Report: The next EOS R camera is reported to be undergoing field testing [CR1]

[scyrene]

50 megapixels or 75 megapixels isn’t much of a difference. I expect the big change in this camera will be computing power, look for dual (or quad) digic9 to handle the processing load.

Do extra processors imply higher power consumption? If so, do we think that means a new battery and/or a bigger body (than R/RP) to accommodate that (not to mention heat dissipation)?

 

[transpo1]

Thanks for confirming my statement that you define advancement based solely on your personal wants.

Opinion ≠ data. Data = data. People who believe their opinions represent facts deserve to be called crazy.

If the folks who have clamored for more DR or better FF video performance have eschewed Canon, and if those groups comprised a 'considerable number' of people, Canon's market share would have suffered. It hasn't. So either all the DRones and discerning FF ILC videographers are just spouting off here but buying Canon cameras anyway...or what you believe to be a 'considerable number' is, in reality, irrelevant. My money is firmly on the latter. But you go right on inflating the importance of your own opinion...reality hasn't changed it so far.

You're welcome- as do you! Once again, however, you totally mischaracterize the debate and it is no surprise. And exhibit your personal opinion, which is that data and sales are the answer to every forum discussion and feature request.

Yes, you, too, are pushing a personal agenda, one in data and sales are the answer to every question, so best for Canon to be lazy and not include features to expand the marketable demographic of who purchases cameras to expand marketshare.

My argument is that they could have made more money and have served their customers better, not simply play to the lowest common denominator by making the least effort. Canon left money on the Sony FF MILC table and they know it, which is why they have fast-tracked so many RF lenses and MILC bodies. This makes sense to most people.

As far as data goes, you only have to look at the recent (incorrect) info about Canon EOS-R Raw video recording and how excited people got over it to see how they could expand their marketshare with the video centric/hybrid crowd.

The real data here is that being obtuse and only spouting sales and data as the answer to every feature request to make a better Canon product is not solution, only a lazy and ineffectual response.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The real data here is that being obtuse and only spouting sales and data as the answer to every feature request to make a better Canon product is not solution, only a lazy and ineffectual response.

I prefer to live in the real world. So does Canon. But you go on living in your fantasy world where your opinion is reality and Canon delivers every feature you ask for before you even ask for it. Have fun!

 

[transpo1]

I prefer to live in the real world. So does Canon. But you go on living in your fantasy world where your opinion is reality and Canon delivers every feature you ask for before you even ask for it. Have fun!

If you lived in the real world all the time, you’d never be developing the next product or focused on the future. You’d simply be satisfied with what you have now. I admit that sales are necessary (hence my ability to also think in the real world) but since Canon has that, time to think about their vision for delivering the best products. No vision = no best products of the future.

In other words, Canon seems content to sell cameras by lowest common denominator at times, but as Steve Jobs said:

Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

-Steve Jobs

Maybe Canon will give us a video feature we didn’t know we wanted yet on their next camera, but at this point, it would really surprise me- they’re still catching up to where the goal was last time.

 

[transpo1]

I always thought that tagline was a typical sort of mistake made by a Japanese conglomerate. Worked for a couple in my time. Once branding agencies get in their heads, odd things happen. You can read that as "See? Impossible!" Because it doesn't have punctuation in the real tagline, it invites different readings from different people. Similar to the North Carolina license plate tagline "first in flight." As a kid I always thought that referred to a retreat in the Civil War, which definitely is not what they meant.

Perhaps we can come up with some better taglines for Canon. On second thought, maybe the forum wouldn't be such a good place for that. "Canon has 56 percent share, so buzz off" has a certain ring of truth, but it wouldn't test well.

I LOVE this

 

[transpo1]

To downsample it to 4k I think is a CPU problem: may need two DIGIC 8's or a DIGIC... 9?

Higher frame rates: I don't know enough to know if this requires a sensor upgrade or again is a CPU problem.

However there are ZILLIONS of things I'd like the camera to do that probably don't need any sensor upgrade at all.

That’s probably true.

Ironic, isn’t it? The “See Impossible” company is limited by CPU technology.

 

[neuroanatomist]

If you lived in the real world all the time, you’d never be developing the next product or focused on the future. You’d simply be satisfied with what you have now. I admit that sales are necessary (hence my ability to also think in the real world) but since Canon has that, time to think about their vision for delivering the best products. No vision = no best products of the future.

What a ridiculous assertion. Canon, like all companies, are constantly developing products for the future. Why else do we have the EOS R/RP, the SL3/250D, patents for several EF and RF lenses, etc.? The simple fact that you utterly and persistently fail to grasp is that Canon is developing products for their future, not your future. You seemingly can’t accept the fact that they are quite successful at developing products for the future, in spite of the 16 years of evidence staring you in the face, the preponderance of white lenses at major sporting events, etc. You are also assuming that your personal definition of ‘best products’ is universal, but that’s complete bullshit. For many people, the ‘best’ camera is one like the SL3/250D that produces very good images and is affordable, or the one with the most MP in a 35mm format (ie. the 5Ds/R). For a very few people (I am one of them), the ‘best’ lens is a hand-holdable 600mm f/4...and if I were like you, I’d be accusing Sony of lacking the vision or technical competence to produce such a lens, and I’d be demanding that they ‘catch up’.

 

[crazyrunner33]

I wonder about switching a camera between high and low/med. resolution. Is it the sensor doing the work or is it the digic processor? I would expect if it's the sensor then we'd get better quality than using a processor to take the 70+MP and process it down to a smaller size. Would the smaller res be as good as a camera that is dedicated to that size (one that is fine-tuned for it)? I guess, either way, it all depends how it gets that smaller res image.

That depends on the sensor used. Some of the newer Sony Semiconductor sensors are performing binning on the sensor level instead of the processor. An example of that is the sensor used in the GH5S(the low light M4/3 queen), BMPCC and the 8K Sharp camera(actually, a slightly modified version of this sensor) that's in development.

https://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products_en/new_pro/may_2017/imx294cjk_e.html

A lot of people assume the GH5S has amazing low light because of the low megapixel count and people assume the 8K Sharp camera will have an insane amount of noise due to the amount of tiny pixels. As we've seen, that's not the case. In 8K mode, the sensor is super sharp, below is an example of it in the Sharp prototype camera. You can see the detail really well if you have a 4K TV and turn the YouTube setting to 8K, or to 1440p if you're on a 1080 monitor. Lowlight doesn't look bad, but color and DR will not be as good as a binned 4K mode like on the GH5S.


I'm hoping the 70+ MP camera that Canon has on the horizon will use similar techniques and allow the user to choose between high resolution and lowlight/color/dr performance. That's assuming if there are no patents that'd violate Sony Semiconductor's patents.

 

[Shaun Gibbs]

The EOS R has a vertical grip that takes two batteries, by the way. It's stupidly expensive given that it does nothing, really, so I haven't bought it yet, but I might, just because the R grip is about 1.5 fingers too short for my hand.

I have it and it is great. Comes with the USB-C charger too which can charge the R body directly with grip removed and also the two batteries in the grip, albeit one at a time, sadly.

But it is great after a shoot to just plug in the USB charger and leave it. It also has the sync port, if anyone uses those anymore.

I am getting batteries down by only 15% after two hours of studio shooting (approx. 430 shots), which means about 12 hours shooting on two batteries in the grip and about 2500 shots, conservatively. Not bad at all.

It is built extremely well and the batteries clip in nicely.

 

[Mikehit]

Given their market dominance they can do anything the feel they have to. I generally like your comment, but I'd rephrase this last bit as "
It doesn't matter if Sony, Nikon or whoever else feels like they have to do it, Canon doesn't. Not right now."

Canon have admitted in interview that they cannot do what Sony are doing because they do not have the sensor technology - and also admitted that they were concentrating on maintaining sensors for three lines (APS-C DSLR & M series, video and DSLR as well as more recently the developing R series). It seems Sony went all-in on developing the sensor for the FF cameras which seems to have paid off. Reading between the lines I assume that now they have the R series on the road they are putting a higher priority on sensor development.
Canon refuse to buy in sensor technology for their ILCs and you can criticise that decision all you want but for now the issue is 'Canon cannot...'.

 

[QuisUtDeus]

Canon have admitted in interview that they cannot do what Sony are doing because they do not have the sensor technology - and also admitted that they were concentrating on maintaining sensors for three lines (APS-C DSLR & M series, video and DSLR as well as more recently the developing R series). It seems Sony went all-in on developing the sensor for the FF cameras which seems to have paid off. Reading between the lines I assume that now they have the R series on the road they are putting a higher priority on sensor development.
Canon refuse to buy in sensor technology for their ILCs and you can criticise that decision all you want but for now the issue is 'Canon cannot...'.

Except in terms of actually making money.

 

[3kramd5]

Except in terms of actually making money.

You don’t think Sony generates profit selling full frame camera sensors? That seems unlikely to me. Surely they make more selling huge quantities of mobile device sensors, etc., but I doubt their larger sensor business operates without profit.

 

[BillB]

You don’t think Sony generates profit selling full frame camera sensors? That seems unlikely to me. Surely they make more selling huge quantities of mobile device sensors, etc., but I doubt their larger sensor business operates without profit.

Has Sony recovered the front end investments they put into developing their full frame cameras? Maybe so, maybe not.

 

[3kramd5]

Has Sony recovered the front end investments they put into developing their full frame cameras? Maybe so, maybe not.

Full frame cameras? I don’t know, but given how quickly they spun out 9 of them, I’d imagine they have minimized development cost.

The post I quoted referred to sensors, though. I can’t imagine Sony Semiconductor Solutions would keep that product line alive if it lost money.

 

[Quirkz]

At 70mp, I would hope for a binned 35mp mode that provided better noise (and low light?) performance. Still plenty of resolution for most scenarios. But yeah, as an owner of an EOS R, I'm really hoping for a few things in a camera like this—the return of 5D/7D ergonomics (a few more CF buttons and a joystick), dual card slots, and better rendering.

On the last point, it's hard to describe, but the R's files have a tendency to look "crunchy" and not all that pleasing right out of camera. It seems like I have to massage them a lot more in post to get good results. This is compared to my original 7D and my Fujifilm X-E3. I don't know if it's just the way the camera processes the files or if it's a sensor thing or what, but the color and contrast seem off—not enough color saturation, too much contrast. I end up trying different camera profiles in LR and can usually get good results, but the files are always a bit 'meh' out of camera. Anyone else?

This might be a preference thing. I’ve got the Fuji x-e3 as well, and the 5d4 (I’m assuming there isn’t a big difference from the R to the 5d4, given the very similar sensor, but correct me if I’m wrong). I prefer the shots out of the 5d4 myself for that contrast punch, and I find the colors more natural. Love the x-e3 for the size to performance ratio, just prefer the image from the 5D4.

 

[Kit.]

Some of the newer Sony Semiconductor sensors are performing binning on the sensor level instead of the processor.

You cannot do it with a normal Bayer pattern, or you will lose more resolution than you expected. In IMX294CJK, Sony uses "Quad Bayer" pattern, which even without binning has half of the color resolution of the normal Bayer pattern.

 

[Del Paso]

Most probably it is just another camera to buy Canon a bit more of a time to come with some real sensor technology changes. First, 5DIV like sensor, second, 6DII like sensor, next - high res sensor. Would be suprprised, if it would be all new generation of sensors accompained with IBIS, etc.

Did you ever post a positive comment upon Canon?

 

[Kit.]

1) Bayer has 1 R 1 B but 2 greens, because green is the most important channel to human vision. But the biggest challenge to shooting is low-light, which is usually very warm incandescent or even candlelight, where there's very little blue. Wouldn't an alternate with twice the blue therefore be better? It'd practically cut low-light noise in half. It'd double noise in the important green channel in high-light situations but we have sensitivity to burn in well-lit situations.

The green channel is important for luminance resolution. Human eye is very poor at resolving fine details in blue color.

2) what about an alternate pattern with two channels of IR?

3) what about an alternate pattern with three channels of IR and one white pixel? It wouldn't capture color info of course but would add a couple stops sensitivity in low-light situation?

3a) or instead of three IR, have two IR, and double both green and blue?

4) or back to four colors: what about R G B and white, again using the white to get another couple stops of luminance?

Ideally, we would want our pixels to saturate at the same exposure. With RGBW, the W channel saturates early and provides little to no information in "normal" light. The W channel somehow helps in case of underexposure, but at the expense of color noise.

If we don't care about color at all, a monochrome sensor is obviously the best. If we do care about color recognition, but not by humans (machine vision), CYYM or CMYW would probably be the best. The infrared channel would add more information for subject recognition in machine vision, but not all lenses are apochromatic "enough" for it to be in focus.

 

[flip314]

The green channel is important for luminance resolution. Human eye is very poor at resolving fine details in blue color.

You can actually do some cool experiments in photoshop. Take any photo at screen resolution and split it into the R G + B channels. Resize the blue channel to 50% size, then 200% size (so it's the same as the starting resolution). This basically throws away a bunch of the blue information from the picture. Then recombine the channels. You will be hard pressed to notice any loss in resolution. You can probably even get away with it at 33%-300% or 25%->400% resize.

Try the same thing with green and you'll notice right away. Red kind of falls somewhere in the middle between green and blue for importance to humans.

 

[Michael Clark]

I dont like shoot blind after couple shoot i wait viewfinder lag ends and recompose pic . They need get lag away before can increase fps

That's what your left eye is for. Try it sometime. It does take getting used to, but eventually you can train your brain to use one eye at a time when both are open.

At 70mp, I would hope for a binned 35mp mode that provided better noise (and low light?) performance. Still plenty of resolution for most scenarios. But yeah, as an owner of an EOS R, I'm really hoping for a few things in a camera like this—the return of 5D/7D ergonomics (a few more CF buttons and a joystick), dual card slots, and better rendering.

On the last point, it's hard to describe, but the R's files have a tendency to look "crunchy" and not all that pleasing right out of camera. It seems like I have to massage them a lot more in post to get good results. This is compared to my original 7D and my Fujifilm X-E3. I don't know if it's just the way the camera processes the files or if it's a sensor thing or what, but the color and contrast seem off—not enough color saturation, too much contrast. I end up trying different camera profiles in LR and can usually get good results, but the files are always a bit 'meh' out of camera. Anyone else?

Horizontal or vertical line binning doesn't really do much for improving noise performance. Full binning of a 70MP sensor would result in a 17.5MP image, not 30MP.

On the last point, it's hard to describe, but the R's files have a tendency to look "crunchy" and not all that pleasing right out of camera. It seems like I have to massage them a lot more in post to get good results. This is compared to my original 7D and my Fujifilm X-E3. I don't know if it's just the way the camera processes the files or if it's a sensor thing or what, but the color and contrast seem off—not enough color saturation, too much contrast. I end up trying different camera profiles in LR and can usually get good results, but the files are always a bit 'meh' out of camera. Anyone else?

LR is only guessing at Canon's demosaicing algorithms. Whatever you see when LR first opens a raw file is just one of many possible interpretations of the raw image data. There's no such thing as "the" raw file in terms of what you can see on a screen. It's always a processed interpretation.

50 megapixels or 75 megapixels isn’t much of a difference. I expect the big change in this camera will be computing power, look for dual (or quad) digic9 to handle the processing load.

How are they going to get rid of the heat from all of that processing? Where are they going to get the energy for more than 100-200 frames per battery?

I think it is possible that the 20mm flange distance was selected to create space in the body for future iterations of the electronics. E.G. FF 4K would generate a lot of heat. A thicker body could hold a larger heat sink or other strategies for dissipating heat. It could also house larger, more powerful processors for high rate FPS of high MP sensors. IBIS also takes room. IMO a larger area to incorporate it may allow them a more ambitious and effective design.
I think they though about the future a lot with this platform and tried to think of as many possibilities to avoid what they see is an increasingly difficult environment for expensive re-vamps of ILC lines.

But all of that can be done better behind and below the sensor. A longer registration distance just necessitates more empty space between the sensor and the flange.