# Sony to unveil a 50 MP new A7 body at Photokina?



## ahsanford (Aug 29, 2014)

http://www.slrlounge.com/sony-announce-new-50mp-high-resolution-a7x-photokina/

Take this rumor with a grain of salt, but that would make a heck of a splash...

- A


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 29, 2014)

50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!

:


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## daniela (Aug 29, 2014)

My Japanese girlfriends talked about this rumor yesterday. 
As one of the poster wrote: The lenses are missing. and you will ned an highend lens to meet the resolution.
But 50MP for landscape... Our big landscape picture in the living room would get a lot sharper


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## daniela (Aug 29, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> 
> :



Mr Neuro if you make an facebook account and find, lets say 5 million followers, Canon will listen to your whishes. But maybe in a few years the : will become an 8)


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## BozillaNZ (Sep 4, 2014)

Canon, time to bring your 120MP APS-H prototype to FF and get it out! That will silence everyone! 36MP to 50MP? Meh, we went from 22MP straight to 220MP!


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## distant.star (Sep 4, 2014)

.
Doesn't Sony introduce a new camera every day?


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## preppyak (Sep 4, 2014)

distant.star said:


> .
> Doesn't Sony introduce a new camera every day?


18 e-mount cameras since 2010 (not counting video cameras)....23 e-mount lenses (of which at least 2 were refreshes of existing ones).

Imagine how much better off they'd be if they had just made the NEX5 or NEX7 and build a lens system around it.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 4, 2014)

That would make me buy an a7. Really? 50mp? This is madness...


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 4, 2014)

daniela said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> ...



I'm thinking he will be 8) if they were to release the 5D4 as APS-C with the 20D sensor and 2fps. Hey, it has the Canon label on it! ;D


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## Aglet (Sep 4, 2014)

A7r is the FF version of the venerable 16MP APSC sensor
54MP would be a FF version of the current 24MP crop sensor. I don't see this as a surprise, just an eventuality.
Who gets to use it first tho, sony or nikon, is more the question.


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## weixing (Sep 4, 2014)

Hi,


preppyak said:


> distant.star said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...


 WOW... so many?? They thought they are selling TV?? 

Anyway, if I buying an electronics product that's I need it to last, it'll not be a Sony product... their support is very bad especially if it's an old model.

Have a nice day.


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## daniela (Sep 4, 2014)

Japanese rumors: As i heard from my Japanese girlfriends, the 50MP Sony is not the highlight. The highlight is, that sony is working on an curved sensor. This sensor could possibly be an little revolution on the sensor market. The image quality of the edges and non-center areas would be dramatically better, CAs and other optical problem would be reduced. And optically this curved sensor would rise the resolution in the edge areas. 
Sony - (rumored!) - is working on new lenses that could be optimized on this new sensor. The lenses would be a lot cheaper to be produced (abberation correction would be not so difficult).
Nikon is interested in this technology too.


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## rs (Sep 4, 2014)

daniela said:


> Japanese rumors: As i heard from my Japanese girlfriends, the 50MP Sony is not the highlight. The highlight is, that sony is working on an curved sensor. This sensor could possibly be an little revolution on the sensor market. The image quality of the edges and non-center areas would be dramatically better, CAs and other optical problem would be reduced. And optically this curved sensor would rise the resolution in the edge areas.
> Sony - (rumored!) - is working on new lenses that could be optimized on this new sensor. The lenses would be a lot cheaper to be produced (abberation correction would be not so difficult).
> Nikon is interested in this technology too.


Yeah, that idea has been mentioned before, including official photos from such technology. Ideal for a permanently attached fixed focal length lens, such as an RX1 type camera or a smart phone. Or even a perfume bottle.


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## mb66energy (Sep 4, 2014)

daniela said:


> My Japanese girlfriends talked about this rumor yesterday.
> As one of the poster wrote: The lenses are missing. and you will ned an highend lens to meet the resolution.
> But 50MP for landscape... Our big landscape picture in the living room would get a lot sharper



... and you need a larger or more livingrooms to hang all the perfect landscapes in 80 x 120 ".


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## mb66energy (Sep 4, 2014)

daniela said:


> Japanese rumors: As i heard from my Japanese girlfriends, the 50MP Sony is not the highlight. The highlight is, that sony is working on an curved sensor. This sensor could possibly be an little revolution on the sensor market. The image quality of the edges and non-center areas would be dramatically better, CAs and other optical problem would be reduced. And optically this curved sensor would rise the resolution in the edge areas.
> Sony - (rumored!) - is working on new lenses that could be optimized on this new sensor. The lenses would be a lot cheaper to be produced (abberation correction would be not so difficult).
> Nikon is interested in this technology too.



And both can sell a new line of lenses which is incompatible with the old ones ... I don't like that idea too much. Have no money printing machine and are not interested to use too many incompatible equipment or lug it around.


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## mb66energy (Sep 4, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> That would make me buy an a7. Really? 50mp? This is madness...



Not too mad I think: Just the evergreen 18 MPix APS-sensors of canon will result in a roughly 50 MPix sensor if expanded to 24x36mm.

I dream about a 48 MPix sensor which can used to produce 12 MPix images where each final image pixel is calculated from a RGGB sensor pixel quadruplet in camera or during post processing.

Just my more conservative lenses like 2.8 24, 2.8 40, 2.0 100 or 2.8 100 Macro would profit from both, the full resolution or the quarter resolution mode!

Might be an option to replace the EOS M and still use Canon EF and FD lenses or a Rodagon 5.6 120mm with FD bellows.


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

Sony a 50 MP camera.
Samsung with a NX1 that has fantastic specs.

Canon?
Jumps on the 1" P&S waggon and shows a boring 7D evolution. 

That´s not the same company that impressed me with great innovativ products in the past.

Canon always was the technology leader in the Camera biz.
Today it´s just making good enough Cameras with mediocre sensors. 

If not for the Lenses, why would you buy into Canon these days?

As working Pro there are maybe some reasons, i can see that.
But for Amateur or Enthusiast Canon has lost much of it´s appeal.

It´s sad.


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## sanj (Sep 4, 2014)

Gantz said:


> Sony a 50 MP camera.
> Samsung with a NX1 that has fantastic specs.
> 
> Canon?
> ...



I know 4 working pro's who shoot mostly in advertising in a studio who have moved away from Canon. I stay with Canon because it is the best for my kind of photography - fast action in bad light.


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 4, 2014)

Sizzle Sells.

For Canon the sizzle is in the optics and pro-grade gear. Robust. Long lasting. Great ergonimics. All supported by rock-solid pro support.

For Sony the sizzle is innovation. They have to do something unique to capture potential buyers attention. It certainly gets a lot of tongues wagging on these forums. Sony's profitability as a company will be lower than Canon's as Sony needs to invest much more heavily in R&D, particularly if Sony has to cut it's gross margin to keep sales prices low. 

Innovation costs and camera gear sales are dropping. Dramatically.

Many of us want the newest, brightest, shiniest new tools. It's difficult not to be distracted by all the great news and appearance of innovation. But how is any of this changing the images we shoot? How is any of this making our lives visibly better as artists (for those of us who are artists, that is)?

There is a part of me that wishes Canon would follow it's amazing 5D MkII with something bigger and, therefore, "better". 50mpixel could float my boat. It's really hard not to be distracted by the sizzle coming from other companies, but I'm too heavily invested in Canon and they have me hooked, for better or worse.

Would I jump to Sony if they offered a 50mpixel tool? Not if it's burst rate is the current A7r's! Not if it's AF ability in the studio is as poor as the A7r's!! Not if it's battery life is on the order of a 100 images or so!!!

Sony HAS to offer a TON of sizzle to try and get the market's attention. Looking at the details of what they offer often leaves me satisfied to remain where I am.



Gantz said:


> Sony a 50 MP camera.
> Samsung with a NX1 that has fantastic specs.
> 
> Canon?
> ...


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## SwampYankee (Sep 4, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> 
> :



No, they don't. This is land of the Canon fanboy. Don't you understand that in the world sensors don't matter. They never mattered since Camon had the best sensors. Now the lens line up is the only think that matters. DxoMark says other company's have better lenses? Then DXOMark doesn't matter. This is Canonland and the only thing that matters is our stuff is the best


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

ChristopherMarkPerez said:


> Innovation costs and camera gear sales are dropping. Dramatically.



And why should the people upgrade from a 600D to a 700D?
That´s the bread and butter line for Canon.

Not to mention that the sensor performance is reported to drop from the 550D to the 600D. 

If i were Rebel owner i rather stick to my old Rebel and invest my money in a smaller m43 model. 
Quality for people who only print 10x15 or 13x18 centimeter is the same. 

It seems there are not enough new customers and old customers think twice if they pay for minor updates. 

Enthusiasts will always buy the latest just to have it.
But even i start to think hard if i need a new Canon camera.


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## Maiaibing (Sep 4, 2014)

If that were to happen and the Samsung NX1 rumors are true Canon may find it hard to create the buzz it is certainly is hoping for with the 7DII at Photokina. Time will tell.

Since an A7 is very likely to be my next camera if the 5DIV does not deliver (or is vaporware this time next year) it'll be interesting to follow and - if true - see how a 50MP FF camera performs in real life. 

Just imagine the processing power needed to be able to shoot a decent frame rate...


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## tomscott (Sep 4, 2014)

I don't know why people get so emotional about it.

Competition is a good thing, just because there is a new product out doesn't mean you need it. My 5D impresses me everyday I love shooting with it has great IQ and the files are manageable! The important thing is the clients love the work.

Is a 50mp camera really going to improve your work or make PP/storage a nightmare? Shooting 1500 images at a wedding on the 5DMKIII is 40gb of unprocessed data. Process 350 images at a final size of 250mbs each, add you have a few layers and masks that figure is conservative. So nearly 90gbs plus the back up of the originals is 130gbs. I average 45 weddings a year, that data on the 5DMKIII is just about manageable at 6.5TB especially when you want to have an on and offsite backup to ensure redundancy if the worst should happen. 10TB arrays cost upward of £5000 do any of you guys work for a living? With a 50mp camera add 2/3s more too that so for 15-18TB per year is just too much, just insane especially when most clients want one or two prints at A2 and the rest go into an album where the images barely hit A4.

Like I said competition is a good thing and its getting to the point where Canon have to respond with something, even if its just an announcement of response. That makes me excited because Canon has the best lenses you can buy and the system is very mature and useable, everything is there with a bullet proof back up system through CPS.

I wanted to buy an A7 to give it a try but I couldn't do all my work with the lenses available, you can't even cover all bases atm the lenses are expensive and slow. They should be concentrating on lenses not bodies but bodies sell the system people seem to forget about lenses and that kit lenses will probably resolve about the same MP as a 10 year old 20D. 

TBH I just think people are bored and crave new tech, new tech is investment and for pros like myself switching system is a pain not only in cost but also in learning a new system. Canons FF tech is still amazing and if you know how to work it and use light to compliment available light to your advantage you will have no issues, your camera can't do everything. A skilled photographer will make stunning images with any camera they pic up.

Still exciting to see the development of camera tech and I applaud Sony for trying something new! I bought a Nex5N a few years back for a daily and really enjoy shooting with it.


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## quod (Sep 4, 2014)

SwampYankee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> ...


Awesome post! Captures these boards perfectly.


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> .
> 
> Is a 50mp camera really going to improve your work



As you kind of wrote yourself that´s not the question.

You wrote you are happy with the 5D output.
Do you think the amateur gear freak in this forum need a 1DX for their Flickr images?
They could stop photographing tomorrow and start knitting.
They don´t NEED better gear. 

Even most PRO, who want better gear would (still) do absolutely fine with a 5D MKII or 1Ds when they know their job.

Those PROS who need billboard size prints will buy MF.
They don´t talk for days on internet forums about DR and MP.

But when Canon wants my money, wants me to spend money for a new camera i don´t really need  ..... i expect more then what it offers today.


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## infared (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> daniela said:
> 
> 
> > Japanese rumors: As i heard from my Japanese girlfriends, the 50MP Sony is not the highlight. The highlight is, that sony is working on an curved sensor. This sensor could possibly be an little revolution on the sensor market. The image quality of the edges and non-center areas would be dramatically better, CAs and other optical problem would be reduced. And optically this curved sensor would rise the resolution in the edge areas.
> ...



KEEP PRINTING!!! You will need a new supercharged double-quad tower computer to crunch those files in post!!! LOL!
:'( :'( :'(


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## tomscott (Sep 4, 2014)

Gantz said:


> tomscott said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...



It does matter, because the sensor of the camera is only one part of the mix. You have to think about the costs to store data safely and efficiently, not only that have a machine that can deal with loading the images quickly for efficient workflow for PP. The outlay cost of the lenses and camera being probably 3-8k depending on what you buy for the sony system but and lack of lenses currently means a lower outlay, then 10-15k on a rig and storage solution that guarantees that safety + another storage solution off site, then continuous cost to upgrade memory burning through 15TB a year gets costly. As a pro these costs concern me and people forgot about the bigger picture. Those hidden costs are double the outlay for the new gear. But its maybe because your shooting habits differ from mine and you don't have to have that safety net.


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## mb66energy (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> I don't know why people get so emotional about it.
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...



I am no pro photographer and just for me switching a TOOL is real pain. Because not shooting 8 hrs per day I need LONGER than a pro like you to know my equipments capabilities. It just makes sense to me to NOT to change gear year after year.

About "bored and crave new tech": Hits the nail on its head. Going out to take photographs isn't boring with so called inferior equipment (EOS M, 600D) depending on the subject/photographic style. Very often I crave for (1) more time and (2) better weather/light - at the same time!


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## moreorless (Sep 4, 2014)

The problems I think Sony would have is that firstly I'm not sure theres massive demand for resolution above the existing 36 MP and secondly its questionable how there current(and future) FE lens lineup would perform on such a camera as there are already serious issues with the wider lenses with 24/36 MP.

Honestly I'm starting to think that Sony might be in panic mode with the threat of the camera(not sensor) division being shutdown hanging over their heads such is the rate of new releases.


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> But its maybe because your shooting habits differ from mine and you don't have to have that safety net.



2 TB drives cost 70 euro, that is less what i have spend in a month for film.
harddrive space should not be a problem, especially not for a working pro.

i backup to 4 harddrives for each of the 3 storage drives in my PC (automatically to a NAS and a second PC).
then i have a sharkoon docking station to do extra backups to harddisks i store offline.

harddrive cost is nothing i worry about... as i have not worried about film cost.

processing power... well when i do the surface blur filter i will sure hate a 50 MP file. 
but then, i keep my systems up to date. 

but of course when someone spends 1000$ on a tripod, or 2000$ on a lens but still works with a 3 year old celeron, he should think about upgrading his PC too.
at least when he wants to edit 30+ MP files. 

and let´s not forget, MF owners have to deal with such kind of data for a while.


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## mb66energy (Sep 4, 2014)

moreorless said:


> The problems I think Sony would have is that firstly I'm not sure theres massive demand for resolution above the existing 36 MP and secondly its questionable how there current(and future) FE lens lineup would perform on such a camera as there are already serious issues with the wider lenses with 24/36 MP.
> 
> Honestly I'm starting to think that Sony might be in panic mode with the threat of the camera(not sensor) division being shutdown hanging over their heads such is the rate of new releases.



In terms of real demand for photographic work/photographic expression : I totally agree.

But for boosting around "I can 50 MPixel" (for 4x6" prints for the family album) it is well suited and this might be a personal demand to own something with the hightest number availble. Same thing with hp of cars or sizes of houses ...


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 4, 2014)

What you say about Canon's FF tech being amazing remains true to me too. My 5D MkII is going on six!!! years old and it still stuns me. Large prints. Small prints. Published images. Everything. It's an image making machine.

If you don't have an idea nor a clue of what you want to say in an image, the camera is incapable of helping _create_. The task of creativity is left to the brain behind the eye behind the eyepiece.

Flipped around, I agree with you that a good artist can use just about anything. Give a good painter a brush, just about any old brush, and they'll figure out how to get the most out of it.

For all the rest, I'm left feeling that comments, critics, and complaints about how much better one company is doing over another is just a cover for the lack of creativity. Afterall, if you were cranking out fabulous images you might not have time to complain. You'd be too busy. Cameras are very rarely the limiting factor in image creation.

Which leads me to my maxims that I've used for years -
_
My tripod is the sharpest lens I own.

It's what's behind the eye-piece that counts.

Having a lens is many times better than not having a lens, except in the cases of a pinhole or a zone-plate._




tomscott said:


> I don't know why people get so emotional about it...
> 
> ... TBH I just think people are bored and crave new tech, new tech is investment and for pros like myself switching system is a pain not only in cost but also in learning a new system. Canons FF tech is still amazing and if you know how to work it and use light to compliment available light to your advantage you will have no issues, your camera can't do everything. A skilled photographer will make stunning images with any camera they pic up.
> 
> Still exciting to see the development of camera tech and I applaud Sony for trying something new! I bought a Nex5N a few years back for a daily and really enjoy shooting with it.


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> moreorless said:
> 
> 
> > The problems I think Sony would have is that firstly I'm not sure theres massive demand for resolution above the existing 36 MP and secondly its questionable how there current(and future) FE lens lineup would perform on such a camera as there are already serious issues with the wider lenses with 24/36 MP.
> ...



For me it hasn´t to be 50MP.
28-32 MP and cleaner shadow noise and better DR is fine for me.

4K video, to extract still frames from video.

Better implementation of WIFI and GPS (easier to setup, less battery drain).
WIFI in the 6D is catastrophic.

I am a tech savy PC user since 1990.
I build my own PC and i have a LAN (WLAN) with 6 systems at home.
So im not a dummy when it comes to WIFI. 

And i have to say the 6D WIFI setup is not intuitively accessible for most people.
I know 6D user who tried it once and never touched it again.


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## Lawliet (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> You have to think about the costs to store data safely and efficiently, not only that have a machine that can deal with loading the images quickly for efficient workflow for PP.



At the same time factor in the time it costs to do the cleanup necessary to match the results of competing data sources. Considering reasonable rates thats the biggest factor in the equation for me.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That would make me buy an a7. Really? 50mp? This is madness...
> ...


The lenses will have issues resolving that many MP across the frame. They already do on the d800s, let alone a 50mp sensor.


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 4, 2014)

Really?

The following is the physics (taken from an article I wrote years ago) -

This presents the theoretic resolving power of an ideal lens where the light's
wavelength is 589.3mu (green).


Tangential lines/mm
f-number Angular distance from axis (in degrees)
0 10 25
1 1391 1329 1035
2 695 665 518
4 348 332 259
5.6 246 235 183
8 174 166 130
11 123 117 92 <--- approx. limits of film/sensor resolution
16 87 83 65
22 61 59 46
32 43 41 32
45 31 29 23
64 22 21 16

Radial lines/mm
f-number Angular distance from axis (in degrees)
0 10 25
1 1391 1370 1260
2 695 685 630
4 348 343 315
5.6 246 243 223
8 174 171 158
11 123 121 111 <--- approx. limits of film/sensor resolution

16 87 86 79
22 61 61 56
32 43 43 39
45 31 30 28
64 22 21 20

I realize we are not dealing with "ideal" lenses, but... in my several decades of looking at this question, it's ALWAYS come down to the film or sensor being the limiting factor for resolution. Period.

In the face of new evidence I'd be happy to change my understanding and position on the topic. Until then, current lenses are likely more than sufficient for 50mp sensors.




RLPhoto said:


> The lenses will have issues resolving that many MP across the frame. They already do on the d800s, let alone a 50mp sensor.


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## Lawliet (Sep 4, 2014)

ChristopherMarkPerez said:


> In the face of new evidence I'd be happy to change my understanding and position on the topic. Until then, current lenses are likely more than sufficient for 50mp sensors.



Also factor in that your average sensor today doesn't record color at its full resolution. Calculating the max. resolution for a monochromatic image would net you the number of RGGB-groups you want on your sensor. 8)


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## RLPhoto (Sep 4, 2014)

ChristopherMarkPerez said:


> Really?
> 
> The following is the physics (taken from an article I wrote years ago) -
> 
> ...


That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.


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## rs (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> moreorless said:
> 
> 
> > The problems I think Sony would have is that firstly I'm not sure theres massive demand for resolution above the existing 36 MP and secondly its questionable how there current(and future) FE lens lineup would perform on such a camera as there are already serious issues with the wider lenses with 24/36 MP.
> ...



The design of DSLR's, like bicycles, washing machines and pens, has already gone through various stages of development, reaching a point where almost any reasonably priced version is capable of doing 95% of what 95% of users could want. Advances from here, while welcome, are largely gimmicks for people who want every feature or the latest product. More MP, more dynamic range, higher burst rates, more intelligent AF and metering are just nice to have's which most users will never really need. A few will, many will want, but it is largely just a way of generating sales.


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## Lawliet (Sep 4, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.



You're trying to fit an analog dimension in a boolean descriptor, that doesn't work that well. Even if we don't think about the implications of demosaicing or external influences like operator error.

Not that 36 and 50 are that much of a difference, the D810 gained almost that much due to its improved mirror&shutter action. A new sensor would be a good opportunity to incorporate an EFC...instant gain.


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 4, 2014)

Proof, please.




RLPhoto said:


> ...
> That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.


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## tomscott (Sep 4, 2014)

Gantz said:


> tomscott said:
> 
> 
> > But its maybe because your shooting habits differ from mine and you don't have to have that safety net.
> ...



Were not talking about the same thing you are working with consumer grade hardware, 3-4 drives of 2TB, I'm talking back ups of 15TB per year over a 5 year span not 15TB total, you don't just add another drive as and when you need it you have to have some sort of contingency and then double it for a safe backup. Im talking rackable server grade systems. 

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/HE155ZM/A/promise-pegasus2-r8-32tb-8-x-4tb-thunderbolt-2-raid-system?fnode=1597ea08b4818b25cb21c5ba72b87b4d0d6ddab3e2699ec45f6da6e7ee44455736582815946e8c9747dae63d034ecfcc00256cd81ca2e3b77144751317d06785ac75fb316a0d7ed7f06da7bc61f7e4ed5d875e4aa144aa7b3973eab81e40b0fbc1a860980f4573a959f0adbece8b7cc6

Thats £7000 worth of back up storage on its own, to me thats not a small amount of money and if you overlooking this respect is a huge mistake and can ruin a photographers reputation if the worst should happen. Add a decent machine and 2 high quality colour correct monitors and you are easily looking at £15000 for the set up. Pros need proper storage solutions that large data is accessible quickly without a lot of small little raid drives knocking around, or spreading data across an old PC or random drives. These are very expensive, when your dealing with someones wedding and memories you need to ensure its safe incase of unforeseen events. If you don't take it seriously you shouldn't take on the responsibility.

That storage will only last 2 years with at 50mp with a commercial event and wedding photographer. With a camera with half the output your effectively doubling your timescale and saving money and still delivering incredible quality with the 5DMKIII.

Medium format isn't really suited to wedding work, the cameras are slow, heavy and expensive. Although not unheard of MF isn't overly popular in the professional event photography. The likelihood of a photographer shooting 1500 frames per wedding is fairly slim with MF. Medium format is much more suited to Landscape work and no chance they are shooting anywhere near that amount of data per shoot, its not just the data of one image import 1500 50mp files into lightroom and see how long it takes for it to create previews… good luck with that! Which is why full frame cameras are much more suited, smaller files, smaller system, high quality.

This is one of the reasons a lot of wedding photographers who picked up the D800 switched to the 5DMKIII after it came down in price, Data! It sounds ridiculous but it really is one of the biggest factors when you need to manage peoples events.


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> Were not talking about the same thing you are working with consumer grade hardware, 3-4 drives of 2TB



3 drives + 4 backup drives for each make 15 drives. 
plus the other drives i have offline as mentioned.

some are seagate constellation or hitachi enterprise drives.
i am just an amateur but im serious about backups.
i have spend too much time cataloging and scanning my images. 

i also backup to blu-rays and woud love to get M-disc blu-rays here.





> I'm talking back ups of 15TB per year over a 5 year span not 15TB total



but if a pro does not make enough money to backup 15 TB a year... he maybe has the wrong job, sorry. he sure does not NEED a 50MP camera then. 

as you wrote a wedding photographer has other needs than a landscape photographer.

a 50MP camera is sure not the best choice for everyone, nobody said that.
but i prefer having the choice over not having.

a analog large format camera is a bad choice for a wedding photographer.
yet other photographer use them and love them. 

anyway as i wrote for me 28-32MP are fine.

i guess the photographer i know MAKE money with storing client data (*).
when the clients want their images stored over a longer period they pay a fee.
(*) at least the money they want seems to be a rippoff. 

i will not deny that buying apple thunderbird backup storage is expensive.
but what about to offset against tax? how much do you really have to pay? 

and you don´t know my hardware so how can you make assumptions? 
it´s a bit bold don´t you think?


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## surapon (Sep 4, 2014)

Dear Friends.
Well, I am Ready for my Sony new camera 50 MP, I Just spend my $ 99 US Dollars to buy The Best ( ?) Canon Printer PIXMA MX 922 from Amazon---- To Print the 8X 10 Photos from Sony 50 MP Camera.Yes, Next two weeks, I must buy 5 Ink Tanks =$ 25 US Dollars ea. = 125US Dollars to replace the empty ink tanks, Or Buy a new MX 922 printer and throw the old one away= Cheaper to do that.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-MX922-Wireless-Printer-Scanner/dp/B00AVWKUJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409845539&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+pixma+mx922 

"Superior 9600 x 2400 ( 23,040,000 DPI) maximum color dpi4 and 5 individual ink tanks means incredible business document printing and efficiency with the option of a high yield pigment black ink tank to print more documents without changing the pigment black ink as often."

Have a Great Day, Sir/ Madam.
Surapon


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

surapon said:


> Dear Friends.
> Well, I am Ready for my Sony new camera 50 MP, I Just spend my $ 99 US Dollars to buy The Best ( ?) Canon Printer PIXMA MX 922 from Amazon---- To Print the 8X 10 Photos from Sony 50 MP Camera.Yes, Next two weeks, I must buy 5 Ink Tanks =$ 25 US Dollars ea. = 125US Dollars to replace the empty ink tanks, Or Buy a new MX 922 printer and throw the old one away= Cheaper to do that.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Canon-MX922-Wireless-Printer-Scanner/dp/B00AVWKUJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409845539&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+pixma+mx922
> ...



Oh...you should have asked before buying.

A Epson 3880 is not that expensive but a much better match.

_sacasm off_


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## dtaylor (Sep 4, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.



That's not how resolution works. The final value is a result of the combination of all components (lens and sensor or film) and is always lower than the weakest component. But strengthening any component leads to an increase for the entire system, even if that specific component is "past" the resolution of the weakest component, i.e. the weakest component is not a hard limit in the way you're imagining it to be.

At any rate, you can discern plenty of lenses on 24 MP APS-C sensors which means they will show an advantage on 50 MP FF.

That said, it would be difficult to see any difference between 24/36/50 MP except on the very largest prints. We're hitting the point of diminishing returns with respect to even 36" prints.


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## tomscott (Sep 4, 2014)

No offence, your missing the point. 

A 50mp camera vs a 23mp camera you are effectively doubling your storage needs. Its not an issue of whether you can afford it as a professional, its a given if that is your choice, its the fact that its overkill and unnecessary and people don't take this into consideration, buying a system and not realising that their PP set up is woefully underprepared for serious professional work. 

For me switching from my 5DMKIII to a 50mp camera would mean completely rethinking my whole set up, which means the cost for an upgrade isn't just 3-8k for a new camera system.

For my field wedding and events doubling the MP doubles my storage needs and in turn double my cost. That is the issue it will cost you double for the same amount of pictures. Are you going to start charging more because your using a larger MP camera because of storage needs? 

Its not about backing up just 15tb, if 15tb is the end data use per year, no point buying a system which will only last you a year its a contingency for a 5 year plan. If it is 15tb per year your total needs to be over 75tb instead of adding drives and buying more as needed, then doubling it for an effective safety net. This method gives you a better safety than a NAS and backing up to another machine. Talking huge data usage. whereas its more like 7TB with the 5DMKIII for me.

Even if you are backing up with BR discs at 25gbs each you would need 6 for one wedding!!! How long are you going to spend waiting for discs to rip? grasping what I'm saying?

Thats why the 5DMKIII is a great camera because its files are a good size, the camera is quick and the IQ is great. 23mp is more than enough for prints up to A2 and thats as big as I print for clients generally. I hope that Canon don't go in the same direction stick with the lower MP and make a camera more like the A7S but at around similar mp to the 5DMKIII or 1DX

Just not suitable for commercial work, wedding, event and advertising photography is where 90% of pros make their living, including myself. Again wedding photography is the most data intensive which is where my point has come from.


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## surapon (Sep 4, 2014)

Gantz said:


> surapon said:
> 
> 
> > Dear Friends.
> ...




Thanksssss, Dear Gantz .
Next 2 weeks, After the ink tanks are empty, I will throw away this Canon Printer and Buy New Epson 3880---Ha, Ha, Ha, Yes The Japanese Companies and Chinese companies ( Made in China) will get our money any ways.
Have a great day, Sir.
Surapon

PS, Dear Mr. Gantz ---I just change my decision, No more Epson 3880 = $ 1200 US Dollars, and just = Maximum Print Resolution: 2880 x 1440 dpi ---ONLY---I will keep my Dear Cheapo Canon $ 99 US Dollars = Superior 9600 x 2400 DPI., ( 23,040,000 DPI) ---And buy 10 set of 5 Ink tanks for next 12 months,


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## Gantz (Sep 4, 2014)

tomscott said:


> No offence, your missing the point.



why?

im well aware that 50MP files will need more processing power and more storage space.

what you miss is that not everyone who wants a 50MP camera shoots 1500 frames a day....

if it doesn´t fit your needs.. don´t buy it. 
simple as that.

that does not mean nobody will need or want such a camera.

but if someone says i NEED 50MP files, he sure will make enough money to backup the data?

i mean there is not other option.
when you think you need 50MP files you need more storage space.

it´s not the wedding photographer, i agree to that.

maybe i came across as if i think everyone should buy a 50MP camera.
that´s not what i meant!


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## c.d.embrey (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> But for boosting around "I can 50 MPixel" (for 4x6" prints for the family album) it is well suited and this might be a personal demand to own something with the hightest number availble. Same thing with hp of cars or sizes of houses ...



Do many people still buy 4x6 prints ??? Do young people/families have albums ??? Or are many/most photos now stored in an iDevice instead of an old shoebox ??? BTW 12Mp is overkill for cat photos  Here in the USA I'm sure many people would buy a 100Mp camera to be able to get the very *best shots of their jacked-up 1 ton pick-up truck*


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## fragilesi (Sep 4, 2014)

mb66energy said:


> I am no pro photographer and just for me switching a TOOL is real pain. Because not shooting 8 hrs per day I need LONGER than a pro like you to know my equipments capabilities. It just makes sense to me to NOT to change gear year after year.
> 
> About "bored and crave new tech": Hits the nail on its head. Going out to take photographs isn't boring with so called inferior equipment (EOS M, 600D) depending on the subject/photographic style. Very often I crave for (1) more time and (2) better weather/light - at the same time!



Very well said! Certainly NOTHING would improve my photography more than (1). No sensor, AF system, frame rate etc etc would be more valuable than that. 

My feeling is that I should have spent the last six months training to be a counselor. If Canon do announce a great camera at Photokina it's going to leave a massive gap in some people's lives that they can't complain so much any more! (Actually it won't, they will find something).


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 4, 2014)

SwampYankee said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> ...



You got one thing right – "No, they don't."

In the world sensors do matter, but people don't buy bare silicon sensors, they buy *cameras*. I'm really not sure why people have so much trouble grasping that and/or accepting it. 

I suppose some people just find it challenging to deal with reality. They'd rather live in their own personal version of reality, where their personal opinions are the most important drivers for the development plans of all companies. It's sad.


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## mrsfotografie (Sep 4, 2014)

preppyak said:


> distant.star said:
> 
> 
> > .
> ...



You're right, the selection of Sony e-mount lenses is relatively poor and overpriced. Fortunately better optics are coming, driven in part by the 7* series but I would like to see more aps-c stuff too because the smaller sensors and optics are what really drives the compact camera system. I recently splurged on an a6000 with the Zeiss 16-70 which is a great lens, kind of like a small 24-105L but still feels overpriced for what it is (no weather sealing, no distance scale). Alas, I had no other choice within the Sony system...


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## jrista (Sep 4, 2014)

Aglet said:


> A7r is the FF version of the venerable 16MP APSC sensor
> 54MP would be a FF version of the current 24MP crop sensor. I don't see this as a surprise, just an eventuality.
> Who gets to use it first tho, sony or nikon, is more the question.



Yeah, that would really be the question. My money is on Sony these days...just to get something to market first. I'd bet that if/when Nikon does a 50mp part, it's probably done better. 

Either way...I'd be pretty intrigued by a 50mp FF camera with Sony DR...


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## mrsfotografie (Sep 4, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> SwampYankee said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



Hands down, Canon has the best DSLR camera _system_. The sensor is only a small part of that.

INHO Sony has the best _potential_ MILC system, but they have to watch their backs because Fujifilm is a serious threat at least to Sony's aps-c line. As for Canon's half-hearted attempt - I'll give that a FAIL.


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## surapon (Sep 4, 2014)

c.d.embrey said:


> mb66energy said:
> 
> 
> > But for boosting around "I can 50 MPixel" (for 4x6" prints for the family album) it is well suited and this might be a personal demand to own something with the hightest number availble. Same thing with hp of cars or sizes of houses ...
> ...



Dear friend Mr. c.d.embrey
I like all of your Words , Special " I'm sure many people would buy a 100Mp camera to be able to get the very *best shots of their jacked-up 1 ton pick-up truck["---Ha, Ha, Ha---That include me too, as shown on the Photos below.
Sir, Just want to have FUN in this serious Day.
Have a great day.
Surapon*


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## fragilesi (Sep 4, 2014)

Surapon, that actually looks like the perfect analogy of a 50MP Sony camera ;D Bravo!


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## jonjt (Sep 4, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.
> ...



You said it is always lower than the weakest component. So therefore, the weakest component has to be a hard limit on resolution. Perhaps increasing the resolution of another component causes the system resolution to asymptotically approach the weakest components resolution?


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## surapon (Sep 4, 2014)

Dear Friends.
This Attachment is the Old News in August 24, 2010 , about Canon New 120 MP sensor = 4 years ago.
BUT, Why, Now 2014, The Best Sensor that on the Market by Canon = only 22.3 MP---- ??, And Top of the Line of Canon = 1Dx only = 18.1 MP..
May Be ( ??) ,Past 10 years, Only 1.23 Billion users of Facebook( Like ME ) have post the Photos on Face book need only 2 MP Cell Phone Camera's photos of Foods that they eat at morning/ Breakfast , to show their friend---NOT 50 MP. Sony Camera, Now.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2773376832/canon120mpsensor

Enjoy
Surapon

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/04/facebook-10-years-mark-zuckerberg


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## jrista (Sep 4, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.
> ...



Prints are certainly the area that gains the most, especially if you print really large.

However, there are two other areas where having a high resolution FF part are valuable. For one, it could pretty much eliminate the reach gap between APS-C parts and FF, assuming you could maintain a high frame rate (and we know that's possible...Canon achieved 9.5fps at 120mp.) You could crop any part of a 50mp frame, and have the same kind of reach as a 20-24mp APS-C camera. 

Second, even if you aren't printing, downsampling 50mp means your images sharpen right up without any actual sharpening. Just the act of averaging more information into less space improves your IQ. You could get away with less NR and no sharpening at all when scaling for wallpaper and web sizes.

Third, 4k screens are going to become more common, and eventually common place, within the next few years. At native size (unscaled...currently some browsers scale images along with text DPI), to keep images looking like 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints on screen, they will need a lot more pixels than they currently do. That enhances the second point...starting with more pixels, you can downsample to those relative sizes for native display on a high DPI or 4k screen and still have the benefits of increased sharpness/lower noise.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 4, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > That's all fine and dandy but in the Real world, hardly of any use. Only a handful of lenses actually can resolve the details of a 36mp sensor. Forget about a 50mp sensor on that Sony glass.
> ...


Eh. Not so in practice, you just getting more crappy detail of the crappy part of the lens by adding more MP. However moving to a bigger format with more MP, now that adds real detail gains.


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## jrista (Sep 4, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



I wouldn't call it "crappy" detail. The sensor simply begins to oversample the lens when the lens is diffraction limited. When the lens is not diffraction limited, and aberrations are smaller than a diffraction spot, then even at 50mp, we are still a LONG way from oversampling a lens at f/4, even f/5.

I would rather have the sensor oversample the lens, and be able to LEGITIMATELY do away with an AA filter, than always be undersampling. Once we finally achieve that, then the majority of sensor-frequency noise reduction will affect SUB-detail frequencies. We could pretty much eliminate noise, downsample by a factor of two, and still have ultra high resolution images that are sharper and clearer than anything we have today.


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## surapon (Sep 4, 2014)

fragilesi said:


> Surapon, that actually looks like the perfect analogy of a 50MP Sony camera ;D Bravo!



Ha, Ha, Ha, Dear Mr. fragilesi
That is a great Idea from our friend Mr. c.d.embrey, I just find old photos to show some of our friend ( Who live in the big city around the world) and do not know What Mr. c.d. embrey talk about. Yes, I live in the Boone-dock and see this kind of truck all the times, But not Pretty like this one.
Thanks again
Surapon


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## unfocused (Sep 4, 2014)

I doubt if this rumor is true. But, it is enlightening that so many people believe it could be.

It just adds to the impression that Sony is throwing every possible piece of crap on the wall trying to make something stick. 

Some people mistake that for innovation. But really, it's just a company that is in third-place and way way back and is desperately trying to capture a little more market share before their creditors and stockholders tell them to hang it up.


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## moreorless (Sep 4, 2014)

jrista said:


> For one, it could pretty much eliminate the reach gap between APS-C parts and FF, assuming you could maintain a high frame rate (and we know that's possible...Canon achieved 9.5fps at 120mp.) You could crop any part of a 50mp frame, and have the same kind of reach as a 20-24mp APS-C camera.



True and I spose you can argue an advantage for action shooting both in cropping from a larger area and that the AF points can cover a larger part of the crop. I don't see this being a big benefit from the FE system though given its AF performance, handling and lack of tele options though.

Don't get me wrong I certainly wouldn't say no to 50+ MP on an replacement for my D800 when I need one but even as mostly a landscape shooter who often prints large(A2 and up) its not something that would have be rushing out to buy a new camera.


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## preppyak (Sep 4, 2014)

ChristopherMarkPerez said:


> Proof, please.


http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/03/d800-lens-selection
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/03/d-resolution-tests

D800 is capable, with the very best lenses, of bringing more resolution to an image. But, it is only with the best (1050+ lines average) lenses that it makes the difference between a 36MP and 22MP.

And that is of course working off a tripod in lab perfect conditions. In more practical conditions (especially handheld), you'd see even less gain with anything but the best lenses. Basically, if you want the most of the D810/D800E, you want the Zeiss lenses.

Of course, this isnt a knock against a 36MP sensor. Its capable of more in some circumstances, and in every other one, its on par with a smaller sensor. But, if you're considering a 50MP sensor (and the hassles that come with that), its good to know what you are actually gaining


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## jrista (Sep 4, 2014)

unfocused said:


> I doubt if this rumor is true. But, it is enlightening that so many people believe it could be.
> 
> It just adds to the impression that Sony is throwing every possible piece of crap on the wall trying to make something stick.
> 
> Some people mistake that for innovation. But really, it's just a company that is in third-place and way way back and is desperately trying to capture a little more market share before their creditors and stockholders tell them to hang it up.



LOL. I find it interesting that you automatically think it would be crap. I don't necessarily think the Sony CAMERA that included this sensor would be great...and I do think that Sony has thrown out too many products lately for all of them to stick. However, on the sensor front...I think a 50mp FF sensor with high DR would be awesome.

I think we also have to figure that at some point, Sony is going to get all the factors right. Their bodies are not great today...but if they respond to customer feedback and fix the issues with them, they could become competitive with Nikon and Canon bodies. They already are somewhat competitive, just because of the sensor. I am not a big Sony fan, I don't generally like how they do things...but I'm seriously considering an A7r. I don't need a fancy body packed with perfect ergonomics and features. I just need a camera with a big huge sensor and tons of pixels and DR that I can just plop onto a tripod. The rest is all manual...the features don't matter so long as the data file contains the information I want.


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## preppyak (Sep 4, 2014)

jrista said:


> LOL. I find it interesting that you automatically think it would be crap. I don't necessarily think the Sony CAMERA that included this sensor would be great...and I do think that Sony has thrown out too many products lately for all of them to stick. However, on the sensor front...I think a 50mp FF sensor with high DR would be awesome.


Not to mention, if Sony had the hackers Canon does with Magic Lantern, a 50MP sensor with their DR means you could have a video camera that is nearly capable of the resolution and DR of the Red Dragon sensor. Hell, even managing to hack 4K out of that camera would be a big step forward

As I said on the first page, Sony introducing a new camera wouldnt surprise me. They've released as many cameras as lenses in the last 4 years for E-Mount. I'd be more surprised if they said they were releasing 5 lenses instead.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 4, 2014)

preppyak said:


> ChristopherMarkPerez said:
> 
> 
> > Proof, please.
> ...


Basically what I said. The benefit between 22 and 36mp bodies is negligible when using let's say the Tamron 24-70mm. Once you get the zeiss 135mm APO, the difference is stark.

However, doesn't change my point that even at 36mp it's hard to get the detail out of it and let alone a 50mp sensor in 35mm format. MF cams could get the majority of that detail out due to the lower lens magnification. 

And when you put it in print, the difference is even more eh...


----------



## unfocused (Sep 4, 2014)

jrista said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I doubt if this rumor is true. But, it is enlightening that so many people believe it could be.
> ...



It's a colloquialism. Not meant to be taken literally. The saying refers to throwing up a barrage of things in the hopes that one or more is successful or "sticks." Of course, "crap" being an internet-safe term for the real saying.


----------



## Lawliet (Sep 4, 2014)

preppyak said:


> But, it is only with the best (1050+ lines average) lenses that it makes the difference between a 36MP and 22MP.



The joy of quoting numbers without understanding them...

Those tests simply measure when contrast falls under a certain threshold, but that doesn't mean the lens can't resolve structure in hair, skin or fabric, just that the contrast is slightly lower. Nice to compare relative performance, worthless for the question at hand. Well, actually less then worthless as it leads to wrong conclusions.
(And then came frequency seperation based techniques and made the reduced high frequency contrast an even more moot point.)

To find out whether a lens can benefit from higher sensor resolution one has to look at the different types of aberrations and their respective cumulative effects - a much more complex endeavor.

(Also I don't think that the ability of my strobes to freeze motion depends on the support of the camera. Although the shutter plays a role because of the shorter flash duration required to balance against the ambient.)


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## awinphoto (Sep 4, 2014)

Oh Dear Lord, it's time to put all of my gear on ebay or better yet the canon rumors selling thingy and start stocking up on Sony gear... because we know all their lenses are top notch, and their quality control, ergonomics and functionality is all completely top notch! Also let me quickly sell my new imac and get that nuclear warhead (new mac pro) plus a couple thousand of dollars in back up hard drive space just to handle this sexy new sony camera... All this because I KNOW that all my portrait clients are clamoring to come to me because i have this camera and my competition doesn't and they all have space and a narcissistic desire to have a 30x45 or larger wall shot of their big fat mug on their walls. Go big or go home I always say!...


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## RGF (Sep 4, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> 50 MP, 16 stops of DR. Canon *must* respond to that!!
> 
> :



Canon rumors need to respond to that.

New Canon 3D with 42 MP and 14 stops of DR, 10 FPS, and 4K videos.


----------



## jrista (Sep 4, 2014)

moreorless said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > For one, it could pretty much eliminate the reach gap between APS-C parts and FF, assuming you could maintain a high frame rate (and we know that's possible...Canon achieved 9.5fps at 120mp.) You could crop any part of a 50mp frame, and have the same kind of reach as a 20-24mp APS-C camera.
> ...



Regarding the bolded...sure...but, you already have the D800.  If your stuck below 25mp...a jump to 50mp is really, really quite nice.


----------



## mkabi (Sep 5, 2014)

tomscott said:


> Gantz said:
> 
> 
> > tomscott said:
> ...



You're wasting your e-breath...
I made the same arguments in the past, some guy brought in some chart that google uses to monitor failure rate of their hard-drives (the same ones they use on their servers).

Fact of the matter is, when consumers want something... they really want something... like little babies crying at Wal-Mart b/c their parents didn't buy them chocolate... they will scream and shout... making a big spectacle of things. *face-palm*

Actually a better example would be a kid at a toy store screaming and shouting... and when the parent does get him/her that toy... they will probably play for it for a while, then throw it to the side and never play with it again. I guess some habits don't leave us... Don't get me wrong... I'm sometimes guilty of doing the same.

I'm one of the ones that want 4K, but I know I won't use it much... and the storage on that will be insane.


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## jrista (Sep 5, 2014)

tomscott said:


> Were not talking about the same thing you are working with consumer grade hardware, 3-4 drives of 2TB, I'm talking back ups of 15TB per year over a 5 year span not 15TB total, you don't just add another drive as and when you need it you have to have some sort of contingency and then double it for a safe backup. Im talking rackable server grade systems.



I think this is really becoming an archaic way of looking at the storage problem. No one buys that much PERSONAL storage space. It really isn't necessary anymore, not with secure cloud storage becoming so cheap. 

Look at Amazon Glacier. If you need MASSIVE long-term data archival, something to the tune of 10+ terrabytes a year, put it in Glacier. It's all SSL encrypted transport, with 256-bit AES encryption on the data itself. For long term, totally secure and encrypted data storage, it costs practically nothing (relatively speaking) to actually put stuff into Glacier. The costs only really start to mount IF you need to pull something out.

For massive bulk data storage, it no longer makes any sense to buy your own hard drives. Especially not if your planning to never delete anything, thus literally requiring 15TB a year to store all the data. 

You could always keep a NAS at home with 4 to 6 drives and some 16TB of storage space or so, which is actually relatively cheap. You can keep active projects along with "potentially active for some time" or "might be needed quickly" kinds of projects, and swap chunks of data into Glacier or some other cloud storage option as you find there is no longer a need for instantaneous access. (And there is simply no logical argument for needing instantaneous access to years and eventually decades of high resolution photography...at some point, ALL data becomes archival.)

If you still want to make sure you have access to certain projects more quickly than you might be able to get them off of something like Amazon Glacier, you can still always store some of that data on bluray disc. Eventually everything would end up on Glacier, but if you have certain customers that you know will probably be back for changes or whatever within a few months period, or even a year period, you can temporarily keep that stuff on bluray for quicker restoration.

There are other options out there for cloud storage as well. You could augment (or even replace) something like Glacier with more "real time" storage. I've seen a terrabyte of cloud storage for as little as $20 a year, which is about $1.67 a month. You could have 15TB of cloud storage for $25 a month. To get 16TB of storage (four 4TB drives), that would run you around $480 (cheapest price I could find on Amazon after several pages was $120 for a single internal 4TB drive...that's the CHEAPEST I could find, on NewEgg the cheapest was $150). Now, if you want your 16TB of storage to be RELIABLE, were talking RAID. Since you can't stick set after set of 16TB raided drives into a computer, were also probably talking NAS. Reliable drives are also more costly...at the moment, quality 4TB drives are closer to $200. We probably want reliable, high speed drives designed to operate in a redundant array, in which case the minimum price is probably $250. At $250 a drive, that's $1000 just for the drives. 

Finally, we'll want an actual NAS device for these drives. I personally use a ReadyNAS NVX, which utilizes X-RAID for LIVE drive swapping. You can replace a bad drive, or swap out a smaller drive for a larger drive, and the system will either restore onto the new drive or expand onto the new drive while still operating. You get about 0.7x the actual storage space (so, for 16TB, we would get 11.2TB of usable space, the rest is parity), meaning to really get 16TB of usable space, were talking about even larger drives, or using a 6-drive NAS device. Either way, the cost goes up, to around $1500 just for the drives. The cost of the NAS is around $600 for a 4-bay, and over $1000 for a 6-bay. 

That brings the total cost of _*reliable, recoverable*_ 16TB home RAID storage to as much as $2500 on the _low end_. That's a lot of money. A LOT of money. You would spend $300 a year on 15TB of cloud storage if you go with the cheaper stuff (like MediaFire Pro, the one that costs around $20 a year). I think MediaFire even has an enterprise deal for $20 or $30 a month, and it offers a LOT more than 15TB of storage space. That may even be cheaper than Amazon Glacier (although, possibly not as reliable.) At those prices, you would break even on the cost of your ONE personal NAS setup in about seven years. 

I spent $1200 on my older ReadyNAS NVX and four hard drives years ago, and back then that was still quite a lot of money (but, it was also before the cheap cloud storage age.) I honestly don't see any reason why storage has to be expensive, even if you have 90mb RAW files. It just doesn't make sense to fill your personal living space up with countless hard drives, or some kind of personal SAN. It's not the cheapest solution.

I think the problem of storage space for high resolution RAW images is really a simple problem. Just stick it in the cloud. It's secure, reliable, and super cheap.


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## Canonicon (Sep 5, 2014)

jrista said:


> tomscott said:
> 
> 
> > Were not talking about the same thing you are working with consumer grade hardware, 3-4 drives of 2TB, I'm talking back ups of 15TB per year over a 5 year span not 15TB total, you don't just add another drive as and when you need it you have to have some sort of contingency and then double it for a safe backup. Im talking rackable server grade systems.
> ...



You miss that upping RAW filles needs a lot of bandwith.

Here in Europe where i live 60KB/s upload speed is the norm outside big cities.
That´s DSL6000 upload speed.


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

Canonicon said:


> You miss that upping RAW filles needs a lot of bandwith.


Just send a HD to amazon, maybe once per month.
Seriously, thats part of the glacier service, it's designed for multi-TB of data on a regular base after all.



> Here in Europe where i live 60KB/s upload speed is the norm outside big cities.
> That´s DSL6000 upload speed.


LTE spreads fast, it's just a matter of time


----------



## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

jonjt said:


> You said it is always lower than the weakest component. So therefore, the weakest component has to be a hard limit on resolution. Perhaps increasing the resolution of another component causes the system resolution to asymptotically approach the weakest components resolution?



Essentially yes. By "hard limit" I meant that you can't say a 120 lpmm sensor is useless because of a 100 lpmm lens. You're never going to actually achieve 100 lpmm with the system, but pushing up the sensor resolution actually does get you closer even if the sensor is already >100.

I have the formula in a text book some where...I think ???


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## Canonicon (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> LTE spreads fast, it's just a matter of time



LOL your voice in the carriers ears.. im waiting since 2007 for faster internet.

It´s just one year that i was upgraded from DSL2000 to DSL6000.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

jrista said:


> Prints are certainly the area that gains the most, especially if you print really large.



You have to print very large to see any gain at all today. In print at 24" I would say there is no real difference between the 5D3, A7, A7R, or D800. You might occasionally spot some small difference with your nose on the print, but most subject matter simply won't show it.

We greatly overestimate our ability to discern detail at a normal viewing distance, even those of us with 20/15 and 20/10 vision. It's really humbling to produce two big prints (19" or 24"), same subject, taken with a modern and an older sensor (say 10 vs. 18 MP), ask people if there's any difference, and have 9/10 say no 

I'm not against more MP, I'm just realistic about their impact. A 24 >> 50 MP jump will probably be visible in a 36" print or larger. But 24 >> 36 or 36 >> 50? Meh. The magic number seems to be a 50% gain on each axis.



> For one, it could pretty much eliminate the reach gap between APS-C parts and FF, assuming you could maintain a high frame rate (and we know that's possible...Canon achieved 9.5fps at 120mp.) You could crop any part of a 50mp frame, and have the same kind of reach as a 20-24mp APS-C camera.



True.



> Second, even if you aren't printing, downsampling 50mp means your images sharpen right up without any actual sharpening. Just the act of averaging more information into less space improves your IQ. You could get away with less NR and no sharpening at all when scaling for wallpaper and web sizes.



True, but not much of an issue for the cameras we're talking about.



> Third, 4k screens are going to become more common, and eventually common place, within the next few years. At native size (unscaled...currently some browsers scale images along with text DPI), to keep images looking like 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints on screen, they will need a lot more pixels than they currently do. That enhances the second point...starting with more pixels, you can downsample to those relative sizes for native display on a high DPI or 4k screen and still have the benefits of increased sharpness/lower noise.



A fair point though, again, I don't think it matters too much for this class of cameras.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Eh. Not so in practice, you just getting more crappy detail of the crappy part of the lens by adding more MP. However moving to a bigger format with more MP, now that adds real detail gains.



You didn't specify which part. But in practice I can...for example...clearly see the difference between a 70-200 f/4L and f/4L IS on an 18 MP crop sensor. Which means they will show a similar difference at >40 MP FF.

There are actually plenty of lenses out there that can satisfy a 50 MP sensor.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Eh. Not so in practice, you just getting more crappy detail of the crappy part of the lens by adding more MP. However moving to a bigger format with more MP, now that adds real detail gains.
> ...


There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best-lenses-for-the-Nikon-D800E-The-sharpest-full-frame-camera-ever-measured/Best-lenses-on-the-D800E

That's not including UWs, 24-70's, and most 70-200's being able to satisfy the already 36mp nikon, forget about a 50MP 35mm Cam.

It's like using the 17-40L on a 5Dc, it looks fine but I used it on the 5D3, and it looks garbage.


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## jrista (Sep 5, 2014)

Canonicon said:


> You miss that upping RAW filles needs a lot of bandwith.
> 
> Here in Europe where i live 60KB/s upload speed is the norm outside big cities.
> That´s DSL6000 upload speed.



Wow. Yeah, those kinds of internet speeds are VERY unusual to me. My parents live nearly forty miles into the mountains of Colorado, way out of town, totally isolated and rural. Even they get several megs per second internet speeds, via local wireless and ground wire (not satellite) at relatively good prices due to more than one competitor in the market.

Even in rural area, there are now wireless providers offering significantly more than 60kb/s. If your bandwidth limited, that certainly limits the cloud storage options...however, that still does not necessarily rule it out. You could always upload at night (that's a 6-8 hour window of uninterrupted upload time...unless you also have bandwidth limits.)


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
> http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best-lenses-for-the-Nikon-D800E-The-sharpest-full-frame-camera-ever-measured/Best-lenses-on-the-D800E



You're repeating the same mistake made a few posts earlier...so much for oversimplification.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
> ...


Most lenses will not resolve the majority a 36mp sensor let alone a 50mp. It's that simple.


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> It's that simple.



Only to those who don't understand how the resolution tests work. Those misconceptions lead to fallacious assumptions about which lenses are suitable for higher res sensors and which are not.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > It's that simple.
> ...


Really now? Lets take your advise to the extreme and slap a nikkor 50mm from the 1970's on a 5D3 and a D800. I bet the resolution difference will be indistinguishable or at best negligible. Afterall, it should be able to resolve so much detail on the Higher MP body. : : :


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Lawliet said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



You should really work on your comprehension skills. Both here and a page earlier.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Lawliet said:
> ...


You should seek professional help, something might be blocking reality of lens limitations from sinking into your brain.


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> You should seek professional help, something might be blocking reality of lens limitations from sinking into your brain.



And another person who doesn't understand that lenses are analog devices. But lots of blind faith in numbers to compensate...Penn&Teller come to mind


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > You should seek professional help, something might be blocking reality of lens limitations from sinking into your brain.
> ...


And another person that couldn't photograph the inside of a paper bag and let alone understand the point of diminishing returns. You should really seek some help with that.


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## psolberg (Sep 5, 2014)

it is off course inevitable and a welcomed sensor for it would yield excellent image quality given it will over-sample away a lot of the Bayer pattern issues. And if they keep the excellent dynamic range and deep clean shadow characteristics, this sensor will once again set the bar for landscape and studio. No doubt it is in the making but I doubt 2014 is the year. And I expect to see it on the Nikon D4X if in fact sony does release it in 2015 since I doubt the D850 will show up so soon after the D810.

and man, sony is really pushing the envelope. their video offerings look fantasic and their sensor tech remains top notch. I'm so glad to see them break the canon/nikon duopoly of stagnation.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
> http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best-lenses-for-the-Nikon-D800E-The-sharpest-full-frame-camera-ever-measured/Best-lenses-on-the-D800E



As a rule I ignore DxO  That said the page you linked is offering 3 of the "best lenses", not claiming they are the only 3 to show any gain.

At 18 MP crop (= 46 MP FF) I can see a difference between the 17-40L and new 16-35L; the 70-200 f/4L vs f/4L IS; the older Sigma 50 vs Canon's 50 1.4 and 1.8 (and the new ART is much sharper); and the 300 f/4L vs the 100-400L. 

It's a good bet that the new 16-35, the Sigma ARTs, any L tele prime, the 70-200 f/4L IS and latest f/2.8 IS, any of Canon's macros, the newer T/S lenses, and Canon's fast wide primes will show an improvement on a 40-50 MP sensor. There are Zeiss primes that would show an improvement as well. You could argue that some of these lenses wouldn't offer as much of an improvement as possible with even better glass, but you will see an improvement.

I'm speaking practically of course. Again, the way resolution works, you should be able to detect some improvement even with only moderately good lenses even if what you gain is meaningless in real world prints.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> You're repeating the same mistake made a few posts earlier...so much for oversimplification.


Most lenses will not resolve the majority a 36mp sensor let alone a 50mp. It's that simple.
[/quote]

Again, resolution does not work like this


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Really now? Lets take your advise to the extreme and slap a nikkor 50mm from the 1970's on a 5D3 and a D800. I bet the resolution difference will be indistinguishable or at best negligible. Afterall, it should be able to resolve so much detail on the Higher MP body. : : :



I would argue that 22 MP vs. 36 MP is negligible with any lens. You need a 50% or greater gain on each axis before it really becomes evident in print.

That said...you should try this test, because I bet the best aperture(s) before diffraction would show a difference on the D800.


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## psolberg (Sep 5, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
> ...



he he, off course you can see a difference. People are only in denial about the fact that 18-24MP APSC is in fact much denser than 36MP which is why 36 sounds like a big number which would kill all your lenses but in fact it isn't. 36MP is in fact nowhere near the limit of what current lenses can do. Even at 50+ we're just approaching what people have been doing for years: shooting 18+MP in APSC. The idea 36MP is too high, is just ridiculous nonsense spread by lack of understanding of basic math as others have pointed out. And besides there are many other aspects to high MP beyond resolution of contrast patterns. 

But I don't worry about such things any more. Anybody who wants to be in denial can remain so. Watch them all become cured of it when canon releases a high MP body. Suddenly the laws of mathematics will apply again and suddenly, oh 36MP ain't all that. It ALWAYS happens : 



> I would argue that 22 MP vs. 36 MP is negligible with any lens. You need a 50% or greater gain on each axis before it really becomes evident in print.


having shot both, it isn't. But it depends on what you're doing. If you're web publishing at full HD or approximate, then yes.


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## msm (Sep 5, 2014)

psolberg said:


> it is off course inevitable and a welcomed sensor for it would yield excellent image quality given it will over-sample away a lot of the Bayer pattern issues. And if they keep the excellent dynamic range and deep clean shadow characteristics, this sensor will once again set the bar for landscape and studio.



+1


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > There is not that many lenses that satisfy the 36mp nikon.
> ...


Negligible or Indistinguishable with most lenses. 18mp aps-c is using the center and see the marginal gain but the 50mp FF would see all the ugly edges. You'd never even get close to getting 50mp of real detail from it w/o the Zeiss Otus or 135mm APO. Sure you'd have a nice big file to downsample but 50---->36mp is already diminishing returns.


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## psolberg (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



yes the edges will not be as high a quality, but to say it is negligible is nonsense. In any case, you've already made your point. You're not really going to convince people otherwise. Time to move on  Just keep shooting whatever works for you.


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## Lawliet (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> And another person that couldn't photograph the inside of a paper bag



Well, guess I prefer sujets & subjects that actually make the cut for paid for publication.
Should the paper bag ever be a topic I'll defer to your expertise.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

Lawliet said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > And another person that couldn't photograph the inside of a paper bag
> ...


Oh really? By all means let us see you work on these publications. We're all dying to see them now that you mentioned them.


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## psolberg (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Lawliet said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



OMG dude, seriously? clearly high resolution photography and oversampling discussions are not something you're handling well. Can you just let us adults have a thread to discuss without this nonense? Relax and go enjoy whatever equipment you like.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

psolberg said:


> > I would argue that 22 MP vs. 36 MP is negligible with any lens. You need a 50% or greater gain on each axis before it really becomes evident in print.
> 
> 
> having shot both, it isn't. But it depends on what you're doing. If you're web publishing at full HD or approximate, then yes.



I was printing samples to an Epson 3880, some crops scaled to appear as if they were being printed on a larger printer (i.e. up to 36" eq).

I'm open to evidence that with some scenes 22 or 24 vs. 36 has more of an impact in print. But when I tried it as long as I was working with RAWs and scaled the 24 MP file up to 36 MP with light sharpening, the impact in print was negligible. It's not that I could never see a difference, but I had to really be looking for it.


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Negligible or Indistinguishable with most lenses. 18mp aps-c is using the center and see the marginal gain but the 50mp FF would see all the ugly edges.



Most of the lenses I listed do not have ugly edges. With some of those comparisons I cannot say the difference is negligible. 



> You'd never even get close to getting 50mp of real detail from it w/o the Zeiss Otus or 135mm APO. Sure you'd have a nice big file to downsample but 50---->36mp is already diminishing returns.



You keep claiming this, but what is your evidence? What makes you think the 70-200 f/4L IS or any of Canon's super teles won't show a gain?


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## dtaylor (Sep 5, 2014)

psolberg said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Lawliet said:
> ...



Yeah...he's not making any friends right now.


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## NancyP (Sep 5, 2014)

My my, we are getting testy during the Photokina countdown....... You might think that we were Canon executives whose bonuses depended on success of their product line.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 5, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Negligible or Indistinguishable with most lenses. 18mp aps-c is using the center and see the marginal gain but the 50mp FF would see all the ugly edges.
> ...


Visit dustin abbotts review on the APO 135mm and look at other results. DXO is consistent with my uses on the lenses I have and trust their lens results to a degree.

135mm f/2L is no slouch but even that lens can't get more detail at a certain point when the APO zeiss gets much more. Diminishing returns, more expensive glass to get detail in those MP, and certainly without a shadow of a doubt, the lens is the limiting factor for getting what your paying for in a 50mp camera.

So slapping on a 24-70mm on a 50mp camera is not going to look much different than a 36mp camera, which looked pretty nice on a 22mp camera.


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## psolberg (Sep 5, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> psolberg said:
> 
> 
> > > I would argue that 22 MP vs. 36 MP is negligible with any lens. You need a 50% or greater gain on each axis before it really becomes evident in print.
> ...


scale up and sharpening isn't going to yield the same benefits than scaling down which is essentially going to oversample the bayer artifacts that plague digital. While what you did was basically create data which asn't there to begin with you also magnified the digital artifacts that degrade IQ. Then there is noise. Noise gets smaller and finer without detail killing algorithms when you downsize but larger and more bloated when you upsize.

Ultimately the technique will dictate your results. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. But if I were to summarize it in one sentence: I rather shoot it at 36-50MP and benefit from downsample all the time than the alternative. I think this why ALL camera makers, including canon will no doubt put 50+MP as the de-facto standard for most of their full frame sensors aimed at landscape and studio. 

As for printing, the problem is that you introduce so much variation: inks, paper, humidity, temperature, viewing conditions all can affect your perception of a print output which makes "looks the same to me" comparisons highly irrelevant. However of interest to digital photographers concerned with detail is the RAW file as measure of image quality. How that projects to XYZ printing environment by no means negates gains in the digital files. As I said, I think this is all inevitable this is the way all OEMs will go. Other than storage which is always getting cheaper and buffer and frame-rates limits, there is just no real benefit to lower MP counts at the digital file itself.

There are some interesting entries over at Loyd chambers that discuss improvements in color sampling, color resolution sampling, bayer pattern artifacts, and other topics. Just a few I could find, but many more exist all over the web. 

http://diglloyd.com/blog/2012/20120819_6-SonyRX100-sensor-density.html
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2013/20130307_3-oversampling-RX100.html
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2013/20130223_3-lenses-for-high-res-digital.html
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2012/20120209_1-DepthOfField.html

the thing I find confuses a lot of photographers which claim "my L lens won't resolve more anyway" blah blah is that they do not understand the Bayer matrix used in digital. Once you understand how a RAW file is basically composed of mostly green and huge missing parts of blue and red which are "guessed", you can understand why a high resolution bayer sensor can act as an RGB sensor of lower resolution but that yields better quality and noise characteristics. This is REGARDLESS OF LENS. Yes higher quality lens = better results. But oversample even a kit lens will product a techincally superior image to the same lens under a lower resolution bayer. Off course if you shoot with L lenses or any professional lens from any OEM, you're going to get more than just modest gains...exactly why this sony sensor is exciting.


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## Skatol (Sep 5, 2014)

surapon said:


> Dear Friends.
> This Attachment is the Old News in August 24, 2010 , about Canon New 120 MP sensor = 4 years ago.
> BUT, Why, Now 2014, The Best Sensor that on the Market by Canon = only 22.3 MP---- ??, And Top of the Line of Canon = 1Dx only = 18.1 MP..
> May Be ( ??) ,Past 10 years, Only 1.23 Billion users of Facebook( Like ME ) have post the Photos on Face book need only 2 MP Cell Phone Camera's photos of Foods that they eat at morning/ Breakfast , to show their friend---NOT 50 MP. Sony Camera, Now.
> ...


Thank you Mr. Surapon for attempting to lighten the discussion a bit. I always appreciate your contributions and the optimism you bring to this forum. BTW, is Biscuitville still in operation down there? They made the best breakfast!


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## jeffa4444 (Sep 6, 2014)

I would be very surprised so soon after announcing the A7S and the A7R being so young that Sony would bring out a 50MP CILC / DSLR. 
More likely its the 50MP sensor Hasselblad, Phase One and Pentax are using being applied to a RX-1 type camera. 

Its not a simple oversample issue either at some point Sony et al will need to move to XQD or CFast 2 cards which are expensive and not widely adopted the Arri Amira being the first camera to use CFast 2. Our PCs will need the newer version of Haswell processors & Quick Sync for 4K video off of such a sensor so the whole thing has a knock on.


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## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

psolberg said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > psolberg said:
> ...



Well put. Oversampling is definitely where the industry should go. It allows them to legitimately remove AA filters (as they would no longer be necessary with sufficient oversampling), and it opens up doors for better processing.

For one, we could stop using bayer interpolation. We could do super-pixel interpolation, where each independent set of 2x2 matrix of RGGB pixels is blended together for each output RGB pixel. That would eliminate the softening that arises from interpolating every intersection of pixels, and improves color fidelity. 

Another benefit of oversampling is noise frequencies become significantly smaller than the smallest detail frequency. That makes NR far more effective...you could apply heavier NR (preferably some kind of wavelet or generalized variation NR) that could completely obliterate noise entirely, while having a minimal to insignificant impact on detail itself. When you downsample, your now downsampling an image that is starting out with pretty much no noise...then averaging pixels together to reduce any fractional remnant of noise even further. 

There are so many benefits to oversampling.


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## dtaylor (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> DXO is consistent with my uses on the lenses I have and trust their lens results to a degree.



The page you've linked to at DxO does not support your claim.



> So slapping on a 24-70mm on a 50mp camera is not going to look much different than a 36mp camera, which looked pretty nice on a 22mp camera.



But there is going to be an observable gain.


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## dtaylor (Sep 6, 2014)

psolberg said:


> scale up and sharpening isn't going to yield the same benefits than scaling down which is essentially going to oversample the bayer artifacts that plague digital.



Scaling 36 MP down to 24 MP and then printing will pretty much throw away whatever advantage the 36 MP file had.



> While what you did was basically create data which asn't there to begin with you also magnified the digital artifacts that degrade IQ.



So in theory this should have been a worse situation for the 24 MP files, yet it resulted in nearly identical prints. I could try printing them without first scaling the 24 MP file, but I don't expect a difference. The reason I scaled in the first place was to more accurately judge at pixel peeping size on my monitor. You have to do this or psychologically the "bigger" image will impress you more.



> Ultimately the technique will dictate your results. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. But if I were to summarize it in one sentence: I rather shoot it at 36-50MP and benefit from downsample all the time than the alternative. I think this why ALL camera makers, including canon will no doubt put 50+MP as the de-facto standard for most of their full frame sensors aimed at landscape and studio.



I think the future holds >50 MP sensors as well and for similar reasons. I do not deny that oversampling can yield benefits.



> As for printing, the problem is that you introduce so much variation: inks, paper, humidity, temperature, viewing conditions all can affect your perception of a print output which makes "looks the same to me" comparisons highly irrelevant.



A 3880 with Hot Press Bright is more than capable of resolving the finest detail if we're talking about 16x24" prints or crops scaled as if they were being printed on Epson printers capable of 24x36". If I have to pixel peep to see a difference, but can't see the difference at smaller scales on screen or especially with that printer/paper combo, then the difference means nothing to me.



> However of interest to digital photographers concerned with detail is the RAW file as measure of image quality.



Pixel peeping at 100% showed very little difference in the test scenes I reviewed. I could pick out 2 or 3 small areas where the A7R file resolved some fine texture or detail better, but >95% of the scene was identical.


----------



## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> psolberg said:
> 
> 
> > scale up and sharpening isn't going to yield the same benefits than scaling down which is essentially going to oversample the bayer artifacts that plague digital.
> ...



Sorry, that's totally false. Downsampling 36mp to 24mp produces significant gains in the quality of the smaller image, and if your not printing it at a size that requires more than 24mp, that's not a loss. That IS one of the advantages of having a 36mp image. 

Furthermore, if you need to upsample, starting with more data means the upsampling process is more accurate, as it has to fabricate LESS artificial data than s 24mp or 20mp or 18mp file. 



dtaylor said:


> > Ultimately the technique will dictate your results. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. But if I were to summarize it in one sentence: I rather shoot it at 36-50MP and benefit from downsample all the time than the alternative. I think this why ALL camera makers, including canon will no doubt put 50+MP as the de-facto standard for most of their full frame sensors aimed at landscape and studio.
> 
> 
> 
> I think the future holds >50 MP sensors as well and for similar reasons. I do not deny that oversampling can yield benefits.



I doubt it will stop at 50mp. I think we'll hit 100mp in a camera that actually hits store (or warehouse) shelves at some point. I think we will eventually also see 150mp cameras...at some point the high end BSI technology that drives <2µm pixels in small sensors will be refined and perfected enough that the substrate fragility is no longer a problem for larger sensor areas...then...why the hell not?!?  For those not concerned with disk space, the higher megapixel count and oversampling would offer significant benefits. For those who are concerned with disk space, there is no reason super-pixel demosaicing to produce a smaller, but still high bit depth data file couldn't be used in-camera to reduce megapixel count considerably, saving space and transfer time.



dtaylor said:


> > As for printing, the problem is that you introduce so much variation: inks, paper, humidity, temperature, viewing conditions all can affect your perception of a print output which makes "looks the same to me" comparisons highly irrelevant.
> 
> 
> 
> A 3880 with Hot Press Bright is more than capable of resolving the finest detail if we're talking about 16x24" prints or crops scaled as if they were being printed on Epson printers capable of 24x36". If I have to pixel peep to see a difference, but can't see the difference at smaller scales on screen or especially with that printer/paper combo, then the difference means nothing to me.



Hang out on a print forum sometime. For all the bickering we do over pixels, they do 10 times more over paper quality, ink quality, dMax, L*, metamerism, bronzing, ink emulsions, etc. It matters to the people at the lab who do all the printing for...millions of people who order prints from labs. If it wasn't for the IQ nutbags creating and running print labs, inkjet technology probably wouldn't have come as far as it has. Demand for more and better keeps markets moving and improving. 



dtaylor said:


> > However of interest to digital photographers concerned with detail is the RAW file as measure of image quality.
> 
> 
> 
> Pixel peeping at 100% showed very little difference in the test scenes I reviewed. I could pick out 2 or 3 small areas where the A7R file resolved some fine texture or detail better, but >95% of the scene was identical.



You yourself know it isn't just about looking at two images strait out of camera. The editing latitude differences matter as well, the response to things like NR or white balance or exposure changes that better data with richer information that gives us the ability to reduce noise more effectively with less effort, that all matters. Maybe not to everyone, maybe not even the majority (_at the moment_), but to a lot of people...to an increasing number of people, IMO.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > DXO is consistent with my uses on the lenses I have and trust their lens results to a degree.
> ...


The DXO info perfectly supports my claim. Jumping to a 50mp sensor, your never going to get close to that resolution with most of your lenses.


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## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



You might be trusting DXO's numbers too much. Their primary results are usually done at very aberration-limited apertures, and rarely seem to jive with the earliest diffraction-limited apertures as determined by other testers. Plus, lenses are entirely non-linear in their performance curve. The same lens could perform poorly at f/2.8, superbly well at f/4, and ok at f/8. If you have the option of using f/4, you could realize significant gains by moving from 36mp to 50mp. If you have to use f/8 for DOF, you might not realize as much of a gain (although you would be getting more into the territory of oversampling...and we've been discussing the benefits of that). At f/2.8 your unlikely to see any real improvement in resolution...however, fast apertures are often more about the potential aesthetics that certain optical aberrations bring to the table anyway...so whether it resolves more or not isn't the point. (And, your still going to be sampling the lens better with the 50mp sensor...so your never losing anything, all that changes is how much your gaining...but it is always a gain.)

Assuming were using a quality lens at f/4 that is diffraction limited. That's 173lp/mm. A 50mp sensor is probably around 120lp/mm. A 36mp sensor is 102lp/mm. The 36mp camera with that f/4 lens is going to produce an output resolution (the spatial resolution of your RAW images...not the pixel resolution) of ~88lp/mm. The 50mp camera with that same lens is going to produce an output resolution of ~98.5lp/mm. That is a difference of 12%. That is not insignificant...it's quite significant. It's well beyond the margin of error. 

A 70mp sensor would resolve ~109lp/mm. At this point, this ultra high resolution sensor is resolving more than the 36mp sensor ever could. We are still well below the resolving power of the lens, which means we are still undersampling...which means there are still gains to be made. 

The next step would be 100mp. At 100mp the size of our pixels is about the size of a diffraction spot at f/4. Were now sampling at the same rate as the lens. We are not oversampling yet...were resolving 122lp/mm...which is still below the resolving limit of the lens. We could keep going...and still realize gains. At 150mp...200mp...maybe around there we run into some limitations with physics, making the cost of pushing pixel sizes smaller too high to be cost effective for the end user. At aberration limited and smaller diffraction limited apertures, we are oversampling now...we'd be oversampling anything smaller than f/4 by 100mp. A lens like the Otus, however, would still be capable of resolving a diffraction spot considerably smaller than a pixel at apertures wider than f/4...and then were talking bout 240 to 400 lp/mm up through around f/1.4.

There is always room for more resolving power. It may not always be useful to everyone...if you live and die at f/8, you might well already be oversampling to a useful degree with pixels around 4µm. If you are an Otus fan, which is probably capable of resolving 200-300lp/mm at wider apertures, then a 50mp sensor is nothing...you could probably use a 150mp sensor and still not come close to oversampling the lens at it's best.


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## dtaylor (Sep 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> Sorry, that's totally false.



Go try it yourself. There are A7 / A7R test scene samples at multiple sites.



> Furthermore, if you need to upsample, starting with more data means the upsampling process is more accurate, as it has to fabricate LESS artificial data than s 24mp or 20mp or 18mp file.



That's true in so far as there's more real data (lpmm at a given MTF) to begin with.



> Hang out on a print forum sometime. For all the bickering we do over pixels, they do 10 times more over paper quality, ink quality, dMax, L*, metamerism, bronzing, ink emulsions, etc. It matters to the people at the lab who do all the printing for...millions of people who order prints from labs.



Any of the current Epson Professional series printers/ink sets on a paper like Hot Press Bright...you're looking at the very top end of what can be laid down on paper today. I won't order laser photo paper prints (Frontier or Noritsu) when I can print or order Epson.



> You yourself know it isn't just about looking at two images strait out of camera. The editing latitude differences matter as well, the response to things like NR or white balance or exposure changes that better data with richer information that gives us the ability to reduce noise more effectively with less effort, that all matters. Maybe not to everyone, maybe not even the majority (_at the moment_), but to a lot of people...to an increasing number of people, IMO.



There's not a significant difference between an A7 and an A7R in these respects.


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## dtaylor (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> The DXO info perfectly supports my claim. Jumping to a 50mp sensor, your never going to get close to that resolution with most of your lenses.



You didn't link to anything that supports this claim. For however significant you consider the jump to 50 MP in the first place, that gain is not going to be muted or blocked by better lenses. Glass is not (yet) the limiting factor, at least not at the upper end.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > The DXO info perfectly supports my claim. Jumping to a 50mp sensor, your never going to get close to that resolution with most of your lenses.
> ...


I did link it previously and only the zeiss APO 135mm was able to get the maximum 36mp out of the camera. A lowly 24-70mm wasn't even close to getting the details out of the d800. You should check the link.

To really get 50mp worth of detail, don't expect anything less than the most expensive glass to achieve it. Sure, I understand there will be gains but in my original post here, I stated most lenses will never get close to resolving the full 50mp in that sensor. Just like most lenses won't get even close to resolving the majority of the 36mp in the current d800.


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## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> dtaylor said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



First...no lens could ever get close to resolving the actual megapixel count of any sensor unless your talking about diffraction limited performance at extremely wide apertures...like, f/2 and faster wide. It's an asymptotic relationship...theoretically, it's actually impossible for an _undersampled _lens to ever actually resolve the full megapixel count of a sensor. 

That's why DXO's numbers are such a joke. To claim that ANY lens could actually resolve "36mp out of 36mp" period is just flat out impossible. Not even the Zeiss could do that.

I would also be willing to bet that if you could slap a Canon 24-70 II onto the D800, that it would resolve a hell of a lot more detail than the Nikon 24-70. The Canon lens scores the same as the Nikon lens (both score 28), despite the fact that the 5D III has 62% fewer pixels than the D800. The Canon lens actually resolves 18mpix according to DXO, vs. the Nikon lens which resolves 16mpix. 

It is a very common occurrence on DXO for Canon lenses to score the same as Nikon lenses, when used on the 22.3mp 5D III vs. the 36.3mp D800. In the majority of those cases, Canon lenses score higher on the MPix scale, despite the lower pixel counts. (The real flaw in DXO's lens scoring is their massive overweighting of "Transmission"...which completely imbalances resolving power tests in favor of benchmarking how much vignetting is occurring (an issue that merely requires a single click to fix in post). That's in line with the core theory of how lenses and sensors *work together* to resolve...one doesn't simply outresolve the other and that's that.


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## deleteme (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> That would make me buy an a7. Really? 50mp? This is madness...



Then you would have to use a Sony. :-\


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > dtaylor said:
> ...


You made my original point exactly. The nikkor 24-70mm would be a poor performer to get 50mp of detail while a better lens like the Canon would get closer, and the Zeiss would get the very closest.

And again, the 16-35s, 24-70,70-200s are very common good lenses but even they wouldn't be the lenses that could get the most out of a 50mp sensor. To do so, you'd need those primes and if that's the case, the actual details rendered from a7r 36mp----->50mp a7x wouldnt be stark/negligible unless you had an otus or 135mm apo.

Now if all lenses performed at the level of the otus and we all had them already, great no complaints from me about more resolution.


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## ULFULFSEN (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> Now if all lenses performed at the level of the otus and we all had them already, great no complaints from me about more resolution.



So afterall there is a market, thought not a big one as for Rebels.

Zeiss lenses are not so expensive when you compare it to other Medium Format glas.
Nobody said this 50MP camera is for everyone.

You sure don´t need it for images you put on a website of Facebook.


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## moreorless (Sep 6, 2014)

The issue for me wouldn't be that you would see no improvement with 50 MP but that I'd question how much demand there would be for such a camera on the Sony FE mount.

You could argue that it might appeal to those adapting Canon DSLR lenses I spose, something like the new 24-70mm would probably get much of the benefit but really is that a big market?

The FE system thus far seems to have prioritised size over performance for all its wideangle options and whilst the 70-200mm f/4 seems a bit better in that reguard is anyone going to choose the FE system for say wildlife shooting with its AF performance?


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## dtaylor (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> I did link it previously



The page I saw did not in any way support what you are claiming.



> To really get 50mp worth of detail, don't expect anything less than the most expensive glass to achieve it. Sure, I understand there will be gains but in my original post here, I stated most lenses will never get close to resolving the full 50mp in that sensor.



I think the #1 problem is that the way you are describing things is fundamentally wrong. MP is not a measure of resolved detail, but a measure of sensels on a chip. If you put a Coke bottle in front of a 50 MP chip, you still get 50 MP. There's no such thing as "real" or "fake" 50 MP or getting "50 MP worth" of detail. 

If you are looking at DxO "MP equivalent" scores for lenses they are wrong to present the data that way, and (yet again) observably wrong even if you try to translate their incorrect usage of terminology into something valid.

lpmm for a given target MTF point is a measure of resolved detail.

A 50 MP sensor + just about any lens will yield an observable system gain in lpmm over most or all of the MTF curve. The lpmm resolved will be higher with better glass of course.

Now I would be the first to say that we are into diminishing returns and unless you are printing really, really big there's not going to be much to gain by jumping to 50 MP. But I would not say that 50 MP is invisible or completely worthless with everything except a handful of super expensive lenses.

And I'm not just saying that from theory. Observation trumps theory, and you can readily observe IQ gains on 18-24 MP APS-C sensors with glass that's already on the market. Those lenses will yield similar gains on 40-50 MP FF sensors. I'm not as familiar with Nikon glass, but there is a lot of Canon glass which would work well on a higher resolution FF sensor.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > I did link it previously
> ...


The page supports it. You will never get 50mp or even close to it with most lenses. The jump from 36mp to 50mp will be slight with most lenses and stark with supreme lenses. Even with aps cams, the difference is the same, indistinguishable with most glass and stark with supreme glass. That's why cropping FF 22mp vs aps 18mp the results are nearly identical. On paper they shouldn't be, but on the other thread, negligible.


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## surapon (Sep 6, 2014)

Skatol said:


> surapon said:
> 
> 
> > Dear Friends.
> ...




Ha, Ha, Ha, Dear friend Mr. Skatol
You are welcome, Sir--------For all High tech Discussion, We will let our Teachers and all of my friends take care. But We try to Light it Up, and Just For Super FUN.----Human life are too short.
Buy the Way, Yes Biscuitville are one of the best Breakfast , But $ 5 US Dollars is to much for me, At Bojangles = 3.50 US Dollars with Big Great Cup of coffee too----My Wife id so tight for High cost of Breakfast----Ha, Ha, ha. Nice to talk to you, Sir.
Have a great weekend.
Surapon


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## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> The page supports it. You will never get 50mp or even close to it with most lenses. The jump from 36mp to 50mp will be slight with most lenses and stark with supreme lenses. Even with aps cams, the difference is the same, indistinguishable with most glass and stark with supreme glass. That's why cropping FF 22mp vs aps 18mp the results are nearly identical. On paper they shouldn't be, but on the other thread, negligible.



The point I was trying to make before was that you can't get 50mp with any existing lens, and probably wouldn't with any lens created within the next decade. The same goes for 36mp, 24mp, 18mp. You cannot actually resolve those resolutions with ANY lens, even the best of the best of the best. Because output resolution has an asymptotic relationship with the least resolving component of the system. To even get close to 50mp, you would probably need to be shooting a lens like the Otus at f/1.4 (assuming it's diffraction limited at that aperture...if not, then you would need a lens even better than the Otus).

Assuming you don't have a crappy lens, then you can realize improvements by moving to a higher resolution sensor. Every time you do, the nyquist limit drops. That allows more information to be resolved usefully. It might be resolved at lower contrast, but until your down near the Rayleigh limit, you can still do stuff with lower contrast detail (it's more work to enhance it, but it can be done.) If you jump from 18mp to 50mp, even with just an "ok" lens, your going to see a huge difference. The frequency of detail that might have been resolved crisply at 18mp will now probably look a little soft...however, your going to be resolving a level of detail the 18mp couldn't even see at all. The same would go for the difference between 36mp and 50mp...although the amount of smaller details you resolve wouldn't be as significant, and would require more work to enhance. 

For any given lens, going from 24mp to 36mp, then to 50mp, WILL realize an improvement. The improvement might start out at around 18% for the jump from 24-36mp, then drop to 11-12% for the jump from 36-50mp. It might be a mere 5% in a jump from 50mp to 70mp. Beyond that, your probably within the margin of error...however, then your in the realm of oversampling. That has a whole 'nother set of benefits.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > The page supports it. You will never get 50mp or even close to it with most lenses. The jump from 36mp to 50mp will be slight with most lenses and stark with supreme lenses. Even with aps cams, the difference is the same, indistinguishable with most glass and stark with supreme glass. That's why cropping FF 22mp vs aps 18mp the results are nearly identical. On paper they shouldn't be, but on the other thread, negligible.
> ...


Your absolutely correct and that's what I've been saying. To get near the 50mp resolution, you would now need supreme lenses to see a major difference. 36--->50mp would be a small jump with most lenses(negligible)and like you mentioned, huge if with an Otus.

Back to my original statement, forget about getting the most out of those 50mp with the current selection of native lenses in the A7 mount. Added on top with the small pixel size, extra camera shake.


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## jrista (Sep 6, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



Ah, ok. I guess I misunderstood something along the line, when you said you believed DXO when they stated the Zeiss 135 could actually get 36mp out of the D800. Good to know we agree. 

I don't know much about native lenses for the A7 mount...however, I would really be interested in seeing how some of Canon's newer lenses work with that sensor when adapted to the A7 mount. I bet the 24-70/2.8 II is phenomenal.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 6, 2014)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


I said I trusted DXO lens scores to a degree and other reviewers reflected my experience with the lenses tested. IE: Abbotts 135mm APO tests.


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## dtaylor (Sep 7, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> The page supports it.



: The page listed 3 lenses recommended for the D800. That is all. It said nothing to support what you are claiming. Unless you have another link this point is done.



> You will never get 50mp or even close to it with most lenses.



Stop using terminology incorrectly. You will get 50 MP with the lens cap on.



> Even with aps cams, the difference is the same, indistinguishable with most glass and stark with supreme glass.



Not what anyone else reports with APS-C


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## RLPhoto (Sep 7, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > The page supports it.
> ...


Great because we all want 50mp of detail in our lens cap shots. : Please review the info again because Jrista explained what DXO is referring about actual resolution received.


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## ULFULFSEN (Sep 7, 2014)

I want a 50MP camera and the 55mm and 85mm Zeiss Otus as kit lenses. 

And why not 50MP?

Some peeps who are serious about big prints will sure love a small camera with MF quality. They will pay the price for the best glass. The more options the better.


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## psolberg (Sep 8, 2014)

ULFULFSEN said:


> I want a 50MP camera and the 55mm and 85mm Zeiss Otus as kit lenses.
> 
> And why not 50MP?
> 
> Some peeps who are serious about big prints will sure love a small camera with MF quality. They will pay the price for the best glass. The more options the better.



+1. More options the better. As you say. I really can't understand the hate crowd. It's like they want to live in a world where everybody shoots the same boring 20MP with the same boring options. They probably want everybody to drive a gray toyota prius 

I say bring it on 50-100MP. Surely we could have cameras which do the down sample internally and surely adobe will make it standard to down sample your images prior to developing it at your target resolution and space requirements. I know I will always prefer the latitude of editing over the compromise. Otherwise I'd be shooting 6MP because it was "good enough". Well, "good enough" is ok for "good enough" goals. I want more


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## psolberg (Sep 8, 2014)

dtaylor said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry, that's totally false.
> ...



Again, to separate the print issues from actual RAW fidelity. You call it pixel peeping, I call it latitude of post processing and oversampling. Per your point, remember the A7R shoots really compromised RAWS. It is not the same data from the Nikon's more refined pipeline. I wouldn't really shoot with an A7R personally if I had a D810/800 because sony's RAW file choices crippled the A7R. 
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2014/20140214_1-SonyA7-artifacts-star-trails.html
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2014/20140212_2-SonyA7-RawDigger-posterization.html

you can find more on the subject online off course.

So while the A7R is a great tool indeed, let's just say it doesn't speak for the state of the art 36+MP sensor class. 

I've shot with 20MP canon bodies, then moved to 36MP Nikon bodies, and would certainly consider 50-100MP bodies from whatever company can deliver as much in the RAW file as they can (not the A7R way). Surely sony learned and this will carry forward. The point being not the brand which is a secondary aspect. The point being, other than storage, super sampling and higher resolution is always going to trump lower resolutions regardless of media output for my choices. This is why I'll always prefer 36MP to 22 because there is just no benefit to me in the 22MP file, and far too many drawbacks. This is why I'd prefer 50 to 36MP for the same reason and beyond. Now if I covered sports and say, ended up with 2000 images per hour, that equation would change. And off course these high detail cameras aren't aimed at everybody. I recognize that. 

Ultimately as I've said it, if you don't value high MP output you're in two camps:
1) you don't need the latitude or would benefit from over sampling. Other aspects rule more.
2) you could use the gains, but are just holding on to what you have because you want/have to. 

#1 will always be the case. #2, IMHO, it is inevitable. I don't see canon/sony/nikon ever making another 20s MP full frame again save for the people in camp #1, which I admit is a market. Their landscape/studio game will be 30 or 40 minimum to be competitive. At the density of even APSC, we'd be in the high 40s to 50s territory by now. In many ways, it is not just inevitable, but overdue. 

Many of the fears is storage and processing. However the emergence of high resolution photography will provide the tools. As 36-50-100MP become "standard" surely adobe and others will incorporate oversample in their workflow. As indicated by myself and others, color accuracy, aliasing, bayer interpolation artifacts, all are directly tied to resolution with improvements on the MP count making a positive impact. Therefore it stands to reason PS and LR could very much offer you the option to take the 50MP raw, super sample it down to your workflow target resolution, yielding superior results to low resolution capture. You can then choose to discard, or archive the original RAW and work on the derived file. 

This super sample step would go BEYOND mere resizing post raw to RGB conversion. RAW->RGB to low MP is what people currently do to demonstrate benefits of 36 vs 22 and surely will of 50 vs 36 but this is not the best way. Ideally the raw processor would create your say 36MP file from the 50-100MP RAW without having an intermediate RGB image that is then downsized using the various interpolation methods. You'll always work and in your case print from the target resolution of your choice, but you just have a better version of it than if you didn't. Again, all inevitable. 

Ultimately I'm not trying to convince people to give up their 20+MP gear. I moved out of that, and I know many will once canon catches up and then, surely everybody will build a shrine around some gear and sing praises to all the things I've mentioned. What I care about the trend, not any specific model or brand. There is a lot more than shooting B+W geometric patterns and whatever DXO computers spit out as a number. So when people get worked out about what their 24-70 can do with a pattern in a high vs low sensor resolution, they are essentially missing the forest for the trees. Some will realize this, some won't. And that's ok. everybody should do what works for them. ;D


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## ChristopherMarkPerez (Sep 10, 2014)

Back in the day when I was trying to sort this out for myself, I had a long conversation with a physics professor. I was just an engineer, after-all, and I wanted to make sure I fully understood the underlying physics, both practical and theoretic. He too had been looking at the question for years. 

What it comes down to is this: While the 1/R formula that is commonly found (one example is found on Fuji's website, of all places) that attempts to describe the relationship between light capture media and optics is fundamentally flawed and is easily proven wrong through simple testing.

The problem is that the formula that is the basis for nearly every single one of these kinds of conversation/discussions/flame-wars is wrong. The issue is in the mis-application of particle physics as applied to light. The formula is simple, and it's "feels" right, but it's not. Light (in terms of resolution) acts more as a wave-front than that of a particle. A much more complex equation would be needed to properly explain the relationship between optics and sensors.

To simplify, the professor said that from his perspective, corrected math fully supports his claim that at normal working apertures (f-wide-open through f/11) and commercially available components (ie: anything coming from current camera manufacturers), film or digital sensors are the limiting factor and set the limits of image resolution.

Said simply, you can use any correctly manufactured commonly available optic on any sensor currently made and that lens will have more than adequate performance for your system. Which leaves us with the straight-forward exercise of calculating real world resolution by looking only at the sensor.

If any of what I just said was wrong you'd not be able to build the kinds of computer parts that enable this very discussion. Talk to any mask builder at Intel or AMD and you'll fully understand what I mean by this.



jrista said:


> The point I was trying to make before was that you can't get 50mp with any existing lens, and probably wouldn't with any lens created within the next decade. The same goes for 36mp, 24mp, 18mp. You cannot actually resolve those resolutions with ANY lens, even the best of the best of the best. Because output resolution has an asymptotic relationship with the least resolving component of the system...


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## moreorless (Sep 10, 2014)

ULFULFSEN said:


> I want a 50MP camera and the *55mm and 85mm Zeiss Otus as kit lenses*.
> 
> And why not 50MP?
> 
> Some peeps who are serious about big prints will sure love a *small camera *with MF quality. They will pay the price for the best glass. The more options the better.



This is I'd say likely to be the problem with Sony pushing megapixels with the FE system, the lenses needed to get the most out of such sensors(especially I'd guess wideangles) will need to be large.

The A7s seems to make more sense to be as its much less resolution hungry.


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## jrista (Sep 10, 2014)

ChristopherMarkPerez said:


> Back in the day when I was trying to sort this out for myself, I had a long conversation with a physics professor. I was just an engineer, after-all, and I wanted to make sure I fully understood the underlying physics, both practical and theoretic. He too had been looking at the question for years.
> 
> What it comes down to is this: While the 1/R formula that is commonly found (one example is found on Fuji's website, of all places) that attempts to describe the relationship between light capture media and optics is fundamentally flawed and is easily proven wrong through simple testing.
> 
> ...



Your professor is right, to a degree...however, I'd be curious to know exactly what he said, as he is also incomplete. First, he is correct that light behaves as a wavefront. The particle-nature of light is useful for describing in geometric terms how optics behave...but in reality, we don't work with individual particles of light. We work with a continuous, complex wavefront of light that produces a three dimensional structure, a "light cone" for lack of a better term, within the lens that ultimately resolves, or focuses, at the sensor plane. Another critical point about a photonic wavefront is that diffraction is an inherent trait, not something like "light bending around an obstacle." If you want to learn more, you can read about it here:

http://www.telescope-optics.net/wave.htm

As for the resolving power of a camera. I've said it a thousand times on these forums already: Lenses don't outresolve sensors, and neither do sensors outresolve lenses. The two work together to convolve the output, which will have lower resolution than both, with an asymptotic relationship with the least-resolving component of the system.

To approximate how two lenses will perform, you can use the following formula:

sysRes = (1/SQRT((1/(lensRes*2))^2 + sensorPixelPitch^2))/2

Fundamentally, this formula is calculating the system spot size, the convolved result of a single point of light by both the lens and sensor. The rest is simply to convert from spatial resolution in lp/mm and back. So, assuming we have an f/11 lens that means the diffraction-limited performance at MTF50 is 63lp/mm. That is a pretty low resolution...there are actually lots of sensors that have higher spatial resolution than that. However, let's say we take a 22.3mp, 36.3mp, and 50mp sensor. Assume we use all of them with that diffraction-limited lens at f/11. Here are the results of measuring the MTF50 spatial resolution of the resulting images:

22.3mp: 49.45lp/mm
36.3mp: 53.60lp/mm
50mp: 55.97lp/mm

As you can see, even at f/11, as you increase megapixel count (reduce pixel size), the ability of a sensor to resolve detail with a fully diffraction limited lens producing a large spot size is still possible. The differences are not large...probably not visible, and probably only measurable with software.

Now, f/11 is a very limited aperture. It resolves 63lp/mm. If we jump up to f/4, the diffraction-limited resolution jumps to 173lp/mm. Then, we get the following results:

22.3mp: 72.6lp/mm
36.3mp: 88lp/mm
50mp: 99.6lp/mm

If we think about something like the Otus, which is diffraction-limited at even wider apertures, here is what we could resolve at f/2 where we have 346lp/mm spatial resolution:

22.3mp: 78lp/mm
36.3mp: 98lp/mm
50mp: 115lp/mm

As you can see, even though sensors are not resolving as much, in terms of spatial resolution, as lenses, higher and higher resolution sensors are still capable of producing higher resolution results. It doesn't matter if your at a heavily diffraction limited f/11, or at a minimally diffraction limited f/2...you will still resolve more detail with a higher resolution sensor. The sensors will ultimately set the limit...however we are currently far from reaching those limits with high quality lenses, such as the Otus (best example, there are other lenses out there that resolve near the diffraction limit wide open, such as most of Canon's great white supertelephoto lenses.) You can also approach the true diffraction limit of the lens by increasing sensor resolution. You want to actually resolve 63lp/mm from an f/11 lens? Well, you'll need a sensor capable of resolving a few hundred lp/mm to actually be able to get close...which means we'll need sensors capable of resolving hundreds of megapixels.

The diffraction-limited resolution of an f/4 lens is 173lp/mm. A 50mp sensor combined with such an f/4 lens is only resolving about 100lp/mm. That means were barely more than half way to the diffraction limit of the lens. We could still resolve more...with a 75mp sensor, a 100mp sensor, a 150mp sensor. 

Regarding the kinds of UV lithography we use for etching sensor parts at 22nm. You have to remember that the wavelengths of light we use to do that are extremely short. Visible light wavelengths stretch from about 380nm near-UV to 850nm near-IR. Deep UV is less than 200nm in wavelength down to around 100nm in wavelength, and EUV is a mere 13.5nm in wavelength. The photomasks used in photolithography are also quite large, and the systems that are used to actually etch silicon with UV light use the best optics on the planet (usually Zeiss) and are perfectly diffraction limited (and at such small wavelengths, a diffraction spot is very small). Large masks result in little diffraction, and ultra small wavelengths smaller than the smallest transistor ensure we can actually create structures that small. We even have techniques that allow us to perform sub-wavelength etching, which is why we will ultimately be able to etch around 7nm and maybe even 4nm transistor sizes with a 13.5nm wavelength.


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## mrsfotografie (Sep 10, 2014)

The sensor is real...

Oh, here it is:

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/two-new-medium-format-sony-sensor-camerasbacks/


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## jrista (Sep 10, 2014)

mrsfotografie said:


> The sensor is real...
> 
> Oh, here it is:
> 
> http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/two-new-medium-format-sony-sensor-camerasbacks/



That's the medium format sensor. I believe this rumor was about a 35mm FF sized 50mp sensor, for the A7 series of bodies (which don't have a mount large enough to handle a medium format sensor).


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## mkabi (Sep 10, 2014)

As per recent rumor: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr4-no-other-new-camera-from-sony-at-photokina-sr5-new-generation-sensor-and-cameras-release-in-january/

There is no 50MP A7 at photokina 2014.


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## sdsr (Sep 10, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> The benefit between 22 and 36mp bodies is negligible when using let's say the Tamron 24-70mm. Once you get the zeiss 135mm APO, the difference is stark.
> 
> However, doesn't change my point that even at 36mp it's hard to get the detail out of it and let alone a 50mp sensor in 35mm format.



Funny you should mention that lens, inasmuch as Roger Cicala reports that the Tamron 24-70 on a D800 outperforms in terms of resolution the (superior) Canon 24-70II on a 5DIII, a combination that outperforms the Tamron 24-70 + 5DIII. You can't attach the Canon to a D800, but you can (and people do so) to a Sony A7r, so.... 

I'm not sure what you really mean by "get the detail out of it". You seem here, and in other posts, to suggest that unless you own lenses that can make the most of (whatever that means) a higher resolution sensor, there's no point in using a camera with a higher resolution sensor (other things - such as noise, dynamic range, etc. - being equal, presumably). I'll leave the science to others, but have you tried this yourself or is your argument based on speculation? I've attached a fairly wide array of lenses to my A7r, mostly Canon EF (including some rather inexpensive ones) but a few others as well, including some fairly elderly inexpensive manual lenses even older than those you sneeringly (or so it seems) invoked in another post, and with only one exception so far they are capable of sharp detailed images when viewed at 100%, probably more so than when I use them on my 5DIII (which is not to say the differences are significant). Is your experience different?

But of course the appeal of a sensor, let alone a camera, isn't just its resolution - it's other aspects of its performance; when Sony (or whoever else) releases a 50mm FF camera the other things mentioned above won't be equal. E.g. there are reasons to like the Sony A7 line independent of sensor resolution - noise, dynamic range, that fact that the sensors are housed in mirrorless bodies to which you can attach just about any lens and which have good EVFs, and so on. Given all the other benefits (they're not for everyone, of course), it's nice to be able to attach EF lenses and obtain images that look at least as good as they do via their native bodies. Whether those lenses "gets the most out of" the sensor doesn't matter much to me, and I suspect it won't to lots of others too; you can always supplement them with lenses that perform better. It would be disappointing if the images looked worse, but no-one has provided any reasons to suppose that they would.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 10, 2014)

sdsr said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > The benefit between 22 and 36mp bodies is negligible when using let's say the Tamron 24-70mm. Once you get the zeiss 135mm APO, the difference is stark.
> ...



In short, yes. My 50L in particular is a great example, It looked really good on my 5Dc but on the MK3 it was less than stellar wide open and stopped down it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between them. The 135L saw a marginal improvement and the 24L II saw it alittle bit wide open. Stopped down performance 5Dc vs 5D3(ISO 100), There is a gain but I sometimes would edit a 5Dc file that I thought was 5D3 file. In practice, then going to print, it was a wash 90% of the time. 

The biggest differences were with the 135L between the two cameras. That lens get much much closer to resolving the full 22mp of the 5D3. (which it never will but it gets closer)

My original point here is sony will sell a 50MP 35mm sensor, now will you ever get close to getting the full 50MP out of it with most of your lenses? Probably not, and the differences in practice will be similar to the current A7R. The only way you'll be able to resolve the majority of those 50MP to Definitely SEE the differences, is with the Otus or other lenses like it. Also don't forget we don't always shoot our lenses at F/8 and have to use wider apertures which makes the difference even less so.

Can sonys native A7 Lenses do the job? I don't believe they will but they'll sell alot of cameras advertising those 50MP.


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## jrista (Sep 10, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> My original point here is sony will sell a 50MP 35mm sensor, now will you ever get close to getting the full 50MP out of it with most of your lenses? Probably not, and the differences in practice will be similar to the current A7R. The only way you'll be able to resolve the majority of those 50MP to Definitely SEE the differences, is with the Otus or other lenses like it. Also don't forget we don't always shoot our lenses at F/8 and have to use wider apertures which makes the difference even less so.



You won't ever realize the full 50mp...however, you could indeed realize more resolution than the 22.3mp or 36.3mp of a lesser camera. That's the point, right? Look at my numbers above. Theoretically, a 50mp at just f/4 could at best resolve over 37% more than a 22.3mp sensor. That's pretty much guaranteed if you slap something like an Otus on, but any other diffraction limited f/4 lens, of which many come very close to, will also perform better. Maybe not 40%...but a 10% difference is enough to be meaningful, and a 20% difference would be excellent.

It's not about resolving the maximum that any given sensor is capable of. It's about resolving more (in the output image) than a lesser sensor is capable of. You won't ever achieve the maximum sensor resolution so long as the sensor is the limiting factor...but you can and will realize useful gains by moving from a lower-resolution to a higher-resolution sensor. If that was not the case, we wouldn't clearly see such a HUGE difference between a 5D III and a D800. The difference in the smallest resolvable details between those two cameras is quite stark...even with lenses less than a Zeiss 135 or Otus. I have seen marked differences in the sharp in-focus parts with fast 85mm optics wide open...the periphery of the photos may be soft or totally OOF boke...but for the parts that are sharp...i.e. the center of the lens (which pretty much performs ideally on the majority of lenses)...the differences between a 5D III and D800 are massive. (And no, I don't mean in terms of DR...I just mean in terms of raw spatial resolution.)


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## RLPhoto (Sep 10, 2014)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > My original point here is sony will sell a 50MP 35mm sensor, now will you ever get close to getting the full 50MP out of it with most of your lenses? Probably not, and the differences in practice will be similar to the current A7R. The only way you'll be able to resolve the majority of those 50MP to Definitely SEE the differences, is with the Otus or other lenses like it. Also don't forget we don't always shoot our lenses at F/8 and have to use wider apertures which makes the difference even less so.
> ...


The d800 vs 5d3 resolution wise one shot with a 600LII and the equivalent Nikkor equal about the same total resolution in the image. That reflects my weekend with the d800 vs 5d3 with my L primes. The difference isn't as great as I thought it was going to be. The shots that were at f/8, the difference is more noticeable but at best marginal, like you said 10-15%. (Hardly massive.) To see the stark difference between the two, otus or better. (Then it's obvious, like 30% or more.)

And you cut out my biggest original point here, the A7 native lenses are not up to getting the majority of those 50mp yet. Sony should address their lens lineup before jumping ahead with more MP.


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## jrista (Sep 10, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



Maybe it's just a difference in perception. I'd need to see the photos you took with the D800 and 5D III to see if I personally could see a difference. I never said anything was massive...just that 10% is meaningful, 20% is excellent. If anyone could actually realize a 40% difference, THAT would be massive...but you would really need a diffraction limited lens. I figure the Otus could do it. I think there are a few Canon normals and short teles that could do it. I think that many lenses, in the center of the frame, can do it as well. If you want that kind of performance corner to corner...then yeah...Otus and maybe some of the Canon great whites are probably some of the very few lenses that can do that.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 11, 2014)

jrista said:


> RLPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > jrista said:
> ...


I wish I had them still.  It was work for hire as a 2nd photog and we switched each others equipment for the wedding. We reviewed the files on his mac and we didn't notice the difference until the formals @ f/5.6-f/8 and it wasn't a huge difference either. He expected more from the d800 but it wasn't the E version either.

In short, he kept his gear/cards and gave me back mine. I don't have the files but I remember it wasn't that impressive with our tamrons and L&G primes at most of the working apertures we used.


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## jrista (Sep 11, 2014)

RLPhoto said:


> jrista said:
> 
> 
> > RLPhoto said:
> ...



If you were working at around f/5.6 to f/8, the differences are going to be much smaller, for sure. Your more diffraction limited at those apertures, particularly f/8. There are some differences, but they won't be huge. Your going to notice more of a difference at f/4 and faster in the center of the lens (or across the frame with something like an Otus), since the diffraction-limited resolving power is much higher at those apertures. At f/8 and below, sensors are starting to oversample the lens...so, as you saw, differences were more noticeable. However, because you _are_ diffraction limited, the differences cannot be large.

I'd be willing to bet with either companies 135, or the Zeiss 135, or even similar short tele Sigmas, that the differences in the center and center midframe would be eminently noticeable. 

Diffraction is a fickle friend.  By stopping down, you eliminate optical aberrations, which can present in a thousand ways and affect IQ in just as many ways. However, at the same time, by stopping down, your implicitly limiting your maximum resolution.


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