will hide the loss of clarity because the process is inherently blurry at the pixel level, there is no set of sharp dots. But if you are looking for great contrasty detail, like nature photography where you want to see veining on a dragonfly wing, you are going to want those pixels. A 2.1 megapixel camera will give you far less than 300x300 DPI on a 5"x7".

    Even a (relatively) cheap 35mm SLR like the Canon Eos Rebel at under $250 will easily take negatives with ordinary film that will print a 8"x10" that you will need a magnifying glass to see all the detail.

  8. Full frame, woohoo!! by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The best part about this it's a full frame CMOS sensor, meaning it has the same 24mm x 36mm frame size as a 35mm film frame would. Almost all other CMOS sensors (outside of the Contax N1, who$e co$t i$ not an ea$y $um to $ave for) are smaller than the standard 35mm frame. This changes the effective focal length of the lens, making it a longer lens. A 15mm superwide lens on a normal 35mm frame becomes a 22mm effective focal length on say a Canon D60. (As a side effect, because of this, all of the superwide SLR lenses are backordered, mine has been on order almost 2 months, grumble grumble.) Now you can buy a lens for your film camera and have it be exactly the same effective focal length for your digital cam. I have a Canon film SLR, good camera. I like the fact that now there is a decent upgrade path, though it pretty much is a given that this would have happened eventually.