Canon EOS 5D Mark IV to Feature CFast & SD Card Slots [CR2]

[Don Haines]

You shouldn't hold the camera technology back just because some people want to use their old memory cards. Imagine where we'd be if all digital cameras today still had to use the same memory cards that came out when digital cameras first started taking off.

+1

There is a name for those cards. Compact Flash

It is a bit funny to read comments from people who obviously haven't been watching digital photography since its inception

I think the first digital compact camera I bought was a Canon that came with a 16MB CF card?

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high resolution digital photography!

For some inexplicable reason, I still have some of my early memory cards, today they won't fit a single image.... We have come a long way since then.....

 

[Don Haines]

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high red digital photography!

and as a treat, a canoeing picture from an Apple Quicktake100 from back in 1996

 

[noms78]

Shaping up to be a nice upgrade:

24mp sensor;

Nope Nope Nope Nope ... 30+

Get a 5Ds or its successor.

I like many others am hoping it will be 28-32MP with an option for smaller, lossless RAW at 24MP. The 5Ds dynamic range will be much less than the 5D4, and the 5Ds successor is years away.

 

[pvalpha]

Shaping up to be a nice upgrade:

24mp sensor;

Nope Nope Nope Nope ... 30+

Get a 5Ds or its successor.

I like many others am hoping it will be 28-32MP with an option for smaller, lossless RAW at 24MP. The 5Ds dynamic range will be much less than the 5D4, and the 5Ds successor is years away.

28-32mp would make more sense for portrait photography.

To speculate a bit: I think we might see 28MP-32MP, although Canon is notoriously conservative and 24 is just as likely. The fact that we're seeing a C-Fast and SD UHS-II slot means we can easily absorb the higher pixel density while not depleting the buffer as quickly. And if they have integrated the ADC's on the sensor die, then we should see 80D levels of dynamic range. Now if they were to go with 32MP... well... I'm not a betting man, but if that 120mp sensor was a sign of things to come, we might even see another type of experiment with this sensor: Back-Side Illumination (BSI). If they did that, the sensor pit sizes would be enormous cause the electronics to drive them would be pushed behind the pit - greatly improving noise and low light capacity. That's just me daydreaming, but its a nice daydream to have - especially if we want to maintain performance on the 7D3 and the 5Ds/r2.

The good news, at least, is that your existing SD cards won't be instantly obsolete - although you probably won't want to use them considering how slow they can be compared to UHS-II. SD formats are backwards compatible. And the more C-Fast in use, the cheaper the media will become - keep that in mind too.

 

[tpatana]

With 4k, CFast was given. I was hoping the second one to be CF, but was betting 60-40 on SD.

For me, I have only some random SDs around, since nothing I normally use has SD slot.

Assuming good codec and other features, have to seriously consider. About 2 months to street date maybe?

 

[slclick]

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high red digital photography!

and as a treat, a canoeing picture from an Apple Quicktake100 from back in 1996

I enjoy this type of post far more than the mean spirited anti Canon venom usually spewed during a product rumor. Thanks for sharing! (I too have a couple 8 and 16MB from our Powershot S100 Elph days-which I still have and works as well as that Apple.)

 

[expatinasia]

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high resolution digital photography!

For some inexplicable reason, I still have some of my early memory cards, today they won't fit a single image.... We have come a long way since then.....

Sorry Don, but those cards are pretty big! I have 4MB CF card and from memory an even smaller one somewhere in my desk drawer ;D But yes, you are right it is amazing where technology is going in terms of storage!

 

[josephz1994]

Looking forward to the Mark IV, was going to replace it with the Mark III.
Don't think it's worth it.

 

[Etienne]

What Canon does with the 5D4 is really important to me. I don't care what Megapickle number they choose, but it has to be a cracking all-rounder, as good at video as it is at stills. 4K, some good frame rates, and video features. What I really want is for Canon to deliver top value in a trio like this: C100 mk III that beats the Sony FS5, a 5DIV all around great camera, and a small but worthy EOS-M4 all-rounder. Throw in an updated XF-300 while your at it!

 

[pwp]

Interesting that by far the highest number of respondents in this thread are coming at it from a video shooters viewpoint, which suggests that Cfast is a feature most highly valued by video shooters for the obvious reasons. As a stills shooter CFast vs CF is neither here nor there. It would have been nice to ditch SD and follow the 1DXII with CFast/CF. Oh well it's a minor feature in the scheme of things. Just keep the 5DIV MP number under 24 and provide longer shutter life. My 5DIII is on it's third shutter! They're not expensive...just annoying when they bust.

-pw

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

That's a pity about the SD card. I would have preferred a setup similar to the 1DX2 (CFast/CF). While I have an SD card in my 5D3, I mainly write to the CF card and use the SD as overflow (if the CF card fills up).

It does seem a touch weird since most will have a huge set of CF cards and not a lot of SD so for a 5 series yeah CFast/CF would seem a much nicer fit, but whatever, in the end other stuff matters more, stuff I'm still not super confident they will pull off. Although yeah CFast/CF would be so much nicer. It seems like more off the mark marketing research (same way they thought Sony RX would never sell, nobody would want manual control for 5D2 video, etc. etc.).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

You shouldn't hold the camera technology back just because some people want to use their old memory cards. Imagine where we'd be if all digital cameras today still had to use the same memory cards that came out when digital cameras first started taking off.

+1

There is a name for those cards. Compact Flash

It is a bit funny to read comments from people who obviously haven't been watching digital photography since its inception

I think the first digital compact camera I bought was a Canon that came with a 16MB CF card?

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high resolution digital photography!

For some inexplicable reason, I still have some of my early memory cards, today they won't fit a single image.... We have come a long way since then.....

We had an Apple QuickTake 100 at work.... I went crazy and got a Kodac DC40......768x512 pixels of super high red digital photography!

Hah I think I can beat that. How about NEWTEK for Amiga. 320x200. Late 80s. You used a B&W security video camera and then shot B&W 640x400 16 shade B&W or 4096 colors on display at once 320x200 by spinning a color filter wheel, so you took three shots for each color pic and to reduce noise I think it took a few seconds for each, maybe even many, I forget, for each of the three filter positions.

 

[darekbo]

I hope the video and photo specification of Canon 5d mk4 will be at least as good as Sony a7RII. If not they will loose more clients...

 

[tpatana]

Interesting that by far the highest number of respondents in this thread are coming at it from a video shooters viewpoint, which suggests that Cfast is a feature most highly valued by video shooters for the obvious reasons. As a stills shooter CFast vs CF is neither here nor there. It would have been nice to ditch SD and follow the 1DXII with CFast/CF. Oh well it's a minor feature in the scheme of things. Just keep the 5DIV MP number under 24 and provide longer shutter life. My 5DIII is on it's third shutter! They're not expensive...just annoying when they bust.

They're not as annoying as bent pins.

Impossible to make everything idiot proof. Morons always find a way to break things. It's unbelievable how genius they are in that regard.

Can't even guess how many thousands of times I've inserted my cards in to the CF slots, and never bent the pins.

 

[tpatana]

Interesting that by far the highest number of respondents in this thread are coming at it from a video shooters viewpoint, which suggests that Cfast is a feature most highly valued by video shooters for the obvious reasons. As a stills shooter CFast vs CF is neither here nor there. It would have been nice to ditch SD and follow the 1DXII with CFast/CF. Oh well it's a minor feature in the scheme of things. Just keep the 5DIV MP number under 24 and provide longer shutter life. My 5DIII is on it's third shutter! They're not expensive...just annoying when they bust.

-pw

I think that's because nobody expects miracle improvements over 5D3 when it comes to stills. Some MP, DPAF and modest high-ISO noise. That's pretty much it. Most improvement is on the video side, so that's the thing to talk about. Especially when the rumor tells about CFast coming. That gives nothing for still-people.

 

[Bennymiata]

My 5d3 is getting old and scruffy looking, so I'm hanging out for the new 5d4.
Will love the 4k video too.

I had a Sony Mavica camera that used a floppy disk as its memory card, and my company had a Fuji camera that used cf cards and I gave staff members their own cards, which were 256 Megs!
I'm going back to late 1990's!

 

[pwp]

It would have been nice to ditch SD and follow the 1DXII with CFast/CF.

They're not as annoying as bent pins.

Impossible to make everything idiot proof. Morons always find a way to break things. It's unbelievable how genius they are in that regard.

Can't even guess how many thousands of times I've inserted my cards in to the CF slots, and never bent the pins.

Who has ever bent the pins in a camera slot? Though it is possible on the 7DII. Yikes!
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=13892

Where I have bent pins is in my Sandisk ImageMate All in One card reader.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/810152-REG/SanDisk_SDDR_289_A20_ImageMate_All_in_One_USB_3_0.html

It has such a shallow "throat" giving insufficient guidance to align the card to the pins. I must have straightened pins in my reader 100 times. Only takes a moment. I use a narrow scalpel blade.

CompactFlash interface is a 50-pin subset of the old 68-pin PCMCIA connector. In its original concept it was never foreseen or expected to withstand the huge number of plug-in and remove numbers that photographers impose on this design. At least the CFast & SD interfaces are robust in a way that leaves CF gasping for respectability. In a few years CF cards will be perceived as historically relevant as floppy disks.

-pw

 

[tpatana]

Where I have bent pins is in my Sandisk ImageMate All in One card reader.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/810152-REG/SanDisk_SDDR_289_A20_ImageMate_All_in_One_USB_3_0.html

It has such a shallow "throat" giving insufficient guidance to align the card to the pins. I must have straightened pins in my reader 100 times. Only takes a moment. I use a narrow scalpel blade.

Yea, one time I bought (different) all-in-one reader. Wasn't the deep throat type either. After trying it once I wrote it off and threw to garbage.

 

[tpatana]

Interesting that by far the highest number of respondents in this thread are coming at it from a video shooters viewpoint, which suggests that Cfast is a feature most highly valued by video shooters for the obvious reasons. As a stills shooter CFast vs CF is neither here nor there. It would have been nice to ditch SD and follow the 1DXII with CFast/CF. Oh well it's a minor feature in the scheme of things. Just keep the 5DIV MP number under 24 and provide longer shutter life. My 5DIII is on it's third shutter! They're not expensive...just annoying when they bust.

They're not as annoying as bent pins.

Impossible to make everything idiot proof. Morons always find a way to break things. It's unbelievable how genius they are in that regard.

You might want to be careful about statements like this as you've no idea who has or how many people have bent pins. SD and CFast are, however, resilient in this regard.

For sure accidents happen. To me too. But knowing stuff you write here, I wasn't surprised if you also liked to bend pins.

 

[davidmurray]

This is a good thing because it confirms the mk4 will, like the mk3, be a good all-rounder model.