Archive 2008 · Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
p.4 #1Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Canon should focus on dynamic range, focus accuracy, and
lens quality, along with overall quality control. They are already decent
in these areas, but there are very few occasions where I wish I had more
pixels and many, many occasions where I wish I had more stops between
full white and full black.
Edited on Oct 31, 2008 at 12:31 AM · View previous versions
lens quality, along with overall quality control. They are already decent
in these areas, but there are very few occasions where I wish I had more
pixels and many, many occasions where I wish I had more stops between
full white and full black.
Edited on Oct 31, 2008 at 12:31 AM · View previous versions
Oct 31, 2008 at 12:31 AM
p.4 #2Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
full frame 21mps,12 stops of DR,no noise at iso 6400,16bit/32bit,10 fps,in a new pro series body...F-1D...f as in future proof design titanium/carbon fiber
Oct 31, 2008 at 12:31 AM
p.4 #3Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
I think 30 megapixel will be next then that will be it for a while. Glass will be next to improve and the final ground will be based upon body features and other advancements in i.q.
I'm glad the war has been about pixels though. Had we still been using 6-8 megapixel cameras then clearly the technology would have been way to slow. We need to be where we currently are.
I'm glad the war has been about pixels though. Had we still been using 6-8 megapixel cameras then clearly the technology would have been way to slow. We need to be where we currently are.
Oct 31, 2008 at 01:33 AM
p.4 #4Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Diminishing returns. You get to a point where more pixels simply don't add anything of value. (well, d'uhh!!!) It will take time, but if 15 Mpixel is enough to print at Super A3 (12"x19") size (and be indistinguishable from 45 Mpixel, see that item on Luminous Landscape) people will slowly come to realise that you don't have any use for very high pixel counts. 6 Mpixel is sufficient for 8"x12". Add plenty of extra leeway to crop and then even 24 Mpixel will feel like enough.
(HAH! Somehow I think the above might just be wrong, dunno why
)
(HAH! Somehow I think the above might just be wrong, dunno why
) Oct 31, 2008 at 01:48 AM
p.4 #5Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Tentacle wrote:
One more way to postpone the resolution limit is to move into Foveon territory again. Of course, you have to compensate for the weird way Foveon counts pixels (each of the three layers gets counted).
A 3x10 Mpixel Foveon-like sensor would have the equivalent resolution of a 16 Mpixel sensor with Bayer RGB pattern, with the pixel pitch of only a 10 Mpixel sensor. Since therer is no Bayer interpolation that needs to take place, you can get more detail from resolution limited glass.
Isn't that the technology that Sigma was/is using in their DSLR's?
Daan B wrote
[...] I think the only way to continue the MP war is either to make better resolving lenses (which does nothing for high ISO and DR) or to make bigger sensors (like digital MF or the Leica S2). More MP's on a 1.6x crop sensor with current technology will not be a good thing IMO...A 3x10 Mpixel Foveon-like sensor would have the equivalent resolution of a 16 Mpixel sensor with Bayer RGB pattern, with the pixel pitch of only a 10 Mpixel sensor. Since therer is no Bayer interpolation that needs to take place, you can get more detail from resolution limited glass.
Isn't that the technology that Sigma was/is using in their DSLR's?
Oct 31, 2008 at 02:04 AM
p.4 #6Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Sprout Crumble wrote:
Canon were criticised for offering only 10mp with the 40D while Nikon had 12. Now they're in front, they're criticised for having too many mp. Can they ever win?
It would appear not.
It seems the most rabid mauling of Canon comes from those who have recently switched to Nikon. Kind of like those irritatingly self-righteous "reformed" smokers. I think that with folks like that anything short of a £800 D700 with a Canon badge will be met with howls of derision.
Having said that I do think there is an element of marketing to this - Especially in the consumer/prosumer markets - Megapixels sell cameras. I may be wrong here but I'm guessing that many, possibly most, x0D users will be using a kit lens and never venture outside of the green box. ie. The kind of user swayed by megapixels and little else.
To suggest that only Canon is trying to tap into this market is ridiculous though.
Canon were criticised for offering only 10mp with the 40D while Nikon had 12. Now they're in front, they're criticised for having too many mp. Can they ever win?
It would appear not.
It seems the most rabid mauling of Canon comes from those who have recently switched to Nikon. Kind of like those irritatingly self-righteous "reformed" smokers. I think that with folks like that anything short of a £800 D700 with a Canon badge will be met with howls of derision.
Having said that I do think there is an element of marketing to this - Especially in the consumer/prosumer markets - Megapixels sell cameras. I may be wrong here but I'm guessing that many, possibly most, x0D users will be using a kit lens and never venture outside of the green box. ie. The kind of user swayed by megapixels and little else.
To suggest that only Canon is trying to tap into this market is ridiculous though.
Oct 31, 2008 at 04:26 AM
p.4 #7Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
The problem as I see it, is that the low end to mid-range DSLR market has become a mass market. And when you want to sell your product to millions of consumers, most of them having little technical knowledge, the megapixels number is a marketing feature too atractive to ignore fpr th marketing folks. It's always much easier for a salesman to say "camera X is better than camera Y because it has more megapixels" rather than saying the lower megapixels camera has better dynamic range or high iso.
So unfortunately I don't think the megapixels war in the APS DSRL has ended yet.
Oct 31, 2008 at 04:40 AM
p.4 #8Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended. Intel gambled big on an architecture that was trading off instructions-per-cycle against higher clock speeds, and they ran head-on into a thermal barrier.
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:00 AM
p.4 #9Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
pcd72 wrote:
The problem as I see it, is that the low end to mid-range DSLR market has become a mass market. And when you want to sell your product to millions of consumers, most of them having little technical knowledge, the megapixels number is a marketing feature too atractive to ignore fpr th marketing folks. It's always much easier for a salesman to say "camera X is better than camera Y because it has more megapixels" rather than saying the lower megapixels camera has better dynamic range or high iso.
So unfortunately I don't think the megapixels war in the APS DSRL...Show more →
It depends on how much they are going to sell of the 50D... Let's educate the masses
The problem as I see it, is that the low end to mid-range DSLR market has become a mass market. And when you want to sell your product to millions of consumers, most of them having little technical knowledge, the megapixels number is a marketing feature too atractive to ignore fpr th marketing folks. It's always much easier for a salesman to say "camera X is better than camera Y because it has more megapixels" rather than saying the lower megapixels camera has better dynamic range or high iso.
So unfortunately I don't think the megapixels war in the APS DSRL...Show more →
It depends on how much they are going to sell of the 50D... Let's educate the masses
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:23 AM
p.4 #10Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Tentacle wrote:
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended. Intel gambled big on an architecture that was trading off instructions-per-cycle against higher clock speeds, and they ran head-on into a thermal barrier.
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
Yeah I'm waiting for the the new Quad sensor 1D IV and dual sensor 60D - they will smoke Nikon.
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended. Intel gambled big on an architecture that was trading off instructions-per-cycle against higher clock speeds, and they ran head-on into a thermal barrier.
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
Yeah I'm waiting for the the new Quad sensor 1D IV and dual sensor 60D - they will smoke Nikon.
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:44 AM
p.4 #11Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
" Kind of like those irritatingly self-righteous "reformed" smokers".
Yep. The ones who like to hang around smokers so they can get a whiff and reminisce about the good old days
Yep. The ones who like to hang around smokers so they can get a whiff and reminisce about the good old days
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:45 AM
p.4 #12Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Tentacle wrote:
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended. Intel gambled big on an architecture that was trading off instructions-per-cycle against higher clock speeds, and they ran head-on into a thermal barrier.
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
Dude, if Intel was making imaging sensors, we would have ISO 100k by now, haha
Naaah, dpreview / whoever can say anything they want, megapixels are going up.
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended. Intel gambled big on an architecture that was trading off instructions-per-cycle against higher clock speeds, and they ran head-on into a thermal barrier.
The Pentium 4 a.k.a. NetBurst architecture was meant to hit 6+ GHz. They stranded at 3.6. And they went back to an older CPU architecture and build on that to deliver us the Intel Core Duo, Core Quad and Core i7 processors. At lower clock frequencies... So who knows...
Dude, if Intel was making imaging sensors, we would have ISO 100k by now, haha
Naaah, dpreview / whoever can say anything they want, megapixels are going up.
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:48 AM
p.4 #13Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
One has to wonder if Intel would have done so well with their Core2's if they hadn't been pushed so hard by AMD's Athlon previously.
So all we need to do now is wait for Canon to produce their Core2.
So all we need to do now is wait for Canon to produce their Core2.
Oct 31, 2008 at 06:00 AM
p.4 #14Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
voka_gsw wrote:
Dude, if Intel was making imaging sensors, we would have ISO 100k by now, haha
Naaah, dpreview / whoever can say anything they want, megapixels are going up.
Best to buy a bunch of 40D's and 450D's before it's too late
Dude, if Intel was making imaging sensors, we would have ISO 100k by now, haha
Naaah, dpreview / whoever can say anything they want, megapixels are going up.
Best to buy a bunch of 40D's and 450D's before it's too late
Oct 31, 2008 at 06:08 AM
p.4 #15Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
The mp war will go on if you like it or not. The 70D will have 24mp and 2, 4 or 8 pixels binning for high ISO
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/Canon_70D.html
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/Canon_70D.html
Oct 31, 2008 at 06:12 AM
p.4 #16Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Tentacle wrote:
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended.
Not really, the newer dual/quad core revisions are still being released with not much more than a faster clock speed.
It simply slowed down as the hardware develops way too fast for the software counterpart. For something relevant to photographers, it's only very recently Adobe released 64 bit Photoshop CS4 that also utilises GPU acceleration. I'm not sure if CS4 really take advantage of multi cores either. 64 bit has been around for several years now and GPU acceleration itself have been used by PC games for even longer.
Clock speed increase remains the best, most obvious, option for Intel/AMD to "upgrade" their CPU. I'm guessing it's the same with MP in digital cameras.
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended.
Not really, the newer dual/quad core revisions are still being released with not much more than a faster clock speed.
It simply slowed down as the hardware develops way too fast for the software counterpart. For something relevant to photographers, it's only very recently Adobe released 64 bit Photoshop CS4 that also utilises GPU acceleration. I'm not sure if CS4 really take advantage of multi cores either. 64 bit has been around for several years now and GPU acceleration itself have been used by PC games for even longer.
Clock speed increase remains the best, most obvious, option for Intel/AMD to "upgrade" their CPU. I'm guessing it's the same with MP in digital cameras.
Oct 31, 2008 at 07:44 AM
p.4 #17Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
n0b0 wrote:
Not really, the newer dual/quad core revisions are still being released with not much more than a faster clock speed.
[...]
Clock speed increase remains the best, most obvious, option for Intel/AMD to "upgrade" their CPU. I'm guessing it's the same with MP in digital cameras.
Then why do both AMD and Intel give their processors rating numbers now?? I recently got myself an Intel Core Quad Q9550. Or I could have gotten an AMD Phenom X4 9950, had I gone with the other platform... They don't advertise in clockspeed anymore.
Both companies stopped optimising for speed and opted for optimising for instructions per clockcycle. Of course they still marginally improve on clock speed too, but the biggest gain is in better IPC.
Tentacle wrote
Then again, as someone mentioned, the processor GHz wars ended.[...]
Clock speed increase remains the best, most obvious, option for Intel/AMD to "upgrade" their CPU. I'm guessing it's the same with MP in digital cameras.
Then why do both AMD and Intel give their processors rating numbers now?? I recently got myself an Intel Core Quad Q9550. Or I could have gotten an AMD Phenom X4 9950, had I gone with the other platform... They don't advertise in clockspeed anymore.
Both companies stopped optimising for speed and opted for optimising for instructions per clockcycle. Of course they still marginally improve on clock speed too, but the biggest gain is in better IPC.
Oct 31, 2008 at 07:57 AM
p.4 #18Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
looking at this post is of real interest to me as ive been deciding for some time whether to get the new 5d2 at 21mp or get the 1d3 at 10 mp. the conclusion ive come to is that people have been selling photos at A1 and A2 size in galleries using the 1d3 for ages now. will someone looking to buy a print in a gallery say "I dont like that picture, it's only 10mp" I don't think so.
the only reason i can see for the added mp is that you can crop more. why not get the right lens or get closer so you dont have to crop.
id rather see improvements in focussing, and colour ect.
the only reason i can see for the added mp is that you can crop more. why not get the right lens or get closer so you dont have to crop.
id rather see improvements in focussing, and colour ect.
Oct 31, 2008 at 08:00 AM
p.4 #19Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
Tentacle wrote:
Then why do both AMD and Intel give their processors rating numbers now?? I recently got myself an Intel Core Quad Q9550. Or I could have gotten an AMD Phenom X4 9950, had I gone with the other platform... They don't advertise in clockspeed anymore.
Both companies stopped optimising for speed and opted for optimising for instructions per clockcycle. Of course they still marginally improve on clock speed too, but the biggest gain is in better IPC.
Who knows why they choose that? marketing? The old AMD Athlon proved that higher clock speed doesn't mean better performance so I supposed it's logical for them to move away from advertising clock speed as the mark of performance.
What do they really improve in their newer chips apart from increasing clock speed, FSB and cache anyway?
Then why do both AMD and Intel give their processors rating numbers now?? I recently got myself an Intel Core Quad Q9550. Or I could have gotten an AMD Phenom X4 9950, had I gone with the other platform... They don't advertise in clockspeed anymore.
Both companies stopped optimising for speed and opted for optimising for instructions per clockcycle. Of course they still marginally improve on clock speed too, but the biggest gain is in better IPC.
Who knows why they choose that? marketing? The old AMD Athlon proved that higher clock speed doesn't mean better performance so I supposed it's logical for them to move away from advertising clock speed as the mark of performance.
What do they really improve in their newer chips apart from increasing clock speed, FSB and cache anyway?
Oct 31, 2008 at 08:35 AM
p.4 #20Should Canon Stop the Megapixel War
It is obvious you have not done much bird or wildlife photography. I use a 500mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera and most of the time cropping is vital. (And I also use TCs) Cropping is a way of life in bird and wildlife photogrqphy. You just can not get closer or the subject is gone. Or, in the case of wildlife, it just may not be safe to get closer. Oh, the 600mm lens does not give a significant distance advantage and it sure weighs a lot more which, agian for birds and wildlife, is a major concern due to the miles you have to carry the beast over a year's time.
jaypod wrote:
looking at this post is of real interest to me as ive been deciding for some time whether to get the new 5d2 at 21mp or get the 1d3 at 10 mp. the conclusion ive come to is that people have been selling photos at A1 and A2 size in galleries using the 1d3 for ages now. will someone looking to buy a print in a gallery say "I dont like that picture, it's only 10mp" I don't think so.
the only reason i can see for the added mp is that you can crop more. why not get the...Show more →
jaypod wrote:
looking at this post is of real interest to me as ive been deciding for some time whether to get the new 5d2 at 21mp or get the 1d3 at 10 mp. the conclusion ive come to is that people have been selling photos at A1 and A2 size in galleries using the 1d3 for ages now. will someone looking to buy a print in a gallery say "I dont like that picture, it's only 10mp" I don't think so.
the only reason i can see for the added mp is that you can crop more. why not get the...Show more →
Oct 31, 2008 at 09:01 AM