Ok, if I accept that 16/20Mp is enough for my needs in terms of resolution, low light performance and DR, what can be done to provide smoother tonal gradients? Is it a matter of moving to 14/16 bit RAW files? If so, I would rather see a 16 or 20Mp sensor with 14bit RAWs than a 24Mp/12bit sensor continuing the same gradual improvements we've seen since the E-M5 sensor, while further impacting the effects of diffraction at smaller apertures.
A 60" Schmidt camera on top of a mountain outside Coonabarrabran sounds ideal ...
My pre-war Minox has a curved film plane, ditto the enlarger, to compensate.
If they ever ... would fit a multi-aspect sensor to the GX9 which would allow portrait mode with the camera held in landsape orientation and then no longer need a FAS for portrait mode shots - a tilt lcd alone would be perfect ...
(pop! - bubble broken - I just bought a G9)
I don’t need that sort of temptation - steady as she goes and a FAS and I can find my resistance building up again.
One might even wonder if a GX9 might in fact replace the GX85.
Use a larger sensor, with a larger pixel pitch.
12-bit vs 14-bit seems to be... a contentious topic. My impression is that the difference is quite small, and that 14 bit explodes file size. I expect BSI will make a bigger difference.
Yep. It's a trade-off. Portability and file size vs sheer IQ. Everyone needs to make their own call on that one.
Maybe, but I doubt it. We constantly hear promises about the great new thing on the horizon, and it usually doesn't pan out.
If this happens, it will be quite trivial for them to address it with a quick model update and sell more
Yes, but others out there may create a not very comfortable environment for conservative plans.
Cost is probably a factor.
20MP gives you a print that's just 11% larger than 16MP in each dimension.
I would say the effort is the reward, a nicely turned out final image is nice, but if the image doesn't turn out how we had hoped, hopefully we've learned something for the next time
Exactly this ^. I also see this on the net samples. I liked the 12MP era because they had a very good tonality for a lot of use cases, but I did not like the 16MP at all for similar reasons. However, in the 20MP cameras, there's a kind of rendering I like again.
Right, and more cropping ability. Again, if you can get more resolution without an increase in noise, why not?
After using an E-M1 and Pen-F for about a year, I don't see any difference. At all. I use them interchangeably without any issues or qualms.
I tend to agree.So I suppose what I was getting at was that the 20mp 4/3 sensor is not that particularly disadvantaged to a 24mp senosr on aps-c - furthermore we all know that there is more to a sensor and its interface with a camera than just pixels and sensor area.
Maybe four fat tyres are better than four skinnier ones but a lot still depends on what is attached to them
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Tom Caldwell
Maybe what is small difference for you is not that small for someone else. Perception of differences is personal. I much prefer GX8's images to GX85 for example. I also don't like 16MP Oly era pictures too much, but that's true, that I don't like Pen-F pictures too. But all my judgements are based only on net samples with these cameras.
Maybe. But I don't think so.
First: There are several objective tools we can bring to bear on many of these questions. DXO has some issues, for example, but its results for the 16 and 20mp cameras are all within a few points of one another. High-resolution 35mm sensor cameras score 30 points higher... and even those images show little difference than M43 at small print sizes (e.g. 8" x 10").
