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LAS VEGAS--Olympus has declared an end to the megapixel race.
"Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need," said Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging's SLR planning department, in an interview here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA). "We have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System," Olympus' line of SLR cameras, he said.
Instead, Olympus will focus on other characteristics such as dynamic range, color reproduction, and a better ISO range for low-light shooting, he said.
Increasing the number of megapixels on cameras is an easy selling point for camera makers, in part because it's a simple concept for people to understand. Even though having more megapixels can enable larger prints and enlargement of subject matter through cropping, adding megapixels comes with some drawbacks.
For one thing, smaller pixels can mean more noisy speckles at the pixel level and can reduce the dynamic range, so brighter areas wash out and darker areas become swaths of black. For another, images take more room on memory cards, hard drives, and Web servers, and cameras need more powerful image processors to handle them. And yesteryear's cameras already had plenty of pixels for making 8x10-inch prints, a size few people exceed.
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Canon's EOS-1D Mark III
(Credit: Canon)Hardware and firmware fixes have improved the autofocus performance of Canon's new EOS-1D Mark III camera, but it's still not up to the level of its predecessor, the photographer who first uncovered the issues in June said Monday.
Canon is offering some customers free adjustments to a mirror in the higher-end SLR and advising all customers to install updated firmware. The former improved the $4,500 camera's ability to focus on moving subjects in warm or hot conditions, and the latter helped when it's bright out, said photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith in a blog posting Monday. But problems remain, he said.
"In our view, there's more work to be done. In bright conditions, the EOS-1D Mark III still doesn't match the EOS-1D Mark II N; at times the two are close, and at other times the EOS-1D Mark III's autofocus performance is below what we consider acceptable," Galbraith said. "The culprit that continues to cramp the EOS-1D Mark III's autofocus style is bright sunlight."
Galbraith is based in Calgary, Alberta, but he made three trips to Phoenix in conjunction with Canon to test the camera in warm conditions. He's also shared innumerable photos with Canon engineers.
For all the gory details, check Galbraith's exhaustive 8,500-word piece, complete with high-resolution images and letter grades under different shooting circumstances.
Canon's EOS-1D Mark III
(Credit: Canon)Shortly after Canon announced a hardware fix for autofocus problems affecting some of its high-end EOS-1D Mark III cameras, the leading SLR maker also has added a software fix.
Version 1.1.3 of the Camera's firmware "improves autofocus tracking" when shooting outdoors in bright environments or when shooting low-contrast subjects, Canon said. In addition, the firmware can speed the process of writing images to high-speed SD memory cards.
Canon's biggest rival for single-lens reflex cameras, Nikon, also released some new firmware for its brand new D3 and D300 models that endows them with the color performance of the earlier D2X and D2Xs professional models. The updates don't yet appear on the U.S. Web site, but DPReview has a handy list of European links.
Canon also announced in a service notice that it will begin repairs for affected customers beginning December 3 at a dedicated facility. The company will pay shipping both ways for affected customers and will install the firmware during the repair, but customers should brace themselves for a wait.
"Due to the anticipated volume, we ask for your continued patience and understanding during this process," Canon said in the notice. "We offer our sincerest apologies to our customers using these products who have been inconvenienced by this issue."
The repair involves adjusting a mirror used in the autofocus subsystem and affects some cameras built with an original mirror mechanism. Cameras with an updated mirror mechanism aren't affected; those models have serial numbers above 546561, but there are also 2,713 models with lower numbers (yes, I counted) on a Canon list (click for PDF).
An adjustment to one mirror should fix an autofocus problem that has tarnished the debut of Canon's high-end EOS-1D Mark III camera, the company said Thursday.
Canon's EOS-1D Mark III
(Credit: Canon)"We're pretty confident this countermeasure will resolve the issue completely," said Chuck Westfall, a Canon spokesman and tech guru. "It feels nice to have a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel and know it's not another oncoming train."
The $4,500 camera, geared chiefly for photojournalists who can appreciate features such as its 10.5-frame-per-second shooting ability, had won accolades for most of its design. But photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith dug up problems that cropped up in bright or warm conditions. The problems were also confirmed by others including Seattle Times photographer Rod Mar.
Canon was able to reproduce the problems. "What we found out after our thorough research is this issue seemed to manifest itself more in cases where the temperature was high," Westfall said.
Not all cameras are affected, but Canon doesn't know which are or aren't, so anyone having the problem should send the camera in to be repaired, Westfall said. Once it's ready to begin repairs, Canon will publish instructions on how what photographers should do, probably in the next two or three weeks.
New cameras coming off the line don't have the problem, he said.
The problem involves a mirror that directs light to the camera's autofocus subsystem. "That mirror needs to be adjusted," Westfall said.
Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras have a main mirror that directs light from the lens to the viewfinder, so photographers can see what they're shooting. But some light passes through that mirror, traveling instead to sub-mirrors that direct light to the autofocus system's sensor. When a photographer takes a picture, both the main mirror and the sub-mirror for the autofocus system flip out of the way to let light shine on the camera's main image sensor.
The problem with the sub-mirror could mean the camera would focus in front of the subject or behind it, Westfall said. "If that sensor is not receiving reliable information, it's not able to carry out correct focus prediction," he said.
(Via Rob Galbraith.)
Photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith isn't alone in griping that the autofocus feature in the new $4,500 Canon EOS-1D Mark III is a step down from that of its predecessor, the 1D Mark II N.
Seattle Times sports photographer Rod Mar posted two blog entries last week criticizing the camera. He complained of fuzzy artifacts in his two brand-new models after photographing several games.
Canon's EOS-1D Mark III
(Credit: Canon)"Believe it or not, Canon's new flagship camera...has trouble focusing. And it isn't a rare, isolated problem," he said in the first blog entry. "The camera has trouble tracking subjects in its autofocus. Further, the problem is worse in bright, sunny conditions with low ISOs."
In the second post, he complains of the fuzzy-focus problem, which he believes is different from ordinary out-of-focus softness. And he adds, "Instead of choosing frames by judging light, composition and moment, I'm choosing them solely by the accuracy of the focus...Editing the Pittsburgh game was tough because of this."
It's not all bad news. Mar also praised some camera features, including its "amazing ability to shoot in very low light." And he also gave high marks for the camera's results when shooting at high-sensitivity settings that, in lesser cameras, produce multicolored speckles of image noise: "The Mark III shot at ISO 3,200 looks like the older cameras' (shot) at ISO 1,000."
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