I love how everyone derides higher MP/sensor (50D and now G10), as if the technology never improves with these increments.
Maybe we should be trying to push old Pentium 150s to run at 5GHz, instead of shrinking the dies and adding multiple cores?
Give your heads a collective shake, people.
Lance,
I followed the discussion between you and several on this thread and do shake my head at the collective \"truth\" that more pixels = poorer IQ. Let\'s posit that there is some finite limit to the number of sensors that can be placed on a sensor of a given size. Let\'s also acknowledge that we don\'t currently know what that limit is. (By analogy from Moore\'s Law.} Let\'s also remember that the technology for light transforming sensors is younger than that of microprocessors. I suspect that our current level will be viewed as rather crude in a very short time given the rates of change for both sensors and processors. (For proof, simply note the rate of change in computing at large.)
Many photographers on this and other forums don\'t seem to recognize that a digital image is created as an interaction between the sensor and its processor. The actual A/D (analog to digital) transformation takes place at the sensor. I can assure you that our current sensor sizes are thousands of orders of magnitude larger than a quantum of light! So claiming that we have too many sensors in a given area is disingenuous at best. An extraordinary amount of time, brains, and money is being poured into sensor technology and material science. As far as I know no one has even begun to explore what the impact of nano-tech will be on light sensing. I find it incomprehensible that people don\'t realize that Canon (and other manufactures) is constantly updating and creating new/better sensors.
Each sensor produces a complex digital stream. Multiply this times the number of sensors (pixels) and you start to get a sense of how much data is involved. This is where the processor becomes important. I don\'t know what sort of algorithm is involved here but I suspect involves a massive number of fast Fourier Transformations applied some sort of vectored matrix algebra. This is a level of mathematics well beyond my pay grade! The processor then becomes the key to what the image looks like. I note that this \"G10\" and the actually announced 50D are using the DigicIV.
I don\'t know what all Canon has done to its processor and I suspect it is a closely held trade secret, but I\'m certain that each generation is faster, has greater capacity, and has larger sections microcoded into the silicon. If a maker were to simply just dump more sensor data into an existing processor then yes, everyone would be justified in claiming that they were degrading IQ. This is not what the manufacturers are doing. To do so would be corporate suicide.
I\'ve also suspected since the beginning of the 2DIII AF brouhaha, that the real problem lay in the processor code. Something is actually decided too fast in certain situations as to what constitutes focus.
I can\'t believe that anyone would say my first PS (an Epson 3.1 mp gadget - wahoo!!) created a better image than my 12mp G9.
So you might as well all acknowledge the following things. Marketing hype aside, there will continue to be more sensors in every class of camera. (Funny that no one complained that the 1DsIII was \"degraded\" when it went to 21mp.) I\'m certain that we will soon be looking at Giga-pixel sensors and people just won\'t be bothering to actually count them anymore. (Anybody remember when having 64K RAM in a PC made you the hottest thing on the planet? I\'ve got 8GB in my current one and looking for more!) Processors will become faster, smaller, more efficient and we will increasingly have multiple processors so as to off load tasks in order to speed up image acquisition.
Come on people! The fastest, best camera on earth is nothing compared to our eyes. I\'m looking out the window above my monitor, thru a screen past the low branches of two trees and seeing a tall sunflower catching the morning light in a soft breeze. Everything is in focus and there is no \"bokah\". No camera can even begin to \"see\" this. We\'ve a long ways to go!
Hmm, think I\'ll take my clumsy black box out there and see what interpretation I can create]/b] from this scene.
Robert
Aug 28, 2008 at 08:49 AM
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