Disclaimer: the following is a total pipe dream. Read at your own peril!
Back in February of 2003, the great-great-great-grand-daddy of the 7D, the EOS 10D did 3fps continuous shooting on a 6mp sensor. That's 3K with 3:2 aspect ratio for us video people. Fast forward six and a half years to September 2009 and you get the 7D with 8fps continuous shooting on a 18mp sensor, or 5K in 3:2.
If Canon ever wised up and decided to go back to a 6mp sensor (most people, even most stills-pros never need more than that anyway. 6mp was plenty sufficient for pro work then and it still is now) I think it won't be long before we get to a point where we can do 24fps continuous shooting... or basically shooting 24 jpegs per second, much like a "real" film camera as opposed to the compressed video we're getting now.
In fact, if you do the math:
18mp is 3 times the data size of 6mp (6x3 = 18)
This stands to reason that if the 7D somehow got a 6mp sensor stuffed into it, it has the capability to shoot 3 times the continuous frames it has now or... 24! It can do 8fps now. 8 x 3 = 24!
Imagine, a 3k camera able to do 24p in high jpeg quality for individual frames. I might not even care about RAW at that point. Jpeg has plenty of head room as it is. (Hey, isn't that what RED does? Raw 3k?)
Any electronics/semiconductor engineers in the audience willing to hack one up? :grin:
In all seriousness, though. If Canon ever put the eggheads from their stills division and camcorder division together, I think they can probably come up with a RED-like camera TODAY. Their own in-house technology is already there or at least very very close to it. Even if they DON'T do that and keep their DSLR going in the direction that it has been, I think it's very feasible that in the next 6 years we'll end up with a DSLR that can do 4k-5k moving jpeg in 24p anyway. My own prediction is that It'll be 3-4 years (about 2 Canon DSLR generations) from now.
The future is bright, folks. A camera like that a 7D kind of price range will be the great equalizer that gives everyone awesome image quality and separate the true artists from amateurs. It'll also allow all the amateurs with talent but no access to high end equipment to really reveal themselves to the world. It'll be just like when DV first became affordable to serious amateurs... only better.
I can't wait!
Back in February of 2003, the great-great-great-grand-daddy of the 7D, the EOS 10D did 3fps continuous shooting on a 6mp sensor. That's 3K with 3:2 aspect ratio for us video people. Fast forward six and a half years to September 2009 and you get the 7D with 8fps continuous shooting on a 18mp sensor, or 5K in 3:2.
If Canon ever wised up and decided to go back to a 6mp sensor (most people, even most stills-pros never need more than that anyway. 6mp was plenty sufficient for pro work then and it still is now) I think it won't be long before we get to a point where we can do 24fps continuous shooting... or basically shooting 24 jpegs per second, much like a "real" film camera as opposed to the compressed video we're getting now.
In fact, if you do the math:
18mp is 3 times the data size of 6mp (6x3 = 18)
This stands to reason that if the 7D somehow got a 6mp sensor stuffed into it, it has the capability to shoot 3 times the continuous frames it has now or... 24! It can do 8fps now. 8 x 3 = 24!
Imagine, a 3k camera able to do 24p in high jpeg quality for individual frames. I might not even care about RAW at that point. Jpeg has plenty of head room as it is. (Hey, isn't that what RED does? Raw 3k?)
Any electronics/semiconductor engineers in the audience willing to hack one up? :grin:
In all seriousness, though. If Canon ever put the eggheads from their stills division and camcorder division together, I think they can probably come up with a RED-like camera TODAY. Their own in-house technology is already there or at least very very close to it. Even if they DON'T do that and keep their DSLR going in the direction that it has been, I think it's very feasible that in the next 6 years we'll end up with a DSLR that can do 4k-5k moving jpeg in 24p anyway. My own prediction is that It'll be 3-4 years (about 2 Canon DSLR generations) from now.
The future is bright, folks. A camera like that a 7D kind of price range will be the great equalizer that gives everyone awesome image quality and separate the true artists from amateurs. It'll also allow all the amateurs with talent but no access to high end equipment to really reveal themselves to the world. It'll be just like when DV first became affordable to serious amateurs... only better.
I can't wait!
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