# New Canon Hi-pixel Medium format...?



## LewisShermer (Jul 19, 2013)

So with all the rumours about the High megapixel body coming next year, what if canon has something really neat up their sleeves and it turns out to be medium format and square?? Is this a possibility?

Is there a gap in the market for a high-end Canon (low end in comparison to hasselblad) medium format in the £6000 - £8000 range? if you're going to pay more than that for medium format you might as well get a leaf/Phase 1/mamiya combo but a slightly less expensive system from canon could do well especially for product/advertising work which the 1D and 5D series are still very much just about getting away with it...

People are commenting that for a high megapixel full frame there'd be interference on the chip and the current lenses wouldn't be able to keep up with the quality needed so with a medium format camera comes a new line in larger chips and new super-duper lenses?

kinda makes sense. I'd like to shoot medium format again without having to take out a life time mortgage.


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## zim (Jul 19, 2013)

I'd like to see them come out with a 35mm FF sensor in a 2 1/4 sq, *modular* body type design geared towards those high mp HI IQ pre users.
I suspect Canon wouldn't really want to create another lens catalogue for a bigger sensor. If they did why assume any cheaper that a hassy!


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## paul13walnut5 (Jul 19, 2013)

They won't do it. EF is the key to their success.


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## MrFotoFool (Jul 19, 2013)

Will not happen and if it did would not be as cheap as you hope. Best bet for affordable (but still out of my price range) digital medium format is Pentax 645D.


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## viggen61 (Jul 19, 2013)

I don't think Canon has anything medium format up their sleeves. IMO, it would be a waste of effort, not to mention a huge effort on their part. So many things need to be different if you are expanding the sensor size that much. Even to 65x45mm. A whole new lens mount, mirror box, etc. And then there would be the entirely new line of lenses...

As it is, the EOS-M may not be progressing as well as hoped. And that's for a format "everyone" is clamoring for!



> People are commenting that for a high megapixel full frame there'd be interference on the chip and the current lenses wouldn't be able to keep up with the quality needed so with a medium format camera comes a new line in larger chips and new super-duper lenses?



I don't know what they mean by "interference". Remember, a 46.7 MP full frame sensor can be made using the same pixel size and density of the 18MP APS-C sensor in a 7D. Using the 70Ds 20MP sensor density, a FF sensor of 51.1MP would be possible!  So, if they can get great images from APS-C sensors why would FF at the same pixel size and density be a problem? Maybe it'll take 4 DiG!C chips to read the sensor, but...

Same thing for lenses. If the high-density APS-C sensors work with the current crop of lenses, why would they not work as well with a high-MP FF sensor? Maybe some will need improvement at the edges, but that's part of a regular revamping of any line of lenses, as well as a continual trade-off with other factors such as size, weight, cost...


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## Seanlucky (Jul 19, 2013)

The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jul 19, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> So with all the rumours about the High megapixel body coming next year, what if canon has something really neat up their sleeves and it turns out to be medium format and square?? Is this a possibility?


 
MF camera companies are going out of business right and left. Don't expect Canon to spend a billion dollars (probably more) to develop a new camera and a new line of lenses that have a extremely limited market. 

Canon's strong point is their mass marketing and high production rates that enable them to make a profit when others are faltering. They are not likely to enter a niche market which has no clear future. Its about the safest bet you can make.


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## CarlTN (Jul 19, 2013)

Agree that Canon will not go medium format any time soon. Also disagree with LewisShermer's premise that if Canon would provide a medium format camera and lenses, that it would not "break the bank". Frankly, it would break the bank! A Canon medium format body, would cost more, not less than existing bodies. And each lens might cost close to what cinema lenses cost...In other words, I don't see Canon delving into the format, nor would they turn medium format into "mass market", even if they did. 

I have some decent older medium format film cameras and lenses for sale, if you are interested. I will sell these for a lot less than new rebel bodies and ef-s lenses are selling for!


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## LewisShermer (Aug 12, 2013)

I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...


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## LewisShermer (Aug 12, 2013)

Seanlucky said:


> The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.



square was the professional standard for medium format before digital for hasselblad users. it prevents you having to turn your camera around for portraits. you do have to be mindful of cropping in post while you're actually doing the shoot though. It also works better with tripods.


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## CarlTN (Aug 12, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...



That Canon is rumored to be investing in Phase One? I guess it's plausible, but we're not going to see an affordable "Rebel" medium format series selling under $3000 (or even $5000) anytime soon...which was part of the premise of this thread. Perhaps under $8000 eventually...but not before Canon's new "full frame" 40+ MP 1 series camera has had a couple of years to sell at $10,000 + ...


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 12, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> I bring your attention to the feature now on the front page...


The rumor is so low rated that it doesn't have a CR number. Its there because there is interest. If Canon bought say Phase One, as the rumor goes, nothing would change, at not least for 3-5 years. You would still buy 645 mount lenses for phase one bodies, or phase one backs for your existing MF system. 

That does not seem to meet Canon's strategy of having everything in house.


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## Seanlucky (Aug 12, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> Seanlucky said:
> 
> 
> > The square format rumor still confuses me every time I hear it... That would not be a good choice. While I do love cropping many of my images to square after the fact, it's an impractical format out there for so many professional users.
> ...



Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else. As it was, that was a little impractical for a lot of things since you'd almost always have to leave extra space for cropping. The, "flipping to portrait," issue only made sense when we were using waistlevel viewfinder, an issue that Mamiya had no problem fixing with their rotatable film back on the RZ series. Now days, we simply use an L bracket so that the centre of gravity is still directly on the tripod.

I think if Canon were to not go with the 645 format, they'd be screwing themselves.


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## Jeffrey (Aug 12, 2013)

Being lucky enough to own a 1D-X and a Phase One IQ280 with the 645 DF body, I can speak to the major differences in shooting with both cameras; focusing, set up, controls, and on and on are so different between the cameras. Much like oil and water. Be assured the Phase One is miserable in shooting birds in flight. Be assured that the Phase One in the studio will outperform the 1D-X by miles. 

Canon buying Phase One makes no sense whatsoever.


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## Stu_bert (Aug 13, 2013)

Hmmm....

No sense some of you say?

The lens problem is solved in the short term by the 645 lenses, they get access to tech. and if they've done their research, they're buying a profitable company and associated expertise cheaper / quicker than developing it initially in-house.

If they've been investing previously in Phase 1, maybe they already have their own "entry-level" MF camera using a combination of phase-one and Canon tech ready to release when they buy it fully ;D. Maybe over time, they can indeed either make their own lenses or phase 1 sensors.

Not everything needs to be a perfect fit, be instantly "converted to Canon manufactured" or developed from scratch. 

Two other observations... the low end of the market (the high vol side) is being impacted a lot. So is overall sales. Do you invest now in a market which is not going to be threatened by smartphones and the like, while you still have the cash reserves? I think Canon need to innovate in the entry level - I think like Tom Hogan says, it's about the ecosystem and opening it up so it is not a closed system. It's about inviting in the CHKD and ML teams by providing them with a nice API. It's about providing seamless interfacing with not just your phone, but if you pop in a sim like you can with a tablet, then you can do so much more from your camera and a touch screen (especially if you could interchange the sim with the one from your tablet).

It's about unleashing, not crippling your hardware so Canon gear's output quality is just a world away from smartphones in video and stills. Its about adding something like Android onto it, because then you really can add quite sophisticated sw to edit and do clever things on your camera with images.

Canon, Nikon etc need to play to the strengths of dslrs but also learn from smartphones and the like.

I'd love to be able to use my camera as a webcam - the quality would be awesome. Any chance of that Canon? uh-err. Hook two of them up to shoot 3D - stills or video? uh-err. All the innovation is in an open ecosystem, not a closed one.

Sorry, carried away and off thread. :-[

Buying Phase 1 is plausible. Taking Canon manufacturing and apply it to MF to bring it into the sub $10K for a 60MP beast of Phase-1 quality is achievable and would disrupt the market. But only if they're prepared to adopt a different lens mount. Lens range to cameras is like apps libraries to smartphones - starting from scratch does not accelerate market penetration and allows your competitors to react before you've captured the market...


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## Drizzt321 (Aug 13, 2013)

Seanlucky said:


> LewisShermer said:
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> > Seanlucky said:
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Actually, Mamiya had the rotating back with the *RB* series, which stood (even if just in the minds of people) for Rotating Back. But dang it's a heavy camera! I'm thinking of getting one of the older 645 SLR models for when I want to walk around.

I don't recall if the original reason for 1x1 format was to avoid the need to rotate for portraits or because it makes full use of the larger sizes of the lenses that were needed.


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## dr croubie (Aug 13, 2013)

Seanlucky said:


> Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else.



Hasselblad / Kiev 88, Pentacon Six / Kiev 60, Rollei 66, Rollei 6008, Rolleiflex and Rolleicord TLRs, Zenza Bronica, Mamiya C330 and variant TLRs, Mamiya 6, Minoltaflex, Yashica Mat, not to mention all the other ones I've never heard of. Hell, you can still buy a Rollei Hy6 brand new.

I've used my Mamiya 645AF in portrait mode. It sucks, big time, especially handheld. I'm not sure if there's a vertical grip for the 645AF but I sure could use one (although it's already unwieldy, a grip would make it a monster). I find myself using my Hasselbladski more and more these days with the WLF and external lightmeter, so much more comfortable. Cropping is actually easier from square, you can decide later if you want to crop to portrait, landscape, or leave it square (which I do most of the time).

The biggest downside to square formats is the cost. With 120/220 film, getting 12/24 square shots to a roll wasn't that much more expensive than getting 16/32 645-shaped shots, especially for a decent-sized modelling studio. But turn that into a digital sensor and suddenly an $80k 645-sensor is a $150k 6x6-sensor, costs increase exponentially with sensor size (ie a FF-sensor is a lot more than a few APS-C and a few FFs are miles cheaper than an MF sensor).
Rollei got it right with the Hy6, a 6x6-sized hole in the body for 6x6 film, rotatable back for 645 sensors, and future-proof for a 6x6 digital sensor. (But leaf, phase one, and mamiya being all the same company, digital 6x6 is just never going to happen because it won't fit on their 645DF).
Mamiya's RB/RZ67 is the same deal, but it's a 6x7 rotatable back, that can also take digital backs. Biggest problem is that Mamiya killed it off to focus on 645, even though the lenses and bodies are excellent.

Canon buying Rollei (or at least the Hy6 from whomever owns the name) makes more sense than buying Leaphasemiya, they'd get great glass and great bodies, leaf-shutters are one thing canon don't do, and a slowly-dying Hy6 community looking for an upgrade-path. Canon can bring in more lens experience, in-house sensors and AF, the capital to be able to compete with leaphasemiya (and above all, fanboys on internet forums to drool over the new stuff).


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## deleteme (Aug 13, 2013)

The market is just too small for a company like Canon to bother with. If they think of it as a "halo" product then one has to ask just who are they trying to appeal to?
If they buy an existing brand then everyone who may be faintly informed would know its not really a Canon.
If they build it from scratch then they will be adding gigantic overhead to theur operation.

I am almost of the belief that they may be looking at the books of a MF company just to prove to some of the enthusiasts just how poverty stricken the format is.


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## Drizzt321 (Aug 13, 2013)

dr croubie said:


> Seanlucky said:
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> > Square was the format for Hasselblad and no one else.
> ...



To be fair, the Mamiya RB/RZ are pretty freakin' big and unwieldy. Granted, with MF you often aren't swinging it around like you do with a 35mm format camera, but from the pics I've seen the 6x4.5 format cameras are much handier and easier to shoot with not from a tripod.


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## RLPhoto (Aug 13, 2013)

What if canon made CMOS sensors in MF format bodies? Edge out the CCD dalsa sensors?


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## CarlTN (Aug 13, 2013)

Stu_bert said:


> Hmmm....
> 
> No sense some of you say?
> 
> ...



Very good observations!


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## dr croubie (Aug 13, 2013)

Drizzt321 said:


> To be fair, the Mamiya RB/RZ are pretty freakin' big and unwieldy. Granted, with MF you often aren't swinging it around like you do with a 35mm format camera, but from the pics I've seen the 6x4.5 format cameras are much handier and easier to shoot with not from a tripod.



Much of a muchness, I think, depends if you're used to Waist Level Finders or Viewfinders, and what you shoot. I started on (d)SLRs, but like I said, I'm getting more and more used to WLF, for full-body portraits and street it's just easier. Headshots handheld the level-prism of the Mamiya is better. I got TTL metering prisms with all my MF gear to begin with, because I was used to my 3 & 7D, but the freedom of WLF and my external meter is very liberating.

I've just compared my MF cameras, the Mamiya 645AF is actually bigger than my 6x6 Hasselbladski (Kiev 88CM). The body is shorter (because of the smaller mirror and shorter flange-distance), but then the viewfinder sticks out further. The Mamiya is wider because of the grip, the Hasselbladski is more cubic. Height-wise the Mamiya's prism is smaller (because it's integrated probably helps), but only by 1cm, and that's comparing the Hasselbladski's 45-degree prism (the level prism is smaller I think, but I don't have one, and with the WLF it's shorter than the Mamiya).
Ironically, given my usage, last big shoot I did with the Mamiya was down the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne and back with a 45mm. 645 for me is landscapes (and conserving film 500km from the nearest shop that sells 120), and landscapes go on a tripod, but as I discovered, viewfinder on a tripod is rather unwieldy, give me Live-View or WLF any day. 6x6 is my street and waist-level full-body portrait machine, it just works better handheld for me.
So yeah, you're right, but the other way. It's not that 6x6 is easier on a tripod, it's that the 645 sucks on a tripod (at least for me, YMMV)

But yes, RB/RZ are bigger, I've never held one but I've seen them in shops, it's a whole world again up from the Hasselbladski size. Partly comes from the bellows focussing, partly from the larger mirror, partly from just the build quality (ever seen a 7D next to a 1000D?). But I know some people who shoot street with them, I've seen a GF680 used handheld, and hell, I've heard from a guy who shoots street with a Speed Graphic.

Anyway, just for a size comparison, here's some shots with standard lenses. Mamiya 645AF with Volna-3 80/2.8 (I don't have a Mamiya 80mm), Kiev 88CM with 45degree TTL-Spot prism and Vega-12 90/2.8, Pentacon Six with Kiev-TTL meter and Zeiss Biometar 80/2.8, Kiev 60 with Zeiss Biometar 120/2.8, and Eos 3 with Nifty Fifty. I don't feel any of them are more unwieldy than my 3 / 7D, once I put a zoom onto the Canons they're bigger than the MF.


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## Drizzt321 (Aug 14, 2013)

Interesting, thanks dr croubie. The 645 cameras seem not all that much bigger than my 5d3. Depends on the specific one of course, but the larger 35mm digital bodies are actually fairly well sized I suppose.

Makes me want to go out and get a 645 body now, hehe. 

And I'll agree, the WLF is awesome, although I'd need a smaller body to use it with (TLR perhaps?) rather than the RB67 that I have. 7+ pounds is not exactly easy to operate hand held, even with neck strap. Especially with a 1/400 max shutter speed with a giant mirror slap.


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## sjprg (Aug 14, 2013)

Why would Canon need to buy an MF company? They have enough inhouse engineering to just scale up the existing 1DX technology and go. They already have the silicon fab house, and the rest of the technology is the same as 35mm. With their economy of scale they could produce the MF at the same price as the 1DX. The MF manufacturers high prices are really due to their economy of scale.


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## Drizzt321 (Aug 14, 2013)

sjprg said:


> Why would Canon need to buy an MF company? They have enough inhouse engineering to just scale up the existing 1DX technology and go. They already have the silicon fab house, and the rest of the technology is the same as 35mm. With their economy of scale they could produce the MF at the same price as the 1DX. The MF manufacturers high prices are really due to their economy of scale.



It's also economies of who will buy MF. There's a lot fewer in the market for MF than there is for 35mm format. Plus, economies of scale or not, as someone else pointed out in this thread or another, the larger the single piece of silicon (whether it is a CPU or image sensor), it becomes significantly more expensive to make. It's not a linear cost difference, it's something more like log or exponential. Maybe even geometric, I don't know.

Take the Sony RX1, it's $2800. Besides the amazing lens, the sensor is probably the other most expensive piece of the camera since it's FF. Then compare it to the RX100. Sure, the lens in the RX100 is probably not quite as good, but it's also a zoom lens which adds expense, but then it's an APS-C sensor which reduces costs a good bit.

Then you also have to make lenses that can project for MF image sensor. Let's say you use the 24mm v2 TS-E as an example (since I believe it does project the size of MF or larger). That's well over $2K. And we're not talking any AF at all. And if Canon chooses to go the leaf shutter route, the lens gets even more expensive.


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## dr croubie (Aug 14, 2013)

Drizzt321 said:


> Then you also have to make lenses that can project for MF image sensor. Let's say you use the 24mm v2 TS-E as an example (since I believe it does project the size of MF or larger). That's well over $2K. And we're not talking any AF at all. And if Canon chooses to go the leaf shutter route, the lens gets even more expensive.



You don't wanna know what MF lenses cost...
(I took Leica off that list because, well, they're Leica, but they're even worse.)


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## CarlTN (Aug 14, 2013)

Perhaps we should all just buy that new 41 MP smartphone and forget about DSLR's?


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## JTPhotography (Aug 14, 2013)

I really don't care how they go big megapixel, as long as I can use my ef lenses, they just need to do it. I have considered switching to Nikon many times. Why is it taking them so long and why do they feel the need to lag behind nikon in this area? Hopefully it means when they do reveal, it will be big and good.


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## Valvebounce (Aug 15, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> Canons own 2 fab lines is not enough, the cost of one stitched MF sensor will be very high and take resources from the old sensors fab lines. Canon have a high internal cost regarding there own sensors and the sensor lines does not generate any money, other departments does



Hi ankorwatt, isn't this a bit like saying VW Audi (insert alternate brand here it makes no difference) engine plant makes no money, only the body line, it's not a car without an engine, it's not a camera without a sensor? 
Not trying to be facetious just asking. 

Cheers Graham.


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## Stu_bert (Aug 17, 2013)

ankorwatt said:


> Valvebounce said:
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> > ankorwatt said:
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The downside of outsourcing is that you are beholden to the manufacturing tech std at that factory. And of course trying to keep NDAs enforced is far more difficult when it's not your company.

The upside is that you have more choice / competition and can leverage that to your advantage. Plus you should negate the potential loss of margin of outsource as they should be able to do it cheaper than you based on scale.

Net result I agree, if Canon cannot invest in new equipment as quick as their competitors as they're not achieving the scale, which in itself is a vicious circle, then the only solution appears to be outsource that aspect of manufacturing to specialists....


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