60 mega pexils?

[chrismitchell]

When is Nikon going to release a 60 pixel camera?  How long has Sony had one?  Nikon buys silicone from Sony.  

Next guess?

[mike_halliwell]

An extra 12 or so megapixels isn't going to make much difference.

Just because one Lemming jumped off a cliff, doesn't mean anyone else should..... 😉

Now, a 60MPix DX sensor, that's another, all-be-it unlikely, story.

[ilkka_nissila]

3 hours ago, chrismitchell said:

When is Nikon going to release a 60 pixel camera?  How long has Sony had one?  Nikon buys silicone from Sony.  

Next guess?

60 vs. 45 is a fairly small difference and Nikon has got very nice 45 MP sensors nowadays also with fast read times (the Z8/Z9). I would think at least doubling to 90-100 MP would be needed to make a meaningful perceptual difference to the images where you'd really notice it when making very large prints. Though personally I think 45 MP is a very good place to be, in that it produces very sharp images but you can still use it for action and low light.

 

Although I'm happy with the Z8 and Zf and still use DSLRs as well, I would like to see a 24 MP -ish variant of the Z8 or Z9 where the file size is more practical for events where the images don't typically need significant cropping but can be shot in very low light. The Zf works well for that (and I love that camera) but it doesn't have a stacked sensor (so there can be more rolling shutter in video and in silent photography than with a faster read time sensor) and some other things are missing (such as the interface to trigger SB-5000's wirelessly, and to use a remote release cable). Sony and Canon have recent high-end 24 MP cameras with global (Sony) and stacked (Canon) sensors. For the static subject and ultra high image quality imaging it'll be interesting to see how 35mm format can compete with the 33 mm x 44 mm medium format cameras at the 100 MP level.

Edited April 24 by ilkka_nissila

[Niels - NHSN]

13 hours ago, chrismitchell said:

When is Nikon going to release a 60 pixel camera?…

24mp has been more than I need for many years now.

I’m just hoping Nikon won’t focus on count but rather on functionality.

[mike_halliwell]

Quality over quantity.....

😉

 

[c_watson1]

Stay tuned to this channel:

https://www.red.com/news/nikon-announcement

 

 

[hjoseph7]

Those huge file sizes don't suit the type of photography I do very well. I often have to download my images to the corporate server and I can tell you it's not a very pleasant experience especially if you have HUGE file sizes... 

[mike_halliwell]

I've often found very high res JPEG at 'Best' can be more usefull than a TIFF of the same storage file size.

It equates to ~ a 60MPix JPEG to a 20MPix TIFF...

It's not apples to apples, but you get the idea!

[CvhKaar]

mm would not know what to do with 60M pixels, no way i could do it justice when printing ....

Edited April 25 by CvhKaar

[Rick Helmke]

What would you do with a 60 mp camera. Does that allow you to do something you can’t do already? Sounds more like a reason to need larger cards, bigger hard drives and more of them. Then again I keep asking the same question about mirrorless cameras. So far the answer is…nothing…

 

Rick H.

[mike_halliwell]

6 hours ago, Rick Helmke said:

So far the answer is…nothing…

Guess you don't do close up wildlife, music recitals or weddings etc where you get kicked out for making noise. ?

Truly silent operation is one of the many benefits of mirrorless cameras.

That many pixels, not so much.😉

[John Seaman]

 

[ilkka_nissila]

1 hour ago, John Seaman said:

 

Of course in any small-sensor camera with high pixel count, there will be noise. Software algorithms can reduce noise but at the same time they also reduce the detail and there is no genuine recording of fine tonal or colour gradations without having recorded enough photons. Mobile phones also combine multiple images to reduce noise but if the subject is living and moving about then this doesn't really work as the features in different shots are not aligned across the individually captured images. This process creates a fake appearance of the image which people may not notice so much when viewing the final result on a tiny screen which takes up only a small part of the visual field. But when viewed on a large screen it becomes obvious that there are problems.

Edited April 26 by ilkka_nissila

[mikemorrellNL]

Please correct me if I'm completely wrong!  I've always learned -in theory but not in practice - that 'photo (print) resolution' is partly a physical process. But mainly related to the 'viewing distance'. In other words, the closer you are to a photo, the higher the resolution needs to be. Conversely, the further away you are a lower resolution can still look 'sharp'. So 'resolution' is - is terms of perception' much more relative than absolute.

Taking an A3 print as a benchmark, if my amateur calculations are anywhere close to being correct (????), a 200 MB sensor would comfortably allow you to make an A3 print at 600 dpi whereas a 24 MB sensor would comfortably allow you to make an A3 print at 300 dpi.

IHMO, 'resolution' (and correspondingly sensor size) is all about 'applications' and what works best for you.  Pretty much all my photo are published  (1980 x 1080) on the web.  So even my 24 MB sensor is an overkill. I can scale up the size of my images to A4 format at 300 dpi for print publication and that's about the extent of what I need . So my 24 MB sensor works fine for me.

I can well imagine some (scientific, astronomy, macro, etc.) applications for which a higher-res sensor might really help to capture small details. But for the average 'consumer'?  My guess is that larger image files might be more of a hindrance than a help.

PS. My 'digital photography' journey started out in 2003/2004 with a Canon Powershot G7 (5MB sensor). Many years later, I upgraded to a 'real DSLR' (a Canon 40D) with a 10 MB sensor. A couple of years ago I bought a 2nd hand Canon Mk iv body with a 24 MB sensor. Partly because I felt that my trusty 40D was long due for an upgrade. And mainly because I'd screwed up a repair on my 40D!

In terms of my 'digital publication quality' the sensor size between these cameras (5MB - 24 MB) has made very little difference. The main difference between these cameras (for me) is in the ease in which I can take higher quality photos (responsiveness, burst speed, sensor quality, higher ISO photo quality, etc.) 

So, for me, increasingly larger sensor sizes do not add value to my personal style of photography. But, as stated above, they may well add value in other photographic applications.

 

[mike_halliwell]

A lot of wildlife photography, esp. small, shy birds and skittish things like perching dragonflies need almost mandatory cropping.

It's surprising just how quickly the pixel count drops with a modest crop.

Full frame Z8 48Mpix (scaled to HD page) and then cropped to 1Mpix. Not a great image, but you get the idea.

Providing the lens is sharp enough, it's in focus and there's no subject blur (!-!-!) cropping works very well.

Taken with a 500mm PF, @ 75m range..... didn't have my 800mm PF or ZTC1.4 !

1/3200 ISO 640 f5.6.

 

Edited April 26 by mike_halliwell

[mike_halliwell]

Forgot to add, if that had started as a 24MPix shot it would have become twice as pixelated with that degree of crop.  🙂

[Rick Helmke]

16 hours ago, mike_halliwell said:

Guess you don't do close up wildlife, music recitals or weddings etc where you get kicked out for making noise. ?

Truly silent operation is one of the many benefits of mirrorless cameras.

That many pixels, not so much.😉

I’ve done all of those things and have yet to be kicked out of a wedding or a courtroom for that matter. I do have to concede though I can see where a quiet camera is better. I grew up on motor driven F2s and loud music so I suspect my outlook is different than the current generation of photographers. 
 

Rick H.

[ilkka_nissila]

16 hours ago, mike_halliwell said:

A lot of wildlife photography, esp. small, shy birds and skittish things like perching dragonflies need almost mandatory cropping.

It's surprising just how quickly the pixel count drops with a modest crop.

Full frame Z8 48Mpix (scaled to HD page) and then cropped to 1Mpix. Not a great image, but you get the idea.

Providing the lens is sharp enough, it's in focus and there's no subject blur (!-!-!) cropping works very well.

Taken with a 500mm PF, @ 75m range..... didn't have my 800mm PF or ZTC1.4 !

1/3200 ISO 640 f5.6.

 

To my eyes it looks like the bird's eye is not in focus. This is one of the problems of cropping deep (10x...), as the camera manufacturers don't design the focus areas to work optimally with such small parts of the frame. Having adequate sharpness and depth of field at the individual pixel level is very demanding for 45 MP let alone higher. The camera has to process a larger amount of data and achieve focus to a higher precision. That's just not workable with today's technology in my opinion.

 

I saw two lynx in Porkkala yesterday, but they were fairly far away (120-150 m) and I only had a 300 mm. In this shot, the camera seems to have focused on the rock rather than the animal. About 10% was cropped from the bottom and right:

 

In a large print, the slight misfocus doesn't bother me but when I made a significant crop (3-4x from the original) and printed that then it just doesn't quite sit right. In the overall image I would have preferred a lower vantage point (I was on a hill somewhat higher than the lynx so the agriculture equipment tracks show rather than the forest as background immediately behind the lynx. However, I am not comfortable stalking the lynx and getting into a better position - much as I like photography, this isn't going to happen.

 

For landscape with a tripod, studio shots with flash etc. there can be benefits from going higher in the pixel count, but I think the autofocus precision, atmospheric effects, and noise are the main limitations preventing the use of deeply cropped images in wildlife photography.

Edited April 27 by ilkka_nissila

[mike_halliwell]

7 hours ago, ilkka_nissila said:

To my eyes it looks like the bird's eye is not in focus

Yup, with a diameter of just 12 pixels, that eye isn't so sharp!

Same crop from a 24MP sensor would be much worse.

48MP > 1MP is pretty severe.😂

With a plain background and a dark bird 75m away, I'm not sure the AF was off, as such.  However, out of about 20 frames, some are definitely better than others.

 

[mike_halliwell]

9 hours ago, ilkka_nissila said:

the camera seems to have focused on the rock rather than the animal.

Sometimes I wonder whether PIN would work for subjects like your stationary Lynx?

Here's a radical idea for cold climate wildlife... a Thermal subject target indicator for AF assist. 😉

[ilkka_nissila]

2 hours ago, mike_halliwell said:

Sometimes I wonder whether PIN would work for subjects like your stationary Lynx?

Here's a radical idea for cold climate wildlife... a Thermal subject target indicator for AF assist. 😉

It may work but given the small angular size of the subject a tripod would probably be needed or at least very helpful. I suspect that a separate IR sensor (with mirrors?) would probably be very costly to implement. 😉