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We had a tip roll in this weekend regarding the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, which I’d file under the “Perfectly Plausible” category. This person dispels talk of 30+ megapixels that we’ve seen in some rumors for a potential 5D Mark III, stating instead the 5D3 would have a more reasonable 26.4 MP sensor. That said, the specs:
26.4 million effective pixels
ISO expandable to 102,400
19 point AF system, 3 cross-type points
DIGIC 5
4.9 fps continuous shooting
63-zone iFCL metering
1.04 million dot LCD
Improved camera grip
Improved pentaprism, approximately 100% frame coverage
released mid-year
No word on new video codecs or HD output while recording video, but otherwise these are the exact type of specs one would expect in a successor. We’ve seen talk of a 28MP sensor, so the 26.4MP definitely catches my eye. It seems a bit conservative, but we can’t really expect the 5D series to double in resolution every generation. Further even though Nikon will likely make a dramatic leap in resolution for their D800, I don’t think it will surpass 24MP, which would still give Canon their preferred resolution advantage.
On the other hand we’re swayed by talk of dramatic leaps in resolution for the 1Ds Mark IV, given that camera’s image quality bias, and thus its need to compete with the variety of medium format-lite cameras available. It makes a lot of marketing sense for that camera to be in the 30-40MP range, but it would also make a lot of manufacturing sense to use that sensor in more than one camera body (i.e. the Canon EOS 5D Mark III). |
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