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Canon's new 16.7MP Digital SLR, with WiFi

LoudMusic writes "Canon has recently announced the EOS 1Ds Mark II, successor to their previous excellent professional cameras. What makes this one so cool is that it can network. The early review over at dpreview.com says there is an optional part that gives it both 802.11a/g and wired networking capabilities. I can see photographers shooting sporting events with a 12" Powerbook in a backpack receiving images to its 80GB drive and automatically uploading them to SI. And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film. I wonder if it plays mp3s too ..."

25 of 546 comments (clear)

  1. Full size sensor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is not the first digital camera with a full 35 mm size sensor. Canon 1Ds already had that at the previous Photokina two years ago.

    1. Re:Full size sensor by rgmoore · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you read the article closely, you'll see that it doesn't say that this is the first one with a full 35mm sensor; it's the first one that can "effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film". Of course that isn't necessarily true, either. There's considerable argument about film vs. digital quality. The 1-Ds Mark II still may not be able to match the resolution of the best film, but DSLR's absolutely crush film for signal to noise. Depending on which of those matters more to you, digital may have surpassed film some time ago, or it may not have done so yet. Of course that assumes that you're restricting yourself to 35mm format digital cameras. There have been digital backs for medium and even large format cameras that have resolution far surpassing 35mm film for a fair while.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

  2. Nikon by Shenkerian · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be fair, Canon (for once) took a technological idea from Nikon. The D2H had wireless FTP support back in July 2003.

    Also there have been 35mm sensors before, including Canon's own 1Ds.

    --
    You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
  3. not the first full frame sensor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film.

    The Canon 1Ds (11 megapixel) has a full frame sensor (in other words, does not have the 1.6:1 cropping of the 300D, 10D, and now 20D).

    The original Mark II was 8 megapixels and its biggest advantage was its ability to rapid fire shots - like 8 or 9fps, out to 20 frames... something like that.

    The 1Ds was the king of image quality. Now it seems like Canon is offering the best of both worlds. If you have 8 or 10 grand or whatever they are pricing it at :)

    1. Re:not the first full frame sensor by Wandering+Idiot · · Score: 3, Informative

      No. You're probably thinking of the 1D Mark II (the previous, 8MP Mark II), which did have a 1.3 crop factor.

  4. Not the first... by RedBear · · Score: 4, Informative

    We might mention that Nikon beat Canon to the punch with a wireless adapter for the D2H back in July. Still a cool development from Canon, but give credit where credit is due, I allus say.

  5. Cough by rawgod0122 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is a great camera! I want one, but one thing wrong with the story submission. This is not recent news, many people have gone over this before, but a 6MP sensor is enough to get you better then 35mm film.

    The 16.7MP of this camera is getting very close to medium format (if not already there).

    Again awesome camera!

    see
    not file
    like-it-is
    shootout
    This guy is one of the best. If you don't believe me check out dpreview or google

    1. Re:Cough by akuzi · · Score: 3, Informative

      > The 16.7MP of this camera is getting very close to
      > medium format (if not already there).

      Not really, i'd say it's getting close to 35mm though.

      Even a consumer grade 4000 DPI scanner gives you a 21MP image from 35mm film, and drum scanners can go higher than 8000DPI and still get detail.

      Medium format film - even say 4x5" film scanned at a modest 3300 dpi gives you over a 200MP image with plenty of detail to spare.

      In the end though the amount of detail you can get is limited not just by the sensors but also by the amount of light coming in the lense, and a 35mm equivalent digital camera is only receiving roughly a 1/4 the amount of light of a medium format camera.

  6. Re:Image quality of 35mm film? by badmammajamma · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope, they are specifically referring to the size of the sensor. Almost all digital cameras besides this one and the previous 1Ds have smaller CMOS sensors. This means there's a multiplier that must be applied when computing f-stops. To compensate, Canon and Nikon have introduced new lenses that take this into account and are easier to work with. Ideally though, it would be nice if they all just had 35mm sensors.

    --
    Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
  7. Same Image Quality?!? by UVaRob · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think so!
    http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=Mo delTechSpecsAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=10 598
    From here.

    4992 x 3328 pixels over a (36 x 24 mm) 1.4 x .94 inch CMOS array essentially tells you they have a cmos with a 7micron pixel pitch. This is hardly revolutionary. Assuming the optics are similar in quality to a comparable film camera, to have the same image quality that would be equivalent to saying that ordinary film has 7 micron light sensitive (silver?) particles. This is ridiculous!

    http://science.howstuffworks.com/film3.htm
    here says that "The imaging layers contain sub-micron sized grains of silver-halide crystals that act as the photon detectors". That's submicron.

    So it's a nice camera. That doesn't mean it's a fantastic sensor - it still suffers from the same attributes that other CMOS/CCD sensors do. They've got phenomenal ADC's but the sensors just can't be packed as tightly as silver can be.

    http://www.home.earthlink.net/~fyiglover/articles/ resolution.html
    says that "All three silver microfilm manufacturers (Agfa, Fuji & Kodak) certify their medium speed microfilms to have the ability to achieve 800 lines/mm of resolution."

    1. Re:Same Image Quality?!? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 4, Informative
      There are some important issues you are glossing over here.

      First, even very expensive, excellent quality lenses for 35 mm cameras do not have resolutions better than 100 lp/mm (5 micron spot) and system resolution is roughly the root-mean-sum-of-squares of the limiting factors.

      Second, the "medium speed microfilms" you cite are specialty films for black-and-white duplicating. The medium speed color negative films that most people are going to be using have MTFs that fall below fifty percent before they reach 60 lp/mm (8 micron spot size).

      Third, unless shooting is done at very high shutter speeds or a massive tripod is used or a strobe flash freezes motion, motion blur will dominate the loss-of-resolution mechanisms at this quality level.

      For practical purposes of general high quality amateur and similar use, this new Canon product meets the resolution of 35 mm film products and doesn't suffer from the randomness of film.

      --
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  8. Sample Images... by gosand · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gizmodo ran this story last week. Check out the sample images from the Japanese site Yikes. 16.7 megapixels is a lot! It has some other cool features too, like "The accelerated image processing of DIGIC II combines with high-speed data reading from the imaging sensor to achieve fast continuous shooting at approx. 4 frames per second for maximum bursts of 32 shots in JPEG Large (11 shots in RAW)."

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  9. Re:Film Quality? by valkraider · · Score: 4, Informative

    Having a 35mm CMOS has nothing to do with the image quality. It has to do with the "mental math" that the photographer has to do when he uses lenses. On most Digital SLR cameras, there is a conversion multiplier because the sensor is not the same size as a 35mm film frame. That conversion is unnecessary if the sensor is the same size as the 35mm frame. But then we all know that slashdot editors take exhaustive measures to research their stories before posting...

    What bugs me is that 35mm is considered 1, and all other sizes have to be converted. Maybe we need a better standard that could accomidate different sensor / film sizes while using standard nomenclature for lenses. I doubt it is even possible, but some genius somewhere could do it I bet... :)

  10. Re:Actually, no... by soft_guy · · Score: 3, Informative

    802.11b interoperability is part of the 802.11g standard.

    --
    Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
  11. Re:Image quality of 35mm film? by Wandering+Idiot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, it was badly worded. As others have mentioned, the original 1Ds was full-frame as well. The big thing about this one is the 16.7 MP resolution, which if I'm not mistaken beats medium format cameras for some applications (i.e. especially for low-light photography, and if you're not making a very large print).

    Good comparison between medium format and the old 1Ds here.

  12. Sounds great except for one thing by Kalewa · · Score: 3, Informative
    I can see photographers shooting sporting events with a 12" Powerbook in a backpack receiving images to its 80GB drive

    Except Powerbooks don't work when they're closed. Think Toughbook.

  13. Will also work with the Canon 20D and 1DmkII by Giant+Killer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Canon's WFT-E1 Wireless Transmitter reportedly also works on Canon's three newest digital cameras, including the 1DsmkII (as mentioned), as well as the 20D ($1500, 8mp, 1.6x crop factor, high end consumer level) and 1DmkII ($4500, 8mp, 1.3x crop factor, pro body).

    Rob Galbraith has a much more information here, as Canon's site appears to still need an update.

    For the non-pro enthusiast, the 20D looks to be a great camera. It can handle 5 frames per second, instant on, and has ISO 3200 performance that beats most ISO 400 digicams. They are finally trickling into the market, and Calumet likely has a few in stock (they have several kits locally here in Boston). Just give them a call.

  14. Re:Independent reporting by stienman · · Score: 5, Informative

    in high res, snapping a bunch of pics with this and transmitting them over 802.11g isn't going to go very fast

    Well, let's do the math, shall we?

    14,000,000 pixels @ 24 bits/pixel = 336,000,000 bits (raw, uncompressed)

    336,000,000 bits @ 54,000,000 bits/second = 6.22 seconds (not counting overhead of 802.11g)

    So I'd say that 1 full resolution, lightly compressed photo every 10 seconds is a no brainer. I'd also say that getting 1 photo per second with good compression and perhaps lower resolution would be almost trivial. Compressing a photo to 1/6 its size in storage space can be done with very little degradation.

    -Adam

  15. Re:Image quality of 35mm film? by JoeBar · · Score: 4, Informative
    Wrong.. "multiplier" is the misnomer. It should indeed be called a crop factor. Search around on google..

    The camera doesn't magically convert/multiply a 100mm lens into a 160mm lens (on a 1.6 crop factor camera) -- the lens is the same, the sensor is smaller.

    Across different cameras, the lens is still projecting the same image based on whatever lens size, but depending on the size of the sensor, not all of it is getting captured (i.e. some of the full image is being cropped out)..

    See here --
    http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/unders tanding-series/dslr-mag.shtml
    Scroll a little more than half-way down and look at the pic of the bird with the blue and red boxes.

    If you squeeze 50 megapixels on a 5mm CMOS, there's still gonna be a crop factor because the 5mm CMOS is a lot smaller than the film negatives these lenses were originally intended for..

  16. The comparisons are marketing fluff by rebelcool · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is difficult to compare the resolution of film to digital because film "resolution" varies greatly.

    If we consider "resolution" to be the maximum size one can blow up an image before noticable grain (in the case of film) or pixelation (in the case of digital), low-ISO film still "wins". I still don't think this a fair comparison though because pixels are not grains.

    Digital cameras, regardless of ISO used, output the same resolution across all speeds. Film on the other hand, changes. At higher ISO's, the grain becomes visible at much smaller print sizes.

    There are some specialty films out there that can easily create a many meter sized print without noticible grain.

    But, in the end, for general purpose film, even a 6 mp digital SLR camera will give you better performance. Especially at higher ISO's, if you shoot in RAW. The real catch so far has been competing with the likes of velvia...

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  17. Original 1Ds review by sxltrex · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a review of the original 1Ds from luminous-landscape. To sum it up (it's rather lengthy), the author favorably compares the 1Ds to medium format film.

  18. Effectively the quality of 35mm film? NOT. by cloudance · · Score: 3, Informative

    And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film

    Wrong, wrong, wrong....

    First, this isn't the first camera to have a full-frame sensor, as others have pointed out.

    But let's look at resolution, which is far more important and what people are talking about. And lets convert so we can compare oranges to oranges.

    Let's limit our discussion to color negative film... Color Transparency, Black and White, and high resolution (Technical Pan or Gigabit) films are even higher resolution and will cloud the issue.
    Film resolution is measured in Line Pairs per Millimeter (lp/mm)... and most consumer color film resolves from 40-65 lp/mm. Doing the math, this equals 1000-1625 lp/inch. To resolve a line pair, you must have 2 lines with a space between them, and to resolve 1 line pair from another, you need to discern a space between the line pairs.... so you need 4 points to resolve a line pair, the equivelent of 4 pixels giving us an effictive film resolution of 4000-6500 pixels per inch.

    Continuing the process, a 35mm film frame is approximately 1x1.5 inches, so the effective resolution of normal color film in digital terms is on average 24 to 64 megapixels. Let's take just below the middle and say that Film has an effective resolution of 40 megapixels.

    Let's now look at color depth.... The camera actually resolves 8 bits per pixel, and interpolates up to 12 bits from there. Actual depth is only 8 bits or 256 colors. Each grain of film however can register a 1000/1 contrast range, across it's spectrum of sensitivity. If you just consider the single grain you get a 1000 color depth. Since multiple grains are involved in one of the effictive pixels, the reality is closer to 3000 colors per pixel.

    References to data avilable upon request.
    I'm not a film snob..... but we're still years away from digital resolution approaching the resolution and color depth of film.

  19. Re:Live Pr0n by Chris+Carollo · · Score: 3, Informative
    The other significant benefit is in cropping. If you take a high-res photo, you can crop and zoom in without noticing a drop in image quality.
    The optics of the camera also play a large part in how much you can crop an image and still have it look good. Even the difference in lenses between my Canon Powershot 2 and my wife's Cannon S400 is significant enough to be pretty noticable when cropping photos.

    Presumaly they paired this high a megapixel CMOS with some nice optics, so you're probably right in this case. But it's not always true that higher megapixel indicates better cropping ability.
  20. not so much faster by rebelcool · · Score: 3, Informative

    in the same sense as a lens. Larger sensors will give you much less noise however, as they're calibrated to require much more light before they're considered lit pixels. You'll also get better luminance range.

    Smaller sensors with small photosites receive much less light, and thus are susceptible to stray photons (particularly infrared) from the electronics and ambient air. This is why your point and shoots have a max ISO of 400 and look utterly terrible, while a DSLR can go up to ISO 1600 or higher, and have considerably less noise!

    This is why a 6 megapixel DSLR has pictures vastly better than one of those new 8mp.

    Or check out the nasa rovers.. large sensors, excellent optics, superb electronics, but with only 1 megapixel. Ultra sharp pictures!

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  21. Noise by McSpew · · Score: 5, Informative

    A few questions: What does noise look like on photographs? What causes noise when you take photographs? Why are digitals better at handling noise?

    Depending on whether you're talking about a digital original or a film original, noise looks different from one to the other. On a digital original, noise shows up as "blotchiness" for lack of a better description. Shoot a field of something that's generally the same color (a baseball field at night, for instance) on a digital camera at its highest ISO setting. If the noise is noticeable (which it is on most digital cameras), you'll see random patches where the color doesn't quite match.

    Noise in film is different. I'm no photographic expert, but as I understand it film noise is usually caused by the grain itself obscuring some of the detail in the photograph. The shape of the grain is not 100% uniform, and neither is the orientation of the individual grain particles. So you won't get consistent detail throughout an image. I might be wrong on this, but that's my understanding. Regardless, the higher the ISO of the film, the higher the noise level.

    Keep in mind that even those photographers who shoot film usually end up needing to get those film negatives scanned so that the photographs can be digitally manipulated. It's a rare photographer these days who can shoot, develop, print and enlarge exclusively with optics and chemicals. The scanning process itself introduces some noise into the photo image, further reducing the quality of the film image, and even the best optics introduce some noise into an image, so people using optical technologies stick to first-generation copies whenever possible.

    In a digital camera, the sensor has a fixed amount of light-gathering capability. At higher ISO equivalency settings, the effective sensitivity of the sensor is increased by amplifying whatever signal is detected. The signals are amplified somewhat at all ISO settings on most digital cameras, but the amplification level is higher at higher ISOs. It's this amplification process that introduces noise in a digital camera.

    BTW: Digitals aren't automatically better at handling noise than film cameras. It depends on the sensor in the digital and the film used in the film camera.

    The larger the sensor is in a digital camera, the more native light-gathering capability it has, and the less amplification is required to get a usable signal from the sensor. This leads to lower noise in the image at any ISO. For instance, Canon's Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) digital SLR has an APS-C-sized sensor (370 sq mm) with 6.3MP, while Sony, Olympus and even Canon sell "prosumer" digital cameras that use sensors that are 2/3" in size (58 sq mm). The 2/3" sensor's got about 1/6th the total area of the 300D's APS-C sensor. Factoring in the difference in resolution, that means that the 300D's APS-sized sensor has a little more than 8 times the area per pixel for gathering light than does a "prosumer" 2/3" 8MP sensor. This adds up to dramatically lower noise for the 300D at any ISO, as I can personally attest. I bought a KonicaMinolta Dimage A2 and returned it because the noise at virtually all ISO settings was objectionable (all my pictures looked blotchy). The Canon 300D has lower noise than the A2 at all settings, and the noisiest the Canon ever gets (1600 ISO) is still lower than the noise levels I saw from the A2 at 400 ISO.

    Now, imagine going from an APS-C sized sensor (370 sq mm) to a full-frame 35mm sensor (864 sq mm). That 35mm sensor is about 2.3 times bigger than the APS-C sensor. Even with 2.7 times as many pixels, the 35mm sensor still has enormous light-gathering power per pixel. In addition, I'm betting that Canon's putting its most advanced sensor technology in the 1Ds Mark II, meaning that the sensor is more sensitive than the sensors used in most other cameras, again requiring less amplification and thus generating less noise.

    Compared with a comparable Canon 35mm body with the same lens, a picture sho