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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 ..."
*Sigh* I can see it now... live, high resolution Pr0n. No, seriously... can I see it now???? *grin*
I would like to say that only the next thing we need is a motion picture camera to capture full 35mm frames... Then I thought of the next level of using IMAX frames and realized that upgrading will never end.
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.
people snarfing my dirty pictures before I can even get home with the camera!
/. put on the brakes!
I posted first but
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
would be really nice if you could configure it easily on the fly to sniff out open wireless networks and upload your pics as you are taking them.
i could see someone walking around a city taking shots and as they walk around the camera is uploading those shots to a website and resizing and posting them to their photoblog. hot.
Don't most of the pro-level DSLRs already have 35mm sensors? Maybe they're trying to say it's the resolution that gets it to 35mm film, but it sounds like they're implying it's the sensor size...
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.
The joy of shooting a billboard-sized picture of Britney's latest pimple or a near nip-slip of Jessica and then jog over to a Starbucks and distribute it to the masses all while getting a mocha frap must be heaven. Why did I ever bother with a college degree when so much fun could have been had!
I can't... I'm pretty sure all PowerBooks go to sleep when you shut the computer lid. Assuming you shut it correctly, of course. You can 'trick' the computer into thinking the lid is open when it's really not, but I don't recommend it, because you don't really know what the computer's going to do when it comes to going back to sleep or staying awake. :-) I've tried.
Nonetheless, being able to set up a 'base station' of sorts with a computer receiving pictures off the network is pretty neat. About damn time, too... I'll be waiting for the $250 version.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
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
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.
You can ONLY do it with a PowerBook. No other platform can handle images.
If I were a subscriber who paid to eliminate the ads, I'd be pretty irked at still having to put up with the ones disguised as news articles.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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
I went to the aqaurium in KY right across the river from Cincinnati. They were taking pictures with digital cameras that had wireless cards. They were free roaming... The pictures could be picked up at the end of the day when you were ready to leave.
It was definitly pretty neat.
If all cameras had this (or any sort of net connection, even via GPRS) it would be great to use a script like galleryadd to pump the photos into your Gallery from the road. I do it via procmail, shell scripts, and galleryadd now with my hiptop's camera (although I suppose you could do it with any camera that allows photos with email attachments).
"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.
"And with its full 35mm CMOS it is the first camera to effectively reproduce the image quality of 35mm film."
It had been generally accepted that this camera's predecessor, the 1Ds, was close to the quality of medium-format film. We've been beyond the quality of 35mm film for quite some time now...
I'm not a professional photographer, so I'm sure they have their reasons for needing an $8,000 digital camera. For someone who doesn't make a living taking pictures, though, is there any way to justify a camera that costs more than a used Toyota?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I can see a reporter in a repressive country using it to get the stories out before the police take away their camera.
I don't think so!o delTechSpecsAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=10 598
.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!
/ resolution.html
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=M
From here.
4992 x 3328 pixels over a (36 x 24 mm) 1.4 x
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
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."
If you're not using the WiFi, take CF card out, place in card reader, insert 2nd card in camera. Carry on shooting while images are being copied to laptop/Portable Digital Storage device.
Otherwise your camera is out of service while you're copying several GigaBytes to another medium.
Pro photographers won't leave the house with only one card.
Besides, it's got FireWire.
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.
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.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
802.11b interoperability is part of the 802.11g standard.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
The submitter had trouble working in the obligatory iPod plug. Give him a break.
Except Powerbooks don't work when they're closed. Think Toughbook.
This has the potential to have a major impact on politics and law enforcement. It combines two pieces, and puts a tool once reserved to the establishment media in the hands of the general population.
Two pieces of background:
Item 1: The microwave-linked minicam (where the picture was on people's screens before the billyclub finished smashing the lens) made a MAJOR change in news reporting. No longer could a corrupt administration use its police or troops to block coverage of an event by siezing or destroying the camera that had recorded it.
(This first hit - big time - during the protests->police riot->general rioting associated with the Democratic Convention of 1968. The live images of the police brutalizing the protesters and reporters couldn't be blocked by camera-smashing. This turned the general population in mass from a "silent majority" going along with the war to a radicalized population appalled by the government's treatment of the anti-war protesters. It had a major effect on the presidential election and the ending of the Vietnam (un)War.)
Item 2: The amateur videocam footage of the Rodney King beating - taken from nearby - created a simlar outrage against the police involved. (And led to laws against photographing "public officials in the performance of their duty" to try to head off further such incidents. B-( ) But personal videocams and still cameras still suffer from the pre-minicam issue: Destroying or confiscating the camera prevents the distribution of the image. So while such photography has some potential to expose official misconduct, it is still limited.
A personal camera with a WiFi link can dump the image up a hotspot and across the net or to a nearby (and not easily discoverable) digital recording device. Now the image can no longer be suppressed.
Imagine a hundred thousand people armed with such cameras, feeding images to, say, The Drudge Report, Power Line, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, Move On dot Org, politics.slashdot.org, and the rest of the political blogosphere.
In the next crisis this could be a significant step in the rise of the net as a news source and its replacement of the establishment media.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
I have an HP laser printer that can "do" 1200 dpi, which looks smooth to my eye, where 600 dpi doesn't. So, to print a 16 MB image at 1200 dpi, the result would be on the order of 3 inches by four.
Any "enlargement" above this would mean either using "interpolation" (which reduces resolution, or texture), or adding noise and/or distortion/pixelation.
This is not professional or commercial 35-mm quality yet.
For someone with such extensive photographical expertise, you're making a very amateur mistake. You're comparing the method of photo production (laser printer vs. projection), not the method of photo aquisition.
In other words, just because your laser printer doesn't compare to film doesn't mean that the digital image doesn't compare to film. I've only used a few color lasers, but I've never seen one that did a very decent job of photos.
Even though your 1200-DPI laser doesn't cut it, I've seen photos from a 400-DPI dye-sub which take extremely close examination to tell if they're film or not. By "extremely close", I mean that you have to either (a) have significantly better than 20/20 vision and be able to focus very closely, or (b) have a magnifying glass. And at a 400-DPI resolution, this camera would be producing prints larger than 8"x12" without any interpolation whatsoever.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Real film is also a sampled image, with the sample size depending on the film's grain size.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I started with the Canon D30 (3 megapixel) DSLR 3 years ago and have upgraded to the D60 (6 megapixel) and the 10D body (also 6 megapixel.) I also shot thousands of frames of slide film previously and scanned them at 21.42 megapixels per picture. I've printed hundreds of prints at home, up to 12"x18" in size.
For 98% of the slashdot crowd, I'll assure you that 6 megapixels is enough.
Ask yourself, what is your goal? For probably half the people, it's a shot that looks decent on your monitor or in email. Well, even 2 megapixels will do that in style.
For the other half of the users, they want to be able to make prints. This is where resolution comes in, the more, the better. With the 3 megapixel cameras, I was able to do nice 8"x10" prints. Anything bigger and it for sure suffered when compared with a print from the 21 megapixel slide scans.
Since 6 megapixels came out, my 8x10 prints don't comparatively suffer next to slide scans printed at the same size. They both look killer.
Now, I like to make prints on Super-A3 sized paper ( at 12" x 18" ) and at that size, I can still easily see the advantage that 21 megapixel slide scans have over the 6 megapixel DSLR shots. But, the big prints are beautiful in either case and I still make them all the time and never feel too cheated resolution wise.
With this 16 megapixel camera, the results would be superb next to the big slide scans. There would be no problem printing at 12"x18" or larger. I would be seriously wanting one of the larger format Epson's that do 20" wide prints or even the 3 and 4 foot wide printers. This camera has the resolution.
So whats your goal? This is kind of a swag but:
computer screen/TV pictures: 2 megapixels
8"x10" prints: 3 megapixels and up
12"x18" prints: 6 megapixels and up
bigger prints: the more pixels the better
[/plug]
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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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.
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.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
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.
Lord, not this crap again.
Your entire argument hinges on lpm measurements. These measurements are, of course, taken on high-contrast black and white targets -- typically 1000:1 contrast ratios.
Now, it is true that when you are taking pictures of closely spaced 1000:1 contrast black and white lines, film still kicks the crap out of digital. But suppose, just suppose, that the average photographer will NEVER IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE take such a picture. The performance in such circumstances might then be pretty meaningless, huh?
The simple fact is that film's resolution is highly contrast dependent. It shows extremely high resolution while dealing with extreme-contrast targets, but performs much worse in real-world conditions. Digital sensor resolution, on the other hand, is largely insensitive to contrast. For real-world scenes and not 1000:1 test targets, a 16MP sensor absolutely annihilates 35mm film in terms of overall image quality.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Wrong. So wrong. Nice imposing numbers and stats, though.
In the real world, on print, where it matters to 99.9% of all users, high-end digital capture equals or exceeds film capture. My images run full-bleed across large-format layouts in W Magazine, Vogue, and you can't see the difference between the shots I used to take on my RZ67 and the ones I now take on my 1Ds. That's all that matters. You will never meet an editor who asks you what kind of line-pair resolution you can provide.
Could I get a theoretically sharper result with large format and film? Who cares? I've got a job to do, and digital does it better than film did. It's only about where the rubber meets the road.
computer screen/TV pictures: 2 megapixels
8"x10" prints: 3 megapixels and up
12"x18" prints: 6 megapixels and up
bigger prints: the more pixels the better
You have low standards. To make quality 11x14 prints and bigger, I use 4x5" large format film. Although 6x7cm medium-format film would work just as well up to 16x20". In my opinion, a 6 megapixel camera does not make a good 11x14" print...especially some B&W fine art prints.
Of course it is all subjective.
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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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