Is the Mega Pixel war over?

Orville

Orville

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The latest generation of crop and FF cameras require the absolute best lenses to extract per-pixel resolution. As lens quality is clearly not improving at anywhere near the rate of sensor densities, are there really any practical reasons to increase the number of pixels further? Wll Canon, Nikon and Co now concentrate on extracting the better high-iso performance and colour reproduction or will they continue on the MP bandwagon? Is 18MP/24MP for crop/FF not enough?
 
It seems that it is all about higher ISO now.

I think it's just getting to a point where pixel densities are so high that the quality is suffering.
 
pearce_jj said:
ISO is the big race at the mo IMO.
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. . . Which has a lot less to do with photography than is has with marketing.
Any of you guys ever shot with a D2Hs? 4.1 mega px and superb output - colour is fantastic - noise (up to 1600) is fine - and general handling - small file size - it's still a dream camera - and I shoot every day with my D3!
 
My D1 and D2H both gave superb shots in a high iso yet my D2x gets much better results at low iso but I did a test a few months ago and shot two same shots one at 100 and the other at HI 2 which is 3200 and the results were amazing yes there was some noise at HI 2 but not as noticable as I thought it would be
 
according to the latest edition of DSLR mag, which i have now subscribed to, new Nikon and Canon do ISO up to something stupid like 102,400..... bonkers!

Means i should be able to shoot the moon at midnight in a dark field with something like f16, 1/1000 and get a perfect pic

Crazy!
 
If I remember correctly Panasonic ended their megapixel war last year... and you can see the benefits from the LX3 and the new GF1. Both marvelous cameras and tiny too.
 
alexkidd said:
eventually they'll get to dynamic range hopefully
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Nah, that's just crazy talk!

I've almost given up hope of finding a decent affordable compact which isn't filled to bursting point with too many pixels and loads of smeary processing.
 
Orville said:
The latest generation of crop and FF cameras require the absolute best lenses to extract per-pixel resolution. As lens quality is clearly not improving at anywhere near the rate of sensor densities, are there really any practical reasons to increase the number of pixels further? Wll Canon, Nikon and Co now concentrate on extracting the better high-iso performance and colour reproduction or will they continue on the MP bandwagon? Is 18MP/24MP for crop/FF not enough?
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You'll notice that Nikon, with the exception of the D3x, have kept out of the mp race, concentrating on iso performance. Sony, on the other hand have continued to push the upper limits of how many pixels they can cram onto a sensor and as for Canon, they're stuck in the middle trying to compete with both, although perhaps the G11 heralds a new direction for them on the pixel count front...

As far as the general public are concerned more pixels = better picture. Few, if any, would be more impressed with a camera that could handle 64,000 iso over one that could handle 12,000. It may well be down to the use of the prefix "mega", that's always been a favourite word for marketeers to throw around.
 
It's amazing how anyone managed to get any pictures worth looking at with just ISO 100 and 400 film.

I don't get the idea of these crazy high ISO settings.


Steve.
 
They will always push the bounderies in any way they can.
 
Steve Smith said:
It's amazing how anyone managed to get any pictures worth looking at with just ISO 100 and 400 film.

I don't get the idea of these crazy high ISO settings.


Steve.
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You were just more restricted in what you could shoot. :)

You would know that there was no point in trying to get a shot in a dimly lit church at ISO 400 unless you could use flash so you would not even attempt it.

I scanned a set of MF negs for a friend for their 20th anniversary and not one pic was taken inside the church (winter wedding) That would not be acceptable for today's Bride and so we have developed to a point where we can shoot in really poor conditions. Which is just as well because you now get crazy people wanting to get married by candlelight! :cuckoo:
 
Orville said:
Is 18MP/24MP for crop/FF not enough?
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Won't be able to tell until somebody makes a camera with a higher-density sensor. But DPR's review of the 7D mentions several times that it gives better resoltion because of the higher pixel count -
However, due to the combination of slightly better sharpness on a pixel level and its higher nominal resolution the EOS 7D manages to squeeze visibly more detail out of our studio scene.
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So it seems that 18MP is better than 15MP on APS-C (with a bloody good lens).
 
Imo canon didn't get it right with the 50d, way too much tweaking with settings required to get an image that isn't grainy with noise, much like my little fuji pas, that is more noisy than my old casio rv pas, that still produces nicer and cleaner piccies, it's just capable of really big prints
 
Steve Smith said:
It's amazing how anyone managed to get any pictures worth looking at with just ISO 100 and 400 film.

I don't get the idea of these crazy high ISO settings.


Steve.
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Because it allows you to take picture like this


100th sec F2.8 ISO 12800 click on pic for large
 
Hopefully resolutions will stabilise and manufacturers will start using gains in technology to improve high ISO performance and widen dynamic range.

Kudos to Nikon for keeping the res of the D700 down to 12mp and offering such correspondingly good noise performance.. although I suspect down-sized 5D II files should be pretty impressive for noise too.
 
I say keep it going!

It means there are loads of capable camera around on the 2nd hand market for those that don't care about MP and silly ISO.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Sony, on the other hand have continued to push the upper limits of how many pixels they can cram onto a sensor and as for Canon, they're stuck in the middle trying to compete with both, although perhaps the G11 heralds a new direction for them on the pixel count front...
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actually Sony haven't - their latest APS-C sensors are "only" 14MP which is behind Canon, behind Samsung/Pentax, behind 4/3 (12MP on 4/3 is about the same pixel density as 19MP on APS-C) & 24MP on FF is roughly same density as 11MP on APS-C.

interestingly the Canon G11 supposedly uses a Sony sensor ...
 
Sensor size is the way to go, bigger is better!
 
Steve Smith said:
It's amazing how anyone managed to get any pictures worth looking at with just ISO 100 and 400 film.

I don't get the idea of these crazy high ISO settings.


Steve.
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With care you could push B&W film to 6400iso - half our lives were spent trying to discover which magical combination of dev/temperature/dilution would render the best results...
Some swore by ID11, others used Microphen, some made up their own brews...magazines were full of that kind of stuff - if there were no 'digital' we'd be discussing it all on here as well...
I used D76/ID11 (same thing from different manufacturers) diluted 1:4 or even 1:8 and decades-long dev times to eke out every iota of quality from those little halides...

Inverting that tank every 30 secs didn't half build up the fore-arms...lol
 
Arkady said:
With care you could push B&W film to 6400iso - half our lives were spent trying to discover which magical combination of dev/temperature/dilution would render the best results...
Some swore by ID11, others used Microphen, some made up their own brews...magazines were full of that kind of stuff - if there were no 'digital' we'd be discussing it all on here as well...
I used D76/ID11 (same thing from different manufacturers) diluted 1:4 or even 1:8 and decades-long dev times to eke out every iota of quality from those little halides...

Inverting that tank every 30 secs didn't half build up the fore-arms...lol
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in the mid 40' development to Finality was the rage.
you got plenty of grain and contrast But gained 4 1/2 stops.
D76 1-1 45mins at 70
This is a scan of a shot I took in 1947 and processed that way.
prince-benya-flowers-51-copy.jpg
 
for me the 50d has been the real signal to people that more pixels don't mean better quality. High iso is going to be very useful for someone like me who shoots in low light a lot, otherwise i'd be happy to stick with the bodies i've got for the foreseeable future....
 
Steve Smith said:
It's amazing how anyone managed to get any pictures worth looking at with just ISO 100 and 400 film.

I don't get the idea of these crazy high ISO settings
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I must be so out of touch... rarely shoot anything which is not native ISO to the sensor on my canon, 100 ISO. But then, I always used to use 25 ASA film to keep the quality up!
 
I wouldn't say the MP war is over and the ISO war is now the new frontier... it's just the manufacturers have put in software that'll push the ISO to crazy heights... I can do it with my 40D albeit manually rather than the DIGIC III kindly doing the calcs for me. The samples from the 1dmkIV before Canon 'requested' the removal of such high iso pics showed that, whilst the feature was there, the image was next to useless, I've actually seen less noise from an analogue TV tuned into b****r all. But I'll concede that the pics were not from a production model.

It could be the Intel penned 'Tick Tock' development strategy... develop high ISOs - release to the public, then develop lower noise for the high ISOs - release to the public. repeat.

Incidentally, are there any samples of super high ISO from the new Nikon offering?

Ads
 
So, the consensus is that we already have enough pixels.

Does anyone care to guess how long untill the first mainstream 30MP DSLR arrives:)?
 
Flash In The Pan said:
You'll notice that Nikon, with the exception of the D3x, have kept out of the mp race, concentrating on iso performance.
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Indeed mate :thumbs: :D.

For work purposes the resolution from 12MP is dandio for me, having said that I used my buddies 5DmkII for a shoot a week or so ago and I can certainly see the pro's in having that much extra res.
Still it's not 100% necessary for my stuff but I can still appreciate the facility without having to condemn it as useless or silly.

The mega pixel 'war'. :lol:

I understand and also agree that cramming a pap load of pixels into a sensor that can't deal with it adequately, is utterly pointless.

Advances in the ISO department I welcome with open arms though, it's a very simple realisation personally, the cleaner the ISO, the better the image quality in low light with faster shutter speeds.
How anyone can scoff at this is beyond me :razz:.

Orville said:
The proportion of crop vs FF DSLR's sold continues to grow in favour of crop.
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Wouldn't that have something to do with there being more crop sensor bodies available in comparison to full frame bodies?
Also full frame is generally more expensive and unavailable in pro-sumer ranges.

Canon offer 2 full frame bodies and 6? crop sensor camera's.
Nikon also offer 2 full frames and 5 crop sensor bodies.

Orville said:
If anything, FF has the limited life expectancy.
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:thinking: I'm struggling with that one. :lol:
 
alexkidd said:
eventually they'll get to dynamic range hopefully
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Maybe they cant? (yet)

Without actually knowing, i would suspect iso has a lot to do with the quality of components used in capturing the light and how that signal is processed and handled thereafter. Hence it is more achievable possibly?
 
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