Canon's rumored EIS mirrorless DSLR

EOSHD.com has broken preliminary details of Canon's answer to Panasonic's and Olympus' Four-Thirds and Sony's NEX series: The mirrorless EIS (Electronic Image System). The first model, the EIS 60, is rumored to be scheduled to ship in calendar Q2 2011. The EIS 60 is said to have a 22 megapixel imager, which should immediately be a cause for concern for a couple of reasons:

• More pixels means less surface area (and thus less light sensitivity) per pixel.
• The rolling shutter problem that DSLRs have in video mode is due to the process that they use to get the resolution of the image data coming off of the sensor down to 1920 x 1080. In most cases, manufacturers simply throw most of the lines of image data away, but the result is the "jello effect" when either moving the camera or shooting fast motion. Tossing lines away also results in image softness and moire patterns, especially when shooting objects with close horizontal or vertical lines, such as brick buildings and striped clothing.

To get around both problems, Canon has reportedly developed a technique called "Pixel Fusion" that merges a matrix of pixels together to form a single pixel. In still mode, 4 pixels (2 x 2) are merged into a single pixel, for a net resolution of 5.5 megapixels. In video mode, 9 pixels (3 x 3) are merged into a single pixel, for 1920 x 1080P resolution. The result is that the EIS 60 can achieve better speed in still mode (up to 20 fps) with excellent low-light performance (in "Pixel Fusion" mode, the extended maximum ISO of the EIS 60 will be 25,600,) and can read the data off the imager much faster in video mode in order to avoid the rolling shutter effect.

EOSHD.com reports that the new EIS format will use a new lens mount, but Canon will also offer a EF-to-EIS adapter. The lenses under development for the new format (some of which won't be available at launch) include:

• 12-75mm F2.8-4 IS Macro
• 70-300mm F3.5-5.6 IS
• 5mm F4 fisheye
• 8-25mm F4 wide-angle zoom
• 14mm F2 pancake
• 25mm F1.2 pancake
• 45mm F1.5 pancake
• 65mm F2.0 Macro (1:1, 2:1 is equivalent to full-size)

Obviously, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt until Canon makes an official statement. If this camera is actually under development and the timing is correct, it's unlikely that Canon will announce anything about it at Photokina later this month to avoid hurting sales of its cameras for this holiday season. I don't expect any confirmation from Canon until January at the earliest, but we may also hear about a true camcorder using the same imaging system at NAB next April.

Want a Scarlet today? Buy a Canon 5D Mark II

I previously wrote about the restart of Red's Scarlet project, apparently to turn it into a still and video Digital SLR. The Scarlet, of course, was supposed to cost $3,000, and Red fanboys everywhere have been waiting breathlessly. Well, the first HD video from Canon's new 5D Mark II has shown up (thanks to our friends from Gizmodo), and it looks awfully good. The 5D can be had from Ritz, a reputable dealer, for under $2,700 without lens, or for about $3,500 with a lens. The video referenced by Gizmodo used 11 different lenses, so this was anything but a simple production. Nevertheless, pro photographers, the market targeted by Canon, buy lenses all the time, and still lenses cost a small fraction of the cost of video lenses. This is why Red made its move.

There's still plenty of market opportunity for Red, but as Jim Jannard said, the market has changed (dramatically), and the Scarlet, with its fixed lens and video-only orientation, simply wouldn't have cut it when it reached the market next year.

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• Vincent Laforet spends a weekend with a pre-production Canon 5D Mark II; shoots a commercial and loves it

Vapor, in a shade of Scarlet

Well, so much for the Red Scarlet, the $3,000 3K video camera scheduled for release next Spring. Here's a quote from Jim Jannard, the founder of Red: "We have changed everything about Scarlet because the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision. Wipe you (sic) minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised. Glad we didn't take any deposits... :-) ."

Red has recently been talking about introducing its own digital SLR (DSLR) still camera. With the recent introduction of digital SLRs from Nikon and Canon that can shoot HD video, the functions of still and video cameras are blurring, especially for press photographers who are increasingly called upon to shoot video for websites. There's a real opportunity to release a DSLR that does stills and video equally well, so Red had the choice of building two cameras (the Scarlet and a DSLR), or building one. They've apparently chosen to build one, which will be the redesigned Scarlet.

This only reinforces what I've said in the past: Don't believe anything about a product until you can buy it. The milled aluminum mockup that they showed at NAB is probably being melted down as I write this.