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 ..."

Comments

Who needs the computer?

[SilentChris]

"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."

Really? I can see uploading straight from the camera to SI. The computer is an intermediary today because it's a necessity. When every device has is on the internet, the intermediary function of computers will disolve.

Re:Live Pr0n

[valkraider]

It may not be useful on the monitor, but when blown up to a 10 foot wall poster - the high megapixel count is very important... ;)

samples

[macshune]

Here are some of the full-size samples available on the site:

Sample 1
Sample 2

The rest of samples can be found here. I don't want to slashdot poor dpreview. I'm sure as progress marches on, their bandwidth prices skyrocket.

Re:Its still a sampled image

[be-fan]

Real film is also a sampled image, with the sample size depending on the film's grain size.

Re:Live Pr0n

[zoombat]

I mean, a 16 megapixel image is nice and everything, but not so much useful unless you have a 16.7 megapixel monitor to enjoy it on.

Other folks have mentioned the value of high-resolution images when doing large format printing. 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.

Sensor and optical resolution wrt cropping

[Shenkerian]

I agree with you and have made similar explanations for camera-shopping friends, but I've started being swayed by the cropping crowd.

Basically yes, nearly all hobbyist photographers will print 8x10 or smaller, and 3 or more megapixels will give you a great 8x10. But what if you want to blow up just a quadrant of your frame to that size? Then you want enough sensor resolution to give you at least 3 megapixels in that quadrant.

With consumer lenses, optical resolution will start to lag sensor resolution, but pro SLR glass will almost certainly beat sensor resolutions up to 20 or 30 megapixels. Being able to print sharp 8x10's of a sixth of your entire image is kind of appealing.

Of course if you're a former slide photographer and believe that what you frame and shoot is the photo, then cropping is distasteful to you. But the option is there.