13.8MP Kodak Tops Previously Leaked Canon 342
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.
How many MPs do I really need? (Score:1, Interesting)
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?
Photo-Quality (Score:2, Interesting)
Or are we already there, and I just don't pay attention?
End The Megapixel Race (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
focal length (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, if only the price came down...
why is this for pros? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:End The Megapixel Race (Score:2, Interesting)
Who's to say that a roll of reusable film would be cheaper or more effective than the middle ground that is emerging? That is, developing large MP CCDs that replace the film plane on a 35mm camera. That is, attaching a CCD in place of film in a regular SLR camera. In that situation, the upgrade cost is reduced and compatibility will be maintained with the existing 35mm format.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Still more film vs. digital links (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:How many MPs do I really need? (Score:1, Interesting)
8x10 = 3200 x 4000 = 12.8 MP
HOWEVER, digital cameras count each pixel as *only one colour*, so you really nead 12.8 x3 = 38.4 MP
What you really need is a 35mm SLR and a 4000dpi film scanner, eg a Canon FS4000US = 4000 x 6000 x 3 = 72 MP (in camera terms)
Scanner replacement (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:More privacy concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:MP not everything (Score:2, Interesting)
And for those interested, read this review on the D30 about why MP quality at luminous-landscape [luminous-landscape.com].
Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just an FYI (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
The difference between film and digital (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:why is this for pros? (Score:3, Interesting)
So ive got a few questions.
How does the contrast and detail of prints compare to both enlargments and contact print of standard film?
do you see any differences in various areas of the photo or is the camera which you use able to match colors and light values across the entire photo?
do you find using software ie photoshop is sufficient to make up for not being able to control the development/printing process?
what kind of printer do you use for the final product?
since you take landscapes you probably wont be able to help me here but is there a way to get really fast exposures (equivalent to 1600 iso film or greater)?
And most importantly if you were given 10 prints would you be able to tell which ones are digital and which ones are from film?
Any thoughts from people who have used digital cameras for professional
Re:why is this for pros? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, in a way I use both right now. I believe the Canon 1Ds will change that, the D-60 was close to what I needed, the 1Ds may be enough.
How does the contrast and detail of prints compare to both enlargments and contact print of standard film?
As far as color accuracy and tonality, while it's a bit of work (as I'll explain), digital actually gives me more control than a pure-film solution. As far as detail/resolution, 11MP should come in about break-even with 35mm film, the best lenses, etc. (My target is to be able to produce good prints up to about 16x24 inches.)
Prints from color film provide significant challenges. Color print film usually has to be hand-balanced to a particular color by a lab, color processing is tricky. Most professional photographers use slide film which provides a visible "reference" to what a picture looks like, but chemical printing of slides (via "type R" prints, Cibachromes, etc.) give you prints which much higher contrast than the original slide, there are techniques to mitigate this, but it's kind of a mess.
The best prints from slides made right now are made by making high-resolution drum scans of the slide, then making prints using a machine which exposes conventional photographic paper with digitally controlled laser beams, and controlled processing. With color management, I can actually send out for a print that matches what I see on my screen (although this also requires calibration of my monitor to a reference standard using a colorimeter.) This is a lot of work, and it gives prints that have better detail than darkroom prints (long explanation omitted), but it'd be better if I'd collected the digital image first rather than scanning the slide. 12MP (36MB) or so has been my "bar" for matching the resolution I can get.
Mind you, none of this makes any useful difference for prints 8x10 or smaller.
do you find using software ie photoshop is sufficient to make up for not being able to control the development/printing process?
Yes, Photoshop gives me much better control of things like this than the darkroom, and repeatability as well. (Once I've dodged/burned/color corrected a scan, I can have it printed multiple times and expect to get the same results, time and time again, which is essential. This is tricky to do in the darkroom.
What printer?...
The LightJet 5000, [cymbolic.com] I don't own one (they're prohibitively expensive)--I use Calypso Imaging. [calypsoinc.com] This is a very cool hybrid digital/chemical machine, essentially a digital enlarger, exposing film with lasers, processing with controlled temperature and reagents, etc. This machine (and other similar models) are very commonly used by professional photographers these days.
since you take landscapes you probably wont be able to help me here but is there a way to get really fast exposures (equivalent to 1600 iso film or greater)?
Good question. I think the "1Ds" is reputed to offer up to ISO 1250 or so, but I usually live on the other end of the ISO scale (most of my work is done on Fuji Velvia, which is ISO 50.) I'm told that the D-60 at ISO 400 gives results which in some ways have lower noise than 400 speed film, but I can't speak to higher speeds.
And most importantly if you were given 10 prints would you be able to tell which ones are digital and which ones are from film?
For well-produced Lightjet prints it would be a little tricky. The final product of either appears on standard photographic paper, photographic images tend not to lend themselves to jaggies. I just checked a couple of my own prints and a similarly produced print of this image by Galen Rowell [mountainlight.com] and I can't find jaggies with a magnifying glass on large prints.
What I think I could cue on easily is the excessive contrast of chemical prints from slides. So, "very probably," with the LightJet prints (assuming of course both were done very well) looking better (because they're more controllable by the photographer or printer.)
50 Mega Pixels (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess his life will be 4 times easier
Also there is a preview of the cannon on www.dpreview.com