James Cafferty
Veteran Member
Excellent!!!!! Clear a spot on the wall for this one.
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All the best,
Jim
Photographers take pictures; the camera is only a tool.
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The End Of The Megapixel Race. A New Era of Photography.
- Thread starter boogerschnot
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All the best,
Jim
Photographers take pictures; the camera is only a tool.
BIJ001
Veteran Member
Fortunately there are other numeric deciding factors as well - the more the better:
megazoom factor,
highest ISO number,
the number of detection modes: (face, smile, eye blink, pet...)
etc.
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Iván József Balázs
(Hungary)
Not to mention buyers obsessed with less pixels, a.k.a. large pixel huggers. It is a growing religion and the manufacturers can very well cash on it by offering niche models.
Chris59
Forum Pro
Since when was increasing resolution and reducing the visibility of digital artifacts through increasing the number of pixels a bad thing? The belief that reducing the number of pixels somehow increases the dynamic range and reduces noise is a pervasive one but still wrong. More megapixels means better resolution, fewer megapixels means less resolution - there are no advantages in going forward to the past.
As for me, I can't wait to see images from the rumoured Canon 1D Mark IV with 56 megapixels and no AA filter.
As for me, I can't wait to see images from the rumoured Canon 1D Mark IV with 56 megapixels and no AA filter.
Steen Bay
Veteran Member
Well, a simple downsampling will do just that (like we can see in DxO's 8mp 'print' figures), so it can't be completely wrong.
Downsampling can only degrade an image, not improve it.
Steen Bay
Veteran Member
Not even an ISO 51200 image shot with a 200mp APS-C camera? ;-)
Not even then. You can only lose data. But I can see that you cannot get the 100% zoom comparisons of different enlargements out of your head.
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
The downsampling does NOT do it. The downsampling is the simplest and easiest way of cashing in on the sensor's DR in a primitive world where monitors have fixed, coarse pixels.
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John
John Sheehy
Forum Pro
On a 1000 DPI monitor?
I'm sure you're concentrating on the alleged greater "noise power" with the denser sensor. Concentrate on the following question: "How much SIGNAL power does the lower-density sensor have at the highest frequency that the higher-density sensor has noise?
Noise exists in relationship to signal, in a spectrum. At frequencies in which there is no signal, or it is not desirable, there is no practical noise.
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John
Jay Turberville
Forum Pro
Yes, it makes the real relationship between signal and noise more easy to observe. With large monitors you might be able to demonstrate the same thing by simply backing away and viewing images from a distance.
As you know but others my not, in order to downsample well and not preserve some of the undesirable noise in the downsampled image, you should use some kind of low pass filter before resampling.
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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
One thing I can't understand with the more megapixels means better resolution line of thought that I hope you can explain.
If the viewing medium is 4x6 or 5x7 inch prints, or on typical computer monitors, or on 1920x768 HD TV sets, how is the better resolution provided by more than 10 MP perceptible?
Sky
To clarify:
If the viewing medium is 4x6 or 5x7 inch prints, or on typical computer monitors, or on 1920x768 HD TV sets, how is the better resolution provided by more than 10 MP perceptible when viewing the entire picture?
Sky
Jay Turberville
Forum Pro
It wouldn't be. If those are your targets for viewing, then 3Mp would probably suffice just fine.
BTW, the higher resolution HD is 1920 x 1080 or just shy of 2Mp.
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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
Chris59
Forum Pro
Well, you could use the same line of thought when you argue against quality lenses, a large sensor, quality filters and good technique - no one is going to notice the improvement in resolution so why bother. This also contradicts the "more megapixels equals more noise/less dynamic range" camp - if no one is going to notice with small images, what is the point of having less noise or greater dynamic range? Indeed, we don't really need anything more than a point and shoot with 2 megapixels for full HD images on even the biggest screen, so why do we bother?
For myself, I just like to look at big detailed photographs and I never know ahead of time which of my images I will want to enlarge.
BIJ001
Veteran Member
You hit a nerve here. As my beloved Canon A610 developed a stuck shutter beyond economic repair, I picked a slightly used second hand G11, and I have been happy with it ever since despite its having meager 10 Mpx.
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Iván József Balázs
(Hungary)
Well, my monitor is 1920x1200 and it is not even large by today's standard. To answer your question: a weaker AA filter; demosaicing requiring less sharpening, and therefore, less noise; more mp allow for more intelligent NR; less loss of quality when rotating, fixing distortions and CA, cropping, more data for pp, etc. I can see the difference between 8mp and 15mp.
Yep, the 1920x768 should have been 1920x1080 as you said. After all, TV resolution is usually referred to as 720 (always p), 1080i or 1080p. Gotta get my brain out of 1st gear
Thanks,
Sky
Yes, you have a point there. But "faster", lower quality lenses do make a difference in low light image quality.
with low pixel density will reduce low light noise. The problem with small, high pixel density sensors is how the manufacturers use excessive noise reduction to try to cover up the noise. That does result in a perceptible drop of low light images in the viewing mediums I mentioned.
Dynamic range limitations are very visible in all of the viewing mediums I mentioned. Blown out skies or clipped shadows are very visible indeed.
A 5x7 inch print at 300 dpi requires 3.15MP so that's the bare minimum. Allow for cropping for imperfect framing, straightening out camera tilt, and an occasional 8x10 inch print, a 7MP sensor is fine. But manufacturers will never go back to single digit size sensors, so the smallest size sensor in reality from now on will never be less than 10MP.
Yes, that's a very valid reason. For the masses though, my guess is that 95% of the small sensor camera buyers never make prints larger than 8x10 and very rarely, if ever, for even that size. 10MP cameras are all they need.
Thanks,
Sky
Jay Turberville
Forum Pro
But that's not really true. The noise per pixel may be lower, but the overall sensor noise isn't necessarily greater. In fact, the general trend last I looked was that the pixels got smaller and the noise per pixel was either reduced or increased non-proportionally so that the per area noise was reduced.
The thing that is often missed is that with more pixels you also can get more signal. And it is the signal to noise ratio that really matters. The main way to increase signal to noise is to collect more total photons - more exposure. You can do that with longer exposures, larger aperture and larger sensor size.
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Jay Turberville
http://www.jayandwanda.com
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