My wish for the 1D-1Ds Mk III - what's yours?

[Radtech1]

Imagine this:

The cameras fimrware breaks down the image-receptor into a 4x4 grid of 16 rectangles, treating each of these 16 rectangles as it's own seperate sensor. There is a monitoring feature that measures the number of photons that hits each of these 16 rectangles. The camera can then turn off the rectangles individualy when the saturation number of photons is reached. There would be some sort of stitching routine that would smooth out the edges of the rectangles.

What good would that be? No more blown skys. Boost in dynamic range.

With a 45 point focusing system, how much trouble would it be to have a 16 point metering system?

What do you dream of seeing?

Rad

[pradeep1]

Isn't this similar to what high end digital back for medium format cameras do already? Good thinking though...I'd like to see that as well.

[LarryB]

I dream of seeing a couple of them drop gently from the sky and land in my camera case.


.....oh....that's not what you meant.........never mind.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Interesting ideas... hmmm...

My next gen 1D dream list?

1. Menu System
Start the transition from the clunky 1 series menu system to the more evolved 10d/20d menu system

2. Battery
Dump the half ton NIMH for a newer lighter and more powerfull L-ION
This would make the Camera much lighter and give it even longer battery life. Also we would be doing away with the Portrait Grip alltogether.. (see "Sensor Shape")

3. Sensor Shape
Move on Canon.. forget the old 35mm format and take advantage of Digitals full potential while using more of the circular image that the lenses allready produce! Give us a square (or octagonal.. but this harder fro you to visualize) sensor and let us crop to landscape or portrait.. or switch it in camera.. we can do away with the "portrait grip" and never have to tilt our cameras again.

4. Dual photosite sizes -Double Dynamic Range - Dual File Size/speed
Assuming the next camera has more pixels than the 1DsII.. then why not make half of them less sensitive to light than the other half? (ala Fuji S3) and give us nearly double the dynamic range! If it were 24 megpixels.. make 12 "normal" photosites and 12 smaller "S" sites. Also.. in the menu system let us switch off the "S" sites when we don't need them for a total of normal 12MP only and double the Cameras performance with half the file size.

5. In Camera IS Hey I can dream Can't I??
It would work like the Minolta system. You can of course turn it off. It would also need better AI to allow it to work WITH IS lenses doubling the IS capabilities when used together

6. The little 20D Eraser Head
Yep.. give us the 20D's AF point selector please

Oh.. and faster flash synch.. 1/500 would be nice.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Rad Tech.. heres anothe rway to implement your idea.. ( I was stuck with Fujis solution above.. but yours is more inventive)

Anyway it got me thinking...

Why not have every photosite.. (or maybe larger groups of them) individually adjust there own level of ISO sensitivity??

Not bad eh?

So point the Camera at a scenen with a train in the forground a mountain range behind it and a sunset behind the mountain.

The train is obviously dark (back lit at best).. the mountians are getting some colored light around them and the Sunset is much brighter.

BUT the iso sensitivity of the photosites handling the train have jumpoed up to ISO 800,. the brighter parts of the mountains are don at 300... and the bright shy photosites have dropped to 100 or 50 ISO....

hmmm...

There's be different settings as to how this would function. You could limit the percentage.. or number of stops that you would allow the ISO to adjust.. and you could also limit it to only "closing down" the iso to avoid blown highlights.

[Radtech1]

Originally Posted by CyberDyneSystems

Rad Tech.. heres anothe rway to implement your idea.. ( I was stuck with Fujis solution above.. but yours is more inventive)

Anyway it got me thinking...

Why not have every photosite.. (or maybe larger groups of them) individually adjust there own level of ISO sensitivity??

Well, I was thinking on the Mk III, not the Mk VI!

Actually, the Gamma Cameras that I use at work DO do this. It is on a 32x32 grid, not 4x4, so we have a total of 1024 descrete sites. When we set up a study using this method we call it "Acquire for Saturation" or "Acquisition Normalization"

But in a photgraphic camera, we just couldnt saturate, so as I thought more about this, the sites could be turned off/left on longer as a function of stops away from what the camera is set at. Hmmm... I will have to think more on this.

Anyway....CANON, if you are listening, remember, you heard it here first! Ya owe me fifty bucks if you do it

Rad

[Persian-Rice]

I have not researched the 1Ds II because I have not had the time and probably because it's not a camera that would suit my area of photography. However, I think i will add some "generic" wish list items.
In general, I think Canon should really start using some of the technologies already available in other equipment.

As mentioned, the Fuji "dual sensor" is awesome, but another one that really impresses me and would add great versatility to all cameras is the "two in one" sensor system the Nikon D2x uses. You can take a 12 MP image at 4 fps for portrait & landscape mode with low crop factor.

Then you have the ability to go into a a sports, wildlife & speed mode that reduces effective pixel count by actually segregating a block of photo sites in the center of the sensor. What does this do? First. it creates a bigger crop factor giving a much better zoom on your lens, and because file size is decrease , the fps actually run up to 8+.

If I ever see this feature on a Canon, I will buy it in an instant. If I had not invested in so many Canon lenses, equipment and the fact that I love Canon Photography, I would have considered the Nikon as my next camera.

Cheers

[Andy_T]

Hmmm....

... same features as 1DsII ...

... But 20D price ...

... marketed under the name 'Ds-Rebel'

Best regards,
Andy

[Jon]

I think CDS' first idea on the photoreceptors is probably the most workable (obviously, since it's already in production). I'd be concerned that allowing continuously-variable discrete sensor cut-off levels would absolutely kill contrast; you'd have to have some sort of threshold values at both ends, and you'd never really be sure what your exposure was going to be if the darker sites "held" the shutter open longer. Crisp, bright highlights at the limit of detail, with motion-blurred shadows anyone? I like the idea of the dual sensors, maybe also using the Foveon sensor as well. But leave that option clamped down to the RAW settings. I really hate the idea of the camera having control over each individual pixel's density.

[BearSummer]

If Wishes were horses.... we would all have Mk3's

1, dual sensor, square and 3:2 ratio so you get the best of both worlds. Use 3:2 when you want landscape or portrait, switch to square when you want that format.

2, ECF, eye control focus, the point you look at is the point that is used to focus on.

3, 16 bit sensors

4, A good anti dust solution

5, A sensible/usable dof solution

oh yeah, and cheap.

Best regards

BearSummer

[Longwatcher]

In case I can't get my 1DsMkII before the next version comes out, here is what I want (eventually)

-48MP sites times Foven 3-color (or better yet, even more color including sensitivity to IR range)
- 24 frame buffer with RAW data
- Dual write as in RAW to one card, Jpeg to the other
- Go with an attachable battery grip design (I personally like having the bigger size camera for me to hold, without the battery grip my D60 and 10D are too small to hold properly.
- At least 5FPS, 24FPS even better.
- Various frame rate modes (ala N%k&n)
- A through the lens LCD (ala my XL-2 camcorder)

and for the really cool, have a capbility to change out the sensor as needed for color, black and white, or infrared.

Lastly of course cheap enough I can afford it with whatever money I have for spending on the camera at the time ($1500 right now would be good

[CyberDyneSystems]

Hmm definately some good ideas I had not thought about..

We'll Have to revise the spec sheet for the "1DSUX-2000" to include;

BearSummer's AntiDust solution and true 16 bit color,

Longwatchers' Built in switchable Infrared mode and TTL CCD preview.

Having used 8.5 FPS and finding way out of control.. I know I'd not need more (24fps? thats 35mm motion picture speed )
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But this leads me to more existing 1D usablity complaints that could easily be resolved in newer models.

Adjustable frame rate with Camera Controls
Currently to change from 8.5 fps to say 5fps as i have done,.. one must tether the camera to a PC and use a Personal Funtion Why?

Fix the half baked Dual memory card set up
Simple firmware changes should allow us to copy from card to another in camera. Also as Longwatcher says.. RAW to one card and jpeg to another would be nice.

Easily accesible user defined Shooting Modes
The "1" bodies allow you to save groups of custm functions in presets.. but I had allways dreamed of a caera with settings just the 10D/20D has on a dial... ala "Sportsmode", "Landscape" etc.. but allow the user to define EVRY setting for each of the modes. Ie: one setting for "indoor lowlight shooting" would allow me to spec AV with full open aperture, ISO 800, fram rate, single or AI.. different CF and PF settings, Even Which CARD to write to! etc... Then I could record a "bird in flight" setting.. AI servo, ISO 400 etc... and to get back to these setting once recorded I simply turn the dial.. or to keep the "1" weather sealing" it could be a menu on the LCD of 5 or more presets.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by CyberDyneSystems

Easily accesible user defined Shooting Modes
The "1" bodies allow you to save groups of custm functions in presets.. but I had allways dreamed of a caera with settings just the 10D/20D has on a dial... ala "Sportsmode", "Landscape" etc.. but allow the user to define EVRY setting for each of the modes. Ie: one setting for "indoor lowlight shooting" would allow me to spec AV with full open aperture, ISO 800, fram rate, single or AI.. different CF and PF settings, Even Which CARD to write to! etc... Then I could record a "bird in flight" setting.. AI servo, ISO 400 etc... and to get back to these setting once recorded I simply turn the dial.. or to keep the "1" weather sealing" it could be a menu on the LCD of 5 or more presets.

You mean like in the "A" series?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Yep... too funny.

[Belmondo]

I hope the Mk III incorporates a price tag of $5,000 or less.