# Canon 120mp DSLR Information



## Canon Rumors Guy (Sep 11, 2015)

```
Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.</p>
<p>A lot is being made about the APS-H sensor in the prototype currently on display at the Canon EXPO. We wouldn’t read too much into it, as Canon always uses APS-H for their high resolution prototype sensors. The likelihood that Canon would bring back the APS-H sensor size in a consumer EOS product is between nil and none.</p>
<p>More information on the 120mp DSLR:</p>
<ul>
<li>RAW files are 210mb</li>
<li>Camera ID in the EXIF is: EOS Y038</li>
<li>Camera prototype is only working at ISO 100</li>
</ul>
```


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## ajfotofilmagem (Sep 11, 2015)

The prototype camera works only at ISO 100? ???

This is perfect for those who want to underexpose 5 stops, and lift shadows in post production. : ;D


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## Maximilian (Sep 11, 2015)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> The prototype camera works only at ISO 100? ???
> 
> This is perfect for those who want to underexpose 5 stops, and lift shadows in post production. : ;D


*lol*
AND... is will be definetly delivering best performance @ base ISO as desired by the same bunch.



> RAW files are 210mb


Oh yeah... we'll need a $3k+ pp monster or have a lot of time to get some coffee while waiting for process. 
Not me. I'll take convenience over paramount paramount resolution.


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## Zv (Sep 11, 2015)

Can you imagine trying to crunch some HDR tone mapping or pano stitching with that thing? Ooooft! You'd need a supercomputer for that! I think my laptop would throw a fit!


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## AcutancePhotography (Sep 11, 2015)

210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D

That's a whole heapin' helpin' of megabytes!


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## Eldar (Sep 11, 2015)

Fantastic! With this much resolution, all you need is one camera body, one high quality prime, matching your wide angle requirement and then you can crop as much as you like and still print as big as you like ...


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## BeenThere (Sep 11, 2015)

AcutancePhotography said:


> 210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D
> 
> That's a whole heapin' helpin' of megabytes!


5000 shots more or less per Terabyte.


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## davidmurray (Sep 11, 2015)

Canon Rumors said:


> Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.



This is all about pushing the technological boundaries of the resolution that can be achieved with a working camera.

Downstream I see this as a good thing for all models to be released in maybe the next 2-7 years.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 11, 2015)

The whole thing is just an elaborate practical joke on DXO.

If you downsample from 140MP to 8MP (DXO Print '_measurement_') you 'gain' a minimum of 6 stops. Even if they used the same sensor tech they currently have that is measured at around 10 stops, that takes the 'new' sensor to an unassailable 16+ stops of DR, from a 14 bit file. :


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## tomscott (Sep 11, 2015)

Is there a reason Canon develops prototype sensors in APS-H and doesn't support it in a consumer product? Seems a bit of a bad habit..

There have been loads of these canon sensor tech announcement and nothing really materialises.


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## Adelino (Sep 11, 2015)

Sample photo please.


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## PureClassA (Sep 11, 2015)

And some people thought 50MP was insane... 70MB RAW files is plenty enough for me. I can't even begin to fathom the headaches at 210MB. I get why Canon is doing it though. They're showing off they have the capacity to produce it and that's a good thing. The question then becomes would they ever produce such a sensor in a mass marketed DSLR body or in reality does this become a highly specialized weapon of choice for a very limited number of industrial and scientific applications. This seems more like a giant tease to be able to say, "Yeah we can make it. And yeah, we can even put it in a 5 series body. How ya like me now?"


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## wockawocka (Sep 11, 2015)

It's also a sign Canon doesn't really care what the competition is doing and just make honest and good products.

Proof is in the 5Dsr, I bloody love that camera.


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## rrcphoto (Sep 11, 2015)

tomscott said:


> Is there a reason Canon develops prototype sensors in APS-H and doesn't support it in a consumer product? Seems a bit of a bad habit..
> 
> There have been loads of these canon sensor tech announcement and nothing really materialises.



how do you know?

canon uses these R&D sensors to trial out different readout methods, pixels and geometries.

that information can easily feed into any number of real life sensors without us ever knowing about it.

fun fact .. on the APS-C size, the QE of canon's sensors in one generation jumped up nearly 40%.. that R&D came from somewhere.

APS-H is the largest "single" pass sensor you can make using standard IC fabrication equipment, so it's probably what's available in the lab.

they want to make it large, because of the signalling, heat, noise,etc issues that come about with larger sensors, however it's more cost effective for R&D than a full frame sensor.


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## rrcphoto (Sep 11, 2015)

Canon Rumors said:


> Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.</p>
> <p>A lot is being made about the APS-H sensor in the prototype currently on display at the Canon EXPO. We wouldn’t read too much into it, as Canon always uses APS-H for their high resolution prototype sensors. The likelihood that Canon would bring back the APS-H sensor size in a consumer EOS product is between nil and none.</p>
> <p>More information on the 120mp DSLR:</p>
> <ul>
> ...



the 210MB raw files do not make any sense.

canon's compression usually yields around 1.1 to 1.5 bytes per pixel in the CR2 file size - so it should be around 140-170MB in size, not 210MB.

210MB smells like the uncompressed size - or 16 bit readout.


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## Don Haines (Sep 11, 2015)

rrcphoto said:


> Canon Rumors said:
> 
> 
> > Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.</p>
> ...



120Mpixels x 14 bits / 8 bits = 210MB
Almost certainly 14 bit uncompressed....


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## BeenThere (Sep 11, 2015)

rrcphoto said:


> Canon Rumors said:
> 
> 
> > Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.</p>
> ...


120 Megapixels on APS-H scales to 190 Megapixels on full frame. now we're getting there.


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## JohanCruyff (Sep 11, 2015)

BeenThere said:


> rrcphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Canon Rumors said:
> ...


Too bad Medium Format doesn't reach 1 Gigapixels.


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## rrcphoto (Sep 11, 2015)

Don Haines said:


> rrcphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Canon Rumors said:
> ...



that was myu thought, however the CR2 was never a non-compressed raw from my recollection.


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## 9VIII (Sep 11, 2015)

Anything focal length limited is going to "need" whatever amount of pixel density you can throw at it.

Not to mention we already have groups of people stitching together Gigapixel landscapes. They're going to go bonkers for a 120MP body (probably best combined with the 300f2.8ISII).
Yes, there are people who shoot wide angle landscapes with telephoto lenses.
http://360gigapixels.com/london-320-gigapixel-panorama/
This London Panorama was shot at 800mm with a 7D.


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## shtarker (Sep 11, 2015)

These blogs are always so crazy. People complain for months that Canon isn't doing anything and falling farther behind Nikon. Then they start announcing improvements and people complain they are making foolish updates. AND they may very well be the same people on different accounts. 10 years from now, 20 - 50 megapixels will be considered small, just like under 10 megapixels used to be the norm and everything caught up.

I think it's great that Canon is making advances. It isn't for me right NOW, but in a very short period it may be the norm.

GO CANON!!


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## TeT (Sep 11, 2015)

JS5 said:


> Canon, I love you but stop fighting the pissing fight ! You are looking stupid doing so...
> There is no need for 120 mp... in fact it is absurd ! It is so absurd it is mind blowing !
> Asides from super compression... let the medium format do the medium format formats !
> Hey Canon !!! How about synching to 8000 ?
> ...



Sure, get your head out Canon the 5DS was frivolous and we dont want upgraded lenses either...


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## telemaq76 (Sep 11, 2015)

every 5 years for canon exposition, canon shows an aps-h of 150mpx, it s some kind of demo product. Already readed about that 5 years and maybe 10 years ago. nothing new


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## Diltiazem (Sep 11, 2015)

The blog also says"

_"First off, Canon has an actual working prototype that they were shooting live images at the full 120MP resolution on the Expo floor. The sensor is a 120MP APS-H format sensor mounted in a Canon 5Ds camera body."_

That's why the camera looks similar to 5D series, but the final product could be different.


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## wsmith96 (Sep 11, 2015)

Eldar said:


> Fantastic! With this much resolution, all you need is one camera body, one high quality prime, matching your wide angle requirement and then you can crop as much as you like and still print as big as you like ...



Hey, hadn't thought about that, but you are right. That would make the gear bag much lighter


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## LonelyBoy (Sep 11, 2015)

shtarker said:


> These blogs are always so crazy. People complain for months that Canon isn't doing anything and falling farther behind Nikon. Then they start announcing improvements and people complain they are making foolish updates. AND they may very well be the same people on different accounts. 10 years from now, 20 - 50 megapixels will be considered small, just like under 10 megapixels used to be the norm and everything caught up.
> 
> I think it's great that Canon is making advances. It isn't for me right NOW, but in a very short period it may be the norm.
> 
> GO CANON!!



I remember when a 6mpx cropper was "plenty" and bigger than that "took up too much hard drive space and processing power". Now they've gone from 18 to 20 to 24. FF has gone to 43 and 50. How long until 120 seems normal and 50 sounds as quaint as the 8 in the 1d3?


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## wsmith96 (Sep 11, 2015)

LonelyBoy said:


> How long until 120 seems normal and 50 sounds as quaint as the 8 in the 1d3?



I'm betting 4 years.


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## Maiaibing (Sep 11, 2015)

100 ISO sounds like a deal killer. 

Lets see. So so did ISO 6.400 for the 5DR/S - until it turns out that you can actually get better high ISO shots with the 5D/R than the 5DIII/6D when down-sampled. That's why I have one now even if I at first thought the 5DS/R was DOA for my use.

Maybe if Canon can push solid ISO to 800 at production (more would of course be better)?


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## rrcphoto (Sep 11, 2015)

Maiaibing said:


> 100 ISO sounds like a deal killer.
> 
> Lets see. So so did ISO 6.400 for the 5DR/S - until it turns out that you can actually get better high ISO shots with the 5D/R than the 5DIII/6D when down-sampled. That's why I have one now even if I at first thought the 5DS/R was DOA for my use.
> 
> Maybe if Canon can push solid ISO to 800 at production (more would of course be better)?



I think it was simply a prototype limitation..


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## davidmurray (Sep 11, 2015)

wockawocka said:


> It's also a sign Canon doesn't really care what the competition is doing and just make honest and good products.



+1


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## davidmurray (Sep 11, 2015)

JS5 said:


> Canon, I love you but stop fighting the pissing fight ! You are looking stupid doing so...
> There is no need for 120 mp... in fact it is absurd ! It is so absurd it is mind blowing !
> Asides from super compression... let the medium format do the medium format formats !



I'd say Canon's strategy is to produce high resolution glass for high resolution bodies.
If the glass can do it I'd want a body to match.

A professional camera should be much more capable than a cellphone, and there are cellphones out there that exceed the sensor resolution of current DSLRs.

I think the future of DSLRs is bright, but only if they have much greater capability than a cellphone camera.

Megapixels, dynamic range, sensitivity. . . bring it on I say! I've got the glass to match.


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## YellowJersey (Sep 11, 2015)

rrcphoto said:


> Canon Rumors said:
> 
> 
> > Canon’s development announcement of a 120mp DSLR took the photography world by surprise, as we expected some incremental increases in resolution, but more than doubling the 50.6mp resolution of the Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R is quite the jump.</p>
> ...



I found the 210mb RAWs rather curious as well. I'm not sure what it means. Don't Nikon(Sony) sensors have a much higher file size? I'd speculate that maybe this involves dynamic range improvements (braces to get pelted by rotten fruit), but I'm not going to do any more than toss that out there for someone with a greater technical understanding to talk about. It would seem odd that such a high resolution would have better DR, though.

I'm also curious to know what kind of lenses could handle that kind of resolution, especially after the 5Ds(r) and its recommended lens list.


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## jrista (Sep 12, 2015)

AcutancePhotography said:


> 210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D
> 
> That's a whole heapin' helpin' of megabytes!



LOL

You guys should get into astrophotography. Then a 210mb data file will seem like nothing. I regularly work with 250-750 megabyte 32-bit or 64-bit floating point FITS files. My average project size on disk is 50-70 gigabytes. I usually have a variety of active projects taking up disk space at any given point. I've filled up a 3TB drive with astro work on multiple occasions. I periodically delete intermediate working files and archive the rest to BluRay disk to free up space.

But yeah. This is the trend. Higher and higher resolution. In a few years, I wouldn't be surprised if 80-100mp cameras become the norm.


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## Orangutan (Sep 12, 2015)

Any chance this is actually for a light-field camera rather than a normal DSLR? 200MP full-frame DSLR seems a big jump, unless there's some really good reason for it. 

Another possibility: a number of years ago I read that one of the major manufacturers put mini-sensels between the standard sensels. With their limited surface area they preserved the highlights of the image. An updated version of that with two or three sensel sizes could preserve 5 or 6 stops of highlights.


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## Crosswind (Sep 12, 2015)

Orangutan said:


> Any chance this is actually for a light-field camera rather than a normal DSLR?



Software that can handle and display pictures made with a light-field camera isn't really fleshed out (think Lytro). It probably requires a totally different DSLR body construction too.

That smells more like 2020+. But you made a good point. I guess light-field cameras certainly have serious potential in our future. But nothing for Canon's 120mp giant.


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## rfdesigner (Sep 12, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> The whole thing is just an elaborate practical joke on DXO.
> 
> If you downsample from 140MP to 8MP (DXO Print '_measurement_') you 'gain' a minimum of 6 stops. Even if they used the same sensor tech they currently have that is measured at around 10 stops, that takes the 'new' sensor to an unassailable 16+ stops of DR, from a 14 bit file. :



you may laugh.. but it is perfectly possible to downsample a 2D or 1D dataset and gain bit depth.

Ever listened to a 1bit, sigma delta DAC? I have, it's the way almost all audio DACs work, so that's 1 bit RAW and 16 bits "averaged".


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## LovePhotography (Sep 12, 2015)

jrista said:


> AcutancePhotography said:
> 
> 
> > 210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D
> ...



+1

You are usually the most rational poster in this forum.


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## Don Haines (Sep 12, 2015)

jrista said:


> AcutancePhotography said:
> 
> 
> > 210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D
> ...



My first digital camera was 0.077 megapixels. The 5Ds has 650 times as many pixels as that..... another 2.4 times is just a tiny increment....


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## rfdesigner (Sep 12, 2015)

jrista said:


> AcutancePhotography said:
> 
> 
> > 210mb files? Yikes! Those terabyte(s) hard drives are looking pretty weak all of a sudden. ;D
> ...



+1

One frame of my mono KAF8300 based camera is 8 Mpixel, that ends up as 2 bytes per per colour per pixel.. so that's 48Mbytes for a single 8Mpixel image, but remember there's no debayering or anti-aliasing filter, so it's much sharper than a DSLR, start stitching frames together (common and relatively easy) and sizes get out of hand pretty quickly.


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## scyrene (Sep 12, 2015)

LovePhotography said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > AcutancePhotography said:
> ...



Yeah, some areas of photography already involve that sort of data throughput. I do a lot of focus stacking and panorama stitching these days and again, the files can get huge - 60-150MP images can amount to well over a gigabyte if exported as psd files, and a hundred or more megabytes as a tiff. I only have a middling MacBook but it can handle it, albeit slowly sometimes. We'll manage!


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## privatebydesign (Sep 12, 2015)

scyrene said:


> LovePhotography said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...



The main issue I have with 'big' files, over 2GB, is that LR can't see them. Once you go over 2GB .psd's have to change to .psb's, LR doesn't recognise them which is very annoying for DAM.


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## scyrene (Sep 12, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> scyrene said:
> 
> 
> > LovePhotography said:
> ...



Wow, I didn't know that! How annoying. I only use the psds temporarily, for editing (in Affinity), so they'd be deleted in the long run. But I imagine they'll have to raise that limitation sooner or later!


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## YellowJersey (Sep 13, 2015)

The OP says it's in pretty early development, so perhaps the huge file size and ISO 100 cap is due to the fact that it's a prototype and not the finished product.


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## TAF (Sep 13, 2015)

Clearly the future of the EOS-M series...

Have to get rid of the flapping mirror vibration at these resolutions.

Right?


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## endiendo (Sep 13, 2015)

To all those who think more Mpx is useless.. 
Yes, as home user and amateur photographer, yes. 
To landscape photographer and A3 or big poster, it makes already more sense.
But, I have worked (as web-specialist) for a company who make interior decoration and ceiling (stretched-ceilings).
Some special customers (high end) or home architect, needs sometimes a texture or an image printed on the ceiling. like a sky, or trees-top of a jungle (viewed from bottom). 
We had some special hard times to 1-find the right image (although we had a good stock), 2- find a enough-good quality image that could fit. (and not 2000x3000 px). 
When you have a hotel-hall ceiling that is 30 m long x 20 m large.. you have hard time.. 
Of course we made composition of many photo-parts to success, but we had never the "right ressource" as photos..

So for this application, we would have needed something like :
- go hiking in a tropical forest.
- take your wide angle and your 120 Mpx (or 50 Mpx) camera
- point it to the sky
- make your photo
- give us a photo that can fit a 150 to 200 dpi for 30 meters x 20 meters..

Be happy that the ceiling is at 5 or 6 meters high and not 2.5 meters, so that people don't see it closely...

This is a special case where a 250 Mpx camera makes sense..


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## StudentOfLight (Sep 14, 2015)

120MP is useful, but 250MP is specifically for CSI... 

e.g. Look at that door handle. Now zoom in, zoom in, enhance, rotate 30%, remove distortion, enhance and print the suspect's face :


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