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12mp: beginning of the end of mp race?

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mschf

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This isn't strictly Sony related but I find it interesting that one camera maker finally came out of the closet and made a statement about megapixels:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10189546-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Personally I hope that other manufacturers are similar-minded and are just waiting for a competitor to step up first and declare their intent to stop pursuing the "more pixels" path. Yeah, I've no doubt it's also a bit of marketing backtracking by Olympus, maybe they're acknowledging in a roundabout way that 4/3's limitation is about 12mp anyways, but I'm hoping that other brands which use the APS-C format are also looking at 12mp-14mp being the breakpoint. If this will prove to be a industry-wide trend, I look forward to technology finally being applied to optimize the image, in areas such as DR especially.

Somehow though, I doubt it.
--
~ Martin
http://www.martinpolanic.com
 
The surprising part is where the man getting cited, Watanabe, openly acknowledges that there are some who need more megapixels and that they should seek a FF solution. Knowing that Oly isn't going to be pursuing FF any time soon, it strikes me as a bit refreshing to get that kind of advice (which some "proponents" of the system would view as bad PR strategy, squandering away marketshare to the "enemy") vs. some marketing angle on why FF is unecessary for everyone, or whatever.

I'm sure this topic will find it's way to Open Talk, I just don't wanna be the one initiating it, I might get jumped on for agreeing with the article ;)
--
~ Martin
http://www.martinpolanic.com
 
I haven't read the article linked yet (will do it later), but here's my take.
That was realized two years ago, with the current sensor sizes that time.

They kind of hit the wall, as increasing the pixel density is counter-productive as far as image quality is concerned.

This is less of a problem with DSLRs having bigger sensors, but for P&S I think 10mp should be enough.

Unless a new technology is developed that will make pixels smaller than 5 microns produce good quality images, there's no point in increasing the resolution.
How consumer (not pros) prints bigger than 10x15 in a regular basis?

Moreover, higher resolution means bigger file size. And bigger file size means bigger hard drive space (I know, these are cheap nowadays). Also, you need powerful computers to process these big files, otherwise you'll end up waiting for it to finish it's processing most of the time. hehehe.

Anyway, yeah ... the megapixel race is done. I'd say just improve the quality, put more features, or just decrease the price to make it more affordable.

Make it take better videos (ok, they've been doing that for years), make phone calls, surf the internet ...

--
just me :)
Teddy
 
Interesting topic, thanks for posting. I agree, I think 12 Mp is enough for most of the users.
Cheers,
--
Daniel
Stop, think, breathe, and shot!
 
I want one them on a very small sensor with a 50X zoom at f:1.2 all the way.

Now that I have stated the currently impossible. How about going back to 6MP and a 24X zoom starting at 18mm?

Forget the dang video function and give me a basic camera. No AUTO any thing except pixel advance and a hand held Sekonic incident meter. Zoom, focus and aperture on the lens barrel where the various Gods declared they should be.

IMAGE quality first foremost and almost only concern.

Raw,
Hot shoe,
Swivel LCD.
Ultra high resolution LCD/EVF that is

Well perhaps in camera metering. But just perhaps.

Radio connection between the lens sensor assy and body so I can take the body, LCD and all up to 200' away and have full control of the lens sensor on a tripod near the target. Power tilt and pan on the tripod also.

Ooops need power zoom function then. OH, oh need auto focus now also.

Oh yes the price. Considering the way prices have fallen since my first D-cam a price point of about $15.99 would be in my price range.

Include one of the girls from the trade show for subject matter while learning the basics of the camera. Shouldn't take more than 2 years. Sparkle can have the fella of her choice.
--

Marion
Email [email protected]

web site

http://www.pbase.com/stf
 
--Olympians are celebrating in the OLY slr forum.
 
I saw an article from a CZ engineer expressing concern about the circle of confusion from a point in the imaging plane covering more than one pixel if the pixels are to small.
--
Canon A2E, Sony R1 & Panasonic TZ5
 
In the initial post I mentioned that there probably is a bit of a "save-face" angle to it, but you also have to consider that if they really wanted to, they probably could pop out a 15mp or so model. APS-C cams using 14mp-15mp sensors already show fairly evident limitations already, I wouldn't be surprised if others also went on to state that that's it.

Full-frame... for one thing, I don't see where that format factors into this? For another, the article quotes the Olympus engineer giving a nod to FF and to those who require it, so I think they're generally being pretty upfront rather than stating what they are just because they don't offer a FF camera.
--
~ Martin
http://www.martinpolanic.com
 
Ron Poelman said:
Ron Poelman said:
--Olympians are celebrating in the OLY slr forum.
Click to expand...
Be a different song if they did, I reckon.

regards,
Ron

Click to expand...
--

No, they, or should I say, we, are celebrating because Olympus has finally rediscovered who their patrons are. I'm an "Olympian" and I don't have "big gun"envy when I shooting alongside the Canonites and Nikonians. At the end of the day, many of my friends in my photo club envy me because I'm not going home with a sore neck.
 
For me personally, that would rock. I would love to see megapixels stop increasing, and more effort put into improving other performance parameters of the sensors. 12MP is at least somewhere to start the trend away from MP...though honestly I'd love to see a serious effort to make excellent 7-8MP P&S sensors and no more than 8-10MP APS-C sensors, with decreased high ISO noise, better processing especially with the jpeg engines, work on decreasing sensor heat and increasing burst speeds, etc.

I won't go into the argument of more is better or less is better - my personal opinion is that the megapixels have gone far enough (if not too far) and there is so much more improvement that could be achieved by working on other areas of IQ.

--
Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg
 
Original article statement:

"We don't think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a customer wants more than 12 megapixels, he should go to the full-frame models,"
Article corrected at request of Olympus:

"We don't think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a customer wants more than 20 megapixels, he should go to the full-frame models,"

Sheesh, that didn't take long. Is the race back on?
--
John Dunn
Portraits: http://www.fototime.com/users/[email protected]/Portraits
 
pulled first the breaks. They have the smallest sensor in their DSLR cameras.
 
Yep, the article's been "corrected" but I think that was just an error in translation originally. The statement being made still stands, as you can see by the headline which has not been edited: "12 megapixels is enough for most folks". I know you have reasons for wanting more megapixels, John, but for me 12mp is plenty. I've now got a dSLR that captures a "lowly" 7.5mp but frankly I don't even notice the diff vs. the R1's 10mp, except for having much smaller raw files to store ;)

I don't doubt that eventually Olympus will go past 12mp (I don't think that in this article they're actually saying that 12mp is the end forever), what I find refreshing is simply that someone's saying "time out" for awhile and let's focus on optimizing other areas of the image processing pipeline before going hog-wild for pixels. This coming from a company that makes their own lenses which are optically capable of resolving a good 20mp on 4/3.
jrdu said:
Original article statement:

"We don't think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a
customer wants more than 12 megapixels, he should go to the
full-frame models,"
Article corrected at request of Olympus:

"We don't think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a
customer wants more than 20 megapixels, he should go to the
full-frame models,"

Sheesh, that didn't take long. Is the race back on?
--
John Dunn
Portraits: http://www.fototime.com/users/[email protected]/Portraits
Click to expand...
--
~ Martin
http://www.martinpolanic.com
 
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