# Another Canon Medium Format Mention



## Canon Rumors Guy (Aug 11, 2014)

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<div style="float: right; margin:0 0 76px 0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical" data-url="http://www.canonrumors.com/2014/08/another-canon-medium-format-mention/">Tweet</a></div>
<p><a href="http://www.photographybay.com/2014/08/08/canon-camera-with-sensor-bigger-than-35mm-in-september/" target="_blank">Photography Bay</a> has posted that one of their sources has said Canon will announce something that has to do with a “bigger sensor than 35mm” for Photokina.</p>
<p>I’m not sure we’ll see a product, but it’s possible we see a technology demo or a development announcement.</p>
<p>There’s a fair bit of medium format talk going on with all the manufacturers, but we still don’t seem to have the smoking gun.</p>
<p>Source: [<a href="http://www.photographybay.com/2014/08/08/canon-camera-with-sensor-bigger-than-35mm-in-september/" target="_blank">PB</a>]</p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>
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## honsten (Aug 11, 2014)

Could they do this with a built-in reverse speed booster so EF lenses would work?


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## dryanparker (Aug 11, 2014)

Would Canon benefit from offering some kind of product similar to the Leica S? Not a "full-blown" MF system to compete with Phase One or Hasselblad, but still something larger than 35mm?

I'm just not sure of the benefit given 35mm sensors now boast amazingly high resolution. The quality of the pixels is what Leica sells in their S body, given its comparatively modest resolution for a MF system. The leap in quality undoubtedly exists in the lenses.

Interesting play on Canon's part...


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## hendrik-sg (Aug 11, 2014)

honsten said:


> Could they do this with a built-in reverse speed booster so EF lenses would work?



This would just be a teleconverter. Magnifying the Image just behind the lens to project it on a bigger sensor magnifies all, image, aberrations and diffraction in the same amount. This would only be useful if they could not produce sensors with higher density, which is not the case.

On a sensor doubled in size by a factor 2 (crop factor 0.5) a lens 100mm f 2.8 delivers the same picture like a 50mm f1.4 lens on FF. The question is, which lens can be done better? This is no easy question, as lens design is more difficult with larger image circle (means a 100 2.8 Macro FF Lens will not cover the MF sensor).

One of the core problems of MF is, that FF lenses are that good and that nice speced, and as sensor density is no problem. The key for more resolution is improving lens design and sensor density towards the diffraction limit. Impressive example is the development of astronomy telescopes, there a large opening and sophisticated post Processing are the key for best results.


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## IsaacImage (Aug 11, 2014)

Hopefully some kind of Pentax 645Z/Leica S/Hassy killer 

SOme of the pros will definitely will be very interested in that kind of body, but it's huge leap forward !


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## AJ (Aug 11, 2014)

hendrik-sg said:


> On a sensor doubled in size by a factor 2 (crop factor 0.5) a lens 100mm f 2.8 delivers the same picture like a 50mm f1.4 lens on FF.


No, it'll be like a 50/5.6. The light is spread out.


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## RGF (Aug 11, 2014)

if this is a development announcement, I hope it does not take as long as the 200-400 did to come to market. Otherwise we won't see a product until 2020


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## Dylan777 (Aug 11, 2014)

Studio maybe. Not on the field for wildlife shooters. MF body structure is a bit large to carry around. If true...starts with some native lenses. ..35 50 85mm to kick off MF line.


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## surapon (Aug 11, 2014)

To all of my dear friends and my Teachers :
Please Let me ask you some thing =
How many of us/ You will spend $ 25,000 (+) US Dollars for New Canon Medium format Camera ( 56-64 MP)= Body only ?.
How many of us/ you will buy the Big new Format Lens 2-3 Lens = $ 30,000-$ 35,000 (+) US Dollars ?

Yes, If We know the number of Prospective Buyers, May be Canon Company can know , how much the net profit that they will get from us.

Sorry, Not Me---May be The Real PRO, who make money from the Advertizing Photos on Magazine or The Bill Board / Graphic Designers.

Have a great work week, Sir/ Madam.
Surapon


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## hendrik-sg (Aug 11, 2014)

AJ said:


> hendrik-sg said:
> 
> 
> > On a sensor doubled in size by a factor 2 (crop factor 0.5) a lens 100mm f 2.8 delivers the same picture like a 50mm f1.4 lens on FF.
> ...



No,

50mm f1.4 on FF is like
100mm f2.8 on MF with crop factor 0.5

Both lenses have opening of about 36mm, and yes on the 100mm lens the light is more spread out . The equivalent you propose (50 f 5.6) has a opening of about 9mm


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## Dylan777 (Aug 11, 2014)

surapon said:


> To all of my dear friends and my Teachers :
> Please Let me ask you some thing =
> How many of us/ You will spend $ 25,000 (+) US Dollars for New Canon Medium format Camera ( 56-64 MP)= Body only ?.
> How many of us/ you will buy the Big new Format Lens 2-3 Lens = $ 30,000-$ 35,000 (+) US Dollars ?
> ...


I need to check my lottery tickets


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## Sporgon (Aug 11, 2014)

Just don't believe it. If they are looking at MF now they're about twenty five years too late.


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## RGF (Aug 11, 2014)

I don't think we are the intended market. Or perhaps all this is a red herring and nothing is really planned in MF. Just noise to confused the competition and rumor mongers


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## RLPhoto (Aug 11, 2014)

surapon said:


> To all of my dear friends and my Teachers :
> Please Let me ask you some thing =
> How many of us/ You will spend $ 25,000 (+) US Dollars for New Canon Medium format Camera ( 56-64 MP)= Body only ?.
> How many of us/ you will buy the Big new Format Lens 2-3 Lens = $ 30,000-$ 35,000 (+) US Dollars ?
> ...


If there is a company who could make MFD affordable again to the average pro, I'd be canon or Pentax at the moment. Canon made FF affordable in a sense and if they play their cards right, wouldn't even have to compete directly with the d800 and undercut hassy and phase with a budget MF system. I seriously doubt it will ever amount to more than text on a rumor site, but hey I quite like competition.


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## Besisika (Aug 11, 2014)

Dylan777 said:


> surapon said:
> 
> 
> > I need to check my lottery tickets
> ...


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## unfocused (Aug 11, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Just don't believe it. If they are looking at MF now they're about twenty five years too late.



My thoughts exactly. 

Developing a medium format camera today is way more complicated than it was in the film days and the market is much smaller and shrinking all the time. If Canon and Nikon were uninterested in medium format when it was actually a viable market, why would they invest in it now?

On another thread, I posted a reference to an estimate from Leica that the worldwide market for medium format is only 6,000 units annually. Hasselblad has a grand total of 180 employees according to their own website, not exactly a huge operation.

There are other markets that are far more promising.


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## Khufu (Aug 11, 2014)

Maybe it's something a little different, like a Square Format sensor which could utilise many current EF lenses' image circle? 36 x 36mm may be a little much but perhaps something greater than the 24mm width/height. Even if the lenses projected a solid circular outline right up to the 3:2 sensor's corners rather than fading, there'd still be room to extend the lesser of the two dimensions as the other's reduced to, say, 4:3 or 1:1?... maybe that's what's going on with this new 7D2 sensor tech - a taller APS-C width sensor to shoot Square Format images at around 23 x 23mm?! 

Oooooh...

I'm done. Carry on


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## Khufu (Aug 11, 2014)

36 x 36mm? Fun!...

http://www.mega-vision.com/e4.html


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## Sporgon (Aug 11, 2014)

Khufu said:


> Maybe it's something a little different, like a Square Format sensor which could utilise many current EF lenses' image circle? 36 x 36mm may be a little much but perhaps something greater than the 24mm width/height. Even if the lenses projected a solid circular outline right up to the 3:2 sensor's corners rather than fading, there'd still be room to extend the lesser of the two dimensions as the other's reduced to, say, 4:3 or 1:1?... maybe that's what's going on with this new 7D2 sensor tech - a taller APS-C width sensor to shoot Square Format images at around 23 x 23mm?!
> 
> Oooooh...
> 
> I'm done. Carry on



You just failed your 'Ordinary' level maths


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## Khufu (Aug 11, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Khufu said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe it's something a little different, like a Square Format sensor which could utilise many current EF lenses' image circle? 36 x 36mm may be a little much but perhaps something greater than the 24mm width/height. Even if the lenses projected a solid circular outline right up to the 3:2 sensor's corners rather than fading, there'd still be room to extend the lesser of the two dimensions as the other's reduced to, say, 4:3 or 1:1?... maybe that's what's going on with this new 7D2 sensor tech - a taller APS-C width sensor to shoot Square Format images at around 23 x 23mm?!
> ...



I really must have 'cause I've no idea where you're saying I've messed up, ha! Really, before everyone else notices, where'd I screw up and how many times? 

EDIT: Wait... is it because this thread's about >35mm Film size? Heh, alright, how's 24 x 24.1mm for that 7D2? It's greater than a 35mm frame in one dimension then, at least


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## 9VIII (Aug 11, 2014)

They have 54mm of room between the edges of the flange, that's basically on-par with all the new "Medium Format" cameras coming out.

Just use the same EF mount, get rid of the mirror, and you have a completely backward compatible medium format camera.


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## LSV (Aug 11, 2014)

unfocused said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > Just don't believe it. If they are looking at MF now they're about twenty five years too late.
> ...



To paraphrase an ancient proverb: “The best time to develop a MF camera was 25 years ago. The second best time is now.”


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## unfocused (Aug 11, 2014)

LSV said:


> unfocused said:
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> > Sporgon said:
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Yes, but while 1870 might have been the best time to develop a new buggy whip and by this reasoning 2014 is the second best time to develop a new buggy whip, that still doesn't make it a good time for buggy whips.


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## KyleSTL (Aug 11, 2014)

Square format FF has been discussed on this forum more times than more would care to admit.

A reflex mirror necessary to cover a 30.6mm x 30.6mm sensor would not be able to move in the flange distance allowed by Canon for EF mount. So a DSLR is out of the question, however a long flange distance mirrorless is doable.


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## chauncey (Aug 12, 2014)

Aah...wait a minute here...what about my battery of "L" lenses???


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## jrista (Aug 12, 2014)

dryanparker said:


> Would Canon benefit from offering some kind of product similar to the Leica S? Not a "full-blown" MF system to compete with Phase One or Hasselblad, but still something larger than 35mm?
> 
> I'm just not sure of the benefit given 35mm sensors now boast amazingly high resolution. The quality of the pixels is what Leica sells in their S body, given its comparatively modest resolution for a MF system. The leap in quality undoubtedly exists in the lenses.
> 
> Interesting play on Canon's part...



It's not about resolution, it's about sensor area. For a given subject framing, assuming you frame the same in all cameras, a larger sensor will always perform better. It doesn't matter how many pixels there are or how big they are, all that matters is the *total *amount of light gathered. Bigger sensor, more light at any given aperture. A MFD gathers more light than 35mm which gathers more light than APS-C which gathers more light than m4/3 which gathers more light than the inch fractional sensors at f/4. Simple as that.


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## RGomezPhotos (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> dryanparker said:
> 
> 
> > Would Canon benefit from offering some kind of product similar to the Leica S? Not a "full-blown" MF system to compete with Phase One or Hasselblad, but still something larger than 35mm?
> ...



You nailed it. 

The Nikon D800(x) has more MP than some older MF cameras. But there is no way people can say the Nikon images look like any images that come from a MF camera. It's good. But not that good.

I've tried both the PhaseOnes and Leica S cameras. I absolutely loved the form factor of the Leica S. Total love. But with the Leaf Shutter lenses available for it, you can only sync a flash up to 1/500 natively. Which is a little more than 2x than a typical DSLR. But far short the 1/1600 that Phase One can deliver. And there isn't a big price difference either. If any.

Bigger sensors are the future. APS-C are fine for soccer moms and people who want great quality for a cheap price. I was taking casual pics today with my 50D and loved the quality. But the APS-C sensor is on it's last legs in a DSLR format. And FF pricing is dropping. The totally fine 6D can be had on sale for $1500. Two years ago, that price was un-heard of for FF. Just a few days ago, I sold some gear I wasn't using to this total newb... And he had a 5D MKIII with some lenses that made me a bit envious.  And that's not un-common. Heck, I saw a guy show up at a $20 Meetup.com gig to group photograph a model... And he had a Hassy.... Too bad he couldn't figure out why his flash wasn't working 

I would love to have a 1DX for the simple reason is that it's workhorse and can do lots of things extremely well. That camera would be a great business investment. A camera I could use well for 5 years. No problem. But for the fashion work where I want to have that 'extra something' in the image... MF is my only choice. But that's a big step. And where Canon can help..

Canon could come out with a MF camera and due to their production setup, could make it for much cheaper than other MF makers. Heck, Phase One is HAND-ASSEMBLED. With Canon's mass-production capabilities, they can put out a MF camera for a quarter of the price of a Phase One. Possibly. That would sell like crazy... Think Zeiss could have a version of their Otus lens with a new Canon mount? You bet they would.

The 5-layer foveon sensor that Canon submitted a patent for looks really interesting and might be able to overcome the size advantage of MF.... And could be a better solution than MF since the sensor would be the same size as FF. And re-tooling wouldn't be as significant.

I can't wait until September ;D


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

Just out of interest, what flashes are you using at 1/1600 sync?


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## 9VIII (Aug 12, 2014)

Hopefully Nikon doesn't just make a 65mm wide flange or something like that (just big enough to fit their sensor), otherwise they'll be making a new mount every decade.


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## jrista (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Just out of interest, what flashes are you using at 1/1600 sync?



Schneider Kreuznach has some 1/1600th second sync leaf shutter lenses for the PhaseOne system. They are apparently extremely good...I think the price starts at around six grand for a 28mm prime. 

You might find this article insightful:

http://www.kern-photo.com/2013/01/why-leaf-shutter-lenses-matter/


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## Sporgon (Aug 12, 2014)

Khufu said:


> Sporgon said:
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No, it's because you can fit a rectangle inside a circle of a given diameter that has a longer side closer to the circle diameter than a square can be. Because circles are round and squares are, well, square


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## wockawocka (Aug 12, 2014)

One thing Canon would lead on is the flash system. Medium format ETTL flash solutions mostly suck. As a H4D50 user te ETTL solution for that camera is clumsy. I never got on with it.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> privatebydesign said:
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> > Just out of interest, what flashes are you using at 1/1600 sync?
> ...



No, I wasn't interested in the shutter, I have been shooting leaf shutter lenses since the mid seventies, I was interested in what flash puts out a decent amount of usable power in under 1/1600 sec.

Leaf shutters are often held up as some kind of golden bullet, especially here, but they have all sorts of their own issues (I own four) and what people seem to fail to grasp is that flash duration at decent power levels is normally much longer than 1/1600.


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## jrista (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> jrista said:
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As I understand it, the higher sync speed allows you to shoot, with flash, at MUCH faster apertures in brighter ambient light than you are normally able to with slower sync speeds. If you read the article I linked, it becomes pretty clear why people want a high flash sync and how they use it.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> privatebydesign said:
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Yes, I know all that and it wasn't the answer to my question, which was pretty simple, what flash is R Gomez using when he is syncing at 1/1600.

More specifically I'd like to know which flash model so I can look up the t1 time and look at the duration at various power settings. It would be nice to know the specific leaf shutter lenses he is using so we can work out the effective second aperture too. I don't want more links, just an answer to a simple question.


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## Sporgon (Aug 12, 2014)

jrista said:


> As I understand it, the higher sync speed allows you to shoot, with flash, at MUCH faster apertures in brighter ambient light than you are normally able to with slower sync speeds. If you read the article I linked, it becomes pretty clear why people want a high flash sync and how they use it.



What about HSS ? Since flashes have had this I've never missed a leaf shutter. Nowadays you can even have your slave flashes HSS, so unless you're needing more fill in light than a number of powerful Speedlites can supply I really don't get this whole "I want a leaf shutter" thing. 

Or being predominantly a landscape / crumbled old buildings sort of photographer am I missing something ?


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## RLPhoto (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> jrista said:
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The broncolor scoro S series is probably the best option with some parabolics to keep as much power in those durations. On the cheaper side, the PCB Einsteins @ half power will sync with my H3D with little power loss on the standard cyber commander @ 1/800th. Which can still push a big octobox or a PLM pretty far in daylight.


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## Lee Jay (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> jrista said:
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I measured my 580ex flashes at 1/800th for full power, so that would likely be a tad over half power at 1/1600th.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 12, 2014)

Lee Jay said:


> privatebydesign said:
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There is no way you are getting GN58 at 1/800 from a 580EX, my experience is losing just over one stop, so a little underr 1/2 power once you go over sync, then one stop loss per shutter speed increase, which makes sense because you get half as many pulses in half the time.

So for a 1/250 sync with a single speedlite in HSS I get < 1/2 power at 1/320th, then <1/4 power at 1/640, and <1/8 @ 1/1200.


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## Lee Jay (Aug 12, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Lee Jay said:
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That's not what I said.

I'll say it differently.

If you fire the 580ex at full power, the flash pulse lasts about 1/800th of a second.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 13, 2014)

Ah, sorry Lee Jay, that makes more sense.


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## Khufu (Aug 13, 2014)

Sporgon said:


> Khufu said:
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Dude, that was taken into consideration, repeatedly, hence the notes on reducing the wider dimension as the shorter one's increased to achieve the mentioned aspect ratios and the statement about 36 x 36mm being a little much but something from 24mm upwards being a possibility - I really thought I'd missed something but now I'm just wondering if "you just failed your Ordinary Level Reading Skills" - which is a much bitchier thing to say on these forums than I care to but... you started it


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## Sporgon (Aug 13, 2014)

Khufu said:


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Don't take it personally, I was only joking. Don't try a career in photography if you're this thin skinned - you'll end up a nervous wreck.

You say "36x36 being a little too much." Wrong. It would be far too much as far as practical use is concerned. Draw a 36x24 rectangle, then use a compass to draw a circle around it. Then try lifting the 24mm sides to form a 36x36 square and you will see just how large the image circle would have to be to accommodate this format.

You say make it a 4:3 ratio by shortening the long side and increasing the short, and this was made in the context of your post referring to larger sensors, yet that would give precisely the same size sensor in terms of area. 

With regard to making the APS-c size square to increase sensor size, this could be accommodated using the EF FF lenses but you would still end up with a sensor that is smaller ( in area ) than the APS-h, so again that would be pointless unless you happen to like square pictures which few people do.


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