Canon's 7D, which is essentially a 60D with fancy marketing and a higher price tag

It’s interesting to see how much an effect marketing has on the general photography consumer. Over the past few months, Canon has released a couple of moderate upgrades, one of which has been hailed as revolutionary and game-changing, and the other which was met with a big collective yawn and cries that Canon has fallen behind the cutting edge and is playing catch-up with Nikon. The biggest difference? One camera was given an incremental version number, and the other was given a new model number as the start of a different series.

Take the actual specs of the two cameras, listed as features in relation to their predecessor model:

Camera A:

• 18MP sensor vs. 15MP sensor
• ISO100-12800 vs. ISO100-12800 (unchanged)
• 19pt AF, one f/2.8 cross-type vs. 9pt AF, one f/2.8 cross-type
• 8fps continuous vs. 6.3fps
• 100% frame, 1x magnification viewfinder vs. 95% frame, 0.95x magnification viewfinder
• Wireless flash control onboard vs. wireless flash control with additional accessory
• 1080p (30/25/24fps) video vs. no video

Camera B:

• 16MP sensor vs. 10MP sensor
• ISO50-102,400 vs. ISO50-6400
• 45pt AF, 39 f/2.8 cross-type vs. 45pt AF, 19 f/2.8 cross-type
• 10fps continuous vs. 10fps (unchanged)
• 1080p (30/25/24fps) video vs. no video

The Canon 7D

Camera A, of course, is the new Canon 7D, which is essentially a 60D successor to the 50D, and Canon’s new crop body for sports/action. While it has modest spec improvements over the 60D, there’s very little here that is game-changing – the sensor remains the same size, gets a paltry 20% increase in resolution that is likely to mean nothing with most lenses (the 50D’s 15MP sensor’s Nyquist Frequency (maximum theoretical resolution) already exceeded the resolving power of most Canon lenses – see dpreview’s test on a consumer Canon 18-200 and Canon’s high-end 70-200 2.8).

Improvements have been promised in the ISO department (and if you look at the preliminary sample shots from imaging-resource, there’s a considerable improvement on the 7D over the terrible 50D, which finally brings it to or slightly above D300s levels), but the range stays exactly the same.

AF points have been increased from 9 to 19, which will improve tracking, but the number of fast and accurate f/2.8 cross-type sensors remains exactly the same, at just one (the center point).

The jump to 8fps is a bigger jump than in years past (where the 20D already had 5fps back in 2004), but this like resolution runs into diminishing returns – the jump from 6.3 to 8 helps but doesn’t transform it into a useful sports camera, unlike say the jump from a Rebel’s slow 3.4 to 6.3 (it’s 26% vs. 85%).

Viewfinders are viewfinders – a nice improvement but having a Canon 20D and switching back and forth from its 95%, 0.9x mag viewfinder and my 5D all the time, not one that is going to make or break the shooting experience.

The two game-changers that the 7D provides are the now-standard video functionality, and wireless flash control (a built-in ST-E2 essentially, powered by the camera’s pop-up flash). Video capability opens up an entirely new realm outside the domain of still photography, and wireless flash capability allows for much more creativity in off-camera lighting straight out of the box, without requiring photographers to buy and carry along a bulky extra master flash or ST-E2 transmitter.

So at the end of the day we have a moderate step up from Canon’s previous 50D, that does sports photography somewhat better than any crop body before it, but still lags far behind not only Canon’s “pro” body (1D now has bigger 1.3x sensor, ISO100k, 45 AF points with 39 cross-types, and similar 10fps), but even the similarly-priced D300s from Nikon (lower ISO6400, but the same 51 AF point system as the D3, and 8fps with battery grip), as well as the now bargain-bin D300 (ignoring lack of video capability).

Despite its greater action capability, it’s still not the all-around do-everything solution that a camera like Nikon’s D700 is – despite having very adequate action capabilities (unlike Canon’s 5D Mark II), it still lacks the full frame sensor, which puts it at depth of field, dynamic range, and ISO noise disadvantages against its larger-sensored relatives.

So at the end of the day, you have a crop camera that gives you moderate sports capability, though it’s still nowhere near as powerful as the professional line, and doesn’t deliver the image quality or lens compatibility of full-frame cameras. Which sounds an awful lot like an xxD series camera, except Canon’s chosen a new single-digit model designation (“7D”) which has Canonite fanboys everywhere at their altar ready to and pony up an additional $500 (+42%) price hike over what a “60D” model would have cost.

Canon 1D Mark IV

The Mark IV is probably a very worthwhile upgrade for Mark III owners, given that camera's shortcomings, but is woefully inadequate when placed alongside Nikon's D3s

Canon’s 1D Mark IV is Canon’s two-and-a-half-years-in-the-making update to their much-maligned Canon 1D Mark III camera. As documented by Rob Galbraith, among others, the 1D3 had developed a reputation for fickle continuous AF tracking, to the point of being unusable by the standards of some.

So among the things promised by the new Mark IV is a completely revamped AF system, now with more than twice as many f/2.8 cross-type sensors (39 vs. 19 previously).

The Mark IV also supports a native ISO up to ISO12800 with a boost up to ISO102400 (we’re now up to 10 stops over ISO100), which gives it a range of 4 stops greater than the Mark III (which went up to ISO3200 native, ISO6400 boost).  For those who shoot in low-light constantly, this is a pretty big game-changer in-and-of-itself, regardless of the actually ISO quality (almost anything will be better than shooting at a native ISO3200 and having to digitally push those images).

The only other changes of note is the same 1080p (30/25/24fps) video mode, and a significant bump in resolution from 10MP to 16MP (60% increase), though the sensor stays the same at a roughly 1.3x crop.

The 1D Mark IV isn’t a monumental leap by any means – if all goes well it will be what the Mark III probably should have been – workable AF without glitches and a large high ISO range for low-light shooting.

However in my opinion, Canon bungled greatly here by again opting for an 1.3x APS-H sensor.  When Nikon’s D3 came out, it exposed one of the biggest knocks against the 1D series, which was its limited flexibility due to the crop factor altering angles of view for full-frame lenses and its larger mirror preventing compatibility with smaller crop lenses.  While it’s a fact that pure sports shooters may not care much for, it prevents the 1D from serving as a general purpose camera for the other big “professional body” market: journalists.  While the D3 can pull double-duty shooting with a 70-200mm or 300mm telephoto one event, and switch over to a all-purpose 24-70mm standard zoom the next, all general purpose lens options for the 1D are extremely awkward. Consider:

• The typical 24-70mm standard zoom provides an angle of view equivalent to 31-91mm. Nowhere near wide enough
• The next widest zoom, Canon’s 17-40mm f/4, provides an extremely short 22-52mm. Not nearly enough versatility.
• And if you want f/2.8, Canon’s 16-35mm f/2.8 gives an even smaller 21-46mm range.

For this exact reason, of course, Canon hopes to upsell you to their $8k 1Ds series, and ideally make you pay more than double ($13k total) for what Nikon neatly fits into a single D3s body for $5k.

Canon diehards will claim, of course, that with the 1D and 1Ds bodies, Canon simply offers the best of both worlds – maximizing range with the 1D and maximizing resolution with the 1Ds. But Nikon has already shown this argument to be utter crap with its D3x and D3(s) tandem. Birders aside, the “crop factor” argument of extending focal length range holds little weight – yes the out-of-camera image appears to be “closer”, but photographers often forget a crop sensor is exactly that – a crop of the full-frame image. The exact same result could be achieved by taking photos with a larger sensor of same pixel density, and manually cropping the images down later. The upshot of crop sensors is that greater pixel density can be achieved while retaining fast shooting speeds (you’re processing less pixels than a larger sensor would), but the vasts majority of users (sports photogs and journalists shooting for newsprint and online) aren’t coming close to utilizing the full resolution capability of their cameras. The downshot of crop sensors are the increased depth of field, higher noise, lower dynamic range, and less margin for framing error, which are all very real effects that show up in everything from poster prints to low-res newsprint and online photos.

The only metric by which the Mark III can hope to compete is with high ISO quality, but with both more pixels and a smaller sensor than not only the Mark III but Nikon’s competing D3s (Mark IV ends up with 3.1MP per cm² vs the D3s’ 1.4MP/cm²), the chances of reaching parity with, much less greatly exceeding, competitors seems slim.

Aside from the numerous advantages associated purely with live view (and could technically be realized with a traditional DSLR – it’s just that forcing live view only is likely to spur much more rapid development), the one key advantage to Micro Four Thirds (and upcoming systems like it, such as Samsung’s NX system) is that the removal of the mirror assembly allows lenses to sit much closer to the image plane, making for much smaller camera bodies and lenses.

The first few of these cameras – the Panasonic G and GH1 – failed completely to live up to the small form factor potential – they were shaped much like traditional SLRs, albeit slightly smaller.

The Panasonic GH1 - one of the first Micro Four Thirds cameras which didn't quite realize the potential of the formfactor

Next, Olympus released a Micro Four Thirds of its own: the E-P1 “Pen” which harked back to Olympus’ historical line of compact film cameras. Unlike the G1, the E-P1 actually began to approach what some would call “compact” – it was just 1.4in thick, though that’s not taking into account the attached lens.

Now Panasonic is jumping in on the bandwagon with their E-P1-esque GF1, which sports a slim compact-like body. The specs are nothing to get excited about, though it does have the a built-in flash that was notably missing from the E-P1. In a puzzling decision though, Panasonic decided not to implement any sensor-based image stabilization, relying on lens-based IS to counter camera shake. Unless they were denied a sensor IS license by Olympus (a possibility), I’d say this is a rather bone-headed decision, since any stabilized lenses will add weight unnecessarily (or in the case of pancake lenses that are pretty much made for this kind of camera, impossible to add in), defeating the entire purpose of Micro Four-Thirds.

The two kit lenses offered with the GF1 are a bit more appealing than the E-P1 package: a standard 14-45mm OIS kit lens and a 20mm f/1.7 pancake prime. The prime still isn’t quite there to portrait range and gets even further away from all-around wide angle utility than Oly’s 17mm f/2.8 pancake, but it does offer a much larger f/1.7 aperture.

A comparison of the new landscape in premium compacts:

Panasonic GF1 size comparison

As expected, the added IS to the Panasonic kit lens makes it much larger (22.6% longer) than the E-P1 setup. Panasonic’s pancake, however, is about the same size as Oly’s 17mm and with its f/1.7 aperture is by far the best in terms of large aperture performance (35mm equivalent of f/3.4)

If you’re in the market for this kind of camera though, the most sensible thing seems to be taking the E-P1 to get yourself sensor-based IS, and combining that with Panny’s 17mm pancake prime. Though you will be losing out on the built-in flash, which is somewhat of a must-have for a camera like this (since again, needing to carry around a huge external flash defeats the size advantage).

Pentax K-x (space white)

Following up on their K-7, Pentax has now come up with an entry-level K-x. While it doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking that wasn’t already seen on the K-7, it packs in many of the features seen on many competitors’ midrange model, and perhaps pending reviews on image quality and disregarding the overall Pentax system upgrade options, is probably the best choice out there currently for the beginning photographer/student.

The big headline features:

• 12.4MP CMOS (different from the K-7 14.6MP sensor, but interestingly also uses CMOS unlike all previous Pentaxes which used CCDs)
• ISO up to 12.8k
• Live-view with face-detect AF
• 720p, 24fps video
• 4.7fps continuous shooting
• $650 MSRP with 18-55 kit lens (and likely to drop further once it gets off pre-order)

A comparison:

Pentax K-x comparison

In a comparison with the $500 entry-level cameras, the K-x blows them away in nearly aspect, and goes toe-to-toe or even exceeds the D5000 and Rebel T1i in every single category, despite being significantly cheaper (especially once the street price drops lower from MSRP)

Interestingly enough, the Pentax K-x will come in a variety of colors, including an ultra-spiffy red (below), the space white shown above, and your ordinary black.

Interestingly enough, Pentax Japan features a site where you can come up with your own custom color scheme, and apparently order it as well, which personally is an insanely appealing prospect.

Pentax K-x (red)

Pentax K-x custom design - design your own!

I think this is a ranking of custom designs that users have created

Pentax K-x press release

Nikon SLR Refresh

Nikon introduced a couple of new SLR updates, the updated D300s and D3s. The D300 is a pretty incremental upgrade to the mid-level D300, offering a modest +1fps improvement in continuous shooting (up to 7fps), and bringing the video capability that’s now standard on every new DSLR.

The bigger story came a few months later, in the form of the D3s. While still not a revolutionary introduction, it is much more than a software refresh. Among the features of note were a video mode (at 24fps!, albeit only at 1280×720 (720p) resolution), 11fps available in a higher-res crop mode (it now crops only 1.2x instead of 1.5x), and an increase in ISO range, up to ISO12.8k natively with a boost to ISO100k. The D3s presumably packs a different sensor, though it still maintains the same 12.1MP resolution.

People have been going goo-gah over the last spec in particular, especially given such a high linear number for ISO (and from here, it’s just four more stops til we get to ISO1.6 MILLION), though it’s really just +1 stop natively and +2 stop boost over the previous D3. And it’s important to note that the simple availability of an ISO capability says nothing about image quality at that level – that would be the same mistake as having the maximum shutter speed expanded from 30 seconds to a minute, and somehow thinking this magically makes photos at 1/500s less blurry. Given that the resolution (and thus pixel pitch) remained the exact same, I certainly wouldn’t expect quality to be any worse than the D3, and quite probably will be a tad better (although I have extreme doubts about the ISO100k mode, which is digitally boosted 3 stops; things have always looked terrible at just +2 stops digitally, even boosting ISO100+2 to 400.)

All in all, about as much as you could expect from Nikon, who seems to do very incremental updates and waits a long time to deliver big, revolutionary refreshes. Here’s hoping we see that D3s sensor in a D700s soon, though 1080p at 24fps would be nice (and completely feasible: 1920×1080x24fps = 49.8MP/s throughput, while we definitely know that the D700 supports 12.1MPx9fps = 108.9MP/s throughput in its continuous shooting mode).

Nikon D3s press release (I don’t know why they keep referring to it as “D3S”, past history and even the logo in the image clearly denote “D3s”)

The Nikon DS3, now with 720p video and ISO up to 12.8K/100K(boost)

Nikon also announced a couple of lens refreshes, with Version II’s of their popular 18-200mm VR ultrazoom and a long-awaited update to the 70-200 f/2.8 VR to optimize it for full-frame (FX) sensors. As Nikon had long trumpeted 1.5x crop DX sensors before their introduction of the full-frame D3 in 2007, they cut corners with their introduction of the 70-200 f/2.8 VR in 2003, building a lens that was technically full-frame but had an abysmal drop-off in performance once you actually got to the corners outside of a 1.5x imaging circle. This wasn’t found out until a bit after the D3 was released, finally giving digital photographers a platform to test the lens’ full frame performance, which resulted in tests like these:

http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/nikon_70-200_2p8_vr_n15/page6.asp

http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/widget/Fullscreen.ashx?reviews=17&fullscreen=true&av=3&fl=105&vis=VisualiserSharpnessMTF&stack=horizontal&lock=&config=/lensreviews/widget/LensReviewConfiguration.xml%3F4

The new 70-200 II promises to fix all of these problems with a new optical design and coatings, and promises to throw in a more effective “4-stop” VR system as well. There haven’t been too many authoritative tests yet to show how it performs (if you’ve found any, send me a link!), but presumably they should have no problem building such a lens – Canon has had two 70-200 2.8’s that’ve performed flawlessly on full-frame, and Nikon itself had a great 80-200 2.8 lens prior to the 70-200 VR I.

The one stickler? As if Nikon’s $2019 price on the original 70-200 I wasn’t enough, the 70-200 VR II will now set you back a cool $2400.

Nikon 18-200 II and 70-200 2.8 VR II press release

Have got a big night tonight – will update later, but for now you can munch on the details of the press release and Imaging Resource’s short overview/analysis.

Good product photography - sure looks dainty doesn't it?

For those of you not already in the know, Micro Four-Thirds is a new interchangeable lens system developed by Olympus and Panasonic which is the first mirror-less digital camera system to feature interchangeable lenses.  The removal of the mirror (and associated prism and optical viewfinder) and the exclusive usage of live view for image preview enables a drastic size reduction for both cameras and lenses, and as you can see here, the new Olympus E-P1 is tiny tiny tiny.

How tiny?  The exact specs on the E-P1 are 121 x 70 x 35mm (4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4 in) and 335 g (11.8 oz) – body only, with no batteries – which firmly plants it in compact camera category.  Of course, you’ll need to attach a lens at some point before shooting, which will add some bulk, but as of now the E-P1 indisputably offers the most compact interchangeable lens solution.

The following is a run-down of things you might have already picked up from other news sources or blogs. The real interesting stuff is the size and equivalent aperture/focal length comparison, at Size Comparison.

A rundown of some other specs (and be sure to check more in-depth reviews at imaging-resource and dcresource)

• 12.3MP Four-Thirds sensor, which appears to be based off the same sensor used in the E-620 and E-30.  If that’s the case, I wouldn’t hold out for any revolutionary leaps forward (and Olympus isn’t advertising any either), though the E-30 sensor’s a solid performer given it has 1/4 the area to work with compared to Nikon’s and Canon’s best, and still thoroughly trounces anything coming out of Sony’s factory.
• A standard 3fps continuous shooting, as if you’ll be doing any serious sports shooting with it.
• Sensor-shift image stabilization.  Panasonic left this out of their first G(H)1 Micro Four-Thirds cameras in lieu of lens-based stabilization.  This was more or less a no-brainer for Olympus, which doesn’t have strong development in lens-based IS and lens IS would have completely defeated the purpose of Micro Four-Thirds with its added size, weight, and cost.
• SD format.  How many out there breathing a sigh of relief (or perhaps shedding a tear?) that it isn’t xD exclusive?
• MF-2 adapter for Olympus OM mount lenses.  An interesting option, particularly since the range of Micro Four-Thirds lenses is fairly slim at the moment.
• 1280×720, 30fps video (720p).  As one would expect, video is definitely a feature of the E-P1.  There’s nothing very extraordinary about it – the resolution is middle of the road, though you will get aperture-priority control and stereo sound.  Unfortunately, maximum recording time is limited to 2GB files and/or 7 minutes at 720p resolution.
• Lack of a built-in flash.  Though it’s not quite a dealbreaker given that its high-ISO capabilities will be far superior to that of a normal compact camera, the E-P1 does noticeably omit a built-in flash of any sort.  Olympus wants to sell you their FL-14 flash attachment that essentially does the same thing, and while it is custom-designed to match very well with the E-P1, having to carry another attachment for full-functionality somewhat defeats the purpose of a making a camera as compact as the E-P1.

The E-P1 and ridiculous flash attachment they want you to buy for basic direct flash functionality.

Oly seems to have gone all-out with the retro design, which does look different and not quite as Spartan or industrial as something like the Sigma DP1.

With the E-P1 announcement comes a couple of new lenses designed for the E-P1 in mind: a compact 14-42mm kit lens and a 17mm pancake.

M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

The new M.Zuiko isn’t so much of a special lens – it’ll provide the equivalent of a pretty much standard 28-84mm equivalent view.  What’s interesting about the Micro Four-Thirds kit lens is that it uses a drastic retractive design that makes it really compact – 43.5mm (1.7in) to be exact.  This compared to the 61mm length of Olympus’ regular Four-Thirds 14-42mm and the 70mm length of a lens like Canon’s 18-55 kit.

M.Zuiko 17mm f/2.8

The 17mm f/2.8 pancake is probably the most interesting Micro Four-Thirds lens to come around yet.  The lens is thin – a depth of just 22mm (0.87in), and results in a camera thickness of just 2.3in when attached.  It’s also an f/2.8, which will help with low-light, though I wouldn’t hold out for amazingly shallow depth of field capabilities at this focal length on a 2x crop sensor.  As a first and only Micro Four-Thirds pancake lens, though, I find the 17mm focal to be a bit conservative – it gives a 34mm equivalent in that no-man’s range: it’s not a 50mm equivalent portrait lens, and it isn’t as versatile as a 28mm wide-angle either.  Hopefully Oly or Panasonic remedy this soon.

Amazon has the E-P1 listed at $750 for the body only, $800 for the 14-42 kit, and $900 for the 17mm kit.

Size comparison

Retro-styling aside, the name of the E-P1 game is size.  It is undoubtedly the key point of interest for many consumers, who up to this point have not really had quite a solution like the E-P1 for a high image quality camera which has almost the portability of a compact camera.  We’ll take compare the E-P1 in its two lens kits to several other high-quality compact cameras.

• Canon G10: Not a very compact camera, and it doesn’t produce very high-quality images either, but it’s included for reference’s sake since it seems to be the most popular camera in this class.
• Fujifilm F200EXR: The only true ultracompact in the bunch, the F200EXR and its SuperCCD EXR sensor is about as good as it gets, though it has a variety of tradeoffs and achieves high resolution, noise performance, and dynamic range in different modes.
• Panasonic LX3: The current king of premium compact cameras, due to both an excellent sensor and a superb lens.
• Sigma DP1: A now-aging but still unique large sensor, fixed lens camera using Foveon’s innovative X3 sensor.
• Sigma DP2: A variant on the DP1 which uses the same sensor but features a more mid-range lens.

The following table displays the size of the various cameras, along with 35mm equivalent focal lengths and apertures (for purposes of depth of field).  These equivalent specifications normalize high ISO performance (based on sensor size – this doesn’t take into account differing sensor technologies).

Olympus E-P1 size comparison

We can see here how clearly inferior cameras like the Canon G10 and Fuji F200 are, though to Fuji’s credit, its superior sensor will give it much more of a leg up on the G10 than the simple sensor size implies, and to both their credit, they pack significantly more versatile zoom ranges than any of the other setups on this list.

Panasonic’s LX3 is an interesting camera – while its sensor isn’t that much larger than other compacts such as the G10 or F200, it makes up for it with an impressive lens which packs an f/2-2.8 aperture in real terms.  While the f/9.4-13 range isn’t going to turn any heads, it really isn’t so far off from the f/7-11 range of the E-P1 (or any other Four-Thirds camera) paired with the 14-42 lens, and carries with it the advantage of a much, much more compact size (half the thickness of the E-P1 setup).

The Sigma DP1 and DP2 is where the competition gets a bit more interesting.  Ignoring the intricacies of the Foveon sensor for the moment, we can see that when paired with the 17mm pancake, the E-P1’s 34mm f/5.6 equivalent is sandwiched right between the wider-angle, smaller aperture DP1 and the narrower-angle, larger aperture DP2.  The 17mm pancake really is in a no-man’s land – not really wide enough for landscapes and not really narrow enough for portraits.  Size-wise the E-P1 is nearly the same as the DP1/DP2, though a fair bit larger area-wise.

Of course, the Foveon sensor throws a bit of a wrench into the image quality equation.  Say what you will about the Foveon vs. Bayer debate, but in its present (or more precisely, now three-year old form), the 4.6MP DP1/DP2 sensor simply doesn’t stack up with the 12MP E-P1, from a resolution standpoint and definitely from a noise standpoint.

On top of this, the E-P1 has a number of other advantages over the Sigmas, namely a video mode and the ability to switch lenses (though this somewhat throws the portability comparison out the window).

Of course, there’s really nothing like the E-P1 and 14-42mm, which provides a camera with a full 28-84mm standard range, and weighs in at 3.1 inches thick.  At this size, it’s far beyond the pocketability threshold, though it’s still far smaller than any of the regular DSLR kits out there.

So what’s the verdict on the E-P1?  Olympus and Panasonic have struck on a really innovative system here, but they’ve got a narrow window to capitalize on building the premier high-quality compact system, before Samsung’s NV system rolls around and before Canon/Nikon finally bite the bullet and buy into the mirror-less EVIL system.  The 17mm pancake is a step in the right direction, and really plays to the strength of the Micro Four Thirds format – small bodies with small lenses that bring large sensor image quality just to the very edge of portability.

There’s little to no point in trying to turn a camera like the E-P1 into a full-fledged SLR-like platform – even with the most compact kit lens they could make, the camera is far beyond pocket portability, and at this point if you’ll have to carry a camera bag around it may as well be something full-fledged like a Panasonic G1 or Olympus E-620.

Canon newsletter announcing a firmware update providing manual controls. Surprisingly unstiff coming from Canon's marketing =P

Since the 5D has come out, it’s been a force to be reckoned with in the digital video industry – after years of toiling away with tiny apertures and tiny 2/3″ sensors (about the size of those found on your typical compact point and shoot digital camera) on even the highest end consumer/prosumer video cameras (even those cameras approaching $10k), there was finally a product which could provide quality on par with cinema-quality movie cameras (even better, actually – the 36×24mm sensor has about twice the capture area of the film typically used for movies).

With a huge array of lenses to choose from, the availability of large aperture lenses to provide shallow depth of field, and extreme high-ISO ability for low-light situations, the 5D Mark II has the hardware potential to be a low-cost consumer solution for creating professional-quality video.  One of the biggest things in its way, however, was the crippling of controls that left the 5D Mark II operating essentially in automatic program mode while recording video – no way at all to control shutter speed or aperture, which are critical in achieving the desired blur and depth of field attributes in an image.

To its defense, the only camera to-date to provide manual controls is Panasonic’s GH1 – Nikon doesn’t offer manual control either in its D90 or D5000.  But the point was a huge stickler that, control-wise, made the 5D Mark II more a video camera for snapshot home videos than cinema-quality movies.

Originally I had guessed that Olympus or Panasonic or Samsung would be the first ones to move in on the market, and that Nikon would provide a fully capable video DSLR system long before Canon did; to me, the reasoning behind Canon crippling the video ability on its DSLRs was simple – unlike other DSLR manufacturers, Canon already has a lucrative range of prosumer and professional digital video cameras that a fully capable DSLR selling under $3k, or even under $1k for its APS-C Rebel T1i, would almost completely cannibalize.

For reasons unknown, however, Canon is now releasing a firmware update that provides full aperture, shutter speed, and ISO control (ISO only goes up to ISO6400, however…) in video mode.  This is huge news, and gives the 5D Mark II the potential to become the undisputed king of digital video devices – its image sensor certainly has the potential to blow away even the most expensive $100K professional videocamera you can buy.

Now just about the only big features left on DSLR video enthusiasts’ list is variable framerate recording – currently the 5D Mark II is stuck at 30fps, which doesn’t jive well with 25fps PAL displays nor 24fps cinema displays, and produces a distinct “cheap home video” effect to movement. But perhaps Canon’s willingness to provide new capabilities by way of firmware updates – quite a break from their traditional corporate philosophy – signals a newfound willingness to listen to the consumer base and improve.

http://vincentlaforet.smugmug.com/gallery/6042742_wZKiA#377930419_dgxvY-A-LB

There’s also a behind-the-scenes video you can check out here:

http://vincentlaforet.smugmug.com/gallery/6021407_xEg87/1/#378608891_Jd2CT-A-LB

Some comments on the video from a previous post:

—————-

With the recent announcements of the D90 and perhaps more prominently the 5D Mark II (since it actually has the features to make video usable… like AF and external mic jack), photography circles have been alight with excitement (and a fair amount of naysayer criticism) about video on SLRs.

….

It’s probably no secret where I stand on video capabilities for still cameras.  While we’ve seen only boring tripod-mounted sample videos so far, Canon’s just put out a short film, Reverie, made by Vincent Laforet:

Image quality is absolutely stunning, but I have to admit, the 30fps just kills me while I’m watching it – the level of immersion is just not the same.  The video world needs 24fps (or better yet, variable fps to any number!).  PLEASE.

It’s probably no secret where I stand on video capabilities for still cameras.  While we’ve seen only boring tripod-mounted sample videos so far, Canon’s just put out a short film, Reverie, made by Vincent Laforet:

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2086

Vincent’s blog post here: http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2008/09/22/without-further-ado-reverie/

Image quality is absolutely stunning, but I have to admit, the 30fps just kills me while I’m watching it – the level of immersion is just not the same.  The video world needs 24fps (or better yet, variable fps to any number!).  PLEASE.

UPDATE: The links above no longer work, but the video has been reposted.

Adobe's new Photoshop CS4

Today is the day Adobe announces the new Creative Suite 4 (CS4), which comes with a whole slew of new Adobe products for everything from grahic design to layout management to video editing to flash animation.  For us photographers, the headline here is going to be new versions of Adobe Photoshop CS4 and an updated Adobe Bridge CS4.

A quick headline of particularly interesting (to me) new features in the new Photoshop (here’s Adobe’s pdf if you’d like to read through all the changes yourself):

• “Adjustments panel” with nondestructive tools: One of the great things that Lightroom showed photographers was non-destructive adjustments – things like curves or saturation adjustments could be applied and undid later, and the adjustment settings could also be picked up and applied over on other images.  While this has been possible for awhile in Photoshop with adjustment layers, I know that I’ve simply opted to go for a direct curves or saturation adjustment most of the time because it’s so much quicker to access, so maybe this changes things.
• “Vibrancy” adjustment: Users of Lightroom or even Adobe Camera Raw have probably seen this – vibrancy is simply a sort of saturation+local contrast enhancement tool.  Nothing that couldn’t be done before, but surely a tool that those who’ve never experimented with local contrast enhancement will be delighted with.
• Photostiching tools: The new CS4 also features a “Photomerge” tool that promises to blend together multiple images into panoramas, complete with “vignetting and geometric distortion corrections”, as well as automatic detection of extreme fisheye distortion, apparently.  I haven’t been totally happy with current photo-stitching program, Autostitch, thus far, so maybe this is a real answer.
• Content-aware scaling: Some of you may have seen this video of resizing algorithms known as “content-aware scaling” or “seam carving”. Rather than directly scaling an image (which will often distort the information) or cropping an image (which cuts out useful information), seam-carving looks for vertical or horizontal “seams” of least-important image data, and deletes these, resulting in a downsized image (or upsized, even) that preserves the detail and proportion in the most important image elements. While it’s not going to have much practical application in everyday photo-editing, there are certainly some useful applications, especially if you can apply seam weights to remove certain elements of the image. Content-aware resizing video:
• Focus-bracketing autoblending: By far one of the coolest, exciting, most useful tools to be introduced in Photoshop.  Macro shooters are well aware of the limitations of depth of field – even stopped down to something absurdly small like f/32, depth of field can still be razor thin, depending on the magnification.  Focus blending works by blending together bracketed focus distnaces, combining the in-focus regions of each image to effectively generate an image with larger depth of field.  For example, if your depth of field only extends +/- 1 mm, you can take a shot at 10mm distance, 8mm distance, and 12mm distance, and get a depth of field range spanning 7-13mm rather than 9-11mm you’d get from the 10mm distance shot by itself.
• Leveraging the GPU: Photoshop CS4 also promises to make use of the extra processing potential available in video card GPUs – potentially a boon when doing intensive tasks like scaling images, especially at scales that aren’t binary powers of 100% (50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%).
• Localized adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw 5: Adobe Camera Raw has been in many ways a groundbreaking new approach to image processing compared to the old, stale formula that Photoshop used to use (and still does, to an extent).  With its slew of sliders to apply filters on top of an image, rather than using filters to transform the actual data of an image, ACR provided non-destructive editing in a simple and quick interface (something that Adobe Lightroom also features).  The limitation that prevents ACR from almost completely replacing Photoshop for the most basic edits is a relative limitation in the fine-tuning of filters (ACR gives a single “fill light” slider, for example, while Photoshop offers a Shadows/Highlights tools with three paramters for amount, threshold, and radius) and the lack of localized edits (applying that curve adjustment to only a portion of the image, rather than the whole thing).  ACR5 promises to address the latter issue, at least, with a “paint tool” to designate areas where filters are to be applied, much like layer masks in Photoshop.
• Tabbed image interface: The trend of tabbed interfaces has proliferated everywhere, although I’m not really convinced of its usefulness for something like an image editing application.  Tabs work great for browsers because you’ll want to open up other pages and perhaps switch back and forth quickly.  In my processing workflow, I’m usually opening up one image at a time, processing it, and closing it before moving to the next one.
• 64-bit support!: Adobe is finally moving to 64-bit with CS4 (for Windows only – sorry Macfans).  Despite mainstream digital cameras now moving to 20+ MP and their increasing filesizes, most users probably won’t see huge dividends from the move to 64-bit, although you might if you’re processing large numbers of images at once or dealing with ginormous TIFFs or RAWs from the medium format megapixel monsters like the Phase One P65+.
• Live-preview for healing brush and clone tool: thank goodness, one of the most annoying usability limitations of these tools for a long while (clone and healing tool basically copies in other pixels into an area whose pixels you want to replace.  Needless to say it’s been a pain doing this semi-blind).

The verdict?  As always Adobe introduces a bevy of appealing and honestly useful goodies.  The UI and performance improvements will have to be test-driven before anyone can make a real judgement, but the feature list of new tools is strong, if leaning a bit to the power-user side (how many average users would really use seam-carving or focus-blending tools on a regular basis, even if they’re fascinating pieces of technology?).

Despite all the new tools, I don’t see the possible of Photoshop workflow changing in any fundamental way (à la processing through Lightroom or ACR), which is a bit of a shame because I think the non-destructive and replicable adjustments offered in Lightroom are far better suited to the workflows of most photo processors – they just need some of the fine-tuning options and localized editing that Photoshop offers to make them complete.  But at this point, Photoshop’s workflow has been so deeply embedded into the habits of so many that I don’t think Adobe could fundamentally change Photoshop if they could, which is why you’ll increasingly see Photoshop development centered on graphic design and 3D imaging and animation, as with the Photoshop Extended version of the program.