Nikon D3/D300 LCD True or false?

[lars69]

Hi everybody,

 

Like everybody I was very impressed with the LCD spec of the new D3 and D300.

But somewhere on dpreview was a comment about it not really being 900000

pixels. According to the comment Nikon counted Dots, meaning Red,Green and

Blue points. Each pixel is made of 3 dots meaning that the LCD is really a

300000 pixel one if directly compared to a laptop LCD or other models.

So Nikons D200 has a 230000 pixel LCD or 720000 dots as compared to the

D3/D300 900000 dots LCD, which would only be a 20% improvements.

So far the rumour.

 

The comment never came to a conclusion and I haven't found much info about

that anymore.

 

Can anyone with more knowledge about LCD technology give some info here. Is

Nikon's new LCD really 4x the resolution as the D200 one or is it only clever

marketing?

 

Just to not make people angry, I think the two new models are amazing whatever

resolution the LCD has, I just want to understand the facts.

 

Thanks,

 

Lars

[bjørn rørslett]

Both cameras have huge LCD panels on their rear side. And I mean huge. Zooming into the displayed image to ascertain critical sharpness never has been easier.

 

If I remember correctly, the D3 is specified to have VGA resolution of the LCD, or 640 x 480 pix (x 3 for a complete R,G,B triplet). All together, just above 900 KPix.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"Is Nikon's new LCD really 4x the resolution as the D200 one"

 

the short answer is : "yes"

[lars69]

So just to confirm I got that right. When I say the D200 has 230000 pixel LCD I am more or less wrong???

It has 320 x 240 resolution so really 76800 pixels?

 

The point I maybe don't get is the x3 for RGB thing. I know a CCD or CMOS has only 1/3 Red,1/3 Green,1/3 Blue pixles (more green I know) and we still count each one to the total resolution. But surely that is different as a 6 MPixel CCD really gives me a 3000x2000 pixel image while the D200 screen gives me a 320 x 240 pixels but claims a three times higher resolution.

 

How does that work for Laptops or PC monitors?

If I have a 1024x768 display I surely also have RGB dots but I don't multiply the pixels by three, or do I?

So my 1024x768 pixel laptop LCD has roughly 800 kPixel pixel or 2.4 MPixel?

[ShunCheung]

Lars, actually the CCD and CMOS sensors have 1/4 red, 1/4 blue and 1/2 green pixels. That is called the Bayer pattern:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bayer_pattern_on_sensor.svg

They are not 1/3 each.

[younes]

You are not wrong. All the manufacturers (not just Nikon) talk about pixels when referring to their LCD displays, but they really mean dots. So the D300 and D3 have 4 times more dots than any other screen on the market (in DSLRs at least).

[ellis_vener_photography]

All LCD pixels can only display either red green or blue.

 

A BAyer mosaid CMOS or CCd has alternating rows of red/green and blue/green so yes the RGB ratio on Bayer filtered CMOS or CCD image recording devices is 1:2:1, but in reality the way the BAyer interpolation to construct full color bvalues for each pixel is to start with one photosite and look at the values for the surrounding 8 pixels Think of a tic-tac-toe grid now overlap the grids so that the full color value for each and every "effective pixel" is calculated from the data from a total of nine photo-sites.

 

With either an LCD or the CMOS or CCD this doesn't necessarily effect resolution of detail. Difference in luminosity and color define detail so more pixels in the LCD means you can discern more detail --up to a point of diminishing returns due to defraction.

[oskar_ojala]

Look at an LCD with a magnifying glass, you'll notice the individual component colors. Counting each component color as a separate pixel is a highly irritating marketing gimmick, but this doesn't alter the fact that the D3/D300 screen has a lot of pixels, a thing which I'm happy for.

[lars69]

Thanks for all the answers.

So really it is an issue of wording and companies should rather say dots when they talk about their LCD screens or quote xy resolution (eg 640 x 480)

Good so that makes it all clearer.

 

Thanks,

 

Lars

[ellis_vener_photography]

they don't call them "dots" becasue they aren't dots they are pixels.Like little light bulbs that lightup in intensity depending on how much voltage is supplied to them. In this context dots are produced by ink on a solid medium.

[oskar_ojala]

I'm not sure "pixels" is the right term for the component colors. My copy of "Computer Graphics, practice and principle" just mentions "spots" when tlaking about LCD screens. Wikipedia uses the term "subpixel", but doesn't cite sources. I think the correct way to say is that "LCD screens require three component color to form one pixel".

[bsd230]

I wonder if the new D300/D3 is cable ready so it can second as a t.v.

[mars790]

I believe the 4X increase of pixels equals twice the linear resolution to our eyes. Sounds good

to me. And hearing from Bjorn and Ellis who have seen it, ups my anticipation even more...