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Will it ever end?

Chris Valites

New member
Resolution is always increasing, be it the "megapickles" argument or better lens technology. Happily, the market is hitting a point where we can choose what tools best suit our needs, rather than chase a number. Numerous times with people that we work with for purchases we'll discover someone actually doesn't need as large of a sensor as they originally though, or wants something with more sensitivity rather than just the race for higher numbers.

Speaking from my foray into digital, I know my Nikon D70 destroyed any data in the red channel, and 6 MP felt so restricting. Now we can choose 21, 50, 60, 80 megapixel backs with 14 stops of dynamic range.

If anything, I think you'll start seeing better ergonomics and usability. We already are; digital backs and 35mm have wi-fi built in, GPS tagging, higher resolution displays, built in accelerometers, and so on. Rather than having to struggle with one amazing feature (resolution) being hindered by a poor display, bad battery life, or slow read speeds, we're starting to get to where you have multiple options, and that shows that manufacturers are no longer chasing the dragon of resolution and resolution alone.

Will it stop? Probably not for a while, no. Car manufacturers are still engaged in the horsepower wars, but technology from the Bugatti Veyron has trickled down into consumer cars, and I can't say that's a bad thing. The same thing happens with sensor technology.

Maybe I sound a bit giddy, but I know I'm excited for the future. :)
 

bensonga

Well-known member
60-80 megapixels, with full frame 6x6 and 6x7 sensors, in digital backs to fit my Hasselblad V and Mamiya RZ67 ProIID....those would satisfy my "needs" (wants) completely! :D

In other words....I'm more interested in getting full frame medium format sensors than ever increasing resolution from smaller sensors.

Gary
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Will - thank you for your comments.



But isn't digital camera/back a much more complex and disruptive upgrade, usually involving upgrade of lenses, sometime computers, storage etc as well. So at some point fewer people will be able to afford or be willing, hence decreasing profitability for manufacturers hence a downward spiral to the equilibrium/sweet-spot.
Actually, making more expensive goods aimed at the high-end of the market has proven to be a good strategy. Luxury goods have done well even with the world recession. It is only the poor that can't afford these items. but these are not made for the poor, so there seems to be no economic downside. Actually it makes sense. The fastest economic growth is at the top. Pay has stagnated at the low and middle classes and so there is no point in pursuing that part of the consumer market.




Is more always better? I think beyond a certain point it does not matter. And beyond even that point it enters the bizzaro/obnoxious territory.

Performance of a car 250 hp is nice, 400hp is great, 500hp is awesome, 1000hp is danagerous.

How would one quantify too much money?
Getting 10 million dollars will have a huge affect on most people's lives. Getting another 10 million will have a far smaller incremental affect. Getting another 10 million will have practically no effect and so on :)
In a consumer economy, more is better. It has nothing to do with reason. It has to do with human nature. Every year CEO pay increases astronomically. It has nothing to do with performance nor value of the individual to the organization. Why would these individuals that have more money than they would ever need need more? So, to answer your question, yes, to some more is better.
 

satybhat

Member
Man, I for one would definitely be more happy with 30 million than with 10 million....
Megapixels, that is !!! Money, Naah. what good is that ?

The one thing I would jump for would be a 120MP digital back in a 6x17 format.
( Now if only we had the xpan Digital...)
 

jagsiva

Active member
Jag, I take it you are a 911 turbo driver then :)
Tell ya what - my C4S is sweet and never leaves me longing for more hp :)
It's a subtly tweaked TTS with about 625HP and 650ft/lbs of torque. And it is STICK! Hard to shift from 1 - 2 at full throttle as your dig into the thick leather wheel to keep one had there. 60MPH comes in just under 3s. From there, 100mph comes in another 3.4s. Taken up to about 196mph, but didn't have any more room, and wasn't wearing a helmet :) Took me a couple of days to wipe the smile off my face.

No much different from my tech cam. Pain to drive in traffic, can't load groceries, extremely poor dynamic range, but the user experience is to kill for!
Oh, it also depreciated a helluva lot less than my camera gear!
 

jagsiva

Active member
Every year CEO pay increases astronomically. It has nothing to do with performance nor value of the individual to the organization. Why would these individuals that have more money than they would ever need need more? So, to answer your question, yes, to some more is better.
Little can be further from the reality of CEO's lives.
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

For optimal reproduction the sensor should outresolve the lens, that is the lens should have low MTF at the sensor pitch. Schneider mentions the figure < 10% MTF.

With excellent lenses like the Otus and probably the HR-digitals, the optimum pixel size is probably 2-3 micron, that is around 250MP on full frame. That is at f/5.6, stopping down to f/11 the optimum would be more like 60MP. On my P45+, it takes f/16 to virtually eliminate aliasing.

So it depends on aperture and lens quality.

The reason that resolution is lost and aliasing is reduced when stopping down is diffraction.

These crops may illustrate the issues:

Top is 3.8 micron pixels and bottom is 6.8 micron pixels.


This image is P45+ 6.8 micron pixels


And this is Sony Alpha 77 3.8 micron pixels, shot with same focal length at same distance and resized to the same size as above. Keep in mind that the illustration is intended to show the benefits of small pixels and not to compare systems.


The last two images show the effect of the aperture, the top one is f/8


And the one at bottom is at f/16 and has much stronger sharpening. This shows how stopping down acts as an antialiasing filter, but also that sharpening can compensate a lot of lost MTF.


The crops shown are very small parts of the images, probably 80 mm lenses at 4 meters.

To sum up:

- Small pixels are needed for correct reproduction of detail
- If pixels are to large, the excess information will result in low frequency fake detail, known as aliases
- With bayer sensors (which almost all sensors are) aliasing may result in colour aliasing, known as moiré
- Stopping down reduces fine detail contrast and also resolution, stopping down enough reduces aliasing
- Aliasing free aperture is f/16 for a 6.8 micron sensor like the P45+
- Aliasing free aperture is around f/5.6 for a 3 micron sensor

The complete article with the images is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/i...g-and-supersampling-why-small-pixels-are-good

Just to mention, aliasing is very much present on the P45+ at f/11, it takes stopping down to f/16 to virtually eliminate it.


Best regards
Erik
I wonder if the pursuit of resolution will ever end? How many digital pixels will be considered enough?

In the days of film 8"x10" was medium of ultimate resolution and image quality. And it has withstood the test of time. A photographer could go from medium format to 4x5, 5x7 but 8x10 was basically it. Ultra-large film formats eg. 48"x48" or even 16"x20" did not become main stream and 8x10 remained the choice of photographers seeking that quality.

With digital, when will we reach that point? A point that will withstand the test of time just as 8x10 film did. Or are we already there?

Will a 80 or 100 or 120 mega-pixel camera/back become the defacto choice such that anything beyond that point will simply be a specialty format similar to 48"x48" flim?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Cheers!
 
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torger

Active member
Considering my own photography 30 megapixels or so is quite enough concerning image details, but I want perfectly smooth down to the smallest detail without any aliasing or digital artifact whatsoever and for that it seems we need say 3um sensors suggested above, 200-300 megapixels with current MF sized sensors. If we continue to have bayer arrays we'd probably need a litttle bit more still. Let's say 600 megapixels, then I will be satisfied :).

I haven't really understood the current mainstream view on image quality and resolution where you want the optical system to outresolve the sensor. I guess people just love aliasing... I want it to be the other way around, when the sensor outresolves the optical system you don't have any digital artifacts, your image should just as good or better than a multishot back. Of course the optical system must be adequate too, good resolving power, not severe chromatic abberations etc, but in that apartment I think the current tech lenses have reached very far already.

With today's technology there are disadvantages with small pixels too, the photodiodes get so deep down than wide angle compatibility get really bad, so for now I think we can stay at 6um pixels until those issues have been resolved.
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

Yes, reducing pixel sizes has disadvantages. The beam angle effects are worse with small pixels. Also, halving pixel diameter will reduce DR in the technical sense by one EV. "Photographic DR" on the other hand is little dependent on pixel size.

Another solution is of course to use OLP filtering, although I would say that the OLP filters I see are more intended to reduce color moiré than to reduce aliasing in general.

There are practical reasons that we have the pixel sizes we have.

Best regards
Erik

Considering my own photography 30 megapixels or so is quite enough concerning image details, but I want perfectly smooth down to the smallest detail without any aliasing or digital artifact whatsoever and for that it seems we need say 3um sensors suggested above, 200-300 megapixels with current MF sized sensors. If we continue to have bayer arrays we'd probably need a litttle bit more still. Let's say 600 megapixels, then I will be satisfied :).

With today's technology there are disadvantages with small pixels too, the photodiodes get so deep down than wide angle compatibility get really bad, so for now I think we can stay at 6um pixels until those issues have been resolved.
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Btw, it would be amusing to be having this discussion with the current state of the art tech maybe even 5 - 7 years ago. I remember mortgaging the first born for a 2.74mp Nikon D1 which was the state of the art everywhere outside of NASA.

Talk of 30mp+ is so pedestrian today that it's kind of funny when you think about it.
 

torger

Active member
Btw, it would be amusing to be having this discussion with the current state of the art tech maybe even 5 - 7 years ago. I remember mortgaging the first born for a 2.74mp Nikon D1 which was the state of the art everywhere outside of NASA.

Talk of 30mp+ is so pedestrian today that it's kind of funny when you think about it.
Yes, I wonder what we'll have in 10 more years... 600 megapixels is perhaps not unlikely.

But in a way although lots of things have happened in electronics and computers, much is still the same, only higher fidelity. Software is not running that much faster today than before, it's just throwing around more data.

And of course, all things need to be in balance, we won't see cameras with more image data than the current normal workstations are capable of handling with good performance.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I think we're all suffering from time compression (it happens to all of us as we get older). My current still-seeing-active-use 16MP DSLR is over 10 years old. Things haven't moved quite as fast as we think.

And for all the resolution and ISO advances, it's still the file quality that makes me stare slack-jawed at a screen or a print, and that's been fairly constant - some things better, some things worse.

Now about that 50MP Canon.... ;)

--Matt
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
At the end of the day I find myself caring less whether I shoot with my 16mp Df, 24mp A7s/A7II, 36mp A7r's, 28mp Aptus 65, or even 16mp CFV-16 back - they ALL produce superb images; the 60mp IQ260 is special though. :D

(But so are my 617 Fuji, XPan II or F6 Nikon for various other reasons).
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I wonder if the pursuit of resolution will ever end? How many digital pixels will be considered enough?

In the days of film 8"x10" was medium of ultimate resolution and image quality. And it has withstood the test of time. A photographer could go from medium format to 4x5, 5x7 but 8x10 was basically it. Ultra-large film formats eg. 48"x48" or even 16"x20" did not become main stream and 8x10 remained the choice of photographers seeking that quality.

With digital, when will we reach that point? A point that will withstand the test of time just as 8x10 film did. Or are we already there?

Will a 80 or 100 or 120 mega-pixel camera/back become the defacto choice such that anything beyond that point will simply be a specialty format similar to 48"x48" flim?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Cheers!
I can only share my personal opinion on the subject of the endless pursuit to separate me from my hard earned dollars.

I only need what I have. I've done the meg race (60 meg MFD, multi-shot, etc.). Don't need it anymore (if I ever really did).

What I would prefer is ... what I have to be better, and for it to last longer. I'm far less concerned about obsolescence due to geek driven minute advancements, than I am of obsolescence due to sloppy QC and a "throw-away" mentality.

Most stuff today is more than enough in the real photographic world ... as opposed to micrometer measures of DR, pixel peeping obsessions, and homogenization of image qualities ... most of which live and thrive almost exclusively on internet flora.

It'd be nice if what you bought actually lasted longer than the lifespan of a Mayfly.

Unfortunately, that's a manufacturer's race that'll never be run.

- Marc
 

torger

Active member
It'd be nice if what you bought actually lasted longer than the lifespan of a Mayfly.

Unfortunately, that's a manufacturer's race that'll never be run.
I think it's more the responsibility of the consumers than the manufacturer. Higher end cameras hold up pretty well. We don't have to upgrade, and if we do we can buy second hand instead of something fresh from a factory.

The problem is much larger in consumer electronics like mobile phones, and indeed computers. Apple is one of the worst offenders I think, which limit the expandability of their products - if a computer can take a lot of RAM it holds up longer, a good screen survives one or two computers etc but they limit RAM expansion more than others and often build screen and computer in the same unit making it impossible to reuse the screen, and has a tendency to make their older phones near unusable with new iOS upgrades.
 

Jamgolf

Member
Btw, it would be amusing to be having this discussion with the current state of the art tech maybe even 5 - 7 years ago. I remember mortgaging the first born for a 2.74mp Nikon D1 which was the state of the art everywhere outside of NASA.

Talk of 30mp+ is so pedestrian today that it's kind of funny when you think about it.
True. But those were the early adopter prices in the earlier stages of a product development cycle.

As digital sensor technology is reaching maturity, and I would think at some point it would arrive to a winning formula of pixel-count, pixel-size, sensor-size and optimally designed lenses with image circles that work well from wide to long end.

I contend that manufacturers will not find it financially viable to invest in further tinkering that throws that hard-to-achieve balance out of whack.
 
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Jamgolf

Member
No, 'it' won't end; however, we can chose to stop and concentrate on making photographs.
My 32HR and 90SW are finally arriving today.
So I will be doing exactly that :)

"concentrate on making photographs" ... you are absolutely right.
 
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