We will be releasing an upcoming series of articles on infrared photography that I've been slowly working through the last few weeks, and this amusingly popped up in the list of patent applications published.
In this patent application (2024-019961) Canon shows off a high-speed stacked sensor using three substrate layers. As you can imagine, sensor layers are like a house, the more floors you have the more flexibility you have, and the more room.
Five years ago, the first thing manufacturers talked about when launching a new camera was the sensor. Megapixels made headlines along with backlit designs and sensor stacking. But, has all that changed? Looking at technical tests and rankings like those from DxO Mark, half of all the top ten full frame cameras are more than three years old.
More and more photographers are demanding durable cameras. But what they've also been asking for are brass cameras. The only brands to really do something like this in the past two decades have been Pentax and Leica.
A couple of patent applications caught my eye over the last week – and of course, with me traveling and living out of a suitcase right now I filed it in my head to revisit. These two patents show some unique pixel structures that we are not used to seeing from Canon.
Fujifilm X-H2 is a camera with one of the highest resolving APS-C sensors currently on the camera market. When you combine that with certain film simulations, photos will just look naturally sharper.
In the late 2000s, the camera industry had healthy competition that actually stood out from one another. The Nikon D700 and its relatives used 12MP sensors that tried to give the best high ISO output.
In some ways, I think that Fujifilm doesn't think that they need to make another X100 series camera. I mean, if you look at the Fujifilm X100 series of cameras right now, you'll see that you can't keep them in stock.
For the first time ever, I'm pretty confused about the Fujifilm camera lineup. They have three flagship cameras. The Fujifilm XH2s has speed and a DSLR-style camera body. The Fujifilm XH2 has resolution and a DSLR-style camera body.
As it is, Leica can't keep the Leica Q2 in stock. It's an excellent camera that wedding photographers and photojournalists really love. And quite honestly, it's probably the best full-frame point and shoot camera on the market right now.
The megapixel count of a camera is often viewed by consumers to be the benchmark number for telling whether or not that camera is "good." If that were true, however, why do photographers not just buy a 108-megapixel smartphone to use as their primary equipment? The answer: because image quality has to do with far more than just megapixels. [Read More]
The Leica M11 answers the demands of many a photographer. It boasts image quality that looks like slide film while balancing the needs for both resolution and dynamic range. Plus, there's a cool brass version.
The best thing about modern cameras with image stabilization is that you can capture things that really weren't possible before. These cameras give in to the fact that you're probably amped up on coffee or not always in a stable situation.
really, really do hope that Olympus is considering making another high end Pen F camera. They tend to say that those cameras don't work for them. But Nikon said the same thing about the Df. Then we got the Nikon ZFc, that's proving to have a lot of hype.
The Nikon ZFc has been accused by a few folks of basically being a Fujifilm rip-off. But that's not the case. Realistically, the Nikon ZFC is the company's modernization of the Nikon Df. They've desperately needed a retro style camera body.
I'm bound to believe that the Nikon ZFc will be looked at in multiple ways. First, this is a brave step for Nikon. The Nikon ZFc is smaller and lighter than the FM2 while having weather resistance built-in.
Fujifilm celebrates a long history in the medium format world. Before the Fujifilm GFX system came around, they were in medium format film. Folks loved Velvia, Astia, Pro 400H, and much more. Those looks and a bunch of others have been brought to the digital photography world.
There aren't that many absolutely iconic digital cameras. But if you had to pick one, everyone would agree about the Leica M9. It was the first mirrorless full-frame camera ever made. And it stood out from the pack with a CCD sensor that looked like chrome film.
For some time there has been repeated speculation that OM Digital was going to (or should) join the L-mount alliance, but in answering questions in its “Four Thirds Day” presentation with Panasonic reconfirmed that it has no plans to produce full-frame cameras.
I remember when I was introduced to the Olympus Pen F before it was officially announced. The Olympus PR reps sold the black and white photo rendition to me very hard. So I shot RAW+JPEG with it just in case.
Canon Watch is reporting that Canon has developed a new 21mp full-frame sensor and suggests we may see it in an upcoming EOS R camera. Read more...
Does anyone remember APS-H? It was a format that was primarily used by Canon in a variant of their 1D camera models. Back then, they had one full-frame camera for high megapixel shooting, and one APS-H camera for sports shooting.
The Panasonic G100 doesn’t have in-body image stabilization on the sensor, but it has its 5 Axis Hybrid IS system. Besides being a terribly kept secret, the Panasonic G100 camera is boasting a whole lot in terms of upgrades and features.
Samsung unveiled the world’s first 108-megapixel smartphone camera sensor back in August 2019, but that sensor is only a taste of what may be to come. Samsung is aiming to one day make a 600-megapixel sensor that’s superior to the human eye.
"That's a new one for you folks," is what I said when being briefed on the new 40MP sensor at the heart of the Leica M10 Monochrom. Indeed, it's not just the Leica M10's sensor with the Bayer array removed.
German researchers have created a new high dynamic range (HDR) CMOS image sensor that features a new pixel design that could pretty much do away with blown highlights. While traditional CMOS sensors have pixels that “clip” and stop capturing highlight data when they’re fully saturated — all additional data is lost in those areas of […]
MELVILLE, NY, June 20, 2019 – As image sensors are a driving force in innovating industries, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, is Read more...
MELVILLE, NY, June 20, 2019 – The high demands of complex lighting and harsh environments require sensors capable of delivering high-dynamic range (HDR) and high-image Read more...
After a many year hiatus, I returned to photography as an avocation. In years past, I had been a semi-pro, using primarily Leica gear and film, of course at full frame. In those days the only significant half frame camera was the Olympus, which in spite of the smaller but more useful format gave a […]
*Update* After speaking with a couple of people, it turns out that this image sensor has no chance of ever making it to a consumer Read more...
It's possible very soon that a technology called Quantum dots could be implemented into making camera sensors significantly better than they currently are. For photographers, that means that higher end cameras with interchangeable lenses could take a quantum leap (pun intended) ahead of the smartphone world.
Tony Northrup has posted a video discussing the exposure term ISO and has deemed it “totally fake”. It’s an interesting take on the use of Read more...
Canon has had the Canon 5Ds and Canon 5DsR for a number of years now, so it only makes sense that they'd "update" those cameras by taking those older sensors and recycling them into a newer camera body.
When I walked into a meeting with Leica and saw the Leica M10-D, it reminded me of the very few times that I gasped with utter and pure excitement in the industry: when Sony announced their radio flashes/transmitter, when Capture One finally started to work closer with Fujifilm, and when Kodak announced that Ektachrome was coming back.
When I originally played with the Leica S2, I was enamored with the Leica S system and it's approach to making medium format more like a standard full frame DSLR. With the Leica S3, the company is continuing that tradition with more or less the same body.
To a truly stunned audience at Photokina 2018, Fujifilm announced that a brand new 100MP Fujifilm GFX camera will be coming soon. But this isn't any camera, they're pulling out all the stops here.
The Fujifilm XT3 (or as they call it, the Fujifilm X-T3) is the company's latest evolution to their SLR style camera body designed to be a workhorse for many photographers. Despite a whole lot of great and absolutely fantastic things built into the camera, I personally am wondering what Fujifilm's goal is here with the idea of the X Trans sensor and Film Simulations.
While the rumors have been flying about the web for a while, you can confirm today that the Nikon D3500 is indeed real. The D3xxx series of cameras have always been their most entry level DSLRs and to that end, they basically take leftover product and rehash it into something more standard, basic and amateur.
I'm not going to lie, I was wondering if the Panasonic LX1 was ever going to be replaced, and today Panasonic is announcing their new Panasonic LX1 Mk II. The camera keeps pretty much everything that was great about the Panasonic LX1 but replaces the internals.
Canon has posted an article about what they claim is “The World’s Largest Ultrahigh-Sensitivity CMOS Image Sensor”. You can see by the image above that the sensor dwarfs the Canon EOS Rebel T3i (600D).
Things are going really well for CMOS sensor makers according to IC Insights. IC Insights reports: The spread of digital camera applications in vehicles, machine vision, human recognition and security systems, as well as for more powerful camera phones will drive CMOS image sensor sales to an eighth straight record-high level this year with worldwide revenues Read more...
Canon USA has posted the video above talking about Canon’s CMOS sensors. From Canon USA: This video showcases Canon variety of sensors. For several decades Canon has been developing and manufacturing advanced CMOS sensors with state-of-the-art technologies for exclusive use in Canon products.
The Leica M10 is a $6,900 camera that some photographers swear by, but its full-frame sensor doesn’t stack up well against the top full frame sensors on the market — it’s more in line with the performance of top APS-C crop sensors.
From Image Sensors World: MDPI Special Issue on the 2017 International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) publishes Canon paper “Development of Gentle Slope Light Guide Structure in a 3.4 ” by Hiroshi Sekine, Masahiro Kobayashi, Yusuke Onuki, Kazunari Kawabata, Toshiki Tsuboi, Yasushi Matsuno, Hidekazu Read more...
Just in time before the holidays, we're getting a brand new lens announcement in the form of the Meyer Optik Primoplan 75mm f1. 9. This new lens is a revamped and improved version that the company is creating for $629 to the backers of their IndieGoGo project.
ISW has uncovered a paper from NHK, Brookman, TSMC, and University of Tokyo for a “A 1.1- ” Once you get through all the crazy technical stuff, it basically describes a 1″ 8K stacked video sensor with a slow motion function. Is 4K already Read more...
The Nikon D850‘s reign as the top rated camera at DxOMark was incredibly short-lived: less than a month after giving the D850 the first official score of 100, DxOMark has just crowned the Hasselblad X1D-50c medium format camera with a highest-ever score of 102.
A new Kickstarter called I'm Back is finding a way to give old school film cameras new life in the digital world. Not that many of those old film cameras need it, but the ability to shoot digital with the older style film cameras has always been a dream of many photographers.
The Nikon D850 isn’t actually the first DSLR to be assigned a DxOMark score of 100+. The medium format Pentax 645Z was actually awarded a ridiculously high score of 101 back in 2015, but it’s unofficial because that review has never been published.
We just updated our Canon 6D Mk II review to conform a bit more to our standard testing procedures. For years, I've tended to run all our cameras and lenses through Lightroom when it comes to testing simply because of the fact that it's the industry standard.
Canon has announced a new 19-megapixel, full-frame, global-shutter sensor that it says is ideal for capturing fast-moving subjects without distortion. [Read More]
In an update to a very intriguing rumor that hit the airwaves a couple of weeks ago, CanonWatch is reporting that Canon will use a “moving sensor” to create the rumored “pro” EOS R camera with a hybrid EF/RF mount we originally mentioned here.
Canon may be developing a Quad Pixel Autofocus sensor as the followup to its highly-regarding Dual Pixel AF. A newly-surfaced patent shows a sensor in which each pixel is split into not two, but four areas.
It seems that February 2018 is the month of global shutter CMOS sensor breakthroughs. A day after Sony announced the first 1MP+ backlit global shutter CMOS sensor, Panasonic announced its own groundbreaking development: a global shutter CMOS sensor that’s capable of 8K, 60FPS, and HDR.
The Nikon D850 has generated a considerable amount of excitement among photographers today after its announcement, and here’s a new fact that will add even more fuel to the frenzy: Nikon says the D850 should have the same image quality at double the ISO as the D810.
NASA has unveiled a new infrared camera that promises to drive impressive new science on Earth and beyond.
[Read More]
DXOMark ranked the new Leica M11 rangefinder and scored it a 100, which makes it one of the top five full-frame sensors currently available. It joins the Nikon Z7 II and D850, Panasonic S1R, and Sony A7R III as the other 100-point cameras. [Read More]
DxOMark is known for rigorously testing the image quality of cameras and smartphones, but for smartphones, it had focused on the main rear-facing cameras. That has now changed with the launch of DxOMark’s new Selfie scores — it’s a new test protocol for determining the quality of front cameras. “We have designed this protocol to […]
Last month, we reported that DxOMark had reviewed the Pentax 645Z back in 2015 and given it a highest-ever score of 101 before pausing its medium format camera reviews prior to publishing any. That Pentax 645Z review is finally out, and DxOMark still has glowing things to say about the camera. DxOMark says the 51.4-megapixel […]
For many years as a photographer, I've had one trick that has made all my product photography shine. Companies lease our product images and on social platforms or messaging boards, our product images are often used to showcase a lens or camera looking sexy.
Take a look at the lead image for this story: what do you think it was shot with? It's a photo I use often here on the site. That photograph was shot with Kodak Portra with a Bronica ETRS. No editing was done.
When it comes to cleaning your camera sensor, the truth is that many photographers are very scared and don't know how to do it. There are options like the Rocket Blower, the Arctic Butterfly and very recently Dexter's Vac-o-matic was sent to us for review.