24mp DX format camera (D3200) quality of image?

[pjdilip]

<p>Hi,<br /> Is Nikon really bringing out a 24mp DX format camera (D3200), or is it all a vague rumor? What would that many pixels mean on that small (relatively) a sensor...is this approaching medium format quality in DX? I ask because I am getting mfAS and dreaming of getting into 6x7 film cameras...</p>

[starvy]

<p>Dilip, I don't think MP count and sensor size should be equated in this context. I am sure it would be a very nice camera but perhaps not quite MF with such a small sensor.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>The D3200 has out for a while, Dilip:<br>

http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/nikon-d3200-10-things-you-need-to-know-1076639</p>

 

[owen_omeara]

<p>Dip..<br>

I agree with Starvy. It is a bit soon to assume the images from this camera will be comparable to medium format but anything is possible. As my son who is a physicist says "there are pixels and there are pixels." <br>

A friend of mine is supposed to take delivery of a new d3200 on Monday and I am certain we will play with it and I will send some sample images along. There have been rumors of a 24 mp camera from Nikon for a long time and now we will see the results.</p>

<p>-Cheers</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Naw, as we have found out since the announcement of the D800, a mere 24MP of image is no where near enough pixies dancing on the head of a sensor.... ;)</p>

<p>Seriously, the number of pixels is by no means the only or most important specification for a digital camera. Noise, processor, and many other factors have to be taken into account, or Nikon would not be selling a mere 17MP camera for US$6000 (the D4).<br>

But, since you ask, DX (APS-C) is not inherently inferior to FX,<em> it depends on the individual technical realization of the sensor and camera processor</em>.</p>

[Two23]

<p>In addition to my NIkon digital system I also shoot film, but for a whole different reason than the technicals. I use a 6x9 camera made in 1937 for medium format, and also a 4x5 for lenses made back in the "beginning of time". I have two groups of lenses for that: lenses made 1847 to 1870, and lenses made 1900 to 1925. I get a whole different look from this historic camera gear than I can from modern equipment, and I like it a lot. Everybody is shooting digital these days, so I am doing something different. Below shot taken with an E&HT Anthony rapid rectilinear lens from the 1890s on Efke 25 film, 4x5.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[georg_s1]

<p>Dilip,<br>

I'm pretty sure the D3200 is able to deliver amazing files, just like many other recent digital cameras.<br>

Under some circumstances it might even rival or surpass medium-format (depending on the workflow, so many variables here). <br>

In fact; some weeks ago I've took a picture (with a 16MP D7000) which couldn't have been shot at this „image-quality” (resolution/sharpness) with a medium-format-camera of any kind (digital or film), except maybe with some very exotic accessories like a gyro-stabilizer.<br>

Based on the very few pictures* I've seen so far from the D3200, this camera would have been an even better choice for this specific situation.<br>

But „image-quality” is much more than just pixel-count, exposure-latitude or tonal-range.<br>

Kent illustrates this nicely. Film has is own „quality”, just like medium-format. <br>

Have fun; photography is a fantastic way to explore the world, regardless if with a 24MP-D3200 or with a vintage Agfa-Box-camera,<br>

Georg.</p>

<p>*) for instance here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonfrance/sets/72157629851394125/with/6946746648/</p>

[pjdilip]

<p>Hi, thanks for all the responses to what now sounds a naive question. Wow...this new camera sure makes them look pretty :). Nikon is apparently going to save me a lot of money running after medium format stuff, let's see!<br>

(*I have to confess, I was so shocked by this amount of pixels, that I actually went back and checked up the press release to convince myself that it wasn't all a dream...too much late nights poring over camera pictures and not enough going out and taking pictures with my camera!)</p>

[pjdilip]

<p>On second thought, though, why do full-frame sensor cameras cost so much more...surely it must cost the same to pack this many pixels on a larger chip to give us an entry-level FF camera?</p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>Beautiful image, Kent. Love it!</p>

<p>Re D3200, the specs look impressive - and the price is so unbelievably right!</p>

[Kent Shafer]

<p>Mary, right! I'm thinking it could be pretty cool to shoot a 600mm lens with a D3200 stuck on the back. A red one.</p>

[ronald_smith6]

<p>*Sigh* So many high MP camera lovers. Yes, medium format quality is now fully attainable in both FX and DX, but have we all upgraded our PC's to accommodate these ridiculously large files? Are we all suddenly landscape shooters? I guess the marketing wizards at Nikon have won many over with these latest sensors.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>Dilip,</p>

<p>aside from the price premium created by the supposed full frame image quality advantage, there's a significant cost difference between crop and FF sensors.</p>

<p>Not only can many more crop sensors be cut from a silicon wafer (evidently, on average an eight inch wafer might yield about 20 FF sensors compared to 200 crop sensors) but FF sensors are far more likely to suffer from flaws cause by contaminants and other faults, which will further reduce FF sensor yield.</p>

<p>Furthermore, some manufacturing processes require the stitching or otherwise joining of smaller sections of sensor to get to FF size - more expense.</p>

<p>The net result is that - depending on which source you believe - it might cost ten times more to produce a FF sensor than a crop sensor, and probably more than that.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>Ronald,</p>

<p>high pixel counts are very useful for wildlife photographers - more cropping options to make up for focal length limitations, and more fine detail for feathers, fur etc. </p>

[andylynn]

<p>Are wildlife photographers really buying D3200s? It has the lower end AF sensor and no weather sealing, and if you want to really make use of the MPs for cropping you're going to want more expensive glass than D3200 buyers are likely to have. Which is part of why I think it's a bit odd that the least expensive Nikon is the one with the highest pixel density.</p>

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>Are wildlife photographers really buying D3200s?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That wasn't the question I responded to, Andy.</p>

<p>Roland made a general comment about high pixel count cameras, and I'm simply pointing out to him that there's more to them than his post acknowledges.</p>

[RaymondC]

<p>Does it have aperture preview? well one could ... use live lcd to compose that grad filter ......</p>

<p>I think Galen Rowell might use it, he did use some of the cheap light stuff for his style of photog, like a FM10 and was it a N55 as well plus the 28-80/3.5-4.5 and the 80-200/4.5-5.6 which I did have, I might get it back again. Like he said f/8 and be there ..... Handheld at fast shutter speed, or on tripod, remote, manual exposure, manual focussing or even slowish AF should be ok ie., family portraits. And given the MP is higher and newer than the D7000 I am looking to see a comparison. </p>

<p>Not that I am getting one, my D70 suits me fine at base ISO and does A3 prints. I even have a D2h used, that does what I need, for times whenI want a more instant camera .... andf or vertical shots.</p>

<p>For me anyway, 6x7 cameras or any film cameras are the slides. Not the reso or anything but the look of slides using a lightbox or projector - not by scanning onto the computer. And no post editing ..... I still like to use my F100 with slides. Just bought 15 rolls of the discontinued E100G, 5 in 135 and 10 in 120 format.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>I shoot quite a bit of wildlife and do not welcome 24MP for that purpose. When you capture 24MP, you are moving a lot more bits around the electronics inside the camera and eventually into the memory cards. Moving data captured from 24MP around will significantly slow down the camera and will affect frame rate. That is why the D4, Nikon's latest sports/action DSLR, has only 16MP, and the D4 already needs a lot of expensive electronics to capture 16MP at 10 frames/second.</p>

<p>For wildlife work, I think 16MP is plenty and I am quite happy even with 12MP.</p>

[randy_cooprider1]

Dilip,

 

The sensor of a full frame (24x36mm) is way more expensive than an APS-C simply due to the difficulty of getting that much area free from significant number of bad pixels. Also the processor has to handle more data and output it to the storage card which means it has to be faster hence more expensive. Newton's first law.. you don't get something for nothing.

[RaymondC]

<p>For the costs I might beg to differ.</p>

<p>Full frame has been with us for sometime now. If you look at the R+D and the Planning and Design costs, much of it has been allocated to the previous FF model cameras for that lifecycle ie., the D3 for example. If we have newer FF cameras now ... there is still going to be some of the R+D and the P+D costs but not most of it. Plus the present current manufacturing costs involved. I think it is going to cost more than DX cameras simply b/c there is a lot fewer items sold for FX compared to DX. Costs per the unit. But not so much in terms of all the costs associated b/c a lot of the cost might be borne from the previous technology.</p>

<p>I think that if they going to maintain DX and FX - a certainty, costs will remain that way.</p>

<p>The amount it costs to produce a D800 isn't as big as it did to produce the first FX the D3. Or the first DX. </p>

[RaymondC]

<p>In re: to the costs, who cares what it costs in total if you can sell tons of DX cameras. Per the unit .... the costs are manageable.</p>

<p>Even if the costs are way more but if we can sell way more units .... and we get way more profit.......<br /> I would think that Nikon uses cost pricing. Before they begin to produce any model camera they allocate the costs for each phase for the lifetime of that model camera and therefore this is our expected price tag for it to be sold, we forecast to sell this much units and thus our expected profit .....</p>

<p>They could use fewer bodies to keep the costs down, use interchangeable parts. Use the same sensor designs but just different variants.</p>

<p>Nikon makes their own FX sensors don't they I heard ... A sig amount of the prev technology is still there, the plant is still there. They stop producing the old one, free up the resources for the new one. Of course there will be some costs involved to research, develop, maintain and convert some stuff .... but not as much as from ground zero. </p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>Nikon wanted to have something that compares, at least by pixel counts, to the new Canon 5D make III, but costs much much less. <br>

Sure, someone can make a comparison of them to make it "worth a hoot" - I like this expression used in some recent camera compares...:).</p>

[RaymondC]

<p>Another way is that Nikon knows people will still buy if they price it higher .... maybe if they price it higher not that much people will be deterred and their profit might even be more. Some might even argue if Nikon price the FX too cheap ... some people might even question if there is anything cheap/wrong about it. People might expect a FX to be a prem. product and therefore a prem. price.</p>

[ronald_smith6]

<p>Yes, high MP sensors might be good for landscapes and perhaps wildlife, but I think we are at the point where returns are minimal. This generation of photographers grew up with cropping as part of their stock and trade - and it can be a life-saver for some captures - but I learned how to fill the frame from my days as a slide shooter. Another angle is that most people still shoot JPEG, natively (especially on an entry-level type of camera such as this), so a large JPEG that results from a 24MP sensor can be manipulated a fair degree before quality degradation. For those of us who shoot NEF's, are we happy that these RAW files are now rather ungainly and require even more storage resources? I am not, for one, excited about that. Anyway, my D40, D50, D60 and D80 bodies are with me until they wear out.....</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Ronald, I think you have a point that the majority of people buying this class of a camera use JPG. As JPGs are 8 bit per color, dynamic range of the image can be enhanced by increasing the pixel count, compensating for the lack of bit depth in the individual pixel. Yet transferring, browsing and opening up JPGs on the computer is very quick.</p>

<p>I don't think there is anything wrong with cropping a bit. A lot of new photogs seem to crop quite extensively though and may not notice the reduced quality as they mostly use the final result for facebook/e-mail rather than printing. I typically crop to make refinements to the composition and since often my images do not end up as having 2:3 aspect ratio, but I typically only crop 0-25% of the image area (retaining 75% or more). I do notice the quality loss when going further with the cropping (i.e. to 50%) and avoid going that far. For shots of approaching subjects, I think leaving a bit of leeway in the framing is essential as I have to use a fixed focus point to follow the action reliably and thus the composition changes as the subject approaches. To finalize the image some cropping is usually required in these circumstances. If I'm photographing a (relatively) stationary subject then I typically only crop to make the aspect ratio what I want. I think shooting everything with a fixed aspect ratio in mind (2:3) is extremely limiting. Few subjects are a perfect compositional fit to a 2:3 frame.</p>

<p>Cropping isn't anything new: with 6x6 medium format cameras the images were frequently cropped into verticals or horizontals, as needed, in the darkroom, or by the user of the image. If you have the capability from a resolution and tonality point of view to crop a bit, then it is a very useful tool.</p>