# Panasonic, I love you!!!!!



## Dave (Aug 26, 2011)

I've just read that Panasonic has anounced a new Brudge Cam, the DMC-FZ150. With 12MP it has 2 Megapixel LESS(!!!!!) than it's predecessor (14MP).
I hope this will set a sign to Canon, Nikon & Co. I want more "real" features, not just more megapixels.

regards, Dave


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 26, 2011)

Does the Brudge Cam have a Brudge Report? Or is Brudge the famous painter from the 1500s?

You might be interested to know that more pixels increase the freedom from noise of the final image. I'm sure there are some other improvements that can be made with fewer pixels on the sensor in the same generation of technology, like price or maybe dynamic range...or maybe they are just saving money.


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## dr croubie (Aug 26, 2011)

Did not the powershot G10 have 14MP, then the G11 and G12 down to 10MP, adding a different screen and video?
Did not the 14MP SX210 update to the SX220/230 with gps and double the screen dots, and reduce to 12MP?


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## EYEONE (Aug 26, 2011)

dr croubie said:


> Did not the powershot G10 have 14MP, then the G11 and G12 down to 10MP, adding a different screen and video?
> Did not the 14MP SX210 update to the SX220/230 with gps and double the screen dots, and reduce to 12MP?



Yes, Canon has already done a pixel reduction in replacement cameras.


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## distant.star (Aug 26, 2011)

Love -- it's a hard road.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 26, 2011)

There are tons of cameras out there with fewer pixels, even some with 512K pixels. That should make you extremely happy with those huge photosites!


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## KyleSTL (Aug 26, 2011)

Tough crowd today. No love for Dave. 

Anyway, I though the title of this post would be talking about the 14-42mm collaspable zoom introduced this morning. I think that's the big headline of the day. That new lens and an E-PL3 or GF3 would be awesome. Pocketable camera without a lens that sticks out all weird like the other MILC zooms. Bravo, Panasonic. 

Hopefully Canon, Nikon and all the other manu's will follow suit and we can see some innovative designs in the coming months/years (without crop factors above 2x).


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## Gothmoth (Aug 26, 2011)

KyleSTL said:


> Anyway, I though the title of this post would be talking about the 14-42mm collaspable zoom introduced this morning. I think that's the big headline of the day. That new lens and an E-PL3 or GF3 would be awesome. Pocketable camera without a lens that sticks out all weird like the other MILC zooms. Bravo, Panasonic.



they are way to expensiv....


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## KyleSTL (Aug 26, 2011)

Gothmoth said:


> they are way to expensiv....


Lens alone, I agree , but when you factor in the GF3 kit at $750 MSRP, it's less expensive than a 600D kit ($900 MSRP) and much more portable. It gives IQ just about on par with the 1100D kit. I guess it depends on your priorities. If they had a G3 kit for $900 or less, then you would get even better quality that would be about on par with the 550D/600D (albeit ~1 stop noisier at the higher ISOs).


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 27, 2011)

KyleSTL said:


> Tough crowd today. No love for Dave


He's been voted down three times.  I thought the post was silly, but not THAT bad...irrelevant enough to ignore for the most part.


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## UncleFester (Aug 27, 2011)

I thought maybe they got into the adult toy market.


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## macfly (Aug 27, 2011)

Wanting less pixels just baffels me, if you want lower quality just buy a cheaper camera, and stop trying to impose you will for less on those of us who want more.

Me, I'm looking forward to my NEX-7 that is already on order. After the terrible G12 I won't be buying another Canon 'enthusiast' camera in a hurry, and the way they're dragging their feet on the 1Ds it could be that I'm not buying any more Canons at all!


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## Dave (Aug 27, 2011)

> Yes, Canon has already done a pixel reduction in replacement cameras.


Well, I'm sorry... Didn't know that, I've jsut stumbled upon the anouncement... 
Was the first time I saw something like that (actually I'm not interested in compact cameras) and thought that the manufacturuers are starting to learn from theair mistakes.

Imho it is just ridicoulous to raise the megapixel more and more. No professional photografer would be able to believe that he has bought camera X instead of camera Y since it has 2 MP more.

Anyway... won't happen afain, when new users here are bashed like that...


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## WarStreet (Aug 27, 2011)

Dave said:


> Was the first time I saw something like that (actually I'm not interested in compact cameras) and thought that the manufacturuers are starting to learn from theair mistakes.
> 
> Anyway... won't happen afain, when new users here are bashed like that...



Dave , I am sorry for the bad welcome in the forum but it was expected. 

The problem with your post is that you are saying that the engineers and minds behind Canon, Nikon, Sony and all the others are all doing a big mistake. They are investing money to continue improving their technology in their labs, but they all missed the cheap easy way to do so, by just decreasing the pixels. 

Unfortunately you seem to be a victim of lots of non-sense available in the forums or blogs from the 'experts'. You can easily see bad comparisons or differences exaggerated that in real life won't have any visible difference. 

The subject is not that straight forward about detail-noise relation. I think it is easier to have faith on the technical guys out there knowing that they will produce a better product than the previous one.


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## Dave (Aug 27, 2011)

> They are investing money to continue improving their technology in their labs, but they all missed the cheap easy way to do so, by just decreasing the pixels.


I didn't mean that they have to decrease the pixels (sorry for my bad english), but I say that more megapixel won't make a camera much better.
I'm waiting for the 5D MKIII (or maybe the 7D MKII) and the least I want to see is an advertisment like we had the last years... "Yeahhh buy the new 5D!!! Now even MORE Megapixel and even MORE frames per second"). 

I don't say, that more sensor resulotion is bad. I want to see some REAL improvement. GPS, WLan, Touchscreen, more Video-functionality etc. Not just onother sensor upgrade.

The 5D II has almost 22MP. We've reached a very high level on sensor resulution - high enough. Who cares if the 5D III will have 22, 24 or maybe 30 MP?
And if a manufacturer "dares" to go down in the resolution I thought it was worth mentioning. Better resolution is does not necessarily mean better image quality.

And no, it is not a problem of engineering, it's a problem of marketing.


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## EYEONE (Aug 27, 2011)

Dave said:


> > Yes, Canon has already done a pixel reduction in replacement cameras.
> 
> 
> Well, I'm sorry... Didn't know that, I've jsut stumbled upon the anouncement...
> ...




Sorry friend. Didn't mean to insult or anything. I was simply stating what I knew about it.

But I think perhaps some companies are starting to realize it. It looks like Sony may be going hog wild MP. Hard to say without seeing Canon or Nikon yet. Nikon has already sort of shrugged off the MP War, but may have to re-enter if the marketing dept. demands it.


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## YoukY63 (Aug 28, 2011)

Dave said:


> > They are investing money to continue improving their technology in their labs, but they all missed the cheap easy way to do so, by just decreasing the pixels.
> 
> 
> I didn't mean that they have to decrease the pixels (sorry for my bad english), but I say that more megapixel won't make a camera much better.
> ...


It looks like we all don't want the same thing.
Whjo cares about MP? Me! And many other people! More pixel with very good glasses means more details in the pictures. More resolution is more crop possibilities for sports or wildlife, it is also more details for landscape. Only good things. It looks like even studio cameramen look for more MP, since they are using medium format containing 40 to 80MP!
Then, your "real" improvement:
-GPS: I agree, could be fun. But still just a kind of gadget.
-WLAN: what for? I have a card reader way faster than any wireless transfer protocol. And I never shoot close to my computer.
-more video options: that is for videographers, I am still photographer using still camera. But why not, I guess it does not hurt still abilities of the camera.
-touch screen: tfor me that would be the worse thing ever. Why people need a touchscreen on 1.5~3kg cameras? How can it be ergonomically relevant? What for? I definitely never want one of them on a DSLR!

Is that real camera improvement for you? I agree with you that MP should not be the only point to improve, but these gadgets options are not going to make the camera better. What I expect Canon is working on is also a new AF (many people here cry for that), but also improve the metering of the camera, the ergonomics by giving more options in the menus (selectable limits of auto-isos *even in M mode or when using flash and beyond 400isos*!, wider range of AE compensation, etc) and also wider dynamic range, cleaner high isos, etc... 
Actually, things that matter on image quality...


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## Dave (Aug 28, 2011)

> More pixel with very good glasses means more details in the pictures.


But you can cheat physics. Okay, noise reduction was tremendously improved and yes, it's okay to have a bigger sensor. But the growing of the MP is en evolution not a revoluion like the manufracturers want us to believe.

If you have an 8MP cam (~4000*2000 Pixels) to double the resulution (8000*4000) you need to quadruple the sensor pixelrate.
So if a 5D Mk III has a sensor, with... lets say 30 MP in comparison to the former 22MP you don't have a 40% higher resolution in fact it is just 10% more.
And yeah that's "nice" ("could be fun" ;-) but nothing more. 10% more resolution is nothing for what I would buy an new camera for 2000 Bucks.



> GPS: I agree, could be fun. But still just a kind of gadget.


If you want to tag your photos, thats not just "nice" that save hours of work...



> And I never shoot close to my computer.


Well, I do!



> that is for videographers, I am still photographer


I do both!



> How can it be ergonomically relevant? What for? I definitely never want one of them on a DSLR!


You point your finger at a certain area and the camera focuses on that area. And that is ergonomically highly relevant. 
Maybe all "nice gadget". But imo that's the future. It's frustrating if every bloody iPhone has more features than a 2000-Euro- Cam and via Apps they are even expandable.

That would also be an intersting feature: A plugin interface. Or to release the firmware as open source...

Since Sony has become a big player in the DSLR market it's not so easy for canon. The time where canon is the unchallenged market leader is over. I'm really curious for the next canon DSLR announcement. They just CAN'T improve the megapixels in cam like the 5D or 7D after the A77


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## Edwin Herdman (Aug 28, 2011)

Dave said:


> If you have an 8MP cam (~4000*2000 Pixels) to double the resulution (8000*4000) you need to quadruple the sensor pixelrate.
> So if a 5D Mk III has a sensor, with... lets say 30 MP in comparison to the former 22MP you don't have a 40% higher resolution in fact it is just 10% more.
> And yeah that's "nice" ("could be fun" ;-) but nothing more. 10% more resolution is nothing for what I would buy an new camera for 2000 Bucks.


You don't need to double the resolution to gain a noticeable bump in cleaner ISOs, though, and the $2000 models also have some good features not found in the cheaper ones. The 60D is, as far as I can see, the only Canon DSLR that can be had for less than $2000 reliably that also has a worthy AF sensor (putting aside the 50D for a moment that is, which arguably isn't worth buying at its price due to newer alternatives).

I also am in the camp of "who needs more resolution than 15mp?" I don't shoot wall-sized prints and rarely need more than ISO 400 so I haven't gone out and bought a newer camera than a 2009 model. I don't like using up my memory cards and hard drives with ever-larger files, or spend more time transferring files. However, I also wouldn't want to lose resolution from where I'm at. But all this ignores that each generation there have been pretty big gains in ISO cleanliness. Dynamic range is probably a more critical improvement to be made but the sensor technology itself seems to be the limiting factor here. Of course, perfectly usable results can be had by simply exposing for highlights and pulling information out of shadows if needed later.


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## jimmy156 (Aug 28, 2011)

I read an article the other day from an old photography review which said

"We thought the megapixel race was over, we wrong with this new 8mp DSLR!"

What this tells me is that the megapixel "race" will never be over, and as technology improves we will always be getter more and more megapixels, for better or for worse.


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## macfly (Aug 28, 2011)

It can only be better, and also it be will what defines the need to have a camera. The next gen of iPhones and Androids will have 8-10MP cameras, and nice glass too, so camera makers are going to have to go far beyond the playing field of the tradional point and shoot. The phone will completely pull that rug from under them, and so far it looks like only Sony are addressing that with the NEX-7


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## Dave (Aug 29, 2011)

> What this tells me is that the megapixel "race" will never be over,


Well people said the same a couple of years ago concerning the "Megahertz-Race" at CPUs.
I think the same will hapen at the sensor resolution.

Maybe not so soon. But their are physical limits. And the final Limit will be the optical resolution of the lenses.


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2011)

Edwin Herdman said:


> Dynamic range is probably a more critical improvement to be made but the sensor technology itself seems to be the limiting factor here.


I was pondering this recently and wonder if it's the sensor or limitations of ADC technology? It's pretty easy to get a 24-bit delta-sigma converter, but they normally take in the order of thousands of samples per second at best. For say 20MP at 8fps you'd need a 160MHz minimum sample rate. Looking at a few manufacturers while some have products that can do that sample rate at 16 bit resolution the ones I took a quick look at only had 20MHz odd analog bandwidth which I imagine would be "OK" but presumably would give some softness around sharp contrasty edges.

I work with embedded electronics but not imaging, so my comments are far from expert, but I thought I'd throw it out there that the current 14-bit sampling is probably pushing the limits of affordable and practical analog converter technology. To "fix" the problem the usual way would be to use an array of ADC converters, but they aren't real cheap at the high-end and draw quite a bit of current. I think it will change over time as they become cheaper and draw less power all the time. At the moment using an array of converters (or more if they already use that idea) probably wouldn't be off the cards for a 1 series camera from a cost / size point of view, but I imagine it might slash battery life by an amount a lot of people wouldn't care for.


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## Hillsilly (Aug 29, 2011)

Everyone knows that Canon reached the peak of technical perfection in 2004. If you do a DXO Mark comparison between the 20D and the 60D, the results have barely moved. But in the real world, is anyone going to argue that they prefer the lower resoltion of a 20D?

I see this discussed all of the time. I know that many people get very irrate over higher megapixels, but I've never understood why. I'm not very technically minded and I don't understand a lot of this discussion (what's a 24-bit delta sigma converter???), but if Mr Canon produced two cameras with the same dynamic range and noise, but one had 8mp and the other 18mp, who wouldn't take the 18mp?

If Canon wants to take the 5Diii to 30+mp, go for it! I don't see any down sides.


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## Jedifarce (Sep 18, 2011)

Dave said:


> I've just read that Panasonic has anounced a new Brudge Cam, the DMC-FZ150. With 12MP it has 2 Megapixel LESS(!!!!!) than it's predecessor (14MP).
> I hope this will set a sign to Canon, Nikon & Co. I want more "real" features, not just more megapixels.
> 
> regards, Dave



I'm more concerned about the video files -> AVCHD. Yuck. Cleaning up an AVCHD footage in post always requires a lot of color grading just to make it look decent.


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## Dave (Sep 18, 2011)

Could anbody close this thread please? Don't want to get any more "smites"...


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## nesarajah (Sep 21, 2011)

Dave said:


> I've just read that Panasonic has anounced a new Brudge Cam, the DMC-FZ150. With 12MP it has 2 Megapixel LESS(!!!!!) than it's predecessor (14MP).
> I hope this will set a sign to Canon, Nikon & Co. I want more "real" features, not just more megapixels.
> regards, Dave



i know this will raise the ire of many but I will be completely honest that I miss the image quality of 4/3rds. it has that certain look to it. even though the high ISO quality is rubbish, the 2x crop factor is perfect for compressing features and is quite flatering. I movee only because Olympus was the kind of company Apple is and is quite happy abandoning its user base. 

That said : I want MORE megapixels . I want higher resolution. I shoot with the lowest ISO I can. i think most people shoot the same way but want the flexabilty of high ISO.


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