Canon’s Wonder Camera

[NGP]

I know it's been a while since I've been here (been busy away, bla bla) but found something quite interesting.. watch the video as well when you have some time
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Canon has been showing off its vision of the future of the photography, and when they name a concept the Wonder Camera you have to realise they’re aiming high. According to Canon’s crystal-ball gazers, one day in the not too distant future we’ll have junked our regular DSLRs and replaced them with a single camera that, thanks to high-end optics, can shoot both extreme zoom and extreme macro images; gizmag shot a video demo of the camera, which will also apparently have a massively high resolution sensor and be shooting video all the time rather than a series of stills.

That continuous video, Canon suggests, together with the high resolution and frame rate, means photographers will be able to pick just about any frame from the footage and pull it out as a still image. Canon demonstrated the Wonder Camera’s various strengths by taking a single high-resolution image of the whole Expo 2010 auditorium and then picking out a number of individual portrait shots based on those people who were smiling at the time.

If you’re wondering about focus, Canon say the Wonder Camera will be able to keep everything in-frame crisp and sharp at once. As for controls and connectivity, figure a huge touchscreen and high-speed wireless for easy transfers and sharing. Heady stuff, but the great thing about concepts is that you generally have quite a few years for people to forget all the great things you’ve promised.

[ricktas]

I think we will start to see some of the features of future cameras slowly entering new models. They risk technology overload if they just release it at some point in the future. Doing certain features over several model releases means users can learn to use them one or two at a time. Then when the final whizz bang one hits the shelves, it isn't a massive headache for people to learn to use.

[mikec]

Looks like a hair dryer

Interesting though.

[Steve Axford]

Good video is usually shot at 25 f/sec. This means that the shutter speed is usually 1/25s. It can be greater for a film look, but even then it is rarely more than 1/50s as it starts to look jagged. This means that it will be impossible to get both good video and good stills if the action is fast moving. How will that get around that one?

I hope they start to build in 3rd party entry points so people can charge for additional features that may not be generally wanted, but may be expensive to produce. Some examples could be in camera HDR, focus stacking or other complex multi shot features. All that is required is some spare memory, some spare processing power and some lines around the playing field.

[bigbaz]

somehow i don't see this being able to do everything a dslr does, not for many years, The G11 was supposed to be the P&S/DSLR in one that meant that you no longer needed to buy a DSLR, And well i will stick with my DSLR over that

[swifty]

Yea I saw this last night. How cool!! It's so interesting trying to predict what things'll be like in 10, 20, 30 yrs. That is if we don't destroy the planet first of course LOL

[NGP]

Good video is usually shot at 25 f/sec. This means that the shutter speed is usually 1/25s. It can be greater for a film look, but even then it is rarely more than 1/50s as it starts to look jagged. This means that it will be impossible to get both good video and good stills if the action is fast moving. How will that get around that one?

you have a valid point there regarding fps.. but don't forget there are consumer cameras that can shoot video at around 1000fps.. so who knows what Canon has cooked up there

[chrisprendergast]

Hmmm sounds interesting will have to wait and see what it does to the market

[draco]

i wonder how much time it will take to sift through all those "still" shots ...

[farmer_rob]

Good video is usually shot at 25 f/sec. This means that the shutter speed is usually 1/25s. It can be greater for a film look, but even then it is rarely more than 1/50s as it starts to look jagged. This means that it will be impossible to get both good video and good stills if the action is fast moving. How will that get around that one?

Aren't you confusing frame rate and shutter speed here? IIRC, you need over 20 fps for the eye to not see flickering as the image changes. The more frames per second, the smoother the image. BTW, film runs at 24 fps, video at 25 fps (PAL) and 29.97 fps (NTSC). Interlacing puts the "frame" rate up to 50 and 60 hz respectively, but each frame is effectively half the image.

I am not aware of any issues where a shutter speed of greater than 1/50s causes viewability issues (but I could be wrong) and I am sure there are situations where you need a high shutter speed to manage exposure correctly. (My old canon Hi 8 Video Camera has a shutter speed setting going up to "quite high" - at least over 1/1000s.) However, there are a number of artifacts that can come from interlacing and mismatched frame rates and conversions between formats.

I hope they start to build in 3rd party entry points so people can charge for additional features that may not be generally wanted, but may be expensive to produce. Some examples could be in camera HDR, focus stacking or other complex multi shot features. All that is required is some spare memory, some spare processing power and some lines around the playing field.

A configurable camera - now you are dreaming. (I think it is a great idea, but so totally removed from the mindset of the camera-makers that Canon - and Nikon - will never do it.)

[farmer_rob]

i wonder how much time it will take to sift through all those "still" shots ...

Easy - you just watch the video and hit pause

[davidd]

'Heady stuff, but the great thing about concepts is that you generally have quite a few years for people to forget all the great things you’ve promised. '

Probably the most telling item is the last line.