Will Canon make an R1-like Pro2?

Why would Canon do that? Canon already has 2 lines with that sensor size. Sony DOESN"T have a dSLR line, which is why they put out that camera. If you want that sensor size and MUCH better image quality, buy an XT.

The only reason I can think of is that they may want to wean itself away the flipping mirror.

--mamallama

Hellashot said:

Why would Canon do that? Canon already has 2 lines with that
sensor size. Sony DOESN"T have a dSLR line, which is why they put
out that camera. If you want that sensor size and MUCH better
image quality, buy an XT.

Click to expand...

Bo Lorentzen said:

Aron,

First of all, slap a long zoom on a digital rebel and you have a
R1... so I don't know if Canon need to "match" the R1

Click to expand...

--
They won't achieve that with a crappy kit zoom. Figure on spending
at least $1500 on the Rebel XT and lens to match the Sony, if not more.
-Rich

mamallama said:

The only reason I can think of is that they may want to wean itself
away the flipping mirror.

--mamallama

Click to expand...

That flippin' mirror, even when coupled with a lowly penta-mirror instead of a prism, is still a much better photographic tool than any EVF I've seen. Of course EVFs will improve, and could replace the mirror/prism mechanism one day, but we can hardly expect miracles by Feb'06.

I agree with Hellashot - I can't see any reason for Canon to produce a EVF-based digicam with an APS sensor in the near future. IMHO we will be lucky to see a 2/3 CCD sensor with lower noise, an upgrade to Digic II, and some improvements in the lens, maybe IS. As it stands, Canon could very well choose to terminate either the G or Pro series (but probably not both). Incidentally, stores here have been deep-discounting the Pro1, so something is up (no surpise there), but we probably won't see anything until we're closer to PMA in Feb 06. cheers, gkl

mamallama said:

Hellashot said:

Why would Canon do that? Canon already has 2 lines with that
sensor size. Sony DOESN"T have a dSLR line, which is why they put
out that camera. If you want that sensor size and MUCH better
image quality, buy an XT.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

gkl said:

That flippin' mirror, even when coupled with a lowly penta-mirror
instead of a prism, is still a much better photographic tool than
any EVF I've seen. Of course EVFs will improve, and could replace
the mirror/prism mechanism one day, but we can hardly expect
miracles by Feb'06.

Click to expand...

I think by late '06 - early '07 you'll see the combination of 1) EVF/LCDs with resolution and refresh rates imperceptible to the human senses from OVF using a flipping mirrors (gain-up will be a bonus) and 2) fast accurate AF with 3) live output lower noise CMOS sensors. What else do you need? That will be highly competitive with the flipping mirror cludge. Later improvements will put the flipping mirror out to pasture. Just my crystal ball based on what I've seen (the view through the LCD/EVF of the R1 looked very good even with the current (old) LCD technology for the 5 minutes I played with it).

[snip]

gkl said:

Incidentally, stores here
have been deep-discounting the Pro1, so something is up (no surpise
there), but we probably won't see anything until we're closer to
PMA in Feb 06. cheers, gkl

Click to expand...

Also in my area there's a Canon Rebate Promotion on the Pro1. Must be a clue.

--mamallama

As soon as power consumption of large sensors can be reduced significantly, mirrors - truely a stone age technology - will fade away. An EVF is much more accurate and it doesn't cause any additional shake. Ultimately electronic parts are cheaper than sophisticated mechanical devices. Thus there is no chance of survival for mirrors once the power issue is resolved.

kassandro said:

An EVF is much more accurate and it doesn't cause any
additional shake.

Click to expand...

Mirror slap is only an issue over a limited range of exposures. Is an EVF More accurate? in terms of composing a full frame, yes, but if I can't use it to judge focus and depth of field fuggedaboutit. The Canon EVFs I've seen are inferior to any SLR, especially in low light where they are noisy.

kassandro said:

Ultimately electronic parts are cheaper than
sophisticated mechanical devices. Thus there is no chance of
survival for mirrors once the power issue is resolved.

Click to expand...

The power issue is a big one. But let's not forget resolution and low-light performance. As soon as all of those issues are resolved, I agree there is no reason to use a mirror. cheers, gkl

mamallama said:

I think by late '06 - early '07 you'll see the combination of 1)
EVF/LCDs with resolution and refresh rates imperceptible to the
human senses from OVF using a flipping mirrors (gain-up will be a
bonus) and 2) fast accurate AF with 3) live output lower noise CMOS
sensors. What else do you need? That will be highly competitive
with the flipping mirror cludge. Later improvements will put the
flipping mirror out to pasture. Just my crystal ball based on what
I've seen (the view through the LCD/EVF of the R1 looked very good
even with the current (old) LCD technology for the 5 minutes I
played with it).

Click to expand...

I've not seen the EVF in the Sony R1, but Canon's current crop of EVFs just doesn't cut it for me. If they can produce an EVF that has no perceptible noise, good low light performance and low power consumption then I'm all for it. It'll help to reduce the size of interchangeable lens cameras, and provide extra leeway for lens design. I think we both agree it's not going to happen for Feb'06. It would be great if you were right about the early '07 time frame, but witnessing the length of time it tood to get from the Pro90 to the Pro1/S1/S2 I am not quite so optimistic. I'd glady be proven wrong on this one! cheers, gkl

Here's the breakthrough SED display technology by Canon and Toshiba that will speed things along in this area.

http://www.canon.com/technology/display/

--mamallama

gkl said:

I've not seen the EVF in the Sony R1, but Canon's current crop of
EVFs just doesn't cut it for me. If they can produce an EVF that
has no perceptible noise, good low light performance and low power
consumption then I'm all for it. It'll help to reduce the size of
interchangeable lens cameras, and provide extra leeway for lens
design. I think we both agree it's not going to happen for Feb'06.
It would be great if you were right about the early '07 time frame,
but witnessing the length of time it tood to get from the Pro90 to
the Pro1/S1/S2 I am not quite so optimistic. I'd glady be proven
wrong on this one! cheers, gkl

Click to expand...

mamallama said:

Here's the breakthrough SED display technology by Canon and Toshiba
that will speed things along in this area.

http://www.canon.com/technology/display/

--mamallama

Click to expand...

Hmmm ... I've seen that article on SED television technology, but didn't make the connection to digicam EVFs. I still have trouble envisaging a Pro2 with a flip and twist 19 inch television screen hanging off the back ;-) Seriously though, if they COULD cram say 0.5 or so megapixels into a EVF at a decent cost, that'd be more than enough for me. Looks like there's still some serious engineering to be done, though. cheers, gkl

mamallama said:

gkl said:

I've not seen the EVF in the Sony R1, but Canon's current crop of
EVFs just doesn't cut it for me. If they can produce an EVF that
has no perceptible noise, good low light performance and low power
consumption then I'm all for it. It'll help to reduce the size of
interchangeable lens cameras, and provide extra leeway for lens
design. I think we both agree it's not going to happen for Feb'06.
It would be great if you were right about the early '07 time frame,
but witnessing the length of time it tood to get from the Pro90 to
the Pro1/S1/S2 I am not quite so optimistic. I'd glady be proven
wrong on this one! cheers, gkl

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The second paragraph of the cited article makes mention of digital camera applications. HDTV is the featured use because it is the hot topic and a SED HDTV will be shown at the CES in Feb or Mar 2006. I've seen other articles mentioning more directly the digicam application. After al, it aimed at replacing LCDs (among others) in TVs, the same LCD technology now in your EVF.

--mamallama

gkl said:

Hmmm ... I've seen that article on SED television technology, but
didn't make the connection to digicam EVFs. I still have trouble
envisaging a Pro2 with a flip and twist 19 inch television screen
hanging off the back ;-) Seriously though, if they COULD cram say
0.5 or so megapixels into a EVF at a decent cost, that'd be more
than enough for me. Looks like there's still some serious
engineering to be done, though. cheers, gkl

Click to expand...

You are certainly right in your assessment of Canon EVFs. I have myself a Powershot S1 and when I looked into the EVF for the first time I was really shocked (The Pro1 EVF is reported to be a lot better, though). However, after a while I did adjust to this extremely poor EVF. Recently I bought a Coolpix 8400 and its EVF is a miracle compared with the Canon. On the other hand, the S1 unlike the CP8400 is extremely power efficient. In the summer I can squeeze an amazing 400 shots out of a single set of NiMH batteries. I personally only require from a view finder that I can compose the picture properly (unfortunately the S1 EVF is so poor that this cannot always be done). It is not neccessary for me to see all the glory details. Compared with the LCD an EVF causes less shake because you have additional stabilisation by your head. I also frequently shoot panoramas without tripod using the excellent Canon or Nikon panorama assistant and an OVF is simply not usable for this purpose.

Clearly in dim light an EVF will always be inferior to an OVF. But in dim light a direct OVF is also superior to an OVF of a DSLR. I know this from my old analog SLRs. Thus for such situations one should have a camera with a simple direct OVF.

The Sony is a great camera, but the Nikon costs about the same and has great flexibility and long haul value. If the Nikon body dies or a better Nikon SLR comes along, I can salvage the lens. If I want to shoot birds, I can just put a telephoto lens on the Nikon.

The Canon option costs a few hundred dollars more, but includes image stabilization. I am among those people who think Canon should lower the price of the 17-85 lens. Canon offers many great telephoto lenses.

mamallama said:

The second paragraph of the cited article makes mention of digital
camera applications. HDTV is the featured use because it is the hot
topic and a SED HDTV will be shown at the CES in Feb or Mar 2006.
I've seen other articles mentioning more directly the digicam
application. After al, it aimed at replacing LCDs (among others)
in TVs, the same LCD technology now in your EVF.

--mamallama

Click to expand...

Thanks, that's very encouraging information. Still, I remember reading in the early 90s that LCD TVs would be hanging on everyone's wall in a couple of years. I also remember there was a gap of 4 or 5 years between the demo of plasma screens and seeing the product in stores. Of course I'd rather see this stuff sooner than later, but you'll have to forgive me if I tend to be a wee bit pessimistic about the speed of bringing technology to market. cheers, gkl

Thanks for the information about other brands of EVFs - I haven't paid too much attention to recent non-Canon hardware. My recollection agrees with yours - that the Pro1 EVF is better than the S1/S2. It seems that Canon has gone for power efficiency vs other brands concentrating on image quality.

While I agree that pure OVFs have better light efficiency than SLRs, the difference is minimal with the analog SLRs I've owned. Of course viewfinder brightness and image quality/size was a major reason I bought them. More importantly, digicam OVFs tend to truncate the actual image size more (82% or so) vs the 90% (or so) you get on the better SLR viewfinders. The OVF image in all the digicams I've tried also has a much smaller magnification than any SLR I can recall. Those two features really limit the usefulness of digicam OVFs for image composition, at least for me. While I really like the 100% view of an EVF, I agree with you that the current crop of Canon EVFs are just too far away from reality and the final product and interfere with visual composition. OTOH, the Canon OVFs truncate too much of the image. Either way, I always end up reviewing the image to make sure I have what I want.

I also regularly use Canon's Stitch Assist - what a great feature. I use it regularly to get around the wide angle limit for landscapes.

kassandro said:

You are certainly right in your assessment of Canon EVFs. I have
myself a Powershot S1 and when I looked into the EVF for the first
time I was really shocked (The Pro1 EVF is reported to be a lot
better, though). However, after a while I did adjust to this
extremely poor EVF. Recently I bought a Coolpix 8400 and its EVF is
a miracle compared with the Canon. On the other hand, the S1 unlike
the CP8400 is extremely power efficient. In the summer I can
squeeze an amazing 400 shots out of a single set of NiMH batteries.
I personally only require from a view finder that I can compose the
picture properly (unfortunately the S1 EVF is so poor that this
cannot always be done). It is not neccessary for me to see all the
glory details. Compared with the LCD an EVF causes less shake
because you have additional stabilisation by your head. I also
frequently shoot panoramas without tripod using the excellent Canon
or Nikon panorama assistant and an OVF is simply not usable for
this purpose.
Clearly in dim light an EVF will always be inferior to an OVF. But
in dim light a direct OVF is also superior to an OVF of a DSLR. I
know this from my old analog SLRs. Thus for such situations one
should have a camera with a simple direct OVF.

Click to expand...

Just like the good old split screen viewfinder that has assist focus!

Just an idea!

Whats stopping Canon from producing a Translucent Split Screen Layered EVF on top of an OVF with adjust knob that gives the user the option blend either in or out?

Eliminating mirror but still keeping an OVF that no pro can do without.

is this practical?
--
http://www.mrsleep.blogspot.com

I now agree with you almost completely.

gkl said:

I also regularly use Canon's Stitch Assist - what a great feature.
I use it regularly to get around the wide angle limit for
landscapes.

Click to expand...

Same with me. I wonder, why only Canon, Nikon and Olympus include panorama support in their firmware. It's only a software issue and with a panorama assist you really can extend the range of your lense.