Are 32 MP too many? EF-M 32 mm 1.4 on M6 II

[Joules]

Usually the videos of Mr. Frost get shared on this site by others anyway. But as I haven't seen this one mentioned jet, he evaluated the EF-M 32 mm 1.4 on the challenging 32 MP M6 II sensor:

The take away for me: The lens is super sharp and despite how tiny and relatively inexpensive it is, can handle these resolutions just fine. Also gives me confidence that much larger and more expensive RF glass will be suited very well for upcoming monster sensor such as the rumored 90 MP one. (Not that I doubted it, but you never know).

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

If a person is asking the question, I'd go elsewhere because they don't know how MTF works. Every component in a photography system can be assigned a MTF. Even film had a MTF. The electronics processing a digital signal can have a MTF.

The final result is always lower than the MTF of the weakest link, be it the lens, sensor, Monitor, printer or whatever is part of the system The final MTF is equal to the product of the individual MTF values.

So, given a lens MTF of 0.8 and a sensor MTF of 0.7, the system MTF is 0.56. Without changing the lens, increasing the resolution of the sensor to say 0.8 will increase the system MTF to 0.64 all using the same lens. Improving the sensor always improves the system MTF as does improving the lens, but a lens does not out resolve a sensor, thats nonsense.

 

[VegasCameraGuy]

One of the problems with the resolution is that you can never have enough. Back in the 70's and 80's I used to switch between my Canon F1 and a 500ELM Blad. They both took great pictures but when you tried to crop in tight, the 24x36 image would rapidly fall apart unlike the 6x6 negative. A bigger negative or higher resolution sensor will allow you to salvage a picture that you cannot save by cropping. It's one thing if it's a picture of your dog but not if someone is writing a check for it.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

With a DSLR, more pixels is not like a large negative. A larger sensor is. More pixels is like finer grained film.

You can crop more with increased pixels up to a point. As we get more pixels, the noise per pixel becomes a factor so it restricts how much you can crop before noise becomes a factor, and, of course, the diffraction effects become more visible when you crop a high MP image.

The best way is to get a longer lens, unfortunately, that adds weight and potentially a lot of cost. Its always a compromise. Canon usually does not increase the pixel count until the technology reaches the point where noise per pixel is low enough to allow for a fairly severe crop. A higher MP sensor when properly done will always make a given lens look sharper.

 

[Joules]

If a person is asking the question, I'd go elsewhere because they don't know how MTF works. Every component in a photography system can be assigned a MTF. Even film had a MTF. The electronics processing a digital signal can have a MTF.

The final result is always lower than the MTF of the weakest link, be it the lens, sensor, Monitor, printer or whatever is part of the system The final MTF is equal to the product of the individual MTF values.

So, given a lens MTF of 0.8 and a sensor MTF of 0.7, the system MTF is 0.56. Without changing the lens, increasing the resolution of the sensor to say 0.8 will increase the system MTF to 0.64 all using the same lens. Improving the sensor always improves the system MTF as does improving the lens, but a lens does not out resolve a sensor, thats nonsense.

If you are refering to my click-baity title, it is just that. I have seen posts recently that had doubts about Canon's choice to put a 32 MP sensor in upcoming EF-M cameras. Of course more pixels will yield an improvement, but images are more convincing than words. And they also show the degree of improvement, which is dependend on the lens. So when I wanted to show how even a lowly EF-M prime can make great use of such a sensor, I discovered that TDP lens comparison tool doesn't feature the M6 II for the primes. So I thought this video was worth sharing for the skeptics, as it is the first such test I have seen with this lens and sensor.

If the M system isn't doomed, we may well see more such excellent performing lenses released to add further justification to using this high res sensor in upcoming models. Although that's just speculation on my part.