Category Archives: Thoughts on the World

I am trying to work out what to make of the announcement of Canon’s new 70D. For those of you who haven’t caught up yet, Canon have finally, after four years, upgraded their APS-C sensor technology, yesterday announcing their new “prosumer” model. This will have a 20.2 MP sensor, whose main achievement is innovative autofocus technology in live view or movie mode.

In optical viewfinder mode the camera will fall back to an autofocus scheme based on (but slightly downgraded from) the 7D, and the announcements have been oddly quiet on the topics of image quality and dynamic range, arguably weak spots of the current 18MP sensors.

Now part of me says that any improvement is welcome. I had started mentally drafting a blog post worrying about whether Canon had effectively abandoned the middle ground – at least I don’t have to complete that. I had been waiting for a real upgrade to my 7D and 550D for so long I almost ordered the new camera as a reflex action. And the combination of a feature set similar to the 7D in a smaller and lighter chassis might hit a sweet spot for me in practical terms.

But apart from being lighter and newer, I’m not convinced the camera has anything to offer me. In terms of feature set, it’s still definitely a downgrade from the 7D, and a poor successor to the 40D and 50D. The new autofocus will probably be brilliant for video, but of limited value in the types of photography for which I use the 7D.

I don’t do much video, and on the rare occasion that I might my tool of choice is probably the Panasonic GH2. I do use Live View, but only really to extend my reach (e.g. shooting over crowds), for “sneaky shots” and the occasional tricky manual focus task. 90% or more of my 7D shots are through the viewfinder, ensuring visibility in all lights, and stability down to very low shutter speeds. I suspect the vast majority of stills photographers using Canon DSLRs are similar.

The new generation of Canon cameras may therefore be at best a “stopgap” upgrade, particularly if image quality is no better than now. However, I’m not completely despondent. I think the camera is actually something else altogether – it’s actually a “stepping stone” to something completely different.

Canon have “form” in this area. The 50D was a similar “stepping stone” between the excellent but relatively low-res 40D and the 7D/60D (high resolution, split by functionality). The 70D looks suspiciously like enabling technology for a whole new generation of Canon cameras.

The cameras I think, and really hope, will emerge will look like this:

• An electronic viewfinder fully replacing the optical one
• Body shape and size similar to the 7D/70D (which works very well), but hopefully much lighter because of all the moving parts which can be dumped. There will also be at least an XXXD version with its familar control set
• APS-C sensor, hopefully with a step up in image quality and dynamic range from the 7D’s sensor
• EF-S lens mount, so we can carry on with all the existing Canon glass

It’s important that the “full size” version is “full functionality” with dual axis level, multiple custom settings, built-in GPS etc. (7D replacement). If necessary for marketing purposes there can be a “reduced functionality” version like the 60D as well.

In other words, I’m now really waiting for something which looks like an APS-C, EF-S mount GH2/OMD. If they’d announced that yesterday I would have bought it sight unseen.

Recently on The Online Photographer, I saw that in 1976 a leading commentator on photography asserted that “the world now contains more photographs than bricks.”

While I hate to be contrary (no I don’t! :)), I’m not convinced that the assertion about photographs and bricks is correct, even today. Regular readers will know I can’t resist an estimating challenge, so here goes…

Most estimates of the number of photos taken each year comes out somewhere near (but typically a bit below) one trillion, 10^12. As this number is growing exponentially, to get a total number of all photographs ever taken we can focus on recent years, and something in the range 5-10 trillion would probably cover it. However, we don’t retain all our shots. I dump about 50%. I don’t know how typical this is, but let’s use it as an estimating basis. So this gives use a number of “existing photographs” of a few (2-5) trillion.

Now bricks. This is more tricky. I estimate the number of bricks in a typical British family home at around 15-20,000. That provides shelter for an average 4-5 people, but we also spend time in other brick buildings (work, hotels, communal buildings), so let’s say 10,000 bricks per person in a “brick rich” environment like the UK.

But not everyone lives in a “brick rich” environment: for all sorts of economic, environmental and cultural reasons many buildings use other materials. So let’s assume that 10% of the world’s buildings are brick.

10,000 (bricks per person) x 10% & 7 x 10^9 (people) = 7 x 10^12 bricks. That’s still a couple of times greater than my estimate of the number of photos…

Now obviously as the numbers are (surprisingly) so similar and the number of photos is growing exponentially, the roles will soon be reversed. But I don’t think it was true in 1976.