A glimpse into the future... maybe?

This just popped into my 'might interest you' box.

 

Sony develops 127 Megapixel medium format sensor.

Medium format digital is the way of the future, with cameras the size of bread plates (Sony's are too small for manly hands), and lenses which are two stops slower and 3x as expensive as for FF cameras. Wide angle and telephoto lenses will limited to (equivalent) 24 to 135 mm, at least for semi-affordable versions. For now, these sensors are intended for high-speed industrial video applications, such as label verification in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Edited March 9, 2021 by Ed_Ingold

I wish they would make an affordable FF 6mp sensor for my Hasselblad SWC for $1200.

 

Shooting everything at the MF resolutions will eat up lots of space. Are you guys and gals ready for that?

 

From my tests (all deleted by Tumblr in 2019) I found 35mm flatbed scanned negative film = about 3 or 4 mp with a P&S camera. Amazing we got along on that low res stuff all those years...huh? A 6mp FF 6x6 sensor for the Hassy would= or exceed scanned negative roll film.

Ed, I don't quite get your post. Is it tongue in cheek? If you really think medium format digital is the way of the future, you're not quite selling it...

Ed, I don't quite get your post. Is it tongue in cheek? If you really think medium format digital is the way of the future, you're not quite selling it...

Ya think? Actually I love shooting medium format digital, understanding its limitations. I bought a used Hasselblad 500cm early in the millennium, and gradually added lenses to the kit. After buying a 16 MP digital back in 2007, it became my go-to camera for landscapes and travel. Sony changed that in 2015, but I have no regrets.

 

As a group (PNetters) we tend to obsess over equipment we don't have and unlikely to acquire. At the top of this list are Leicas and Hasselblads. While both are jewels of engineering and design, their limitations are often ignored, at least until you confront them. You cope by adjusting your style and "needs" to suit the equipment. With modern mirrorless cameras, there's little they can't do, and we are getting spoiled.

I'm not hankering after a higher pixel count, but that article shows that the technology is in place for (close to) true medium format sensors, and ones that don't follow Barnack's wasteful 3:2 aspect ratio.

 

The chip-on-wafer innovation might also give us faster, or deeper bit-depth, A to D conversion. Or hardware log tone curves, which would result in a wider dynamic range.

 

Also, it seems only a small step from BSI technology to a Foveon style 'naturally filtered' photosite array. Convergence of evolution maybe?

It's interesting the way software is going too. Adobe's new Super Resolution enhancer in ACR effectively makes my 24MP A7 III into a 96MP camera should I so need. (It's actual utility might lie in making large prints better for files with small pixel counts.) See Adobe releases Photoshop for M1 Macs and introduces Super Resolution in ACR (Super Resolution doesn't require an M1 chip).

In my glory days (if ever) I shot either 4x5" or 35mm.

I really liked ~6x6 range format, but did not appreciate twin-lens reflexes and medium-format SLRs were costly, especially with a prism.

 

However, late in the history of the format, I did find press-style RF cameras that I liked, but of course, just as I got into the idea, 220 film went away. :(

[i still have 6 rolls in the freezer, though]. I have enough trouble getting the loading tension correct (specifically, my Pentacon 6TL), that changing film every few exposures doesn't much appeal.

 

But with digital, it seems to me that it's the pixel count, not the size of the image, that matters more. There are some technical advantages to larger sensors, I am sure, but digital at 50-100 MP is so easily handled in the computer (given appropriate power) that why does the physical size matter?

 

It's not like you can do contact prints.:rolleyes:

....that why does the physical size matter?

For a shallower depth-of-field, and at an aperture that's affordable and doesn't stretch optical design to its limits?

 

6x7(cm) at a modest, and 'clean' f/2.8 gets you the same D-o-F as a full-frame lens at f/2, or an f/1.4 lens with almost unavoidable spherical aberration and 'iffy' bokeh on the APS-C format.

 

Or a modest f/7.2 lens on 5"x4" would get you the same D-o-F.

Just found this thread and what struck me were the two conflicting phrases in the article...

 

"........and it is not something that is going to be used for any type of still or video camera"

and

"Sony expects the sensor to be used in..............wide-area monitoring, and aerial photography."

Eh? not sure how you do aerial photography without a still or video camera??