# Will Canon Withdraw from the Megapixel War?



## unfocused (Jun 21, 2011)

Nikon Rumors is reporting that Sony will soon announce a 24mp APS-C Sensor which is likely to become the foundation for the next generation of the D300. 

That got me thinking, will Canon continue to up the ante in the megapixel war, or will they, at some point, decide to shift strategies and open up a new front (increased dynamic range, improved high ISO, superior noise control)?

Certainly, they have the technology and expertise to keep increasing the megapixel count, but I wonder if they might decide that a more modest increase (say 22mp) in the next generation of APS-C sensors, coupled with an extra stop or two of speed and improved image quality might be more advantageous. 

I'm generally a fan of more megapixels, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is much point to going too much bigger. With a native size of over 21 x 14 inches (at 240 ppi) the current 18 mp sensor is more than sufficient for most needs. 

At some point, the trade off in file size outweighs the benefits of a native size that exceeds anything that even most professionals will ever need. (Yes, portrait, wedding and commercial photographers need the larger sizes, but most photographers shooting for publication, either in print or on the web, don't. And, yes, I know that folks like Macfly need the resolution for their work, but photographers at that level aren't ever going to be shooting with an APS-C camera).

Anyone who's read any of my past posts know that I am definitely not one of those "fewer megapixels are better" people. Frankly, I think that is ridiculous. But, I do understand the law of diminishing returns and I can't help thinking that we may be reaching that point. 

I have tremendous respect for Canon's market savvy and I wonder if they might decide that they can really shake things up and gain a competitive advantage by taking the market in a totally new and unexpected direction.


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## Canihaspicture (Jun 21, 2011)

I, for one, hope they don't withdraw from the megapixel war. No matter what people will tell you there are still not enough pixels to out resolve the lenses that Canon are putting out. In the last few days alone I have needed those pixels to crop images that I didn't have the lens to capture properly nor could I get physically close enough. More pixels proved invaluable to my needs. I cannot afford a medium format camera and medium format cameras will always out resolve and have better dynamic range than full frame sensors, but I'd like to come as close as I can with the affordability of a full frame camera. 

UHDTV in the future will be 33 megapixels and I'm told looks like nothing else ever seen. I at least want my still camera to produce better images than on a TV. Otherwise, it is downright pathetic. Data sizes are irrelevant with improving technology. 

I imagine that canon will use the technology gained when making that 120 megapixel APS-H sensor to make some incredible cameras. You just wait... The future of digital photography isn't as noisy as you think.


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## bvukich (Jun 21, 2011)

Canihaspicture said:


> I imagine that canon will use the technology gained when making that 120 megapixel APS-H sensor to make some incredible cameras. You just wait... The future of digital photography isn't as noisy as you think.



Make everyone happy:

151MP, full frame with APS-H & APS-C crop modes; and 4:1 (37.8MP/8K+), 16:1 (9.4MP/4K), and 64:1 (2.4MP/2K) pixel binning.


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## dr croubie (Jun 21, 2011)

Up until the 24mp D3X, nikon's best was about 12MP. that was released end of 2008. and after that the best that came along was the 16mp d7000 halfway through last year.

compare canon, the 21mp 1ds3 came a full year before the d3x, the 5d2 even beat the d3x announcement by a few months. at the same time the 50d got 15mp then the 550d a few months later, then the 7d got 18mp (then 550d, 60d, 600d).
even the 1ds2 was 16mp back in mid 2004.


the way i look at it, nikon gave up on the megapixel race years ago. most people argue that their 12mp sensors do better high iso than the canons, but canon certainly beat the crap out of them with regards to megapixels (and i think to sales volumes, can someone verify? i'm late for work)

i don't think the war will be over until 40mp+, medium format is 80mp and still going, they'll get to 200mp at least. not to say that either will stop there, that's just when diminishing returns kicks in and time between major upgrades becomes too long (or are we seeing this already, where are you 1ds4??). and the difference between a 30mp camera and 20mp is the same % as 3mp to 2mp. they sure went from 3-4-5mp fairly fast, we should see leaps to 30/40/50 just as fast. (or are we nearing the tech limit? i don't think so)


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## macgregor mathers (Jun 21, 2011)

Nikon's way, as I understand it, is smarter.

It released the D3X with high resolution for those who need / want it, and a full year later the D3S with half the resolution for those who don't.


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## motorhead (Jun 21, 2011)

I see no reason why I cannot have it all. Ever higher pixel counts as well as superior noise control and DR.

We are in on the dawn of digital photography. I see massive changes before we can begin to believe that things should stay as they are. It's an odd reaction at a time when technology is gaining pace with new discoveries being made daily all around us.

So give it maybe 50 to 75 years and ask the question again.


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## zerotiu (Jun 21, 2011)

macgregor mathers said:


> Nikon's way, as I understand it, is smarter.
> 
> It released the D3X with high resolution for those who need / want it, and a full year later the D3S with half the resolution for those who don't.



yes..it is better if new pro cameras are splitted based on that way. Not video or non video way :-\.


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## Heidrun (Jun 21, 2011)

I dont think that Canon ever will withdraw itself from cameras with more MP. Digital cameras is only in the beginning of its development. In 10 years time we will see cameras with high resolution and maybe a couple of hundred MP


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## torger (Jun 21, 2011)

I generally like high megapixel count (I like to shoot landscapes), but unfortunately we're starting to press the limit of most current lenses. An 18 megapixel APS-C does not produce sharper prints than a ~12 megapixel fullframe because of lens limitations. With the fullframe sensor size we can perhaps go up to 25 - 30 megapixels before we start to see a sharp drop-off in gain due to too little resolving power in the lenses.

I'd like to have 50 - 60 megapixels, but after studying lens performance I have realized that unfortunately with today's lenses I'll have to move to medium format to make that kind of resolution worthwhile.

Lenses can probably be made quite a lot sharper than they are today, but when will such lenses appear?


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## kirillica (Jun 21, 2011)

torger said:


> I generally like high megapixel count (I like to shoot landscapes), but unfortunately we're starting to press the limit of most current lenses. An 18 megapixel APS-C does not produce sharper prints than a ~12 megapixel fullframe because of lens limitations. With the fullframe sensor size we can perhaps go up to 25 - 30 megapixels before we start to see a sharp drop-off in gain due to too little resolving power in the lenses.
> 
> I'd like to have 50 - 60 megapixels, but after studying lens performance I have realized that unfortunately with today's lenses I'll have to move to medium format to make that kind of resolution worthwhile.
> 
> Lenses can probably be made quite a lot sharper than they are today, but when will such lenses appear?


I don't know about lenses you are shooting, but new Canon lenses (AFAIK) are sharp up to 60Mp...


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## macgregor mathers (Jun 21, 2011)

motorhead said:


> I see no reason why I cannot have it all. Ever higher pixel counts as well as superior noise control and DR.



I couldn't care less whether FF cameras can have more MP and at the same time superior noise control and DR. It's just that I don't want more MP.


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## torger (Jun 21, 2011)

kirillica said:


> I don't know about lenses you are shooting, but new Canon lenses (AFAIK) are sharp up to 60Mp...



Full-frame lenses such as 70-200/2.8 IS USM II and TS-E 24mm II. My sharpest lens (center) is actually the cheap 50/1.4. Some focal lengths are sharper than others. In landscape I'm quite interested in wide angle.

These lenses are really fine lenses but you can see when shooting the lenses on a 7D body (4 um pixels) you don't get as high resolving power as you should if just looking at the pixel count. The lenses are sharper with the larger pixels on current fullframe sensors. Formal tests for this can be found at dxomark. Antialias filters make it a bit harder to judge, but comparing the resolution you get from 50/1.4 on 7D with that of TS-E 24mm (considered very sharp wide angle) you still see that you get more resolution out of the 50. So the lens is clearly limiting here. Note that wide angle are considered difficult to design with good performance, especially when you need to do retrofocus designs like you have to on DSLRs (to fit the mirror).

I've also made some practical print tests and pixel-peeped images and come to the same conclusion, so I have not just looked at measurements.

However, resolving power of a lens is not a hard limit, what happens is that contrast of micro details get lower and lower, so you gain less and less by adding more megapixels. Yes a 60 megapixel fullframe would produce sharper images than a 30 megapixel, but it would not be twice the lines-per-mm, probably something like 15% more.

The mentioned lenses produce nice images even when outresolved due to the good corner-to-corner performance and low abberations, but they are a bit soft. Meaning that if next fullframe camera gets lots of megapixels a 300 ppi print may not be sharper than a 200 ppi print of the current cameras.


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

There's just too much money involved with high MP... You're forgetting that storage is cheap but also Canon and Nikon are pushing the envelope on what film could even resolve and produce. 10 years ago it would have been a photographers wet dream to be able to take a 35mm camera body and lens and pump out 16x20's and even larger and not have it look soft and grainy. Now we can do that without batting an eye. If you dont need it, dont use it and downsize or shoot at a lower setting. Like fast primes, I would rather have them and not need them rather than need them and not have them...


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## gferdinandsen (Jun 21, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> There's just too much money involved with high MP... You're forgetting that storage is cheap but also Canon and Nikon are pushing the envelope on what film could even resolve and produce. 10 years ago it would have been a photographers wet dream to be able to take a 35mm camera body and lens and pump out 16x20's and even larger and not have it look soft and grainy. Now we can do that without batting an eye. If you dont need it, dont use it and downsize or shoot at a lower setting. Like fast primes, I would rather have them and not need them rather than need them and not have them...



I have to entirely agree. When looking at a 24x36mm transparency (which makes a perfectly fine 8x12 enlargement) under a 4x lupe, everything looks great. It was not until the advent of digital and pixel peepers that we ever became so obsessed with corner sharpness, et al.

When you consider that your monitor at full resolution is not going to be much more that about 3MP, and that most printers don't print more than 13x19 (very large), unless you do gallery work (very few people), 21.3MP is more than enough.

The best photo's are not the ones with perfect corner sharpness, they are the ones with perfect composition and lighting. When everyone forgets about the art of photography and starts to obsess on the science of electronics, visual aesthetics is replaced by minimum chromatic aberrations.


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## kirillica (Jun 21, 2011)

torger said:


> Full-frame lenses...


Sure I was talking about FF. Crop bodies like 550d I had were not so sharp with the same lens like I use on 5dm2. So it looks like pixel size/sensor issue rather than lens stuff. Or at least both


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 21, 2011)

torger said:


> These lenses are really fine lenses but you can see when shooting the lenses on a 7D body (4 um pixels) you don't get as high resolving power as you should if just looking at the pixel count. The lenses are sharper with the larger pixels on current fullframe sensors. Formal tests for this can be found at dxomark. Antialias filters make it a bit harder to judge, but comparing the resolution you get from 50/1.4 on 7D with that of TS-E 24mm (considered very sharp wide angle) you still see that you get more resolution out of the 50. So the lens is clearly limiting here.



The final determinant is the resolution of the system, which is a non-linear combination of the parts. The lens may seem limiting, based on the example above, but even with your 'sharpest' 50/1.4, you can see that as you go from 40D to 50D to 7D, resolution of that lens increases, and likewise from 5D to 5DII (not linear increases, but increases nonetheless). 

Full frame cameras will always deliver more resolution than APS-C cameras when your metric is lp/mm (which is what DxOMark uses), because the sensor size is different. You can see this on DxOMark by comparing a lens on the 30D with the same lens on a 5DII (both sensors have 6.4 Âµm pixels). 

Also, keep in mind that there are many factors that determine the sharpness of an image - resolution is only one of them.

For some interesting reading on MTF curves, along with sharpness and other factors which influence it, check out this white paper from Zeiss.


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## UncleFester (Jun 21, 2011)

gferdinandsen said:


> The best photo's are not the ones with perfect corner sharpness, they are the ones with perfect composition and lighting. When everyone forgets about the art of photography and starts to obsess on the science of electronics, visual aesthetics is replaced by minimum chromatic aberrations.



I'll have to agree 100%. But am still glad for the nitpickers.


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## motorhead (Jun 21, 2011)

torger said:


> Lenses can probably be made quite a lot sharper than they are today, but when will such lenses appear?



They are already appearing. Canon are busily updating their "L" lens range right now. And will no doubt repeat the exercise as often as needed as camera bodies produce ever increasing mp. Increasing lens performance is not an impossible task, just expensive as we are seeing because Canon certainly did not give my 70-200L IS mk2 away nor do I expect the 100-560 L IS to be a bargain when it appears. Nikon are also updating, although possibly at a less urgent pace given their reliance on Sony's sensor R&D.

Until now there has been no need to have lenses better than they have been. Only now that the dawn of megapixel counts's measured in the hundreds will soon be upon us does lens design have to up the anti.


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## dr croubie (Jun 21, 2011)

Also, don't forget about Diffraction in the megapixel war.

To quote directly from The Digital Picture (he says the same thing for every camera review):


> DLA (Diffraction Limited Aperture) is the result of a mathematical formula that approximates the aperture where diffraction begins to visibly affect image sharpness at the pixel level. Diffraction at the DLA is only barely visible when viewed at full-size (100%, 1 pixel = 1 pixel) on a display or output to a very large print. As sensor pixel density increases, the narrowest aperture we can use to get perfectly pixel sharp images gets wider.
> DLA does not mean that narrower apertures should not be used - it is simply the point where image sharpness begins to be compromised for increased DOF and longer exposures. And, higher resolution sensors generally continue to deliver more detail well beyond the DLA than lower resolution sensors - until the "Diffraction Cutoff Frequency" is reached (a much narrower aperture). The progression from sharp the soft is not an abrupt one - and the change from immediately prior models to new models is usually not dramatic.



the 7D (& 60/600/550) has the highest pixel density of any canon so far, and the DLA is f/6.8. I know you can't really tell that from f/11 for most things, but i like to keep my f/ below about f/8 wherever possible, except for really deep DOF landscapes. look at almost any review of any lens with any sensor at www.photozone.de, every MTF chart they produce starts tailing off at f/5.6 - f/11 too, depending on which camera for the exact spot.

edit: example: the TSE-24 ii is arguably one of the sharpest around these days. check out the www.photozone.de MTF Chart. Diffraction is already hitting it between f/5.6 and f/8 in the centre, and between f/8 and f/11 on the edges, and that's tested on a 5d2, with a DLA of f/10.3.


I don't know the exact formula for DLA, nor how badly diffraction affects the picture quality per f/stop past the DLA, but this is another limit we're going to reach sooner or later.
What happens when we reach a DLA of f/2.8? we simply can't pack more pixels in, there'd be no point for anything except wide-open for fast lenses, slow lenses would be pointless. Given that all but the best lenses are sharpest around f/4-5.6 these days, we'll need ever-widening apertures and sharpness wide-open to get anything better than we have now.

just take again the 7D, upscale the sensor with the same density to FF, we get (5184/22.3)*36.0 = 8268 and
(3456/14.9)*24 = 5566, giving a total of 46 megapixels for the same DLA on a Full Frame.
So we've got a bit of a way to go until then, but don't expect wonders once the 40+mp aps-c cameras start rolling in unless you've got fast lenses sharp from wide-open...


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## WarStreet (Jun 21, 2011)

macgregor mathers said:


> I couldn't care less whether FF cameras can have more MP and at the same time superior noise control and DR. It's just that I don't want more MP.



It's the same problem I am facing. BMW are continually improving their performance while decreasing fuel consumption. I hate this efficiency war ! ???


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## dr croubie (Jun 21, 2011)

gferdinandsen said:


> The best photos are not the ones with perfect corner sharpness, they are the ones with perfect composition and lighting. When everyone forgets about the art of photography and starts to obsess on the science of electronics, visual aesthetics is replaced by minimum chromatic aberrations.



+1 on that.
www.lensbaby.com and skinkpinhole.com are some of my favourite 'artistic' lenses, and you can't get any softer than a pinhole (ok, besides a Zone Sieve, kind of a 'soft-focus' pinhole)


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 21, 2011)

dr croubie said:


> So we've got a bit of a way to go until then, but don't expect wonders once the 40+mp aps-c cameras start rolling in unless you've got fast lenses sharp from wide-open...



Even fast lenses that are 'sharp from wide open' still get sharper when stopped down slightly. A 38 MP APS-C (1.6x) sensor will have an estimated DLA of f/5.6. Since that's the point where most current lenses are at their sharpest, cramming more MP into a sensor that size will reduce or eliminate the aperture 'sweet spot'. Canon's 120 MP APS-H sensor has a DLA of f/4. Ouch.



macgregor mathers said:


> It's just that I don't want more MP.



Why not?


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

dr croubie said:


> Also, don't forget about Diffraction in the megapixel war.
> 
> To quote directly from The Digital Picture (he says the same thing for every camera review):
> 
> ...



Dont forget diffraction isn't so much an issue with the camera per se but the cameras resolution showing the flaws within each lens, hence why each lens has their own breaking point. Some of the older lenses 17-40, 16-35, 50mm 1.4 etc were created in the film days and were class leaders at that time. As digital cameras grew and grew and started outresolving film and showing flaws in the lenses, canon has been upgrading lenses based (probably) on sales volume and demand hence the 16-35 mii, 70-200 f4 IS, 70-200 F2.8 IS II, etc... While I slightly agree with neuro regarding the higher MP cameras the higher the lens total resolution, however i feel it isn't a direct linear curve reflecting the higher MP... The higher the resolution of the camera will degrade lenses.. some lenses will degrade quicker than other, however, it should be noted. For instance a 28-80 will have a quicker degrade and quicker diffraction point than lets say a 24-105 or 24-70...


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## Bob Howland (Jun 21, 2011)

macgregor mathers said:


> motorhead said:
> 
> 
> > I see no reason why I cannot have it all. Ever higher pixel counts as well as superior noise control and DR.
> ...



That is just plain weird. As I've written before, it isn't that I don't want more pixels. It's that resolution above 12-16MP is so far down my priority list that it is largely irrelevant. I want improvements in high ISO image quality and dynamic range that are so dramatic that I think it unlikely they can be achieved with 16MP FF, much less 32MP. If Canon can prove me wrong, I'll be more than happy to pull out my credit card.


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## V8Beast (Jun 21, 2011)

The consumer market - people who buy the Rebel, 60D, 7D, etc. - are too fixated on megapixels for Canon to withdraw from the megapixel war. In the consumer market, megapixels are more about marketing than they are about image quality. On the other hand, in the pro market (1D and 1Ds) Canon seems to take a more practical approach by packing their bodies with the feature sets most useful to working professionals without packing the sensors with a boatload of megapixels just for the sake of marketing. 

If you need to make a living with your camera, things like a fast AF, FPS, dynamic range, high ISO performance, weather sealing, dual card slots, and rugged build quality are more important than having a few extra megapixels to brag to your online buddies about. Otherwise, if megapixels were the only thing that mattered, why would anyone pay four times as much for a 21 megapixel 1Ds instead of just buying an 18 megapixel 7D for 1/4 the price? Of course, if you're a professional fashion, landscape or wedding photographer, you need all the megapixels you can get, but no working pro in their right mind would shoot with a 1.6:1 sensor body over a full-frame body just because small-sensor camera has almost as many megapixels for a lot less money. 

The bottom line is Canon gives pros what they need to get the job done, and Canon gives consumers what they think they need, but will rarely actually use in super high megapixel totals.


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> The consumer market - people who buy the Rebel, 60D, 7D, etc. - are too fixated on megapixels for Canon to withdraw from the megapixel war. In the consumer market, megapixels are more about marketing than they are about image quality. On the other hand, in the pro market (1D and 1Ds) Canon seems to take a more practical approach by packing their bodies with the feature sets most useful to working professionals without packing the sensors with a boatload of megapixels just for the sake of marketing.
> 
> If you need to make a living with your camera, things like a fast AF, FPS, dynamic range, high ISO performance, weather sealing, dual card slots, and rugged build quality are more important than having a few extra megapixels to brag to your online buddies about. Otherwise, if megapixels were the only thing that mattered, why would anyone pay four times as much for a 21 megapixel 1Ds instead of just buying an 18 megapixel 7D for 1/4 the price? Of course, if you're a professional fashion, landscape or wedding photographer, you need all the megapixels you can get, but no working pro in their right mind would shoot with a 1.6:1 sensor body over a full-frame body just because small-sensor camera has almost as many megapixels for a lot less money.
> 
> The bottom line is Canon gives pros what they need to get the job done, and Canon gives consumers what they think they need, but will rarely actually use in super high megapixel totals.



Yes and No... I think you're glorifying "professional photographers" budgets a bit much... I know several wedding photographers making a living on a 7D/5D MII... I'm a "professional" and shoot primarily 7D. I shoot architecture/landscape/commercial and my photography shown on TV, the Olympics in Vancouver, on printed catalogs and flyers for companies sent internationally, however if I didn't think my gear couldn't do what I need it to do, I wouldn't be shooting with it. Being "pro" isn't about gear as much as it is knowing what to do with your gear that you had. Even since college I knew I didn't have a lot of money to play with so I bought what gear I could afford at that time (10D and a couple of lenses) and have incrementally upgraded as business picked up and my budget increased. I could save up and budget for 1d this, 1ds that, however at the end of the day, 5D mark III is more within my crosshairs if and when it comes... Until then I will keep doing my "pro" work with my 7d.


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## photosites (Jun 21, 2011)

Once upon a time, Bill Gates allegedly said 640kByte RAM is enough for everyone. Not too long ago, the Olympus president said 12 Mpx is more than enough for everyone... see the similarity?

Once upon a time, people complained that there was no need for more powerful processors, Moore's Law will not persist in the next 5 years.. well, back to the future, Moore's Law held and processors kept packing more transistors with no signs of slowing down... And guess what? We kept finding new uses for all that processing power. 

This is technology... with it, we are meant to overcome the shortcomings while improving the capabilities of our equipments. Without it, we are no different from our banana eating, tree swinging cousins.

Haven't anyone noticed the wonderful innovations that have gone into our sensor technologies. The Nokia N8 with its glorious 12mpx sensor will blow the old 2mpx sensors in my old Sony Ericsson phone out of the water in terms of noise performance and Drange. The BSI sensors will easily out do old 4mpx camera sensors in terms of DRange and noise performance. And the great 7D sensor with its gapless microlens and reduced photosite distance is a great break through in sensor design worth admiring.

So diffraction is a problem now? Is it an indication that lens design might be falling behind sensor design? Well, lens engineer go solve it... Is this a limitation with laws of Physics? Did they not say that microprocessor will face an inevitable limit with laws of Physics at xx nm and there is no way to go beyond? ... well, we are well into 20nm territory now and going strong....

So I say, go for 100 mpx... solve the issues, improve Noise Issues, improve DRange issues, innovate and make a better camera each year.

The issue of prioritizing Drange vs Mpx is a slightly more tricky one... However, if we look at the Fujifilm Super CCD technology which groups pixels into two groups, each taking the same scene at different brightness and then combining them to form a HDR image, it would seem like having more pixels might help your Drange after all. Back to my imaginary 100 mpx sensor. I may be able to group them into four groups which capture a scene at 4 different exposure. I can then use these 4 sets of images to cancel out random noise and create a HDR photo. This would give me a glorious 25mpx HDR image which has very low noise... 

So why is more megapixel bad?


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

V8beast, case in point about your gear comments, I knew 2 photographers... one works on Hollywood movie posters and the other taking photos at airports... The airport photographer had to take some pictures of airplanes taking off on runways... He sat on the runway and took pictures of airliners as they charged at him. He didn't shoot 1ds's or medium formats or such, he had this little point and shoot camera so when he got the picture he needed he can run off the runway. The other Hollywood guy took the original photo for the "i am legend" movie poster with Will Smith with a point and shoot as well. Not all pro's shoot with $4000-8000 gear...


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

photosites said:


> Once upon a time, Bill Gates allegedly said 640kByte RAM is enough for everyone. Not too long ago, the Olympus president said 12 Mpx is more than enough for everyone... see the similarity?
> 
> Once upon a time, people complained that there was no need for more powerful processors, Moore's Law will not persist in the next 5 years.. well, back to the future, Moore's Law held and processors kept packing more transistors with no signs of slowing down... And guess what? We kept finding new uses for all that processing power.
> 
> ...



+1


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## dr croubie (Jun 21, 2011)

aside: this thread, and actually the whole issue in general, is reminding me waay too much of the MegaHertz race (later the GigaHertz race).
Short recap:
intel and AMD made computer chips, racing each other to have higher cpu MHz. Intel won the race, their pentium 4s got up to over 4GHz. But the AMDs were much more efficient, they got more number-crunching done for the same MHz, consumed less power, they brought in dual-core years before intel.
flash forward a few years, it turns out AMD's tech won the war, now it's reversed and almost a race to see how many cores you can put on a chip even at lower MHz, and lots of marketing goes on power consumption too...

But in the end, did it translate to market share? The whole time intel kept pushing the MHz numbers, consumers just kept buying it. A few nerds knew what they were buying and amd's sales went up a little bit, but not everyone reads the reviews, the average consumer just went for the higher numbers (and alleged business practices by intel currently in court, which we won't start on).
By the time the average consumer realised that more MHz didn't mean better computing, intel was ready with their Core-series and they kept on selling...



So will there be a parallel to cameras? is canon like intel and going to keep pushing the MP up, while, say, nikon keep the MP low and push the other side, like ISO and Dynamic Range? Will canon keep their market share because of their marketing and higher numbers, while eventually the consumers drift more to a company that offers lower MP and higher dynamic range? By the time it starts affecting sales figures, will canon have a better dynamic-range/iso option?

and most importantly, will canon make a sensor with so many megapixels that it catches fire?


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## torger (Jun 21, 2011)

ok there's a lot of replies and stuff here. I'm quite sure I know what I'm talking about so I'll try to rephrase some stuff.

Dxomark scales their lpmm values, so for APS-C they are not "true" lpmm, they're scaled to be directly comparable to fullframe. So yes, some EF-S lenses are sharper than fullframe lenses. Actually compact camera lenses are sharper than costly fullframe lenses, smaller lenses seems to be easier to make sharper. Problem is, with the smaller lenses the sensors are even smaller so the effective resolution becomes lower anyway. Still, a compact camera lens may resolve ~2um on the sensor while a sharp full-frame lens does ~5um.

About the need for megapixels. In handheld photography you most likely don't need more than ~12 megapixels, higher resolution will be lost due to camera shake or noise factors due to low light. High resolution is for tripod-mounted photography only, generally still life. The kind of stuff you use medium format cameras for if you can afford it. The talk about technical quality is not important the image content is what counts is of course relevant but there are many different types of photography. Some still life photography is dependent on high technical quality, and corner-to-corner sharpness can be important. But in for example portrait photography corner sharpness is almost irrelevant, but instead out of focus blur really important. But just because you have an interest in a type of photography that don't gain from extra resolution that does not mean that there are not others.

About diffraction. Yes it is a problem, that's why you in a high res system want tilt lenses so you can control depth of field so you can solve depth of field problems with larger apertures. That's why "old school" technical view cameras is still used by many professionals. There is one way to overcome diffraction though, which is through deconvolution in post-processing, already used in microscopy and to some extent in photography (mostly to combat lens softness today which generally is larger problem than diffraction currently, but diffraction is actually an easier problem to solve technically). We will probably see a lot more deconvolution in the future, perhaps directly in the camera. In a distant future you could use deconvolution to combat camera shake and thus increase hand-holding resolution past those practical 12 megapixels too.

Anyway, I currently see lens sharpness as a larger limiting factor than diffraction in terms of resolution.

About lens sharpness on full-frame. Yes for every increase in megapixels you'll get an increase in resolution. But current lens sharpness such as for the new TS-E 24mm II does seem to be good for say 25 - 30 megapixels. You would not get much extra real resolution in your prints going from 30 to 60 megapixels with that lens. Take a photo with a 7D and you'll see how the center portion of a 45 megapixel fullframe lens will perform.

As an interesting side fact, one could mention one of the most well-known considered super-sharp medium format digital wide angle lenses, the Rodenstock digital 23mm (costs about 5000 USD), it is said to be good for 5 um on the sensor, which means 34 megapixels for 35mm fullframe and about 90 megapixels for the largest medium format sensors.


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## distant.star (Jun 21, 2011)

If there's any sort of "war" going on, it's a quiet one.

I can't remember the last shot heard from Canon.

An indicator of how all is quiet on the Canon front is the latest newsletter I (probably all of us) just got from B & H. In the photo section, the Canon name does not even appear. Panasonic is there. Nikon, Sony, Kodak, Olympus all get some mention. That suggests how quiet it is.

Again, if there's a war going on, I'm hoping Canon is busy reloading.


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## photosites (Jun 21, 2011)

Dr Croubie, you brought up a very interesting point. In the past Mhz = Performance, until the multi-core strategy came in and changed everything.

Maybe the future, higher resolution may not be dependent on Mpx alone. Hasselblad just introduced a sensor shift technology that takes a 200mpx picture from a 50mpx sensor.

I would think the future of high resolution sensor technology may employ techniques such as sensor shift, multi layer sensor (ala Foveon) or multiple sensor (ala video cam)... or maybe not.

Note that while the Mhz war has sort of taken a different course for Intel/AMD, the number of transistors packed into a microprocessor has been doubled every two years as predicted by Moore's law without change... 

Since we are in this topic, here are some articles discussing the application of Moore's law to camera sensors

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/moore-rebuttle.shtml


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

torger said:


> ok there's a lot of replies and stuff here. I'm quite sure I know what I'm talking about so I'll try to rephrase some stuff.
> 
> Dxomark scales their lpmm values, so for APS-C they are not "true" lpmm, they're scaled to be directly comparable to fullframe. So yes, some EF-S lenses are sharper than fullframe lenses. Actually compact camera lenses are sharper than costly fullframe lenses, smaller lenses seems to be easier to make sharper. Problem is, with the smaller lenses the sensors are even smaller so the effective resolution becomes lower anyway. Still, a compact camera lens may resolve ~2um on the sensor while a sharp full-frame lens does ~5um.
> 
> ...



Torger... regarding your post, it seems like you are trying to point out all the limitations and saying if you want to do this, this, and that, you cannot use x, y and z. Handholding is bad on a 7d because of camera shake? Ever hear of faster shutters and as a backup? Tilt Shift to make up for DOF? Are you kidding me? Yes you can (if you have your angles right) get a horizontal focus however subjects on the floor and ceiling will be OOF at shallow F Stops... The fact is yes we are venturing into a new horizon, and yes, canon, nikon, sony, et al are all creating new lenses/cameras/gadgets to prepare for the new wave of cameras... Yes, diffraction is a reality, but it's just something to overcome... anyone remember reciprocity in the film days? a 1 second exposure quickly turned into a 30 second exposure just depending on the type film you were using! Diffraction has always been there but print sizes and resolution were so small with 35mm's that no one saw it. Odds are with the 7D, at 8x10, you probably wouldn't see it with decent glass. Stop worrying about what your camera CANT do and starting finding ways to overcome and be a better photographer.


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## dr croubie (Jun 21, 2011)

photosites said:


> So diffraction is a problem now? Is it an indication that lens design might be falling behind sensor design? Well, lens engineer go solve it... Is this a limitation with laws of Physics? Did they not say that microprocessor will face an inevitable limit with laws of Physics at xx nm and there is no way to go beyond? ... well, we are well into 20nm territory now and going strong....



Well Diffraction is a slight problem now, and will only become more so with more (especially denser) megapixels, that's a law of physics. Moore's "law" was never a law, it was an observation made in the '70s and just happens to have held reasonably well since. Limitations at whatever-nm process were just based on the current knowledge, and the engineers managed to overcome the problems with new discoveries.
Diffraction is different, there's no way to change the relationship between DLA and pixel size, no matter what lens/sensor designers do.

But whether it's enough of a problem is the other thing.


neuroanatomist said:


> Canon's 120 MP APS-H sensor has a DLA of f/4. Ouch.


So there's still a good margin of MP to go before we really hit the limits, good to know. And as said, it's just going to reduce where the sweet-spot lies.
Put X lens on a 7D, you get so many lppmm at wide open, you get more at f/5.6. Put the same lens on 1Dsmk6 and you get more lppmm at wide open, but you get *less* than that at f/5.6. Changing the shape of the MTF charts is not such a bad thing, as long as you know how to use it.
In the end, the line "the lens sharpens up as you stop down" will disappear, at a few hundred MP every lens will be sharpest wide-open and will reduce with aperture size.

What it will be the worst problem for is bad lenses. Take the Sigma 20mm f/1.8. its resolution starts low, and does get better with higher f-number, peaking at f/8 (or higher, f/8 is the end of the graph). Put that lens on a sensor with a DLA of something closer to f/4 or so and the MTF will peak at f/4 or even lower, the lens will be worse at f/8 than at f/4 for the same higher mp sensor.
So in a way it means lens designers will have to become better, they won't get the benefit of a 'sweet-spot' as mentioned.


But some other ideas I like. Like the 'split sensor in 3' to do some in-camera combining for HDR, one other idea I had is an automatic 'focus on 3 different lengths for 3 shots and combine'. OK, so people do it manually now, and it only works for static/landscapes, auto-incamera would be nice though...


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## V8Beast (Jun 21, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> V8beast, case in point about your gear comments, I knew 2 photographers... one works on Hollywood movie posters and the other taking photos at airports... The airport photographer had to take some pictures of airplanes taking off on runways... He sat on the runway and took pictures of airliners as they charged at him. He didn't shoot 1ds's or medium formats or such, he had this little point and shoot camera so when he got the picture he needed he can run off the runway. The other Hollywood guy took the original photo for the "i am legend" movie poster with Will Smith with a point and shoot as well. Not all pro's shoot with $4000-8000 gear...



I think you're missing the point. Given enough time and patience, and commitment to spending long hours in post processing, I can get the same shot with a 60D as I can with a 1DMKIV. Is it satisfying to get similar results with lesser equipment and chalk it up to superior technique? Absolutely. Unfortunately, time is a commodity that's rarely on your side for a busy pro photographer. As the adage goes, time is money, and if your photography tools enable you to get a job done more quickly and efficiently, you'll be able turn around a greater quantity of work in a shorter duration of time, and pay off the extra premium you paid for nicer equipment. I can see how it might be unimaginable for a hobbyist to spend three times as much for a 1Ds than for a 5DMKII, when the 5D can match the 1Ds in image quality, but working pros are almost always under time constraints. As such, a camera that just works and "doesn't get in your way" is just as important as image quality, and the 1Ds higher FPS and far superior AF just flat out crushes the 5D. 

Let's say I'm covering a race and there's a wreck or a pivotal pass that needs to be captured to adequately cover the event. If luck is on your side, you can get away with a slow, portrait/studio oriented camera like a 5D. If you're really lucky, maybe even a point and shoot will work. However, the truth of the matter is that wrecks or passes like that happen in a few brief seconds, and you can't risk missing the shot of something that's only going to happen once. Plus, you're standing next to a half dozen photographers from magazines that compete directly with the magazine you're working for. If you're the only loser that doesn't get the shot, and all the competing magazines have it, you can bet your sweet hiney that your editor will be pissed. He could very well hire another photographer the next time around, so there's just too much at risk by limping around with lesser equipment. 

I've been cheap before, whether it's with glass or bodies, but every time I make the plunge and invest in nicer gear, I always ask myself why I didn't do it sooner. That's not to say that novices should go out and spend $20K in gear, only to wonder why their images suck, but their comes a point where you've maximized the potential of your equipment and no amount of practice or improvement in technique will make up for it. Granted it take a LONG time to get to that point, but with enough practice, everyone will get there.


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 21, 2011)

photosites said:


> Maybe the future, higher resolution may not be dependent on Mpx alone. Hasselblad just introduced a sensor shift technology that takes a 200mpx picture from a 50mpx sensor.



That's pretty cool. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the idea is that individual pixels have sweet spots, so by slightly translating the sensor, you can capture additional 'real' resolution. Of course, for Canon to implement that, they'd have to get rid of the gapless microlenses (which remove the sweet spot by concentrating light from the entire pixel area into the photosensitive rea in the center of the pixel). Looks like Hasselblad also implements the full-pixel moves to eliminate the interpolation made necessary by the Bayer mask - that has the additional benefit of reducing chromatic aberration.

Incidentally, Zeiss implemented these technologies nearly 10 years ago, in their AxioCam line of microscope cameras. The original versions used Sony 2/3" 1.4 MP CCD sensors, and used 'microscanning' in a 3x3 subpixel array to yield a 12 MP resolution (with an available 2x2 array for a 5 MP image), and also full pixel shifts called 'co-site sampling' so each pixel captured all three colors in the Bayer mask.


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> awinphoto said:
> 
> 
> > V8beast, case in point about your gear comments, I knew 2 photographers... one works on Hollywood movie posters and the other taking photos at airports... The airport photographer had to take some pictures of airplanes taking off on runways... He sat on the runway and took pictures of airliners as they charged at him. He didn't shoot 1ds's or medium formats or such, he had this little point and shoot camera so when he got the picture he needed he can run off the runway. The other Hollywood guy took the original photo for the "i am legend" movie poster with Will Smith with a point and shoot as well. Not all pro's shoot with $4000-8000 gear...
> ...



I understand where you are coming from, however, in my experience as a working professional (making 100% of my income due to my photography), there are 4 groups of people who own and use these 1d series cameras in which you call "pro"... 1st... agencies who deal with high price clients and photographers working with said agencies (including newspapers, magazines, etc). These are the creme of the crop photographers... 2nd... people who work freelance for newspapers/magazines/etc who negotiate prices for photographs which easily pays for said camera. These are the photogs not good enough to be hired full time. 3rd... Hobbyists who need to have the latest and greatest, and lastly, those who are incredibly stupid with their money and cant compensate otherwise. There are a lot of "working professionals" that dont fit within those categories that make due with what they have. 

I've always been taught to do everything possible to get it "right" in camera so post processing is at a minimal. I am comfortable with post where I dont have to spend long on each photo if I royally screw up, but thankfully those are few and far between. I wont lie and say I want the 7D AF in the new 5D MIII... however I feel the 7D AF is more than capable for 99% of all situations. If I run into that 1% situation, I also, as a pro, have canon CPS to borrow cameras/lenses for when needed. Lastly, I've shot several low light football games, air races, air shows, etc when I had my 30D, 50D's and it was rare I got missed focus. If anything it was too slow shutter than anything else. I feel its commentators such as you that make people feel that it's all about the gear and not about skill. If you got the skill, you should get good photos off of any camera as you would with the $8000 cameras... It's just the $8000 cameras make it that much easier which has taken away some of the skill factor from many good photographers.


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## V8Beast (Jun 21, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> I understand where you are coming from, however, in my experience as a working professional (making 100% of my income due to my photography), there are 4 groups of people who own and use these 1d series cameras in which you call "pro"... 1st... agencies who deal with high price clients and photographers working with said agencies (including newspapers, magazines, etc). These are the creme of the crop photographers... 2nd... people who work freelance for newspapers/magazines/etc who negotiate prices for photographs which easily pays for said camera. These are the photogs not good enough to be hired full time. 3rd... Hobbyists who need to have the latest and greatest, and lastly, those who are incredibly stupid with their money and cant compensate otherwise. There are a lot of "working professionals" that dont fit within those categories that make due with what they have.



No argument here, except I don't know any wannabe photogs - the people who you say "aren't good enough to be hired full time" - that shoot with the 1D or 1Ds. They're just too much damn money for something that doesn't pay the bills full time. I'd also venture to say that the cream of the crop photographers, as you describe them, are full-time freelancers, not people tied down to agencies or full-time staff photographer gigs for editorial outlets. That's besides the point, so no need to dwell on that. 



> Lastly, I've shot several low light football games, air races, air shows, etc when I had my 30D, 50D's and it was rare I got missed focus. If anything it was too slow shutter than anything else.



I commend your skill, but I rarely see pro sports photographers shoot with anything other than a 1D or a D3x. The 7D is a great body if all you need is speed, but for instances where you need both speed and IQ in the same shot, the 7D is sorely lacking. As the owner of a 5D, you should be able to attest t this. I can see how you might be able to get away with a 50D if you only shoot sports part time, but Canon wouldn't have invented a 45-point AF system and bodies that shoot 10 FPS if the demand wasn't there. By your logic, all sports photographers who shoot with a 1DMKIV are inept and they'd all be shooting with 50Ds if they had any skill at all. 



> I feel its commentators such as you that make people feel that it's all about the gear and not about skill. If you got the skill, you should get good photos off of any camera as you would with the $8000 cameras... It's just the $8000 cameras make it that much easier which has taken away some of the skill factor from many good photographers.



Quite the contrary. Gear wise, I'm a minimalist by nature and only upgrade to better equipment when my old gear starts costing me money, or it becomes such a PITA to use in the field that it has to go. I'd venture to say that 90% of people that have Rebels and 50/60Ds would be better off with a point-and-shoots. I can't even count how many times I've steered people away from SLRs, and recommended point-and-shoots instead. 

The reason this topic even came up in the first place is because the original question at hand had to do with megapixels. I simply stated my opinion that Canon will continue to pack as many megapixels into its consumer grade cameras not because the average consumer actually need them, but because megapixels is what sells consumer-grade cameras. In comparison, Canon's pro bodies seem to have more practical features and specs geared toward the needs of working professionals who aren't as fixated on megapixels as the typical tech geek. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but considering that a 7D has more megapixels than the 1D, Canon seems to understand this as well.


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

"Pro" sports photographers you see at races, games, etc I would bet you my paycheck came from a bigger company such as but not limited to magazines (espn, sports illustrated), newspapers, other media outlets that either has photographers on staff they send out to games/events whom they provide the gear for.. They usually also have press passes and access the typical photographer wouldn't have. Pro photographers in those instances are the ones on the sidelines and wannabe's are in the stands with the camera security screened before letting them in the event. 

7D, in most events minus lets say indoor arena's or whatever with low low light, is more than adequate and has very nice IQ for most of my needs and my clients needs. I do not claim to be a professional sports photographer, however when I get the request, I have had no problems using my 7D to shoot a 2 page spread magazine shot. 7D is not as poor IQ as you let on.

Personally I couldn't give a rip what you or any other person says about photography, but I just want to get out the truth, not the opinion of photography. Crop sensors can hold their own if that's all you need and you dont need to sell your xxd or xxxd cameras for point and shoots if your willing to put in the time and energy to learn this craft. Dont worry about hurting my feelings, however if you cannot get a shot with a xxd camera with the quality that you could get with a 1ds... then that kinda reflects on your ability to fully utilize your gear and skill. That's all I'm getting at.


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## gferdinandsen (Jun 21, 2011)

Really, how many people are printing at sizes that require higher MP? I understand that Canon has to compete with what others sell just to stay competitive, but that's because the consumer is buying their camera based on just MP. How many of you ever shot with a 1V, 3, 7/7E, or even a Rebel? Except for speed, AF, and weather sealing (OK the 1V offered a very primitive EXIF data), there was very little difference. What I am trying to say is that the resultant picture was usually just as good regardless of the body (not the lens though). I still have my 28-70, I have no plans on upgrading to the 24-70 much less anything that comes down the road.

Only when we do very large enlargements (bigger than 8x12, probably larger than 13x19) would we see a difference...and very few photo's get enlarged to that size. Frankly, I don't have the money to afford the framing for all the enlargements that I would like.

I'm sure the lenses Ansel Adams used would be considered vastly inferior by today's standard...but I'll take his photo's over mine anyday. Technique is worth far more than glass and sensors anyday.

And as a side note, on sharpness and landscapes. Lens sharpness is a moot point for any longer exposusers on a tripod, all it takes is a breeze, much less a gust, and sharpness goes out the window.


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## awinphoto (Jun 21, 2011)

gferdinandsen said:


> Really, how many people are printing at sizes that require higher MP? I understand that Canon has to compete with what others sell just to stay competitive, but that's because the consumer is buying their camera based on just MP. How many of you ever shot with a 1V, 3, 7/7E, or even a Rebel? Except for speed, AF, and weather sealing (OK the 1V offered a very primitive EXIF data), there was very little difference. What I am trying to say is that the resultant picture was usually just as good regardless of the body (not the lens though). I still have my 28-70, I have no plans on upgrading to the 24-70 much less anything that comes down the road.
> 
> Only when we do very large enlargements (bigger than 8x12, probably larger than 13x19) would we see a difference...and very few photo's get enlarged to that size. Frankly, I don't have the money to afford the framing for all the enlargements that I would like.
> 
> ...



I agree with your sentiments regarding skill... with my clients, most portraits, the sizes range from 8x10's to 11x14... Keep in mind, even with the 7D at 300dpi it's native size only pumps out a 17.5"x11.5". While that's more than most people, and I know you can print at 240dpi and get slightly larger, it isn't as big as you would really think. I also have clients that like 2 page spreads and their magazines are roughly letter paper sized and so you are looking at about 11x17 right there, plus needing enough for a bleed. Lastly, on epsons you can get away with printing at lower DPI, however with commercial printers, they still require 300 DPI or they look crappy with the crappy CMYK color mode... As said before, I'd rather have the extra MP in my backpocket to shoot with as needed than need it and not have it. PS.... this last spring a company going to a tradeshow wanted a mural shot for their tradeshow booth... It was at 10 feet wide by 8 feet tall... I only needed to shoot it at 72dpi because of the printer they were using for the booth... with the 7d vertically, I was able to shoot the mural in 7 photos overlapping a little each time and used photoshop to quickly stitch them together... I was able to produce an image at their resolution and size that required no interpolation and fractal enlargement you would need if shot with a lesser camera.


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## torger (Jun 21, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> Torger... regarding your post, it seems like you are trying to point out all the limitations and saying if you want to do this, this, and that, you cannot use x, y and z. Handholding is bad on a 7d because of camera shake? Ever hear of faster shutters and as a backup? Tilt Shift to make up for DOF? Are you kidding me? Yes you can (if you have your angles right) get a horizontal focus however subjects on the floor and ceiling will be OOF at shallow F Stops... The fact is yes we are venturing into a new horizon, and yes, canon, nikon, sony, et al are all creating new lenses/cameras/gadgets to prepare for the new wave of cameras... Yes, diffraction is a reality, but it's just something to overcome... anyone remember reciprocity in the film days? a 1 second exposure quickly turned into a 30 second exposure just depending on the type film you were using! Diffraction has always been there but print sizes and resolution were so small with 35mm's that no one saw it. Odds are with the 7D, at 8x10, you probably wouldn't see it with decent glass. Stop worrying about what your camera CANT do and starting finding ways to overcome and be a better photographer.



Yes fast shutter speeds is a good backup, but then you usually have too little light to go for ISO100, and then electronic and shot noise takes down the effective resolution, so you pretty much end up at around that 12 megapixel effective resolution anyway. Thing is you need really short shutter speeds to avoid camera moves that makes 12+ megapixels tack sharp, shorter than "traditional" hand-hold times since those are based on what resolution you would expect from 35mm film.

The purpose of the whole discussion with hand-holdability does not need more than ~12 megapixels was to make clear that if you only do hand-held photography you shouldn't scream for more megapixels today. The megapixel hunt is for us that shoot from a tripod with mirror up and remote shutter and dream about affording a medium format system so we could do even larger prints. It is probably quite a small group, but we exist.

Tilt is to make up for DOF, shift is perspective control. Anyone that has worked with a view camera in landscape photography know that tilt is used *alot*, perhaps in the majority of photos. You often don't get 100% perfect sharpness in the whole image of course, but you can in many cases make a much better sharpness optimization than you can without tilt, and new compositions of near-far-type is possible. When you may have needed f/22 without tilt you could get away with f/8, and thus both get less diffraction and shorter shutter speed with less wind problems. The more resolution your system can produce, the more you want to avoid the smallest apertures, and the more valuable the tilt function becomes. Some compositions made possible by tilt have so much depth of field that even f/22 is not enough.

I'm not exactly worried about performance. However, I invest quite a lot of money in my hobby and thus make careful technical analysis of the performance of the system. If quality wasn't important to me, I'd just go for a Canon S95 compact camera and happily shoot my landscapes. Aside from quality, it can do all pictures I can do with my current system. But I kind of like the photographic craft and want to be able to produce the best technical quality within my budget, so that the 4 - 5 pictures I manage to do a year that do have sufficient artistic quality to be framed on the wall also have true professional technical quality and can be made very large. So I gather all this technical knowledge to be able to make wise investment decisions, and to know how to make the best possible out of a situation in the field. But it's not like I don't shoot pictures if I can't use ISO100 and optimal aperture... .


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## gferdinandsen (Jun 22, 2011)

Maybe this is another subject, but for those of you you never shot transparancies (E6), for those of you who picked up photography in the last few years. The Dynamic Range of slides, from what I remember, is about 3.5 f stops (E6 = 3.5, C41 = 8) . As I look back at all my slides, I wonder how much better they would be as digital; but, you learn much better technique when you are constrained (ISO 100, 400 max; limited dynamic range; no photoshop). Film (C41) has much better dynamic range, but much less color saturation...just my two cents as someone who learned their *art* with a film camera. And no matter how good photoshop is, you can't dodge and burn like you can in a wet darkroom. I'm kind of missing my trusty 1V now as I respond to this thread


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## awinphoto (Jun 22, 2011)

torger said:


> awinphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Torger... regarding your post, it seems like you are trying to point out all the limitations and saying if you want to do this, this, and that, you cannot use x, y and z. Handholding is bad on a 7d because of camera shake? Ever hear of faster shutters and as a backup? Tilt Shift to make up for DOF? Are you kidding me? Yes you can (if you have your angles right) get a horizontal focus however subjects on the floor and ceiling will be OOF at shallow F Stops... The fact is yes we are venturing into a new horizon, and yes, canon, nikon, sony, et al are all creating new lenses/cameras/gadgets to prepare for the new wave of cameras... Yes, diffraction is a reality, but it's just something to overcome... anyone remember reciprocity in the film days? a 1 second exposure quickly turned into a 30 second exposure just depending on the type film you were using! Diffraction has always been there but print sizes and resolution were so small with 35mm's that no one saw it. Odds are with the 7D, at 8x10, you probably wouldn't see it with decent glass. Stop worrying about what your camera CANT do and starting finding ways to overcome and be a better photographer.
> ...



To be frank, you can easily get away with up to ISO 1000 in most situations on the 7D... I've shot with higher and noise isn't bad... I will say that the 50D has more noise than the 7D and has less MP... I shoot a lot of handholding with my cameras... sometimes you need to shoot 2-4x the MM of the lens you are using, but it's not hard getting tack sharp images with my gear unless you are shooting indoors... then yes, a tripod is required, but as you can expect with most cameras... 

Heck the same can be said with large format cameras in regards to size and resolution, the 4x5 view camera had to be tripod bound cause of size and weight but they were able to come up with 4x5 feild cameras which were handheld and that has even higher resolution than modern digitals. Dont forget Image stabilization within lenses... Unless you have the shakes, you shouldn't have problems handholding with fast shutters and getting tack sharp images. What lenses are you using that cannot get sharp images? There's a difference between theory photography and practical photography... I understand your theory about MP and tack sharp images but in practice, in what situation have you ever had problems... please provide examples and details... 

i've shot with 4x5's, medium formats, 35mm... to be honest 3 years ago I sold my view camera cause of lack of use... There are other ways to get around DOF including for landscapes and such including but not limited to focus bracketing and hyperfocal distance focusing which can use lower f-stops. To be honest, the latter of the two has never let me down on my landscapes. Also as lens quality improves, so will diffraction and this a new era in lenses and cameras...


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## torger (Jun 22, 2011)

gferdinandsen said:


> I'm sure the lenses Ansel Adams used would be considered vastly inferior by today's standard...but I'll take his photo's over mine anyday. Technique is worth far more than glass and sensors anyday.
> 
> And as a side note, on sharpness and landscapes. Lens sharpness is a moot point for any longer exposusers on a tripod, all it takes is a breeze, much less a gust, and sharpness goes out the window.



Yes, many underestimate the value of a very sturdy (and unfortunately quite expensive) tripod. Yes, in many cases you cannot get full use of the peak resolution of modern digital systems (medium format can do 80 megapixels these days, 200 in multi-shot), but you can in sufficiently large amount of cases that people do invest in these systems.

Ansel Adams lenses were inferior, but since he used 4x5 or 8x10 film (7 times wider than 35mm) it did produce quite sharp results compared to what we can do today on 35mm. Modern professional landscape photographers often use medium format systems, the 60 megapixel P65+ is popular, so we have not reached the point where the professionals say "I cannot make use of more quality than available in the current 35mm systems". At least not all of them, some that used early digital medium format systems while 35mm digital really sucked have moved to 35mm now with the 5Dmk2 and Nikon D3x which produces as good images as a a 6 year old 20 megapixel medium format digital back.


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## torger (Jun 22, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> i've shot with 4x5's, medium formats, 35mm... to be honest 3 years ago I sold my view camera cause of lack of use... There are other ways to get around DOF including for landscapes and such including but not limited to focus bracketing and hyperfocal distance focusing which can use lower f-stops. To be honest, the latter of the two has never let me down on my landscapes. Also as lens quality improves, so will diffraction and this a new era in lenses and cameras...



Sure, in the end it is mostly a personal preference on how one wants to work. Like some people prefer to use primes when they shoot, and some prefer using zooms. I find that to me tilt is valuable and I appriciate working with it. I do see technical advantages today, but perhaps I'll change the way I work in the future. Focus stacking is an interesting technique that I have used some, as well as HDR. I like to have many options to solve the creative problem.


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## V8Beast (Jun 22, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> Dont worry about hurting my feelings, however if you cannot get a shot with a xxd camera with the quality that you could get with a 1ds... then that kinda reflects on your ability to fully utilize your gear and skill. That's all I'm getting at.



That's funny. I'm glad your xxD bodies and 7D are suitable for your needs. I, too, remember the days when I had yet to reach the limit of lesser, entry-level equipment. Keep practicing, and maybe you'll get there too someday 

By your account, anyone who shoots with a 1D or 1Ds isn't capable of capturing the same caliber of images with an xxD body. Using your logic, nicer equipment is for less skilled photographers, and the truly skilled studs like you stick with inferior equipment. Think whatever helps you sleep better at night, bud.


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## J. McCabe (Jun 22, 2011)

WarStreet said:


> macgregor mathers said:
> 
> 
> > I couldn't care less whether FF cameras can have more MP and at the same time superior noise control and DR. It's just that I don't want more MP.
> ...



And that's supposed to be an analogy how ?


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## J. McCabe (Jun 22, 2011)

neuroanatomist said:


> macgregor mathers said:
> 
> 
> > It's just that I don't want more MP.
> ...



Because (a) extra pixels have extra cost, and (b) some people don't need extra pixels. Nikon seems to understad that.


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 22, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> That's funny. I'm glad your xxD bodies and 7D are suitable for your needs. I, too, remember the days when I had yet to reach the limit of lesser, entry-level equipment. Keep practicing, and maybe you'll get there too someday
> 
> By your account, anyone who shoots with a 1D or 1Ds isn't capable of capturing the same caliber of images with an xxD body. Using your logic, nicer equipment is for less skilled photographers, and the truly skilled studs like you stick with inferior equipment. Think whatever helps you sleep better at night, bud.



That's funny. I remember the days when I was an immature jerk who thought that insulting others somehow made me a better person. Keep aging, maybe you'll grow out of it. 

In case you somehow missed the point earlier, the idea is not that pros should use inferior equipment, but that top-notch equipment is not a requirement to produce top-quality work. Feel free to put your portfolio where your fingers are, bud - we'd love to see what a _real_ photographer like you can produce (or maybe I have, if you're the same V8Beast with this photobucket album - who's pictures were taken with the top-notch Canon PowerShot G7).

Or, just keep up with the insults, if that makes you feel like a bigger man, so you can sleep at night.


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## EYEONE (Jun 22, 2011)

Sometimes guys, a photographers skills aren't the only thing that determines what equipment he uses. You are assuming that if someone can get amazing pictures from a Rebel then they will never need a 1D or 5D.

Sometimes people just like to have better stuff. Some people are minimalists and don't care. And some tend to be tech dorks and want better stuff (like me).

My first camera was a Rebel XSi and I did some pretty good things with it in my opinion. When I decided to upgrade to a 7D I knew that it wouldn't make me a better photographer. And in practice the only thing it allows me to do that the Rebel didn't was go beyond ISO 1600 if I need to. Everything else, the 19 AF points, the higher res screen, the shorter shutter lag, and the bigger viewfinder just make the experience nicer.

I'm the type that does want a 1D Mark IV. Even if I could do the job with a 7D. I just find cameras extremely interesting and would love to have them all if I was stupidly rich. I do get paid for my work but it's not my primary source of income.

So, does that make me a wanna be?


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## zerotiu (Jun 22, 2011)

EYEONE said:


> Sometimes guys, a photographers skills aren't the only thing that determines what equipment he uses. You are assuming that if someone can get amazing pictures from a Rebel then they will never need a 1D or 5D.
> 
> Sometimes people just like to have better stuff. Some people are minimalists and don't care. And some tend to be tech dorks and want better stuff (like me).
> 
> ...



Me too. I'm happy with my t2i. It is satisfying but the DoF is always not enough and the ISO is terrible for low light.


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## YoukY63 (Jun 22, 2011)

I still don't understand why people complain about "too many" pixels...

I also one of the guys that say "never enough". The printing argument is irrelevant: I never print any photo. Instead, I watch them on my computer. And as I am doing landscape (day or night), sometime I enjoy to look at a very small detail of my picture. The more details I can get the happier I am. ;D
And please, do not compare Nikon's strategy to Canon's one. Canon is deciding by itself what it will do. And since many years it is increasing strongly the number of pixels, in APS-C *and* FF models. When they released the 5DII, everybody was saying they are stupid, too many pixels, it will reduce image quality compared to 5DmI. Result: the 5DmII, 3 years later, is still one of the most amazing camera on the market. And still outperforms APS-C camera, for both image quality and pixel numbers.
In Nikon's land, the equation is different. They mostly depend on Sony's strategy. Ans I am amused to read people saying that Nikon is not running the MPxls race. Do you know what will be their next camera? The D400 will be 24MPxls! And their next FF will be around 40MPxls.

So then, I hardly imagine Canon releasing a flagship FF camera with <30MPxls camera, that would be economically irrelevant after 1 year.

And I have not doubt that their 30+ MPxls (can I ask around 40MPxls?) will outperform in noise control, dynamic range and iso ability (so image quality) the 5DmII, but also the next APS-C camera for the next 3 years. 

The race is not over, it is just starting!


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## macgregor mathers (Jun 22, 2011)

YoukY63 said:


> I still don't understand why people complain about "too many" pixels...



Because extra pixels have an extra cost. Yes, this cost drops with time, but that drop is cancelled by the extra pixels.




YoukY63 said:


> I also one of the guys that say "never enough".



And how this leads to the conclusion that no lower resolution cameras should be produced how ?



YoukY63 said:


> And please, do not compare Nikon's strategy to Canon's one. Canon is deciding by itself what it will do.



Indeed, Canon should decide whether it should lose customers to Nikon.



YoukY63 said:


> everybody was saying they are stupid, too many pixels, it will reduce image quality



Quality is not the only consideration.



YoukY63 said:


> Result: the 5DmII, 3 years later, is still one of the most amazing camera on the market. And still outperforms APS-C camera, for both image quality and pixel numbers.



Possibly because APS-C have 40% sensor area, and 85% the pixel count ?

Do you think that if canon made an 8.something APS-C camera (40% of 21 MP = ~8.5) during that period, it's image quality would still be worse than a 5DmkII's ?



YoukY63 said:


> In Nikon's land, the equation is different. They mostly depend on Sony's strategy. Ans I am amused to read people saying that Nikon is not running the MPxls race. Do you know what will be their next camera? The D400 will be 24MPxls! And their next FF will be around 40MPxls.



Let's talk a year or two after those cameras come out.


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## NotABunny (Jun 22, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> if you cannot get a shot with a xxd camera with the quality that you could get with a 1ds... then that kinda reflects on your ability to fully utilize your gear and skill. That's all I'm getting at.



This goes the other way as well. If you can't (usually) get (technically) better photos with a full frame rather than an equivalent crop, that shows your inability to fully utilize top gear. (I guess big DOF shooters are not so limited by the crop factor.)

Just because you could participate in an F1 race with a mass production car, doesn't mean that the people who build and drive an F1 car are wasting their money and time - you're highly unlikely to win any race against them (unless they don't know how drive it). Sure, in photography there is no single winner to cross the white line, but some people can still make the difference between a crop and a full frame, especially in limiting conditions like low light (as yourself said limits you).


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## YoukY63 (Jun 22, 2011)

macgregor mathers said:


> YoukY63 said:
> 
> 
> > I still don't understand why people complain about "too many" pixels...
> ...



Oh yes, right. That's why D700, with half of 5DmII pixel amount is also half the price... What, it is not!?! What the hell!?! : (it works also with D3s vs 1Ds)



macgregor mathers said:


> YoukY63 said:
> 
> 
> > And please, do not compare Nikon's strategy to Canon's one. Canon is deciding by itself what it will do.
> ...


Why should customers leave Canon? Actually, Canon just get more costumer during the past years than its competitors and increased its market share to become leader in 2010 (with it's 21MP FF bodies and 18MP APS-C bodies: http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/04/canon-destroys-nikon-in-dslr-marketshare/), while Canon and Nikon was at the same level in 2007 and 2008 (http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/DSLR-Welt-im-Wandel)



macgregor mathers said:


> YoukY63 said:
> 
> 
> > everybody was saying they are stupid, too many pixels, it will reduce image quality
> ...



Really? So what are we expecting from a new sensor if not a better quality? Why are you crying for less pixels if it is not for quality? At least it is not for quantity. ;D


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## awinphoto (Jun 22, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> awinphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Dont worry about hurting my feelings, however if you cannot get a shot with a xxd camera with the quality that you could get with a 1ds... then that kinda reflects on your ability to fully utilize your gear and skill. That's all I'm getting at.
> ...



Haha thanks for your comment neuro... All i'm getting at is you do not NEED as a prerequisite a 1Ds or equivalent to get awesome photos. You remind me of a photographer i went to school with who like you, was an elitist... He said in order to get the BEST photos, you need a hassy, hassy glass, top of the line this, top of the line that... between the two of us, I'm the one doing professional work and he has his hassy on his mantle collecting dust. 

Yes, I'm am anxiously awaiting for new and an improved 5d mark III however I do not in any way consider any xxd or 7d or 5d camera, a "lesser" camera nor do I consider myself a lesser photographer for using said cameras... At the end, they are just tools of the trade and you have to push cameras to the limit to get the shots you want. Other than AF, there isn't much difference than a built in grip and weathersealing. And if I'm not mistaken, many photogs worked for DECADES with no AF just fine, and that was at that day in age when film cost money, lots of money when you throw in developing and or prints... If you screwed up a roll, that came out of your pocketbook. You learned how to nail focus with what you got every time or as you said, time is money and it cost you money. With your reliance on AF and the 1d in order to get an image you couldn't get otherwise with any other camera, as I said before, kinda shows your level of raw skill in this regard. 

Lastly, while it used to be different 10 years ago, the rule of thumb WAS to spend twice amount on each lens than you spent on the camera body. At the end of the day, it was the glass that was important, not the camera. While prices of lenses has remained slightly constant and the prices of camera bodys have skyrocketed, even if you spent near 1:1 on glass, you should be in good condition... so if as you suggest is about the gear, what lenses are you pairing with your camera...


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 22, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> Lastly, while it used to be different 10 years ago, the rule of thumb WAS to spend twice amount on each lens than you spent on the camera body. At the end of the day, it was the glass that was important, not the camera. While prices of lenses has remained slightly constant and the prices of camera bodys have skyrocketed, even if you spent near 1:1 on glass, you should be in good condition...



Lens prices have gone up, too - not as much as bodies, but they've outpaced inflation by a fair margin.

I think the advice still holds - the lens is going to have a bigger impact on IQ than the body. Personally, I've got a lens:body value ratio of slightly more than 3.5:1.


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## awinphoto (Jun 22, 2011)

neuroanatomist said:


> awinphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Lastly, while it used to be different 10 years ago, the rule of thumb WAS to spend twice amount on each lens than you spent on the camera body. At the end of the day, it was the glass that was important, not the camera. While prices of lenses has remained slightly constant and the prices of camera bodys have skyrocketed, even if you spent near 1:1 on glass, you should be in good condition...
> ...



I want to say roughly my lens:body ratio is around 2:1 however it changes year to year as I upgrade bodies and lenses... It gets kinda mind numbing when you crunch the numbers. =)


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## awinphoto (Jun 22, 2011)

V8beast, I would like to thank nuero for pointing out your online portfolio should you wish to call it a portfolio or not. You have talent and skill at what you do, however I did not see any 1d series camera photos anywhere in your photos... from what I saw, you had photos taken with a 5d classic, 20D, and powershot. (most of your "work"/shop style photos seemed to be with the powershot with the most recent few with the 5d, did you recently acquire the 5d? Point is I'm glad you're making due with what cameras you have to work with (all 12MP or less). Have you had the opportunity to play with the new 5D or the 1d series? Yes, we all look with admiration to the top of the line photos, but seriously, unless you work with them on an ongoing bases and have a solid comparison between the two, we can make any argument you wish however we are talking hypothetical rather than practical use. We all wish you the best with your photography, however it is more constructive to bounce ideas off each other to make each other better photographers and utilize our gear better than pick fights over gear, especially when you're not as experienced with that gear yourself ...


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## WarStreet (Jun 22, 2011)

J. McCabe said:


> WarStreet said:
> 
> 
> > macgregor mathers said:
> ...



I will try to explain it the best way I can although English is not my native language.

"I couldn't care less whether FF cameras can have more MP and at the same time superior noise control and DR. It's just that I don't want more MP."

translates to  I don't care of technology improvements, I don't want *A* (MP count) to improve even although *B* (noise, DR, etc..) will improve too

"It's the same problem I am facing. BMW are continually improving their performance while decreasing fuel consumption. I hate this efficiency war"

translates to I don't care of technology improvements, I don't want *A* (car performance) to improve even although *B* (fuel consumption) will improve too

What also they have in common is that both statements gives nothing to the thread, and my intention is to make the point. The original poster (unfocused) asked an interesting and valid technical question which could have been very instructive if the thread didn't degraded. Some posters such as neuro, torger, dr croubie and others, tried to contribute and it's irrelevant if what they said is correct or not as long as a constructive open minded discussion was in place. But then we ended up with who is the best photographer garbage and just scares away anyone willing to contribute on the original question. 




J. McCabe said:


> Because (a) extra pixels have extra cost, and (b) some people don't need extra pixels. Nikon seems to understad that.



(a) Actually the opposite happens in technology. Processors, memory, displays, mobiles, printers they always get any aspect of their specs better, pushing prices down while technology gets more efficient and market demand increases.

(b) some users don't need better ISO, others don't need better DR or FPS. If Canon won't improve whatever someone don't need we will end up without any camera replacement.


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## V8Beast (Jun 23, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> V8beast, I would like to thank nuero for pointing out your online portfolio should you wish to call it a portfolio or not.



I would be beyond embarrassed if that online collection snapshots nuero posted was really my portfolio. Since you asked so nicely, here you go. 

In going through this thread again, I can see how my responses came off as elitist. Sorry if I gave you that impression, but I was just trying to point out that there is a time and place for high-dollar gear. Yes, there are lots of morons who think great equipment equals great images, but there are situations where the pricey body is the best tool for the job. I actually think we're probably more in agreement than disagreement. The stuff in my portfolio is a mix of images taken with a 20D (with non-L glass and ghetto-ass Vivitar flashes) and a 5D (with a bunch of L glass and Canon flashes). 

To the casual observer, it's probably impossible to distinguish between what was taken with a 20D and 5D, which proves your point that you can get great results with lesser equipment. However, as the person who had to suffer through the frustration in the field and long hours in post processing to get a 20D to come close to the performance of a 5D, I can honestly say that I didn't make the upgrade soon enough. As for getting similar results with a 20D as you can with a 5D, you can call it "technique" if you want, but after a while, limping around with equipment that doesn't adequately suit your needs is a waste of time. And if you need to make money off your images, time is money. I'd rather be taking on more assignments in a month than A) spending longer than necessary on a shoot because my equipment isn't up to par, and B) wasting time in PP because my equipment isn't up to par. As a working photog, surely you can understand that? 

Something a lot of people miss is that you don't always spend money on nicer gear because it will equate to nicer images. As we all know, you can get great images with cheap gear. A more compelling reason to bite the bullet at lay down big bucks for an expensive body is because it makes capturing the shot you're after easier. And since you're almost always under a time crunch, a tool that lets you work more quickly and efficiently increases the probably of capturing the shot you're after.


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## V8Beast (Jun 23, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> Have you had the opportunity to play with the new 5D or the 1d series?



I never upgraded to the 5DII because I didn't feel it was enough of an upgrade over the 5D. I found a great deal on a used 1DsMKIII, and while the image quality is just incrementally better, the AF system and faster frame rate absolutely crushes the 5D. So does the 1Ds enable me to capture a higher caliber of image over the 5D? Not necessarily, but it sure makes things a hell of a lot easier and saves a ton in the field and in PP.


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## awinphoto (Jun 23, 2011)

V8Beast said:


> awinphoto said:
> 
> 
> > Have you had the opportunity to play with the new 5D or the 1d series?
> ...



I never upgraded to the 5D II for a totally different set of situations, got the 50D to tide me over, the 7D came out, my father-in-law loved the 50D and I hated the 50D so I gladly let him buy it off me to get the 7D... Now i'm awaiting the next batch of cameras to see where I go from here in my evolution of digital photography. I do agree using more "feature rich" cameras such as 1Ds makes life easy, however when people come off as "if you dont have x camera your stupid, a lesser photographer, and will never take as good of pictures"... That's when my feathers get ruffled and I got pipe in. I'm glad we are able to reach some common ground. While yes, I would love to be able to move to a 1Ds series camera, i would rather upgrade glass and incrementally upgrade bodys until I either land a steller account in which I can start splurging willy nilly on 1D cameras or get "that" photo that rakes me my millions... Until then I'm doing what I can to pay my underwater mortgage, bills, and feed my kids. =)


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## unfocused (Jun 23, 2011)

Wow! I'm kind of surprised that this thread generated the interest that it did. 

I figured I'd pose a question and see where it would lead. Some of the comments I found very interesting. One of the most interesting to me was from YoukY63:



> I also one of the guys that say "never enough". The printing argument is irrelevant: I never print any photo. Instead, I watch them on my computer. And as I am doing landscape (day or night), sometime I enjoy to look at a very small detail of my picture. The more details I can get the happier I am.



That's an approach that I quite honestly never considered. Sure, I know most photographs these days never get printed either as a photographic print or "in print" but I never really thought about enjoying images in that way. Not sure what to think about it, but it is interesting.

Anyway, as far as the original post goes, I thought I might now, after reading so many good comments (and quite a few bad ones as well) put my opinion out there for everyone to pick apart.

I do think megapixel count will continue to increase. But, I think it will become less and less important to customers and the increases will become more incremental than revolutionary. Why do I say that? Not because of any slowdown in technology, but because I think there is a diminishing return on the benefits of higher pixel counts. 

Going from 10 mp to 18 mp was a massive jump in resolution. I personally went from being fairly limited in the size of an image I could produce and in the amount of cropping that I could accept, to being able to print a full frame image bigger than I personally would ever want. In addition, I found I could crop an image when needed and even crop quite a bit when I was at the limit of my lens' reach and still have acceptable quality.

But, at the same time, I realize that I am routinely "throwing away" pixels because I don't need the image to be as large as the native size provided by an 18 mp sensor. Do I care, not really? Pixels are free, or at least so cheap as to be effectively free. But, am I willing to pay a premium to get even more pixels that I will be throwing away? Well, if they don't cost too much, I'd consider it because there will always be those times when I'd like to crop an image to compensate for not having a long-enough lens. Or, there may be a time when I want a poster-size print. 

But, as I said, I'm only willing to "buy" more pixels if they are cheap, because I've got enough for most of my needs right now.

One the other hand, there may be hidden costs to more pixels that concern me. Will increased resolution reduce Canon's ability to offer higher ISO speeds, less noise and more dynamic range? Only the Canon engineers know for sure, but if that's the case, I'd rather have the latter, because, as I said, I've pretty much got as many pixels as I want right now. And, if those higher pixels mean I have to buy new lenses that cost even more, that's a major disincentive.

Now, while we'd all like to think we are "special," I suspect I'm actually a pretty typical consumer in the "prosumer" category. So, I imagine that Canon is surveying customers like me and deciding what they need to do to make the next generation of 7D a "must buy" camera. 

I believe their market research will show that a higher megapixel count would have only a minor impact on moving 7D (or 60D or T3i) customers to a 7DII. And, even though I'd like to see only an incremental improvement in the 7DII (so I can skip a generation and wait for the 7DIII) Canon wants me to buy the 7DII, because they'd rather sell me a new camera every three years, instead of every six. 

So, my guess is that while they won't concede the megapixel count to Nikon/Sony, I'm not sure they'll feel compelled to pull out all the stops to offer higher resolution and make that the main selling point for the next generation of APS-C bodies. 

They are the industry leader in resolution, they know better than anyone what the downsides to high megapixel counts might be. So, my opinion is that Canon will serve up a decent increase in resolution in the next generation of APS-C sensors, but with the 7D II, I think they will pack some other features into the camera that their market research shows will motivate current 7D owners to buy a new model. 

We could all make our list of what those features might be, but frankly...that would be an entirely different thread.

So, what do others think?


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## V8Beast (Jun 23, 2011)

awinphoto said:



> I'm glad we are able to reach some common ground. While yes, I would love to be able to move to a 1Ds series camera, i would rather upgrade glass and incrementally upgrade bodys until I either land a steller account in which I can start splurging willy nilly on 1D cameras or get "that" photo that rakes me my millions...



I feel like a douche for even posting my portfolio. However, when neuro posted a link to my freakin' photobucket site, which is filled with snapshots of junk in my garage I uploaded online in order to sell on craigslist, I had to respond with a link to my real portfolio. 

At any rate, I think you have a good plan. Bodies go out of date so quickly, if what you've got is working for you, there's no sense in spending big bucks on something that will depreciate at an alarming rate. The only point I was trying to make is that it is actually possible to reach the limits of a body. Two instances come to mind from when I was shooting with a 5D. I was doing a shoot one day in downtown Dallas, shooting out the back of my SUV while the car/subject followed behind me. To get a decent amount of motion blur in the wheels of the car you're shooting, you have to use as long of a shutter speed as you can hand-hold. Throw in a bumpy concrete bridge and a rough-riding SUV, and only half the images will come out sharp enough for print. In this scenario, the more frames you can fire off in succession, the greater the number of sharp images you will have. The 5D's 3 FPS is quite inadequate in this regard. 

Furthermore, the 5D's AF points are positioned near the center of the frame, so if your subject is composed somewhere outside that area, the AF will never lock on. I was able to limp by in manual focus, but that meant making several passes along this same bridge, which I chose because it had a nice view of the downtown skyline in the background, and how it was positioned in relation to the setting sun. While all this is going on, I had a couple of assistants about a quarter mile down the driving very slowly on purpose to block traffic. As you can imagine, you can only do this so many times before the cops show up. Given the short window of opportunity you have to grab a shot like this, a fast and accurate AF system, in addition to a fast FPS rate, is the difference between getting the image in one pass over the bridge instead of making 3-4 trips and risking the wrath of the law. Piss off a cop badly enough, and he can ban you from shooting anywhere in the city just to be a prick. Don't ask me how I know. That means you can't use any of the locations you scouted ahead of time, you don't get the your shots when the light is the best, you miss your deadline, and your editor isn't too happy. So yes, it's possible to get by with lesser equipment, but to me the risk isn't worth it. I'd rather pay more for a tool that's better suited for the task at hand and not worry about this sort of thing. Shooting for fun and shooting under a deadline are two very different things. 

The day before that, I was shooting on a very dusty runway, again out the back of my SUV. The dust created a very cool rooster tail effect trailing behind the car I was shooting as we drove down the runway. Unfortunately, it was so damn dusty that my sensor, which I had just cleaned, got covered with several annoying dust spots. Consequently, in every shot I took after that one, I had to waste time in PP removing them. After removing dust specs in 100-plus photos before submitting them to my clients, it got very, very old. So yes, a weather sealed body would have been nice! Time I waste in PP is time I could be spending on another shoot. I can see how weather sealing is a frivolous luxury for some, but for others it's a necessity they're willing to pay for.


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## Flake (Jun 23, 2011)

One of the early computers I had with a HDD (yes before that they used huge floppy drives) had a massive 4.3GB, they quickly grew until 40GB was about the largest available, then 120GB, 500GB, etc and now we're looking at 3TB.

I still have CF cards of 256MB, I think they hold just one or two shots off the 5D MkII, and now of course we're up to 64GB (at a price).

The point here is that every other area of electronics has grown, and it doesn't really matter what we want, we can only buy what we're offered, no doubt at sometime in the future we'll be lusting over cameras with 1 Giga Pixel - and that won't be the end!


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## awinphoto (Jun 23, 2011)

V8beast, don't feel like a douche. Sharing portfolios and critiques help everyone get better. My website is attached to my profile. It's a work in progress trying to make it html5 compliant however I need to replace my flash portfolios... Yuck. Architecture, commercial and retouching are my strong suits. I keep a minimal portrait portfolio should a client ever ask if I can do portraits as well. But that isn't my strong point. 

Regarding your specific situation you mentioned, I don't suppose using your old 20d with 5fps or trying to use a 40d or 7d if you can't use the 1ds. 40d with 6 and 7d with 8fps could catch it. I undserstand the frustrations of 3fps at times. Regarding the bouncy car, reminds me of an article I read in the latest CPN network magazine produced by canon. They interviewed a photo who shoots in antartica and shoots from a helicopter. They asked how he gets sharp shots given the vibration of the copter. He said the only to combat such strong movement was shutter speed. 

Regarding the dust, what lenses were you using? Some have that gasket for the lens mount. I know on the 1ds and newer cameras like the 7d and 5d2 and maybe the 60d has that dust mapping in camera technology but don't think that's in the 5d classic. Dpp may have that to help you out. Don't think that shipped with the 5d classic but you should have that in the dpp from the 1ds.


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## awinphoto (Jun 23, 2011)

V8, I was thinking more about your issues and I remember one time about 7-8 years ago I attended a short class taught but a guy called Harry Liles... (or something like that)... anyways he was a photographer who shot for companies such as lexus and porsche for their yearly display catalogs...You may know about these tricks allready but for those who dont, he said that on moving shots, they are going very slow... at times less than 5 MPH... that allows for smooth stable ride in the 2nd car and allows for shots up to 5 seconds or longer to allow for the wheel blur. He also said to always shoot dusk or dawn (magic hours)... There's enough light in the sky to build up exposure on long exposures and not enough light where you can afford longer exposures even with low Fstope 2.8-5.6. He also mentioned that on time sensitive shots they get a car rig that attached to the car to be photographed and extends the camera to the angle you want it to be... Focus the camera, then use a remote from another car to fire the shutter when you want to... Remove the rig in post production. I dont know how practical those are to when you want a specific road/bridge and you got traffic and your metro area... but for giggles, there they are... Also for driving scenes, most companies want the driver burned out/darked out or hidden... the idea is they want the viewer to feel like they are/can be driving the car and when they see someone else in the car, it causes a disconnect thinking its "someone elses" car instead of "it can be my car"... I wasn't his favorite student because others had high budgets and would rent cars for each shoot to have new and exciting cars... I didn't have that in my budget so I had to shoot my car or my friends car for shoots... not as exciting, haha.


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## V8Beast (Jun 23, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> Regarding your specific situation you mentioned, I don't suppose using your old 20d with 5fps or trying to use a 40d or 7d if you can't use the 1ds. 40d with 6 and 7d with 8fps could catch it. I undserstand the frustrations of 3fps at times.



I had to go to a 7D as a backup one a shoot not that long ago. The rugged build quality, speed and accuracy of the AF system, and its 8 FPS, blew me away. I know lots of people are satisfied with its image quality, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Unfortunately, the types of shots where I need its speed the most are the shots where I can't afford to sacrifice image quality. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to spend so much money on the 1Ds, which has a good AF system but isn't exactly fast, either. 



> Regarding the bouncy car, reminds me of an article I read in the latest CPN network magazine produced by canon. They interviewed a photo who shoots in antartica and shoots from a helicopter. They asked how he gets sharp shots given the vibration of the copter. He said the only to combat such strong movement was shutter speed.



It's always a tradeoff. If you use too quick of a shutter speed, even if you're going 100 mph, a car will look like it's parked. The challenge is always trying to keep the shutter open as long as you can, much longer than you normally would with a static subject, to try to convey the sensation of speed and motion in the wheels and background. 



> Regarding the dust, what lenses were you using? Some have that gasket for the lens mount. I know on the 1ds and newer cameras like the 7d and 5d2 and maybe the 60d has that dust mapping in camera technology but don't think that's in the 5d classic. Dpp may have that to help you out. Don't think that shipped with the 5d classic but you should have that in the dpp from the 1ds.



In the kinds of shots I'm speaking of, the 24-105 is the lens of choice. By simply turning on the IS system, 5-6 images of out 10 are acceptably sharp instead of 1-2 out of 10.


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## V8Beast (Jun 23, 2011)

awinphoto said:


> he said that on moving shots, they are going very slow... at times less than 5 MPH... that allows for smooth stable ride in the 2nd car and allows for shots up to 5 seconds or longer to allow for the wheel blur.



Slower is often better for a number of reasons. You get a more stable ride, but you can also fire off more frames before running out of real estate. However, the speed at which you can go often has nothing to do with photography technique, and everything to do with your surroundings. Imagine if you were driving somewhere, and some clowns in front of you were taking up two lanes, blocking traffic, crawling at 15 mph. You probably wouldn't be too happy. Also, if you're shooting without a permit, you have to get the hell in and get the hell out as fast as you can. 



> He also said to always shoot dusk or dawn (magic hours)... There's enough light in the sky to build up exposure on long exposures and not enough light where you can afford longer exposures even with low Fstope 2.8-5.6.



Cars are such reflective, contrasty objects that there's really no other way to shoot a car, using natural light at least, other than at dusk or dawn. That's why, in my opinion, dynamic range is so important. Even in soft light, the difference in contrast between the highlights and shadows of a car are extremely dramatic. Darker colored cars make matters even worse. 



> He also mentioned that on time sensitive shots they get a car rig that attached to the car to be photographed and extends the camera to the angle you want it to be... Focus the camera, then use a remote from another car to fire the shutter when you want to... Remove the rig in post production. I dont know how practical those are to when you want a specific road/bridge and you got traffic and your metro area... but for giggles, there they are



A lot of the images in my portfolio are rig shots. They're pretty easily distinguishable from car-to-car shots because the rig shots have way more wide-angle distortion, and much more motion blur. Shutter speeds are anywhere from 2-20 seconds, the car is usually crawling down the road at 1-2 mph. Since the boom extends from the subject car into the next lane, it's only practical to rig up a car in a secluded area. Personally, I don't like the overly distorted look, but a lot of people do. The only way around that is to use a the same kind of rigs that movie studios use so you can get the camera farther away from the car and use a longer focal length, but those things cost $3K daily to rent, only making them practical for ultra high-end commercial photogs. 



> Also for driving scenes, most companies want the driver burned out/darked out or hidden... the idea is they want the viewer to feel like they are/can be driving the car and when they see someone else in the car, it causes a disconnect thinking its "someone elses" car instead of "it can be my car"... I wasn't his favorite student because others had high budgets and would rent cars for each shoot to have new and exciting cars... I didn't have that in my budget so I had to shoot my car or my friends car for shoots... not as exciting, haha.



Fortunately, you can't even see driver most of the time, but if they're too distracting then they're easy enough to remove in PP.


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## WarStreet (Jun 23, 2011)

unfocused said:


> I do think megapixel count will continue to increase. But, I think it will become less and less important to customers and the increases will become more incremental than revolutionary. Why do I say that? Not because of any slowdown in technology, but because I think there is a diminishing return on the benefits of higher pixel counts.



ok, here is my feedback. 

I agree with the diminishing return, but I think it's effective for every spec not just for MP. For example, with a DR of 12 stops how many users % would like to have an improved DR ? Once in the future we have a DR of 16 stops, how many users % would care for an improved DR ? Not enough for you ? let's make it 20 stops. The point is that the more specs improve, the more we start to reach practical user needs limits. Each user and photography type, would have different boundaries for these limits, and every user with these different spec/boundaries are equally important. The more happy users, the better the demand, and demand helps technology to improve and decrease prices.

As we start to reach practical users needs limits for various specs, The difference between the high end and low end cameras decreases, and therefore the lower the price difference between them. Since the low end cameras won't increase in price, the high end would need to decrease in price. This has already happened in the past, and it happens for other technologies too, not just for cameras. 




unfocused said:


> But, at the same time, I realize that I am routinely "throwing away" pixels because I don't need the image to be as large as the native size provided by an 18 mp sensor. Do I care, not really? Pixels are free, or at least so cheap as to be effectively free. But, am I willing to pay a premium to get even more pixels that I will be throwing away? Well, if they don't cost too much, I'd consider it because there will always be those times when I'd like to crop an image to compensate for not having a long-enough lens. Or, there may be a time when I want a poster-size print.
> 
> But, as I said, I'm only willing to "buy" more pixels if they are cheap, because I've got enough for most of my needs right now.



I think that when technology improve, it does not just improve in MP, DR, noise etc..., the improvement also includes the ability to decrease production costs and to deliver the improved product at the intended market price. For example a rebel has it's own price range and whatever the spec difference, the new model would still be priced within that range. The 550D had a big improvement compared to the 500D, but then the 600D had a marginal improvement. When we talk about what we would like to get on the new camera, we are expecting that the price will remain within it's standard price range, and the better the specs, the better for us. We won't spend more on extra pixels, better DR or lower noise, I guess we have to look at the product globally. 




unfocused said:


> One the other hand, there may be hidden costs to more pixels that concern me. Will increased resolution reduce Canon's ability to offer higher ISO speeds, less noise and more dynamic range? Only the Canon engineers know for sure, but if that's the case, I'd rather have the latter, because, as I said, I've pretty much got as many pixels as I want right now. And, if those higher pixels mean I have to buy new lenses that cost even more, that's a major disincentive.



There is no need to buy new lenses due to higher MP. I think in this thread neuroanatomist did mentioned something related to this. Improving either the MP count or lens, will improve the overall resolving power. I have showed this in the forum by using DXO data. If I remember well I have used the 28-135 lens just to show that the 18mp APS-C can still deliver significant improvement even when used on a modest lens. There is still more potential on APS-C and even more on FF, if we consider that 18mp APS-C is similar to 40mp+ on FF.


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## unfocused (Jun 23, 2011)

WarStreet,

Great comments. I pretty much agree with everything you said. 

Obviously, this is all a theoretical discussion with no right or wrong answers. I just like to speculate on what direction the technology is headed and enjoy hearing from others who take the time to think through things and respond with some thought behind their opinions. Unfortunately, Internet forums often draw people who just want to make "drive-by" comments and don't want to have any of their opinions challenged.

My background is in media, marketing and public information, so I enjoy trying to figure out the marketing strategies of Canon, Nikon, etc. and guessing how they will respond to the marketplace. I find that many people have a really strange idea about how companies work (too many Hollywood movies with evil multinational corporations trying to take over the world). It's really very simple: companies like Canon want to sell their products and make a return on their investment. They can only do that if they can give consumers what they want (or think they want). 

Competition forces companies to improve their products and keep their prices low. Which is why we can buy such incredibly cool cameras at prices that we can afford.

Anyway, thanks for taking the discussion seriously. I enjoy reading what others think (although, since I live in the middle of the U.S., I am very jealous of someone living on an island in the Mediterranean. )


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## J. McCabe (Jun 24, 2011)

WarStreet said:


> J. McCabe said:
> 
> 
> > WarStreet said:
> ...



That's a mistranslation.

The correct one is I don't want more MP count, only the better noise reduction and greater DR. The later can be improved without getting extra MP.


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## J. McCabe (Jun 24, 2011)

POST REMOVED

Keep it civil


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## J. McCabe (Jun 24, 2011)

J. McCabe said:


> POST REMOVED
> 
> Keep it civil



Civil is giving an explanation why Canon shouldn't make a lower resolution camera, rather than mocking other people.


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## papa-razzi (Jun 24, 2011)

There are increased costs to more MegaPixels.
- I need to have more storage for my photos - bigger CF/SD cards, bigger hard drives
- I need to have a faster computer with more RAM/CPU speed, etc.
- It takes longer to import bigger files from your CF/SD card to your computer.
I upgraded from an XSi to a 7D. I ended up buying a faster card reader, and ultimately a new computer as well.

Having said that, I enjoy having more MP on the 7D so I can crop into smaller sections of the photo and still have a usable end result.

As far as the whole better gear = better photos thing. I depends upon the types of things you are shooting. The reason I upgraded to a 7D was because I was taking pictures of my kids sporting events. Badly lit gyms, etc. I needed fast shutter speeds in poor light, couldn't use flash, so higher ISO capability was needed. I was also interested in the faster FPS and the better AF system. I definitely get a higher percentage of usable photos because I can keep the shutter speed a bit higher now. The higher FPS allows me to capture more action shots and have more keepers. If I wasn't doing this type of photography, the XSi was fine. In fact I still have it and loved the results I got.

So, better gear isn't a requirement to take great photos, but some types of shots are very hard if not possible with lesser gear - for technical reasons.


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## motorhead (Jun 24, 2011)

Warstreet talked on the previous page of current DR's of 12 stops and a possible future DR of 16 stops. If I could routinely achieve these theoretical laboratory figures in real life I'd be over the moon.

But that's the problem, these inflated figures cannot be achieved in the rough and tumble of real photography. I get at the most 6 real stops of DR, no more. I was out yesterday shooting a steam train. As this is the UK, The day was "changeable". That is to say the sky was mostly white cloud with some pale blue in a very few places. The engine, Oliver Cromwell, is black. I have to resort to producing two TIFF versions in DPP which I manipulate seperately in photoshop before finally flattening to get anything like the DR my eyes registered at the time. 

I will not repeat my argument which is based on the very weird shape of the sensor response curve because I have already aired it in a seperate thread, which can be found if anyone can really be bothered. But a Canon with a real DR of 12? YES PLEASE! And 16 stops in future? I've died and gone to heaven!


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## Lawliet (Jun 26, 2011)

YoukY63 said:


> Oh yes, right. That's why D700, with half of 5DmII pixel amount is also half the price... What, it is not!?! What the hell!?! :



Well, both give you the same usable resolution.
The price paid for those extra MP that do nothing are the framerate and feature set.


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## WarStreet (Jun 26, 2011)

unfocused said:


> Anyway, thanks for taking the discussion seriously. I enjoy reading what others think (although, since I live in the middle of the U.S., I am very jealous of someone living on an island in the Mediterranean. )



Thanks ! well, I am jealous of you for living in a large country with so many variety around you. Here is nice, but sometimes feels too small.


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## Canihaspicture (Jun 26, 2011)

motorhead said:


> Warstreet talked on the previous page of current DR's of 12 stops and a possible future DR of 16 stops. If I could routinely achieve these theoretical laboratory figures in real life I'd be over the moon.
> 
> But that's the problem, these inflated figures cannot be achieved in the rough and tumble of real photography. I get at the most 6 real stops of DR, no more.



I'm not sure what settings you are using but I can easily get 11-12 stops from a properly exposed RAW image through lightroom. Of course, I always expose to the right to retain the most information without clipping...


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## ReyMorlu (Jun 26, 2011)

Human eye has about 100Mpx res more or less... then cameras, I think, must be call to try getting at least, our specifications. :-\
And it seems it should be posible in not to many years... Take a look! 


http://www.dpreview.com/news/1008/10082410canon120mpsensor.asp

I'm specting FF bodies in the next generation grow up to near 40Mpx,this wil be funy to exile medium format cameras,to be replaced thanks to nano-tech.


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## bycostello (Jun 27, 2011)

I've got way enough MP now... after all we're shooting at better than medium format film resolution.. it is file size and image processing time that is my concern now...

if u do 'need' more MPs there are medium and full bodied cameras out there.


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## Flake (Jun 27, 2011)

motorhead said:


> Warstreet talked on the previous page of current DR's of 12 stops and a possible future DR of 16 stops. If I could routinely achieve these theoretical laboratory figures in real life I'd be over the moon.
> 
> But that's the problem, these inflated figures cannot be achieved in the rough and tumble of real photography. I get at the most 6 real stops of DR, no more. I was out yesterday shooting a steam train. As this is the UK, The day was "changeable". That is to say the sky was mostly white cloud with some pale blue in a very few places. The engine, Oliver Cromwell, is black. I have to resort to producing two TIFF versions in DPP which I manipulate seperately in photoshop before finally flattening to get anything like the DR my eyes registered at the time.
> 
> I will not repeat my argument which is based on the very weird shape of the sensor response curve because I have already aired it in a seperate thread, which can be found if anyone can really be bothered. But a Canon with a real DR of 12? YES PLEASE! And 16 stops in future? I've died and gone to heaven!




I think you're missing something here, that is your monitor cannot display the dynamic range you seek so it's doing the best that it can squashing the dynamic range in an attempt to accomodate it. If you want to display your images properly then you should be using (Assuming a 27") something costing a minimum of Â£1000. Perhaps the Dell U2711 or if you can afford it an Eizo or Lacie. These will cost considerably more. They will also need calibration as screens are normally far too bright, a screen calibrator will pay for itelf by the reduced energy consumption, calibrated screens acheive.

Trying to view images from a decent DSLR on a cheepo 24" TN panel is never going to be a satisfying experience, the better S or H-IPS panels cost significantly more, as do decent backlights which are also important (avoid LED).


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## Lawliet (Jun 27, 2011)

Slides aside: Output DR always was less then impressive, even the cheapest monitors beat photo paper. But you need proper input to get something nice to print or view. Sadly the matrix metering doesn't apply the zone system but simply exposes for a weightend average of neutral gray. That can pointlessly cost you quite a lot of DR. Only 2 stops of EC isn't ideal either.


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## motorhead (Jun 27, 2011)

Flake,

While I know my monitor is not the best, I do have a fully calibrated workflow. However I'm not basing my "real" 6 stops on the monitor display or prints. I plotted out my sensor response curve which shows a centre section with a gentle S shaped curve as we might expect, roughly similar to film response curves. Where it differs is that at the top and bottom it artificially drags out running almost horizontally for ever.

It's this absolutely useless top and bottom that confuses the lab tests because the tests find there is "information" in these areas, just not information that we can make any use of.

So the 6 stops I know I can achieve are from the centre area, excluding the extreme limits. To exploit it I have reduced the contrast of the RAW capture opening display in DPP which I then adjust using levels or whatever other tool in Photoshop seems appropriate to expand the image back out to the full 0 - 255 contrast range.


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## Rocky (Jun 27, 2011)

Msot of the posts here seems to be quite polarized. Either they want the mega Pixel War keeps going on to 120MP or they want It to stop. Or they try to draw the line for High Mp for hobbist and lower pixel count for Pros. The following is my own personal opinion and not the intention for another battle front. For hoobist, not that many people can affort to have a few $2000 lens. So using a 18 MP sensor will be a waste of computer power without any real gain in reolution. Pros have the advantage of deeper bugget (tax write off). So Canon should use their sensor technology ( low noise sensor, gapless micro lens etc) to produce a lower Pixel count sensor( 12 to14 Mp ??) to give hobbist a camera that have better dynamic range and does not strain the resolution of a reasonable price lens. How many hobbist need bigget than 14 X 12 enlargement???So Canon, are you listening ????


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## Flake (Jun 28, 2011)

I'm sorry Motorhead but in isolation the graph is pretty meaningless. How did you measure it and how did you remove the sensor from the camera to measure it? Is this an amalgam of all three channels measured seperately and merged to give an average? RAW setting jpeg? and what exactly is the camera?


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## Canihaspicture (Jun 28, 2011)

Motorhead I'm still not getting useless extremes (nor fully understanding your logic)... can you post this in a brand new thread and give examples maybe a link to a DNG or raw file along with the outputs you're getting. I'm really interested and I'd really like to know what you are saying.


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## motorhead (Jun 28, 2011)

Don't over complicate the sensor response curve fella's. It's very simple to do.

I followed the procedure explained in the July 2008 edition of Amateur Photographer. Using a a mid grey target, under a steady light source, Lock the aperture and simply take a normal exposure. Then using that as a base setting, go up and down in shutter speed from there in 1/3rd stops until the images at the extremes are pure black and pure white (or as close as it will ever be possible to get). From memory I went from plus 8 stops to minus 8. 

That was easy, now comes the more time consuming bit. In photoshop, I used the eye dropper tool to make sure I was reading true tonal differences image by image and plotted the results on the graph, image by image. I've shown an "idealised" graph, in reality my graph showed odd little lumps and bumps.

I did not want a "lab" test, I wanted a simple and straightforward real world test and this seems as close to it as I'm ever going to get.

The graph is an idealised curve because I thought it would explain what I meant better than the real one, which apart from the humps and bumps is also a little scruffy after a couple of years tucked into my camera manual!


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## Flake (Jun 28, 2011)

I'm sorry Motorhead but that test isn't going to show real world results. Sensors output is variable across the colours, but that most important component, the image processor smoothes everything out into a perfect 45Â° from 0 to 255 on each of the colours.

http://www.baslerweb.com/imgs/2749596_84aa3944e3.gif

Taken from http://www.baslerweb.com/beitraege/faq_en_28974.html

Shows how the image processor uses the most linear portion of the sensors output, this is in marked contrast to the graph which you have shown.


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## motorhead (Jun 28, 2011)

Flake,

I admit its a very simple test and to me that's its beauty. Its showing me the results I actually get in real life, not an artificial situation. I could do three seperate graphs showing the RGB tonal response but while I'm sure there would be differences I don't have any problems tweaking colour balances after the event.

The results I have are the output from the camera, processor included, which is perfect. Trust me, the weird and completely useless virtually horizontal tails that stretch out to infinity are real, AP even showed the same response in the graph that accompanied their article.

I stick to my story, my camera gives me 6, maybe 6.5 stop DR. I'd love it to be more and hopefully Canon will address that over time, but it's not the 12 stop DR that the lab tests would claim. It's one of the areas that digital has still got ground to make up on film.


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## neuroanatomist (Jun 28, 2011)

Flake said:


> I'm sorry Motorhead but that test isn't going to show real world results.



I agree, for more than one reason. First off, altering the exposure as suggeted in that article is not the best approach - the real question is the DR that can be captured in a single exposure. Motorhead, if you really went from +8 to -8 stops, bravo - you pretty much spanned the full range of shutter speeds (you'd have to have had a metered exposure of 1/15 or 1/30 s, and your longest exposure would have been 15 or 30 seconds).

It's true that even looking at a RAW file, you're getting 'mixed' data, or rather unmixed, in the sense that it's demosaiced and the different transmissivities of the windows in the Bayer array are already baked into the image (unless you're using more sophisticated software, e.g. Rawnalyze).

I do think that DR is usually measured badly by many testers. DxOMark does quite thorough tests, but their measurement of ~11-12 stops of DR for most Canon bodies is overstated, and real-world DR is less than that (at the dark end, they're quantifying noise as signal). 

In practice, I see about 8.5 stops of useable DR with the 5DII, and about 8 stops with the 7D (at ISO 100, and DR drops a bit at high ISOs). That's less than DxO's claimed DRs, but more than motorhead's claimed 6ish stops. My data are based on testing with a backlit transmission step wedge, right side of the image frame bounded by the magenta line in this test setup:





I ran a set of exposures where the clear part of the step wedge (a Stouffer 21-step wedge, where each step is 0.5 stops) was just shy of clipping, and the bare backlight was clipped. The DR tests were done with the goosenecks off, so the only light was the backlight for the wedge. 'Analysis' was qualitative, looking pixel values under the dropper in ACR, seeing where the steps could no longer be distinguished.

Overall, though, I think the key points are that DR could definitely be improved, and for starters it would be nice to see Canon getting somewhere near to utilizing the full 14-bit depth of their ADCs (DxOMark's optimistic measurements fall 2 stops short of that for Canon, whereas Nikon and Pentax 14-bit cameras deliver a full 14 stops of DR in DxOMark's tests).


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## motorhead (Jun 28, 2011)

neuroanatomist,

Now that's a lot nearer my results. I'm still using a 30D, so if you are seeing 8 and a bit from a 5D2 then progress is being made, if slowly. You also understand my hatred of tests that are in fact measuring random noise and insisting it's information.

I will happily admit that I don't have any scientific knowledge about sensors, I'm simply a user of the camera. I needed to know how far I could push the shadows and/or highlights before I risked clipping and I'm happy that my 6 and a bit stops is right for me - its exactly how my camera really behaves.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 28, 2011)

All the testing represents best case results under perfect conditions. I see it as being kinda similar to the advertised gas milage for cars, no one really achieves it, but under perfect circumstances its possible.

I also agree that some testers are achieving results that are nonsense, I had to deal with that in my own company, where, for example, a organization believed that light loss in a fiber optic cable should include light loss in the outer buffer of the cable even though only light from the core can be used. Doing this made it theoritically impossible to use the cable termination when in fact, it exceeded everyones expectations because there was very little light loss in the core, which was what counted.


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## Flake (Jun 28, 2011)

The 30D is a 12 bit camera so the later 14 bit processed images are going to produce better dynamic range. I have a thing that too many people concentrate on the sensors and not anything like enough on the image processor which is the real keystone of a digital camera. Manufacturers didn't name their sensors (well OK some did) but all of them name their image processors. Good image processing affects so many camera functions, and yet hardly anyone ever seems interested. Sad really.

BTW the Cokin - Lee etc graduated filter system were made in the days of film exactly for this problem, and they're still useable with digital, you should consider using them. Then there's HDR which you could never do with film this way you can manage ridiculous dynamic ranges.

Our eyes can see a huge dynamic range, and they acheive this by scanning a scene and adjusting the pupils, persistence of vision means we see the whole scene, and don't even realise what our eyes have done. A camera cannot do this, but one interesting solution is adaptive Iso where the sensor is read using different Iso settings.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 28, 2011)

Flake said:


> Then there's HDR which you could never do with film this way you can manage ridiculous dynamic ranges.



Actually there are some extreme high dynamic ranges taken with film. Photos of nuclear tests were taken with XR extended range film.

While photographic negatives have long been capable of capturing
a wide dynamic range of scene information, and HDR-capable
film, called XR for extended range, was created with multiple fast
and slow emulsions to photograph atomic and nuclear bomb
explosions


http://www.cis.rit.edu/fairchild/HDRPS/CIC15HDRSurvey.pdf


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## Rocky (Jun 28, 2011)

Flake said:


> The 30D is a 12 bit camera so the later 14 bit processed images are going to produce better dynamic range. I have a thing that too many people concentrate on the sensors and not anything like enough on the image processor which is the real keystone of a digital camera. Manufacturers didn't name their sensors (well OK some did) but all of them name their image processors. Good image processing affects so many camera functions, and yet hardly anyone ever seems interested. Sad really.
> 
> BTW the Cokin - Lee etc graduated filter system were made in the days of film exactly for this problem, and they're still useable with digital, you should consider using them. Then there's HDR which you could never do with film this way you can manage ridiculous dynamic ranges.
> 
> Our eyes can see a huge dynamic range, and they acheive this by scanning a scene and adjusting the pupils, persistence of vision means we see the whole scene, and don't even realise what our eyes have done. A camera cannot do this, but one interesting solution is adaptive Iso where the sensor is read using different Iso settings.


If the sensor is saturated with high light or noise, the processor cannot do anything about it. On paper, a 12 bit processor will give us at least 12 stops of dynamic range, a 14 bit processor will give us at least 14 stops of dynamic range. None of us can get that kind of dynamic range out of our DSLR. This is a good proof of the sensor dynamic range is the limitation, not the processor. 
Graduated filter is an excellent idea to make the picture look better under certain condition by compressing the dynamic range of the scenery to a point that the sensor can handle it easier. 
As for human eyes, the dynamic range is much higher than the sensor. couple with our brain's "cheating power" (We still see a white shirt under the ordinary light bulb while the digital camera sees as yellowish even with automatic white ballance. The camera will see it really yellow if the white balance is set to day light) We will have dynamic range that no camera plus software correction can match.
There are posts talking about diffraction limitation. We should also look at it from a different angle. The diffraction limit is cause by the lens, not the sensor. At lower resolution sensor, we just never see it. With high resolution sensor, the diffraction limitation just reduce the high resolution sensor to a lower resolution sensor. Example: 18 Mp diffraction limit is f 6.3 while 10 mp diffraction limit is f 10.6 (??) . If you set the lens at f11 with a 18 mp sensor, you just reduce the actuall resolution of the 18 Mp to be 10 Mp, assuming a good lens is used.


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## NXT1000 (Jun 30, 2011)

why stop the megapixel growth if you can keep the noise down. 

phase 1 have gone to 80MB now, right.
did the engineers at phase 1 a few years ago said to themselves, oh i think 50 is too much, let's redraw from the megapixel war. oh, the pro want less megapixels, they are happy as it is? 

NO NO NO.

canon should give us more, more, more. 
I love to zoom on my 30 inch monitor and look at the detail of the photo.


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## WarStreet (Jun 30, 2011)

Rocky said:


> There are posts talking about diffraction limitation. We should also look at it from a different angle. The diffraction limit is cause by the lens, not the sensor. At lower resolution sensor, we just never see it. With high resolution sensor, the diffraction limitation just reduce the high resolution sensor to a lower resolution sensor. Example: 18 Mp diffraction limit is f 6.3 while 10 mp diffraction limit is f 10.6 (??) . If you set the lens at f11 with a 18 mp sensor, you just reduce the actuall resolution of the 18 Mp to be 10 Mp, assuming a good lens is used.



Diffraction is not that evil, we can go above diffraction limit without caring much about it. 

Using 18-55 IS II lens at the 18mm on the center in DXO (I hate their new site design, and it is not working well with chrome) 

400D @ f11 gives 39 lp/mm
7D @ f11 gives 47lp/mm 20% better then the 400D

400D @ f22 gives 31 lp/mm
7D @ f22 gives 34 lp/mm 10% better.

Using 100mm macro IS lens on the center

400D @ f11 gives 38 lp/mm
7D @ f11 gives 46 lp/mm 21% better

400D @ f32 gives 24 lp/mm
7D @ f32 gives 24 lp/mm Here we hit a performance limit.


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## WarStreet (Jun 30, 2011)

neuroanatomist said:


> I ran a set of exposures where the clear part of the step wedge (a Stouffer 21-step wedge, where each step is 0.5 stops) was just shy of clipping, and the bare backlight was clipped. The DR tests were done with the goosenecks off, so the only light was the backlight for the wedge. 'Analysis' was qualitative, looking pixel values under the dropper in ACR, seeing where the steps could no longer be distinguished.



Maybe a stupid question, but when you are using the dropper in ACR, are you using this with the native exposure only, or also after under and overexposing the image in ACR trying to get the most from the RAW file ? 

Also, do you think there are disadvantages when using Highlight tone priority ? I think I do manage to get something more with HTP, and I don't care of the negligible extra noise.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 5, 2011)

WarStreet said:


> ...when you are using the dropper in ACR, are you using this with the native exposure only, or also after under and overexposing the image in ACR trying to get the most from the RAW file ?
> 
> Also, do you think there are disadvantages when using Highlight tone priority ? I think I do manage to get something more with HTP, and I don't care of the negligible extra noise.



Just the native exposure, no pushing or pulling to expand the exposure. 

The disadvantage to HTP is the one you named and don't care about. The extra stop of highlight headroom results from the camera using an ISO one stop lower than the one you select (which is why ISO starts at 200 with HTP enabled), but exposing at the indicated aperture/shutter speed. The intentional underexposure allows the file to be pushed in-camera for more highlight headroom. The tradeoff is one stop of extra noise in the shadows, especially at the lower ISOs where we tend to shoot. Personally, I don't find the increased shadow noise negligible - it's actually differentially greater than what the noise would be for a proper exposure.


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## Eagle Eye (Jul 5, 2011)

It's not really a megapixel war as much as it is an effort to push sensor technology to the limit. Canon has no competition; they've just been pushing forward on their own to design sensors that reach up the upper limits of what a traditional SLR lens can resolve. Keep in mind that recent Canon cameras have offered the sRAW format for those who are file size conscious. In the next few years, I would anticipate Canon focusing more on issues you mention, such as dynamic range. For all the whining about Canon's lack of ingenuity, they have set the bar for resolution and can only improve from there. If Canon is designing a new small sensor for a mirrorless, I'd expect to see some of the gifts of that R&D showing up in the D!GIC 5 and 6 processors.


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## WarStreet (Jul 5, 2011)

neuroanatomist said:


> Just the native exposure, no pushing or pulling to expand the exposure.



Do you think that the pushing/pulling expansion of exposure is just an ACR trick or true native DR gain hidden in the raw file ? I don't think it is a trick, since after the pushing/pulling, patches of 255 and 0 RGB values turn to different and distinguishable values both by the dropper and also visually. 



neuroanatomist said:


> The extra stop of highlight headroom results from the camera using an ISO one stop lower than the one you select (which is why ISO starts at 200 with HTP enabled), but exposing at the indicated aperture/shutter speed. The intentional underexposure allows the file to be pushed in-camera for more highlight headroom.



I asked you about the disadvantages since you did not used HTP in your test, and since I use it frequently I was curious about your opinion.

I did had a vague idea that HTP works along the lines of what you have explained, but never put much thought about it. I believed that HTP happens before the creation of the raw file, and that it really does increase DR and that it cannot be reproduced by post processing the raw with the pushing/pulling mentioned before. But maybe all this is true only if I compare two shots with similar exposures with and without HTP. But what about if I compare a shot with ISO 200 with HTP, and a shot with ISO 100 with one stop underexposure without HTP together with raw PP, will I get the same results ? For this comparison we have to assume we are shooting something with a DR at least 1 stop higher than the camera capability. 



neuroanatomist said:


> Personally, I don't find the increased shadow noise negligible - it's actually differentially greater than what the noise would be for a proper exposure.



A long time ago, I was trying to shoot low light sports and I really tried to get all I can from the camera trying to find the best compromises. I need to use fraction ISO and tried to simulate this with underexposure. With some tests I did, and also from DXO full SNR, I concluded that the difference is very small for my intended needs. The results varies depending the ISO and grey scale % compared. For my 500D, comparing ISO 3200 @ 18% grey scale with ISO 1600 @ 9% grey scale gives similar results. On the other hand using ISO 100 & 200 shows that correct exposure gives the best results. I hope I am interpreting this data correctly!


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## moreorless (Jul 16, 2011)

macgregor mathers said:


> Nikon's way, as I understand it, is smarter.
> 
> It released the D3X with high resolution for those who need / want it, and a full year later the D3S with half the resolution for those who don't.



Nikon are only offering that choice right at the top of the range though were as Canon are offering something similar(obviously half crop) at 1/3rd the price(and almost 2/3rds the weight) with the 5D mk2/7D.

Personally I feel that the MP race on crops may well be reaching its limate, I'm sure things will go past 20 as the numbers just too strong a draw but beyond that I see either ISO/Video or something new being a factor.

On FF though I'd say the race is far from over, at the very top end I'm sure both Canon and Nikon will want to close the gap with the 645D. Lower down we may see a spilt with a seperate Canon ISO/speed 5D/3D but I think there are alot of amature users who'd welcome 40 megapixels, espeically with the cost of large prints dropping all the time


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## UncleFester (Jul 17, 2011)

moreorless said:


> On FF though I'd say the race is far from over, at the very top end I'm sure both Canon and Nikon will want to close the gap with the 645D.



They can want, but I'm sure they know they'll have to increase sensor size as well. Different beasts all together.


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## macgregor mathers (Jul 17, 2011)

moreorless said:


> macgregor mathers said:
> 
> 
> > Nikon's way, as I understand it, is smarter.
> ...



The Nikon D3S has 12MP, half that of the D3X. The Canon 7D has 18MP, 85.7% that of the 5Dmk2.

Beside the rather small difference in resolution, the 7D is (as you noted) a crop camera, with all the baggage that comes with it.


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## Lawliet (Jul 17, 2011)

moreorless said:


> On FF though I'd say the race is far from over, at the very top end I'm sure both Canon and Nikon will want to close the gap with the 645D. Lower down we may see a spilt with a seperate Canon ISO/speed 5D/3D but I think there are alot of amature users who'd welcome 40 megapixels, espeically with the cost of large prints dropping all the time



If you want MF quality you have to deal with the AA filter first. Whats the point in recording frequencies that have been mangled?

On a related line I don't see many amateur users how could use 40MP. Prints are cheap(have been for quite a while, 24" or 36" printers are in the same price bracket as a single lens for that resolution.), but good tripods aren't, and they aren't only a financial commitment, but also in terms of handling. Affordable flashes that actually stop motion? IGBT switching doesn't help if you need power, so we're back at bank breaking.
How many amateurs have&use that kind of equipment? Gives you a good idea of reaping actual benefit vs. numbers game.


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## Edwin Herdman (Jul 17, 2011)

Lawliet said:


> Whats the point in recording frequencies that have been mangled?


What's the point in having an AA filter in the first place, then? Why do all the manufacturers use them on all sub-MF bodies? 

Luminous-Landscape has an interview with a Pentax rep from the trade show in Japan where the 645D was introduced. Moire was already a concern for them with the 645D. For many sorts of photographs, lacking an AA filter would simply be a horrible idea (the usual "Wall of Shame" and cityscape test photos more urban-based photographers do would have some obvious moire problems). MF backs usually had less well-developed technology and so AA filters were one less thing to worry about - for the most part they overpowered the problem of false details and false patterns with more resolution.

Anyhow, the whole "megapixel war is bad" issue is overstated. With the significant exceptions of bigger monitors needed for 100% display sizes, and all the data bloat related problems that come with bigger pixel counts, increasing pixel counts has been generally a good phenomenon. Nikon's one big weakness so far has been that they are reliant on others for sensors to a degree that Canon and Sony (for example) aren't - so comments from Nikon like that they are looking for "a better balance" between resolution and ISO is sheer marketing deception at worst when they are reliant on Sony (who has, remember, the Alpha line) for sensors.


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## Lawliet (Jul 17, 2011)

Edwin Herdman said:


> Lawliet said:
> 
> 
> > Whats the point in recording frequencies that have been mangled?
> ...


Cutting the spectrum at nyquist's limit. Not below it. The latter is where the mangled mess comes from.
Look at files from an E-5 for example...better then the artifacts introduced by raising local contrast back up.


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## jseliger (Jul 17, 2011)

I'm surprised no one (to my knowledge) has linked to this Ars Technica article on the supposed end of the megapixel war. Some people obviously need more, but I think the larger point is that those people comprise a smaller and smaller part of the overall camera-buying population. I've seen the various articles about how the iPhone is now the most used "camera" on Flickr, Facebook, and so forth. 

I have a 3GS that I used to take the picture that appears in this links post simply because I happened to have the camera on me. Sure, I usually have a Canon SD 800 in my pocket most of the time, and a gifted Rebel XTi that comes out for occasions and sometimes for dirty pictures, but for a lot of purposes any of the three is "good enough" in terms of megapixel count. 

I'd rather have the dynamic range, aperture, and so forth, than more megapixels. That's not to say I'd gratuitously turn down more, but, say, 10 as opposed to 15 megapixels doesn't bother me. If you said, "You can have pretty much any camera you want today," I'd probably choose an s95 because it's easy to carry and I'm likely to have it with me.


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## Lawliet (Jul 17, 2011)

jseliger said:


> I'd rather have the dynamic range, aperture, and so forth, than more megapixels. That's not to say I'd gratuitously turn down more, but, say, 10 as opposed to 15 megapixels doesn't bother me.



Thats where I like double blind tests - e.g. I printed pictures from the same shooting but taken with different cameras in large format. Ask unsuspecting (but not inexperienced) Audience to judge image quality. Conclusion: 12 or 21 MP, it doesn't matter.
For dynamic range, try processing video shot with a 5D2 right after your worked with footage from say an arri alexa. I want the same DR for photography. 8)


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## WarStreet (Jul 17, 2011)

jseliger said:


> I'm surprised no one (to my knowledge) has linked to this Ars Technica article on the supposed end of the megapixel war.



That article is a "copy and paste" you read all over the web in forums from guys expressing their opinion and not necessary knowing the technical aspect of the subject.

The description of the author on that website:

_Chris Foresman
"Karaoke Wizard"
et Contributing Writer
Chris is a high-functioning high school and college dropout. A modern-day Renaissance man, he has spent time releasing indie records, selling shoes, making copies, designing t-shirts, taking photographs, teaching graphic design, providing tech support for Linux webhosts, and generally raising a ruckus. Now a full-time tech-writing idiot savant, Chris has written about music, photography, vegetarian dining, and of course Apple. In his free time he enjoys watching movies, shopping at Target and IKEA, singing karaoke, eating brunch, and drinking beermosas.
_

As I have said previously in this thread, it is true that the more technology improves, the more it reaches or surpasses the needs of users and it is applicable for every spec, not just for MP count. That's why good companies like Canon improve on all aspects of the technology so to accommodating different needs and avoiding bottlenecks.


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## moreorless (Jul 18, 2011)

UncleFester said:


> moreorless said:
> 
> 
> > On FF though I'd say the race is far from over, at the very top end I'm sure both Canon and Nikon will want to close the gap with the 645D.
> ...



Theres never going to offer the same thing I agree but if say the Canon IDs mk 4 has 30+ megapixels that is likely to mean the draw towards a 645 is a little less strong than if it only has 25.


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## Lawliet (Jul 18, 2011)

Potential 645 customers know what they are doing, should be beyond falling for catalog numbers.


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## moreorless (Jul 18, 2011)

Lawliet said:


> Potential 645 customers know what they are doing, should be beyond falling for catalog numbers.



For a sizeble number of people though I'd guess its not going to be cut and dry whether to move up to MF and more Megapixels on FF is one reason not to.

I don't think you can rule out the effect of the growth in MF on the amature markets view of whats desireble either, even if its not actually an option for people.


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## WarStreet (Jul 18, 2011)

I won't rule out the possibility of a 1dsIV with 40mp, but still it won't resolve the same detail of a 40mp MF, using bigger lenses.


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## Rocky (Jul 18, 2011)

moreorless said:


> Lawliet said:
> 
> 
> > Potential 645 customers know what they are doing, should be beyond falling for catalog numbers.
> ...



I hope we are not starting the same debate about Leica VS Hasselblad in the film days again.
MF in digital will give better picture, especially in large enlargement due to the larger size of individual pixel and hence lowe rnoise, better dynamic range. However, the size weight and cost will make most people, including professionals think twice before jumping into it. Just look at the price of the lenses and digital body of Hasselblad. 
On the other hand, FF will give you much better mobility and cost saving. So MF is for amature with super deep pocket and with an assistant.


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## moreorless (Jul 19, 2011)

Rocky said:


> I hope we are not starting the same debate about Leica VS Hasselblad in the film days again.
> MF in digital will give better picture, especially in large enlargement due to the larger size of individual pixel and hence lowe rnoise, better dynamic range. however, the size weight and cost will make moat people, including proffessionals think twice before jumping into it. just look at the price of the lens and digital body of Hasselblad.
> On the other hand FF will give you much better mobility and cost saving. So MF is for amature with super deep pocket and with assistant.



I'm not really debating the merits of each system so much as speculating the impact a growth in digital MF might have on FF. A high end Hasselblad is obviously something totally different but the 645D is getting into the same kind of ballpark as a 1Ds so on some level its competision.


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## Edwin Herdman (Jul 19, 2011)

Lawliet said:


> Edwin Herdman said:
> 
> 
> > Lawliet said:
> ...


It's a tradeoff, in either case. Medium format cameras could and would benefit from AA filters - but they would suffer as well, too. The Pentax rep spoke to this explicitly.


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