CMOS Sensors in G Series

How long will it be before Canon starts manufacturing full size 35 mm CMOS sensors in their point and shoot line?

I can only hope soon. but i doubt it wont be for a while

Full size sensors are cost prohibitive and they require large lenses like a 35mm SLR. So they will sell you a DSLR. Point and Shoots will not get there for a long time if ever.

Exactly - who would want to pay $2000 for a G8 or whatever. Besides, it wouldn't be that compact if we had a FF sensor in a G-series cam.

Remember back in film days... a lot of compacts took 35mm-film... and had even nice zooms and weren't that large...

I think Sony's R1 may change things. I hope.

I'm not sure it's the answer, but it is the first step.

canon made 35mm elphs that werent much bigger than todays digital elphs.

seeing full frame sensors in point and shoot cameras is certainly possibly as time goes on.

As Lefturn suggests, the R1 may break things loose.
One thing that makes SLRs more bulky is the mirror that diverts the light path to the viewfinder, until the shutter is released, at which time the mirror snaps out of the way, and the sensor is exposed to the light instead of the viewfinder.
The rear optics of the lens have to leave clearance for the mirror, and that, along with the optics for the viewfinder, add a lot of size & weight.

It will be interesting to see if other manufacturers follow this leap, and if they do, how small they can make cameras with APS-sized or larger CMOS sensors.

On the other hand, full-frame CMOS won't always be the pinnacle either. Like the 5.25" floppy, or the full-height, 9-platter hard drive (ack, I'm showing my age), it too will most likely be superceded by something smaller and more efficient at gathering light. I would not be in the least suprised to see a fingernail sized sensor capable of ISO 3200 in the next five years. It's just as possible that full-frame will still be king by then too.

All rambling aside, I'm trying to say that high ISO/low noise is probably what you're looking for more than any particular sensor size--most especially if you're not working with interchangeable lenses, where sensor size would alter the magnification factor of your zillion dollar lens collection.

And I'm right there with you, wishing for that camera from Canon!

I'm more than happy to keep things the way they already are - just try to use the low ISO settings and all will be fine. Any compact that is capable of making superb 16x20 prints from JPEG's (such as the G6) are as good as it gets, IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, SBG, I love my G6, but I'd love it even more if I had the flexibility that would come with apertures up to F16 and ISO up to 1600.
The quality of the G6 in bright sunlight with a stationary object is great--but when it's a lovely, grey, overcast day, and the subject is a wildflower that's bobbing in the breeze, it can be really hard to get a sharp shot. Even at full wide aperture, and ISO 400--there's a limit on how slow the shutter speed can be before blur is obvious. Imagine how much more you could do with twice as many F-stops, and twice as many ISO settings. You'd have quadruple the metering range for the same shutter speed (unless my math is bad, and that's exponential). I'd love to see what the DOF would be like in macro mode at F16.

Yes, I can see that point. Technology should be able to handle a larger sensor in a still-small body in the future, something like the new R1. Afterall, if DSLR makers opt for FF, the APS-C might be an ideal fit for the compact as the sensor framework will not become obsolete from the "good old days" of 1.6x crop cams.

As with eveything in photography, compromises abound.

For more performance, I can chip my car, install larger injectors and upgrade the suspension. Too bad I can't do the same to my camera. If I could my signature would say something like:

Kodak Brownie Junior Six-16
16.7 CMOS mod (pushed to 22.3MP)
"L" Mod
Dual Motorola XX-90B Noise Reduction
Overclocked Digic-IIb