I think so.
The P&S sensor are essentially diffraction limited after about 8 Mp so any gain in real resolution is non existent.
Limits are often nonsense, where someone just wants to make a name for themselves by declaring a limit, or, the meaning of "limit" is simply misinterpreted by many people. "Limits" often simply refer to nothing more than the limit of a factor's
dominance ; not its effect.
Resolution does not suddenly hit a wall when the size of an airy disk is the same as the pixel spacing. First of all, the pixel spacing for red and green is double what the actual pixel spacing is. Secondly, blue has relatively low diffraction. Thirdly, diffraction lowers contrast at high frequencies; it does not limit maximum resolution at arbitrary contrasts. Fourthly, proper sampling requires about three pixels exclusive for a sharp transition, so you really need to optimally sample at a level where 100% pixel view is quite soft with modern monitor pixel pitches.
I can tell you from experience that the RAW blue channel in my 1.5-micron superzoom is clearly undersampled, and actually aliased, at f/8.
Note that charts are easier to process to gain apparent detail from, but in terms of detail in real images that don't lend themselves to resolution I don;t think you gain anything by increasing megapixels.
Huh??? So the optics are intelligent, and antagonistic to natural detail?
On the other hand larger sensor elements would enable a reduction in noise and this would also translate into an improvement in dynamic range. It would not be miraculous, but I'd prefer that than more useless pixels.
Other than the very temporary increase in DR for a given sensor size in the Sony 10MP sensor in the Canon G11 and other compacts, DR has actually been increasing along with pixel density. Sony's current 10.1MP 1/2.3" BSI sensors have more pixel DR than all Canon or Olympus DSLRs do, and more than the sensor in the G11. I don't know if there are any compacts using that technology and density in 1/1.7" sensors yet, but one of those should knock the G11 down a notch. I have a Casio superzoom with the 10.1MP 1/2.3" BSI, and doing some serious analysis of its RAW read noise, I find that most of it is superficial and created by the camera electronics, and not the sensor, and the DR of the sensor's photosites is actually about 4500:1, better than any of my Canon DSLRs (about 3000:1). The basic idea here is that when you downsample or bin RAW blackframe data to 25%, you would expect 25% the noise if the noise were pure, but higher if the noise was reduced artificially (some would then say the noise was "correlated"). In fact, what happens is that the noise is actually significantly
less than 25% when I do this, meaning that a good part of the original noise is superficial "dithering" (even if unintentional), and this proves to be true when downsizing the images to web sizes. At web sizes, the Casio has more DR at base ISO than my Canon 5D2 FF camera, much of that due to the high low-frequency banded read noise in the 5D2.
We'd be better served by improvements to noise and to dynamic range, and also to focusing and handling than we would be more megapixels.
Except for a small number of retrograde motions, DR has been increasing along with pixel density. DR is determined mainly by read noise now. In the future, it may be limited more by photon noise, and then the game changes, because photon noise has a completely different set of rules than read noise. A 1/2.3" sensor will always have more noise than a full-frame sensor at ISO 100. At ISO 100,000, though, future 1/2.3" sensors could "wipe the floor", as they say, with most current DSLRs.
Perhaps you are confusing DR and highlight headroom? DR is the ratio of highest signal recordable to the lowest "usable" signal (by varying standards). Compact cameras have traditionally been more sensitive to light per unit of sensor area, and have had underrated base ISOs, already 'exposed to the right", leaving less headroom than the less-sensitive DSLRs. Many compacts with a base ISO of 100 would be 160 to 200 if they were rated as a DSLRs.
No argument on the better AF. The Casio superzoom I mentioned has the green/magenta CA which gets to be a bit much when the high-contrast subject is OOF.
However people keep going by headline figures and until the reviewers starts criticising this more actively we'll get nowhere.
Sometimes, just by pure luck, total ignorance is accidentally correct.
--
John
