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Discussion Board -> Photography -> The End Of The Mega Pixel Wars....

The End Of The Mega Pixel Wars....

::philcUK
03/30/06 9:33 PM GMT
Canon execs have recently been prone to intimating in press interviews that as far as they, and therefore Canon’s R&D program, are concerned, the MegaPixel war is over. Finally acknowledging what most of us already know, to a degree the advancement of higher and higher pixel resolutions is purely academic as for most users, a standard off the shelf compact camera provides more than enough capturing capability, size wise. Indeed, the new generation of camera phones are now extending their own capabilities to include sensors up to 10MP and Carl Zeiss lenses.

This (minor) revelation came about whilst being questioned about the future of the 1X series cameras and in particular what the 1DS Mk3 might have in store. The proverbial sledgehammer that cracked Nikon’s, and indeed everyone else’s, walnut is way beyond what the larger majority of pro user’s would ever need but remains an iconic item of aspiration. Canon’s view is that research should now be focused on refinement and improvement of sensors rather than their mega pixel capture rate, with their stated aim to eliminate noise and banding from their cameras. A 22MP camera with flawless digital capture, now that would be a sight to behold as indeed, would a regular 8MP one.

Some might suggest that Canon is taking the opportunity to retire as undefeated champions without having to venture into digital medium format territory, but personally. I’d rather have a 12MP cam with no digital artefacts than a 40MP one with more noise than a night at the opera. With Nikon’s recent nightmare problems with noise and banding on their wunderkind product the D200, it may be wise for them to follow suit too…
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"

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.KingIan
03/31/06 4:38 AM GMT
good points. :)
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if at first you don't succeed, you're about normal.
&prismmagic
03/31/06 8:49 AM GMT
But Phil I am still waiting for the 110 MGP that kodak working on. Boohoo. I would love to have a camera that only needs one lens and no zoom. think of the possibilties. All you need to a 10 millimeter lens and you can blow it up to any size you want. Thats if you can find a computer that can handle it. LOL
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Art is the perception of the creator. Meaning is the perception of the viewer. acceptance is the perception of society.
.KEIFER
03/31/06 11:11 AM GMT
well .. since MY tax dollars funded the Hubble .. that's my camera ...

so what if I took the wrong lens with me the first time out
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&prismmagic
03/31/06 11:31 PM GMT
All you will need a standard 10 mm nothing else. see with a 110 MGP cmos you only need just one then you just blow it up and crop out the section you want.
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Art is the perception of the creator. Meaning is the perception of the viewer. acceptance is the perception of society.
&trisbert
04/02/06 10:28 PM GMT
I agree that it’s time to refine and perfect the current technology. Giving us the digital equivalent of improving the film rather than making bigger film. So what will Canon do when someone brings out a compact 40Mp SLR?
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There are three colours, Ten digits and seven notes, its what we do with them that’s important. Ruth Ross
::philcUK
04/02/06 10:31 PM GMT
send out free cd's of Neat Image to the new cameras customers? :-)
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
.SageIdiot
04/02/06 10:36 PM GMT
Wouldn't you still need different lenses for different fields of view? Given the focal object is the same size in the frame, the background will look totally different with a 10mm and a 100mm. Not to mention the distortion of wide-angle lenses and the flattening of telephoto lenses. We will always need more focal lengths (sigh). Besides, I have become rather attached to my lenses.
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They'll never see, I'll never be, I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger Burning deep inside of me.
+mayne
04/03/06 3:21 AM GMT
You are 100% right Jarrod.
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Darryl
+Samatar
04/03/06 3:25 AM GMT
Isn't it still handy to have heaps of MP's if you want to do large scale prints of photos though?
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-Everyone is entitled to my opinion-
::MiLo_Anderson
04/03/06 5:21 AM GMT
From what i have heard, if you get to many pixels eventually you will start to notice the defects in your glass much more. So its probably a good thing.
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Its time for a new sig for me, so it is for sale. Any offers can be made via a message in my profile.
::philcUK
04/03/06 9:46 PM GMT
Sam - the current high end digi cam backs such as the Hassi H2D-39 and the PhaseOne45 can take pictures sufficient in res to be blown up to billboard size at true optical res - I have blown up portrait shots from my EOS 20D to 30" wide prints and they still look crisp and clean - so how big do you anticiapte your needs growing? :-)
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
::stuffnstuff
04/04/06 3:07 AM GMT
Fujifilm just came out with a wonder that boasts full color games on its 3.0" screen that are more detailed than those at the local pizza parlor. Also recently, Sony started producing a camera that allows you to play your images in a slide show with music (the songs selectable from a list). If they need these kind of features to attract new customers, the megapixel race really is over. It always takes a while to seep down to the point-n-shoots. If you are wondering what to expect next, just look at cell phones. Suddenly, being able to talk from anywhere isn't a major selling point, so now you can access the internet and download full color videos of just about anything else, all while listening to music with built in mp3 capabilities more complex than your non-iPod mp3 player.

I look forward to the day when I will be able to watch the Loony Toons on the back of my DSLR. :-)
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Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is "elephant". - Charlie Chaplin
::regmar
04/06/06 9:46 AM GMT
Clay has a point that I don't think we should ignore. For myself the development of higher-resolution sensors (20Mpx, etc.) has an important place, since it's cheaper and more convenient to have high-res sensors instead of an 800mm telephoto lens. With the high-res sensor you can crop your 40mpx image down to 8mpx, and still have a high-res image. Likewise I can shoot a large object, and later on my workstation examine that printed tag hanging off one corner and be able to read the fine print.
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ж Regmar ж
::philcUK
04/06/06 6:02 PM GMT
it still seams likely though that the 1DS MKIII will feature a 20MP+ sensor when it breaks cover later this year but there is also talk of it being a totally new type of sensor consisting of 3 independent sensors sandwiched together - each capturing their own colour range and reportedly offering the same levels of colour definition and contrast that is achievable with conventional negatives. Canon ceased production of the current 1DS MKII sensor some months back so a replacement will probably be here sooner rather than later.
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
::stuffnstuff
04/06/06 6:50 PM GMT
Steve McHugh will be excited when I tell him. (Google him.) :-)
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Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is "elephant". - Charlie Chaplin
::philcUK
04/06/06 6:54 PM GMT
the freelance dolphin trainer? :-)
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
.KEIFER
04/06/06 7:58 PM GMT
you can make a living as a freelance dolphin trainer? .. for, like, Paris Hilton .. or something

I just checked my coffee cup, bathtub and the nearest swimming pool .. and I ain't got a dolphin
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::regmar
04/06/06 8:03 PM GMT
I guess you can make a living doing anything if you just sell it right. I mean look at our <*insert your least favorite politician here*>.
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ж Regmar ж
.Dante11
04/18/06 12:05 AM GMT
All this talk of various numbers/lenses/etc. and what they can do brings to mind one fact: if you do not have the talent to make a great photo...forget the options! No amount is going to help......Alfred Stiglitz is said to have used a very simple Kodak Brownie when he first began.and Cartier-Bresson was not partial to using new technology...I rest my---------------
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.jjayjohn313
04/18/06 12:41 AM GMT
You know there is 10MP camera for CELLPHONE so it dunno maybe on other products it's not like mp3 pixel war and other electronics....

link to 10MP cell

http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=2162&source=BROWSER
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-jk : ) ( ; how's life?
.Jeffo
04/21/06 4:11 AM GMT
well to all of you people that think 20Mp isnt worth it, wait until you use one then say that. Sheridan College (school im going to) has around 20 Phaseones and it is night and day when you take a shot using them vs the 20D. So i say the Mp war can continue
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I want something good to die for To make it beautiful to live. D70s w/18-70, 70-300
::philcUK
04/21/06 5:08 PM GMT
i'd think the current level - 39MP is really as far as it need ever go and I dont really see a need for much of an advancement more than Canon's projected 20MP+ DSLR this year - personally i'm more excited by their new sensor using sandwiched colour specific sensors to eliminate colour noise.
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
.Jeffo
04/21/06 7:49 PM GMT
Well really inorder for high Mp sensors to come down in price it will take new product to come out. and the colour specific sensors are nothing new, they have been in video cameras for a while now, but it will be intresting to see them in a DSLR
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I want something good to die for To make it beautiful to live. D70s w/18-70, 70-300
::philcUK
04/21/06 8:12 PM GMT
i may have been over simplyfying the new sensor a bit but details are still sketchy and im not sure I fully understand the tech speak behind it all but Canon are claiming this replacement for the 1DS MkII will have a huge leap in capture quality as opposed to a relatively small jump in MP's
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps"
&philcUK
04/22/06 12:02 AM GMT
from what I understand, high end broadcast quality video cams feed the video to 3 seperate ccd's - one for each colour - the new canon still sensor sandwiches these together as the Canon bod describes it: "our next generation sensors will be a three-layered thing that will essentially take three separate, bracketed exposures and merge them, much like the High Dynamic Range function in Photoshop, therefore giving us tonal range similar to negative."
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&trisbert
04/22/06 12:23 AM GMT
That sounds similar to the three colour layers used in traditional film. A logical step back in time?
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There are three colours, Ten digits and seven notes, its what we do with them that’s important. Ruth Ross
::stuffnstuff
04/22/06 6:11 PM GMT
It does sound logical. I had not understood for a long time that sensor size and noise generally come hand-in-hand. Suddenly, I don't want my camera's small sensor to have any more megapixels than it does.

Steve McHugh, one of the commercial big-boys in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, has a Canon EOS-1Ds, which has an effective sensor size of 11.0 megapixels. He is looking forward to getting a larger sensor, preferably the current 16.7, but I don't think he would mind waiting for an even larger upgrade. It took me a whole year to get this megapixel thing out of my brain because there are much more important things in photography to worry about and spend cash on. Well, the day I brought in my camera to show him, he was pretty busy editing, but realizing how important it is to me, thought he should ask a question about it. Without even turning to look at it, he asked me how many megapixels it was. When I told him it was 8.2, he said, "That's a good size. Good size." and left it that. I am not sure what my thoughts are, but most of them seem to indicate that I was letdown some how.
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Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. - Groucho Marx
&philcUK
04/22/06 6:20 PM GMT
Unless you are planning on doing photography for a glossy magazine publication or billboard advertising, in theory you should never need a sensor bigger than you have. Many photographers are coming to this realisation, a new sensor with no noise distortions or chroma aberrations would, however, be most welcome.
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&trisbert
04/22/06 11:33 PM GMT
Large sensors have a couple of advantages over smaller sensors of the same megapixel capacity. They have larger cells, which provide higher voltage and a cleaner signal. The larger cell also reaches voltage saturation quicker than a smaller one. I wouldn’t be surprised if the future sees crop sensors used for most people and full frame sensors used for keen amateurs and professionals.
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There are three colours, Ten digits and seven notes, its what we do with them that’s important. Ruth Ross
::Paul_Gerritsen
04/28/06 9:22 PM GMT
Funny how everyone seems focused about the Mega pixels.
In my opinion,....no let me rephrase that, ....from my experience the quality of the lens is the major, if not only, thing that matters.
You also have to realise that the number of megapixel is probably not the the technological limitation, but instead the quality of the lens will have a big time being in par with the MP advancements.
You can have a 20 MP camera body for a low budget price in the near future, but don't believe you will find a cheap super quality lens to come along!
If I look at my own equipment, then I realise the cheapest part by now is my EOS350D body. The lenses are (much) more expensive.
And if I look at the more expensive models like the 20D and 30D, then I dare to say that the quality of the CCD is just about the same.Even the operating system software is (almost) identical. But friends, it is the lens (and the hand of the operator) that make the image!

Paul
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If you can't find the words, you may as well shoot it...
&trisbert
04/29/06 12:06 AM GMT
You are absolutely correct about good lenses on cheap camera bodies. But if you want to see what your good lenses can really do then borrow a full frame high megapixel camera for a couple of days. When all is said and done though, the camera and lens combination is only a tool, it what you do with it that matters.
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There are three colours, Ten digits and seven notes, its what we do with them that’s important. Ruth Ross
::stuffnstuff
04/29/06 7:39 PM GMT
Reminds me of a certain quote by Ruth Ross...can't remember where I heard it, though...
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Canon EOS 30D with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM (strange for a kit lens, but it fits me). Gitzo Explorer G2220 w/ Manfrotto 488 Ball Head. Hoya Multicoated UV and Lexar x133 Write Acceleration
&philcUK
04/29/06 7:44 PM GMT
Paul you are correct - and the camera manufacturers are wise to this too - as I said earlier on in this thread - I'd rather have an 8MP sensor that could take flawless noise free captures than a 20MP+ with lots of noise and banding although I imagine it will be up to a couple of years after it's high end introduction before it filters into everyday models.
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