Camera rumors for 2016?

Nah... There's actually quite a bit of amazing technology here, though most of it is not cameras.

Even the budget free indies have been able to capture hdr for years... It wasn't that long ago that even 13 stops required stitching multiple exposures together. We're far beyond what currently available consumer display technology can deliver... And Christie's two demo systems (one for Ang Lee's film showcasing 120 fps playback, one in their booth showcasing hdr) are hopefully a hint of what's coming... We're finally going to have a way to show what we can already capture. That should be very exciting for Filmmakers at all levels.
 
DLD said:
Most consumer displays have 6 stops now and heading toward 10 with the HDR. Cameras have been able to capture 10 for a while. The key in the latest development has been in emulating the "film look", which require more stops for a smooth highlight roll-off.

In any case, when half of the big name manufacturers decide to essentially sit the major trade show out while there are still product gaps to be filled defines the ho-hum for me.

PS. As I'd mentioned in another thread, a camera with URSA 4.6 specs at URSA 4.6 prices but from a major manufacturer would have created a lot of attention. As it is, unless the FS5 Raw upgrade shows to be a major step up, the NAB 2016 is ho-hum indeed.
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I agree. But it's tricky. I don't think Sony would want to kill FS5, FS7 and F5 and take sales way from F55.
 
DLD said:
Most consumer displays have 6 stops now and heading toward 10 with the HDR. Cameras have been able to capture 10 for a while. The key in the latest development has been in emulating the "film look", which require more stops for a smooth highlight roll-off.

In any case, when half of the big name manufacturers decide to essentially sit the major trade show out while there are still product gaps to be filled defines the ho-hum for me.

PS. As I'd mentioned in another thread, a camera with URSA 4.6 specs at URSA 4.6 prices but from a major manufacturer would have created a lot of attention. As it is, unless the FS5 Raw upgrade shows to be a major step up, the NAB 2016 is ho-hum indeed.
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It's only a ho-hum if you think NAB is just about new cameras. Cameras typically play a very small percentage of the products released at NAB.
 
Tamerlin said:
. And Christie's two demo systems (one for Ang Lee's film showcasing 120 fps playback, one in their booth showcasing hdr) are hopefully a hint of what's coming... We're finally going to have a way to show what we can already capture. That should be very exciting for Filmmakers at all levels.
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Laser powered projectors are the current state of the art but most consumers are unlikely to ever deploy it (the old WAF is at play here). In any case, the new HDR sets (Sony, Samsung, Vzio) do represent a huge step up from what has been around ... well, always.

Giriki said:
I agree. But it's tricky. I don't think Sony would want to kill FS5, FS7 and F5 and take sales way from F55.
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There's a room for Canon to make a $6,000-$8,000 camera and, for Sony, to make a $15,000 camera. But they both yielded the stage to Panasonic's Varicam LT (btw, I still recall the "is Varicam 35 too late to the market?" debate from a year ago). The Cine Alta line update is long overdue but it'll probably depend on how many sales F55 will lose to Panasonic.

Thomas Smet said:
It's only a ho-hum if you think NAB is just about new cameras. Cameras typically play a very small percentage of the products released at NAB.
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The steps in the lighting technology have been largely incremental. Every year, there're a few more CRI points, a few more lumens, etc. Improvement is expected - improvement is delivered. That's what I call ho-hum! It's like getting five more horses in a new car release. It's nice but it doesn't exactly produce the excitement of Ford Focus RS.
 
DLD said:
Laser powered projectors are the current state of the art but most consumers are unlikely to ever deploy it (the old WAF is at play here). In any case, the new HDR sets (Sony, Samsung, Vzio) do represent a huge step up from what has been around ... well, always.
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Christie projects will almost certainly be for theaters and such for quite a while, but that doesn't change the fact that the HDR that they're showing is a hint of what's coming with Dolby Vision and and the new HDR viewing standard... hopefully.
 
Tamerlin said:
Christie projects will almost certainly be for theaters and such for quite a while, but that doesn't change the fact that the HDR that they're showing is a hint of what's coming with Dolby Vision and and the new HDR viewing standard... hopefully.
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There are, once again, competing standards. Some manufacturers claim to exceed the requirements of the UHD Coalition. Others use proprietary software since they don't want to pay licensing fees to Dolby and others. Samsung 4K Blu-Ray actually has the non-HDR option for the non-HDR sets. It squeezes it down to the Rec.709 space since Rec.709 TV's (mostly) can't do that themselves.

BTW, I remember when the laser powered rear projections came out in the mid-00's. Mitsubishi thought they had a winner on their hands with the LaserVue and so they decided to price their sets in the same range with the top end plasma TV's - $6,000-$8,000. Suffice it to say, Mitsubishi is no longer in the TV manufacturing business.
 
Yes, we do need for one standard to be THE standard in order to get HDR viewing into the home. High end animators (e.g. PIXAR) and cinematographers (e.g. ASC members) are strongly in favor of HDR over resolution and/or frame rate, in spite of Ang Lee's stunning presentation. I tend to agree; while I do agree with Ang Lee (it's hard not to after seeing the footage) that higher frame rates and resolutions do make for more realistic looking and immersive imagery, I still think that the PIXAR folks are right, and that HDR should be a higher priority, partly because it's basically the low-hanging fruit in the quest for better image quality.

One can only hope.
 
High HFR will probably go to sports and news rather than the narrative. There are 720 50p YouTube clips from the last World Cup and they look better than the (claimed) 1080 at 24p. What makes it kind of odd, looking at C300 MKII, as an example, is that there is no option for a 2560x1440 60p even though the bandwidth requirement would be about the same as 4K at 24/30. And one could then upres the 2.5K footage a la Alexa anyway.
 
Initially, perhaps. I suspect that eventually we'll see more HFR in narrative, though I'd be quite surprised if you were wrong about sports adopting HFR first.

Regarding the C300MKII, it's possible that the sensor's readout isn't fast enough to enable 60fps.
 
Canon has just reported their latest financials. Their office product division profits are down 38% Y-t-Y, with the imaging division down 33%. They're blaming the slowdown in the P&S cameras for the declining performance in imaging.
 
I don't think that anyone is successfully competing in the P&S range against the cellular cameras nowadays. Sony has a big edge there by virtue of providing cameras for a lot of cell phones, but I don't know of any that are using Canon sensors and cameras.

Maybe Canon should start making cell phones, or partner with Samsung or LG to integrate a cell phone into their cameras. ;)
 
Mitch Gross said:
If they did, it would be taking a very large company and cutting off a massive chunk. You don't do that, you ride the wave down for better or worse.
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Or you paddle to a different coast (and, by my confusing analogy, I meant that Canon just acquired a medical imaging business from Toshiba)

As to their numbers and the plausible but not sufficiently encompassing explanation, it's true about the P&S but it doesn't mean that Canon and other photo-video companies have no options. Canon, as an example, could have brought out new cameras with significantly better specs - including a higher pixel count, larger sensors, 4K/6K video, DPAF etc. - to the lower price points. Even by matching Samsung NX1 specs - a camera from a year and a half ago - Canon would have created the same amount of buzz for their product that Sony has with their RX 100/10 and A6300/7S/SII/RII models.

But they chose to maintain their profit margins and old price points. Meanwhile, Sony almost caught up with Canon in the very lucrative full frame segment in Europe (it did in Germany) and is making major inroads with A6300 in the APS-C area everywhere else. And if Sony's share goes up more, as it should, and Canon's net falls another 33%, then within a year or two, that imaging division might indeed be in deep, deep trouble.
 
So, ILC amounts to 49% of unit sales and 89% of revenue of the "imaging system" segment.
ILC units were flat, compacts are falling 22%, total digital camera units are down 12%. All matches up to here, approximately, with that 49% share of unit sales.
Net income fell by 17.5%. With just 11% of revenue, compacts can't account for that even if they are now given away for free. Revenue per unit in the ILC segment must be fallilng quite a bit, at least 15%. Lots of rebels going out, high-end models having a hard time.
 
Mitch Gross said:
If they did, it would be taking a very large company and cutting off a massive chunk. You don't do that, you ride the wave down for better or worse.
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Big tech companies are not as untouchable as they once were. If Canon decides to ride the wave and keep burning money on failed products for better or worse it will bite them in the ass sooner than later. They could limit the amount of low end PS models and reduce costs, use those savings to improve their best products. Isn't that how Apple got their sh!t done?
 
Yep to the above posts but it is a wasted argument talking about Canon. They just do not run the company that way for better or for worse. They could wipe everybody out with a strong 5DMKIV but odds are they will not. This is more from a video point of view as on the stills side, there is not too much to improve upon from the MKIII.

Think of all of the people that want to get Canon glass on these other brand cameras to shoot video. Imagine if the 5DMKIV had *sharp* 4k60p with a 10bit option? Folks would go crazy around here. It would be like the release of "The Rite of Spring" all over again. Revenue all over the place from body and lens purchases. I use a MKIII and have a MKII as a backup for still work. I have decided to never upgrade these cameras as they work great. How are they going to get me to buy again? That is their dilemma.
 
If the 5D4 had sharp 4K at 60fps with 10-bit uncompressed out, I'd still be complaining about the DR. That is: it also needs a modern sensor and a good gamma curve, otherwise I don't care about sharpness or bit depth. YMMV.
 
Samuel H said:
If the 5D4 had sharp 4K at 60fps with 10-bit uncompressed out, I'd still be complaining about the DR. That is: it also needs a modern sensor and a good gamma curve, otherwise I don't care about sharpness or bit depth. YMMV.
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Lots of other specs should be in there to compete with Sony. 120 FPS, C-Log, RAW (Especially when Magic Lantern showed us Canon cameras have this capability) are some that should be taken into consideration.
 
With all of that, if DR out of the sensor is not improved, it's still two stops behind current Sony cameras. Hell, even my RX100 IV shooting slog2 video has a stop more DR than 5D3+RAW video...

Canon would be welcome back to the game, because competition means better products at cheaper prices, but I don't see myself using one unless the DR issue is sorted out, and it's not an easy one because it's a sensor-design issue.
 
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