Slashdot Mirror
13.8MP Kodak Tops Previously Leaked Canon
MadCow42 writes "With the professional imaging trade show Photokina opening this week in Koln Germany, digital camera manufacturers are announcing a stunning new lineup of professional digital cameras. These include a 13.8 megapixel monster from Kodak, and a 11.1 megapixel camera from Canon. I'm sure Nikon isn't too far behind, but no news yet on their offerings. These cameras are positioned for the professional photographer, but with list prices from under $4k to $6k, they're not out of reach for the 'pro-sumer' market either. The best news is that new products like this will push prices down on the 4-6MP cameras at the high end of the consumer level." We mentioned the premature release giving Canon's hand away; like MadCow42, I want to see what Nikon has to say.
Can anybody venture a guess at when I'll be able to get this in an SLR body that will take interchangable lenses for under $1000?
So, at what megapixel mark reach comparable to "photo quality". Not to say the actual quality of photos, but high enough for 720-dpi or so - so you could print it as a decent photo?
Or are we already there, and I just don't pay attention?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Someone, somewhere, should be working on inexpensive reusable "films" that have the same resolution as traditional film. It just doesn't make sense to be buying new cameras everytime CCDs get cheaper. At the very least, someone needs to make the chips interchangeable, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon since the camera companies like things the way they are. So, what kind of brew of light sensitive chemicals, magnetism, and degaussing apparatus will give us cheap "digital film"? Only time will tell.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Now, if only the price came down...
im sure a real photographer would be much happier with a headline like, Cannon develops new camera which improves color accuracy, or a camera which can take more than 8 pictures per second. these cameras will have worse image quality than 3-4 megapixel cameras on regular sized prints. (in brief the higher the resolution given a constant image area in the camera the smaller the recievers, the less light the reciever gets. noise is constant for a single reciever so the less light the less signal. ie less accurate pixels) about the only thing this is usefull for would be that it allows for very large prints, then again who's ever heard of a professional photographer printing a digital image in large format? the technology's just not there yet. for the time being ill stick to good ole silver nitrates and developer.
--aiee
Nikon is the choice of pros for reasons other than pixel count. Nikon understands the concept of an investment. They realize that a professional photographer does not want to replace thousands of dollars worth of lenses just to get a new camera body. That's why you can take 20 and 30 year old Nikon lenses and put them on a brand-new Nikon digital SLR. Sure, it won't magically turn them into autofocus, but they will still work fine.
Nikon also builds a level of quality into their cameras that's just missing from many other brands. While Canon and Minolta make some great cameras, the pro Nikons are almost beyond reproach. Many of them have been used by photojournalists in such grueling conditions that it's a wonder that they work at all, but they just keep going until the lettering is all worn off of the countrols and the bodies look like they've been dragged behind trucks.
Consumer camera manufacturers don't get it, changing lenses on an all-too-frequent basis. They often come up with an all-new design that is totally incompatible with older lens series. While Canon has had some success in the semi-pro and pro market, Nikon is still king of the hill there.
Also try this article.
This camera will be better than film. As a pro writer/photographer who already shoots digital only at 4mp (EOS-1D), I can say that 35mm film is dead but for those quaint "vintage" photographers who are doing "art" stuff.
The amount of ignorance about digital and about photography in general here on Slashdot is shocking! These people may be geeks, but they understand little about optics, current sensor technology, film chemistry, or human perception of resolution and dynamic range.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This camera sounds like a great alternative. 3000 by 4000 pixel resolution means 400 dpi for a 10" text area (two pages of a book) and you need that resolution for good OCR'ing. The camera is portable--just bring a typewriter page holder to prop up the original, and fast: click! (turn page) click! (turn page) click!.
If I get the cash together I could imagine buying one just to use for stuff like this.
This will stop, at least on any particular body. The sensor isn't the only thing that limits resolution, the lenses do, too. Consumer lenses from Canon won't actually live up to the resolution of the D1s, the Canon "L" series lenses (generalization alert) will live up to that resolution, but double the resolution once or twice more and you'll just be wasting technology.
I'm a nature photographer.
You're absolutely right about CMOS vs CCD. What's insane is that this is CMOS! Now we'll get to see what another manufacturer can do with the way-cool technology let Canon blow past it's competitors. (Info from http://www.dpreview.com/news/0209/02092304kodakdcs 14n.asp)
And for those interested, read this review on the D30 about why MP quality at luminous-landscape.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Am I mistaken, or does this camera by Kodak have 16 megapixels?
I've never seen anyone do what you say your father did.
As someone else said, the point of digital is to pick and print the best, not everything. Digital loses most of its price advantage if you go and get prints made.
I've shot 8000 pictures since May, I've had 50 4x6 prints made, mostly for greeting cards. The 5800 or so that I've kept are all on the computer. When I did want prints made I tossed the 20 different shots on a CR-RW and walked a few blocks to the neighborhood camera store/photo lab.
As for the use for resolution? It lets you crop a lot and still have a very high-res print.
Besides, if you keep your photos on the computer you can zoom in and scroll around, seeing a lot more detail than you could if you printed out everything at 8x10.
BTW, for anyone looking to buy a digital camera, get one you like the interface for. Nikon has a horrible reputation in this area, Canon is great, Minolta and Olympus are pretty good. The whole point of digital is to allow you to take a picture anywhere, anytime, if you have to fight your camera to use any manual function you're not going to do a lot of photography. For choosing a camera, read the reviews at www.dpreview.com or a similar site. And don't obsess about mega-pixels. Quality is only partly related. A good 4MP will blow away an average 5MPs. And buy one with a 'fast' lens (low F-stop rating. Try to f2.0 at least.) The physical lens needs to be large, a pinhole doesn't let in enough light to be easily usable in the evening or indoors.
On a tripod, and assuming no subject movement, resolution will be limited by a combination of the film capability and the lens capability. This gets quite complicated because with conventional film the resolution degrades fairly gracefully. As the detail gets smaller lens contrast is lost, but also film contrast is lost because of scatter, flare, grain pattern. In theory a Leitz 50mm lens operating at around f/5.6 can achieve an equivalent of about 30MPx, but in practice nothing like this will be achieved by most subjects most of the time.
However, there are other fiddle factors. First, digital camera makers lie^x^x^x apply interpretation to their camera sensors. A camera advertised as 2.1MPx tends to have rather fewer actual working pixels, the rest is done by "interpolation", a process which involves removing artefacts, a degree of dither, and the fact that most image sensor cells, instead of having RGB sensor sites, have in effect RGBG with twice as many green, owing to the need for an XY matrix. It also loses performance because, having only a small photosensor, the lens design is compromised. All the years of 35mm lens development do not apply to the tiny short focussed lenses of small digital cameras.
Second, there is no direct equivalence between film photography, with its analog response (gradual degradation of image as detail gets smaller) and digital sensors which are all or nothing. Increased subject contrast increases resolution on analog cameras but can only increase the contrast on a digital sensor.
Finally, with a film camera you can increase resolution and image quality at the expense of light sensitivity by changing film.
My conclusion: I suspect that for most people most of the time something like a Canon G2 is perfectly adequate. But if you want to take high res photos on a tripod, if you need to use long or short focus lenses, if you want the highest color resolution, you need film.
Since you can currently get this quite easily, buy the G2 now, keep the 35mm system and wait till the pros start discarding their second hand bodies when the pixel count goes up to 22 or 30. There will be some bargains, and with your 35mm system you can always get the performance when you need it, using that old clunky silver technology.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
This guy has created 50 mega pixel images using current digital cameras!
:).
I guess his life will be 4 times easier
Also there is a preview of the cannon on www.dpreview.com
- Sam