Canon Update - What's in the pipeline for summer 2012?

[Johnny]

Well, I am hoping the new MILC camera will have phase detection AF like the Nikon 1. I am not going to buy one otherwise.

I do not think the 7D replacement will be the camera with extended DR that people are hoping for, that can compete with Sony's low noise sensors. It seems like this is not a priority at the moment. I am sure it will have a new AF modul, minor improvements in terms of noise from raw files and at least one DIGIC 5 processor which will give improved DR for JPEG shooters. I am sure Canon as usual will claim 1-2 stops of improved DR. And something that will satisfy videographers as they are very important to Canon.

The new MILC camera is to me the most interesting camera to wait for. Phase detection AF please....

[Bob Atkins]

I've recently been looking at some Nikon D800 images and comparing them to 7D images, in particular looking at highly underexposed RAW ISO 100 images which are given something like +5 EV compensation in a RAW developer like Rawtherapee.

The D800 images do show lower noise, but that's not really the main issue. The main issue is that the D800 images show some noise but no banding, while the 7D images show more noise but a LOT of banding. It's the banding that's the main problem, not so much the noise. The banding comes from the sensor readout electronics and the sensor construction. It's very clear that in this respect the Nikon (or Sony) chip is much better then the Canon.

I will write all this up at some point, but I'm still doing testing. I can say that I'm pretty impressed with the D800 sensor though. However, in NORMAL use (i.e. not trying to push a highly underexposed image by 5 or 6 stops), you really don't see that much of a difference in noise performance. The 7D is perfectly fine.

I'm still waiting for an EOS 5D MkIII do do similar tests on.

I agree about the MILC AF system. I do hope that if Canon do announce such a camera that they have paid attention to AF speed. They've certainly had time to do that. If they don't get it right at this point, after having the opportunity to watch the competition for a couple of years, there's really no excuse.

[bmpress]

Your comments about 7D banding v. Sony/Nikon were interesting to me because I seem to be pushing my own 7D in that direction. When shooting white birds and trying to preserve the detail in the feathers it always seems that the background lake and tree detail suffers from noise and banding. And of course it is impossible to use HDR technique in this type of scenario. I am now wondering if better results in this situation might be obtained with the Nikon camera despite its slower frame rate.

[Bob Atkins]

Well, I'm talking about banding way down in the noise. I think on the test shots I was pushing the RAW image by 5 stops.  I don't see any banding on normal shots, though I'll admit I haven't actually looked hard for it! If it's there it must be pretty subtle because I've taken thousands of shots with the 7D and never noticed it.

I'm still waiting on the 5D MkIII for comparisons. The D800 images do look very clean though. I seem to be seeing less moire on them than I see from the 7D (and that's when shooting resolution targets which are designed to show up moire patterns). Again in normal use I haven't seen excessive moire patterns in 7D images.

I'm impressed with the D800 image quality, but I'll reserve final judgement until I've also looked at the 5D MkIII.