2/3" Canon HD Camera..Someday?
 

I have always been a lover of the images the Canon camera's produce. From the XL1 to the XL2 and now the H1. How difficult would it be for Canon to make a larger 2/3" version of the H1. Since they are leaders in the world of 2/3" glass, I could see how there is a tremedous market for them now that HD is going to be the way of the future for ENG, and Indie film markets. Even better would be a tapeless solution..perhaps like the GV Infinity with their Iomega Rev innovations. I was just curious as to does anyone think that Canon will perhaps someday make a camera that has larger sensors than 1/3".

I'm sure they can but then their flood-light line would suffer. :-)

The degree of difficulty depends more on their surroundings in the market place and the actions of their competitors within the market than on their ability to simply produce the camera themselves. The probability of them making and selling a camera with larger sensors than 1/3" is very high, in fact I'd say it's a near certainty. But the time frame for release of such a camera is simply unknown.
If I were to make a prediction as to when they'd release a 2/3" or full frame cinema camera, I'd say anytime between 2008 and 2010, but no later than 2011.

My guess is it would be a single CMOS sensor and hopefully a full
35mm chip so that one could use 35mm still glass without issue.
I would like it to be able to capture
1920x1080 @ 60P recording to hard disk using
MPEG4 (or other modern codec), but still have the HD-SDI output.

No need for a big sensor
 

35mm sensors are very expensive and produce IQ much higher than required for 1920x1080 if you look at their still cameras. If they manage to build a good CMOS 1080i sensor (let's wait and see how good HV10 is), my dream camcorder would be XH-A1 modified as following:

- size - 6x4x4in without lens and handle;
- weight - 2 pounds without lens;
- detachable handle on top, pull-up viewfinder moved into the body;
- interchangable lens mount with full support for EF and EF-S lenses;
- 1 CMOS sensor instead of 3 1/3" CCD.
- replace HDV MPEG-2 codec with MPEG4/H.264 to store full 1920x1080 (60i, 30p) on MiniDV tape, no need for 24p for me;

My main complains about A1 are dimensions, weight, and absense of lens mount for all my L lenses. But unfortunately, all these complaints are very unusual ;-)

Why doesnt CANON just use one (or 3) of the EXISTING ccds from their SLR still camera the EOS-1Ds Mark II. Just connect up some sort of recording device (hmmm...that shouldnt be too hard to figure out) , make a nice lens and thats all the picture you'd ever really need. All the parts exist right now!

Not meaning to sound condescending in any way, but I should provide a quick word of humble wisdom for people requesting a 35mm sensor,

35mm in digital photography is not the same as 35mm or S35mm in digital cinematography.

The actual frame used in 35mm digital cinematography, as employed by a camera like RED is actually closer to the size of an APS-C DSLR sensor (See: Nikon D2x or Canon 30D etc). It is not the full frame 36mm x 24mm sensor featured in cameras like the Canon 1Ds/MkII or 5D series.

Just thought I should provide some clarity on the issue.

And for a quick visual aid of what I'm referring to with APS vs full frame sensor sizes, here: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...ensorsizes.jpg

What would be interesting though is if someone managed to create a digital Vistavision type camera, one that actually utilized a full 35mm frame.

The full size sensors don't have enough outputs to produce more than a few frames a second over the full resolution.

As to why there appears to be such a big difference in price/performance between sensors or full products for video and for photography, its a question I would like a full answer to myself.

The full 35mm sensor size for a DSLR is much bigger than a movie full 35mm frame, but as far as I am concerned this only makes the question more difficult to answer.

I'd settle for a 1/3" HDV cam, but with all the bells and whistles...like a Sony HC1.

For all you Farsi speaking members: Steve Austin, mar de be austin. :-)

xlh2

3 2/3" chips

$19,995.00

Aug '07

Interesting.
I won't say the information is wrong, instead I'll just say it's not entirely right.

How about a 1" one-chip hand-held for a grand? That would be my next baby. :-)

The simple answer is: because still sensors are not designed for video. :) They're made to output a single frame, and video requires 24 or 25 or 30 frames per second. The technical gulf between the two is huge. If it were even doable to use still sensors for motion capture, companies like RED wouldn't be spending millions on the development of larger video-capable sensors.

Food for thought -
I own a couple of Eos 1dMkII's, and the framerate (with physical shutter) is roughly 8.5 frames / second. Using a 3-chip style beam splitter, like that employed in current vid cameras, you could split the optics to 3 separate sensors, and cycle through them progressively, so that by the time sensor 1 is done reading off, and 3 is done capturing, it's capture time again on 1. i realize that single-sensor solutions are more elegant, but the chips in the mkII are gorgeous, and already in production. Obviously, a beam splitter large enough to cover "almost" 35mm (1.3 x crop) would be expensive, as would 3 of the chips, but in mass production a lot of that cost could be eaten. Give it a nice body, and MANUAL (with an option for radio-remote) control over EF lenses through the existing circuitry and internal motors... WOW!!!!!

Should such a camera come out, the could produce a secondary line of "L" lenses, with built-in zoom motors (also with electronic and radio-remote control).

Not to discount the distinct possibility of Canon producing an S35 digital cinecam in the near future, but they're much more likely to deliver a 2/3" model first.
It's a simple assessment based on their existing line up of 2/3 HD cinelenses.

I also expect JVC to offer something similar around the same time; a camera which I personally think will dish out some unexpected mojo to give it a slight edge over its competitors. (I'm not a JVC fan boy; I just think their relationship with Fuji will develop into something more advanced than just incorporating lenses on their cameras)

As for the others, well, they kind of already have a product or two in that area of the market, but we'll have to wait and see how they and/or their successors measure up against these speculated up and comers before declaring all out war.

It is fun to dream sometimes! You're right though, they will certainly hit a 2/3" camera sometime soon, as will JVC. As the market shifts deeper into HD, there will be a lot more to choose from, just as there was when DV caught on. One problem for all this stuff right now is the lack of HD delivery.

I shoot a few tv shows on HD. HD is the buzzword among executive producers these days, it just sounds sexier I guess. The problem is, none of these networks have any delivery in HD, so they're basically wasting production money to shoot 16:9 HD and protect 4:3 framing. As for down the road, I would die laughing if any of these shows got replayed when the channels became HD. Even now on true HD broadcast channels, about 1/2 the content is up-rezzed SD, or up-rezzed SD from film origin.

It'll take more than RED to drive an industry-wide swing to true HD broadcast cameras. Right now, there just isn't the demand to make it financially worthwhile. Panasonic and Sony don't make big profits off their broadcast cameras. They barely break even, when you consider r&d. Their real cash cows are the consumer and prosumer cams. From an advertising standpoint, it helps to tout your broadcast or HD cinema chops to show the lineage of your consumer line. But still, if there's no payoff, there's no motivation.

Obviously, JVC and Canon are in good position to release killer cams, and I'm quite sure they will eventually. They may even have prototypes completed. The problem is, there is no universal HD standard, and with 4K cams on the horizon, it pays to wait and let someone else take the jump off the cliff first. If 4K takes off, I'm sure a lot of mfgs will follow suit. But if you have the choice of selling tens or even hundreds of thousands of 1080 cameras or a thousand 4k cameras (at considerably lower profit)...well...

[QUOTE=Jaron Berman]It is fun to dream sometimes! You're right though, they will certainly hit a 2/3" camera sometime soon, as will JVC. As the market shifts deeper into HD, there will be a lot more to choose from, just as there was when DV caught on. One problem for all this stuff right now is the lack of HD delivery.

I shoot a few tv shows on HD. HD is the buzzword among executive producers these days, it just sounds sexier I guess. The problem is, none of these networks have any delivery in HD, so they're basically wasting production money to shoot 16:9 HD and protect 4:3 framing. As for down the road, I would die laughing if any of these shows got replayed when the channels became HD. Even now on true HD broadcast channels, about 1/2 the content is up-rezzed SD, or up-rezzed SD from film origin.

QUOTE]

Yup, I work with a large TV network and you hit it right on the nose. The footage from my XL2 is basically what some people think HD is.

Perhaps Canon are already involved in a certain full size camera project, they do have a lot of expertise with 35mm size sensors!

( this is area 51 after all :) )