Is there a hole in MP range of FF cameras?
- Thread starter RGF
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If you have a 20 megapixel camera, and are happy with your bird shots - except you want to resolve the barbs in the feathers, then you need 50. Canon doesn't sell the one that would show the barbules. There is a range of scales within subjects, to see that next range down, you need a big bump in megapixels.
Once you are happy with the print or screen output of your photos after a few degrees of leveling, or a tad bit of cropping for composition, another one megapixel does you no good. If you want cameras to improve so your technique can degrade, then I will disagree with your expectations.
That is how you should think about megapixels in isolation from all other aspects of camera performance. Except cameras are a pile of compromises. So, the megapixel column in a comparison chart is the last thing you should check for "holes".
Once you are happy with the print or screen output of your photos after a few degrees of leveling, or a tad bit of cropping for composition, another one megapixel does you no good. If you want cameras to improve so your technique can degrade, then I will disagree with your expectations.
That is how you should think about megapixels in isolation from all other aspects of camera performance. Except cameras are a pile of compromises. So, the megapixel column in a comparison chart is the last thing you should check for "holes".
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davidj said:
Understood, but I don't believe that is how people actually crop. I find it hard to believe anyone consciously crops everything to exactly 50%. The image is taken and then either the image is cropped slightly to make corrections /slightly better composition or it's heavily cropped for a new composition that either wasn't seen at the time or wasn't possible. Its completely subjective and varies heavily from image to image, photographer to photographer. So, any increase in m-pix is welcome for corrective cropping or completely recomposing. Of course it really should be discussed as a % increase in pixels. The difference between 24 vs 30 (25% increase) is well worth it and has real world value IMO.
The other thing to consider is the real world 'minimum' crop size. I think for a lot of people, screen resolution is a consideration of how low they will go. When 1600 px was a standard monitor, that was a common lower limit for cropping. Now people are starting to upgrade to 4K displays. 4K will be the lower limit for cropping for a lot of people (probably more for amateurs rather than pros).
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RGF said:
1) This implies megapixels define the FF market segmentation. Canon does not do this in crop. Canon does not do this in FF. Sony does, b/c using MP as the principal differentiator is sort of how an enthusiast might make purchasing decisions. Canon (and Nikon) mix this up a bit with some semi-specialized rigs (D810A, 5DS, 80D, etc.) and of course the jackhammers (1DX2, 7D2) leading each line.
2) There's been a lot of talk that Canon needs a mid-level resolution rig, i.e. the 32-36 MP you are arguing for. That takes your 6x4k shot to (roughly) 7x5k, which is not that huge a bump. For all those who tout how much extra detail you get, it's basically an additional 500 pixels in each direction from the center of the frame. Further, for all those who tout how important cropping can be -- and I agree -- you can only really crop a picture perhaps 1.15x and retain the detail of a comparable 6x4k shot. So I think resolution bumps need to be massive (like 50 MP) or you shouldn't bother.
3) If the 5DS is the detail rig and the 1DX II is the speed/tracking/high ISO rig, the 5D4 is something of a balance of the two. With only one DIGIC chip expected in the 5D4 (based on the last two 5D# models), a 32-36 MP sensor would clock in around 4 fps or so. That's not going to cut it for that user base. (I have been arguing a second chip in the 5D4 is more than justified for a host of reasons -- landing at perhaps 24 MP X 10 fps or 28 MP x 8 fps -- but I seem to be in the minority).
- A
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My thoughts: I don't think there is.
When the D800 first came out I tried it for resolution compared with the 5DII - wasn't overly impressed. The 5Ds, in rough figures, produces an output size in terms of long side mm, of about 54% larger than the 5DII / 6D / 5DIII, and this equated to a potential resolution increase of about 27%. A 31 mp camera would have an output size only about 20% larger than the 6D, and around a 10% increase in resolution potential.
If you have a good sharp image interpolation up is so efficient now I just don't see the point. I recently produced a wall size wall-paper mural of one of the building panoramics shots, in this case a stitch of only three vertical 6D frames, so a 42 mp size file, and I tried printing it at 300 dpi for a laugh. The final output size is around 8' x 16', and the resolution and overall quality is remarkable ! So I did the whole run at 300 dpi ! I'll post some pictures of it sometime.
When the D800 first came out I tried it for resolution compared with the 5DII - wasn't overly impressed. The 5Ds, in rough figures, produces an output size in terms of long side mm, of about 54% larger than the 5DII / 6D / 5DIII, and this equated to a potential resolution increase of about 27%. A 31 mp camera would have an output size only about 20% larger than the 6D, and around a 10% increase in resolution potential.
If you have a good sharp image interpolation up is so efficient now I just don't see the point. I recently produced a wall size wall-paper mural of one of the building panoramics shots, in this case a stitch of only three vertical 6D frames, so a 42 mp size file, and I tried printing it at 300 dpi for a laugh. The final output size is around 8' x 16', and the resolution and overall quality is remarkable ! So I did the whole run at 300 dpi ! I'll post some pictures of it sometime.
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j-nord said:
I think you're optimistic here. A lot of sharing platforms resize images automatically, and use destructive compression. On Flickr, images don't occupy the whole screen as standard, until and unless you press L - does everyone do that for all shots? Doubtful. And Twitter is even worse, anything above ~2000px wide is downsized from what I can tell, somewhat arbitrarily, and the compression they add removes a lot of the fine detail you'd get by using high res images.
I've personally found no need to upload images over 2000-3000px wide on any platform. People will vary of course, but setting 4K as the lower limit is wildly unrealistic imho.
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scyrene said:
I made no mention of the awful size and compression of various social media sites. Some people want to be able to set their photos as a desktop background or share their images in a slide show via 4K display or 4K tv or 4K projector or make large prints. 4K is just the current standard that people are adopting, screens/tvs are going to continue to get larger and pixels are going to continue to get denser. I was merely suggesting that screen/viewing resolution standards affect how low some people will go in a crop.
Some people will continue moving forward with technology while others will happily output 2000px images for the rest of time.
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for many years I saved pictures for slideshows within the bounds of a 1920X1080 display. This year, I have been saving them to fit into a 4K display. I still don't have one myself, but ask me again at the end of the year and you will get a different answer.j-nord said:
4K will be the default screen size for lots of people.... Without a high megapixel camera, there isn't a whole lot of room left to crop......
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RGF said:
I agree that there's a hole, but it's at the top.
5Ds MkII 100MP
6D MKII (6Ds?) 50MP
5D4 30MP
1DX MkII 20MP
Whether the "middle of the road" resolution should be a 6D or 5D is a good question, but I am sure that we still need more pixels. 50MP is big but in a few years that won't be a problem for upcoming memory cards, and focal length limited shooting has no limit to its appetite for resolution.
Ok REALLY I want a 7Ds with a 100MP crop sensor, but I can only assume Canon will never think that sort of idea is worthwhile until we've had a few more smaller resolution boosts in the Rebel line.
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9VIII said:
I like your lineup better than mine
. Just hadn't considered throwing the 5ds II all the way to 100mp. Makes perfect sense as those folks aren't fretting over file size anyways. Heck, why not 150?I'd just add a 5Dc at 12mp or 18mp at the bottom. (18mp would allow for 6K)
As to a 100mp crop... Hmm that should lense technology to move ahead
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There is little difference between say 21mp and 33 mp as far as resolution is determined. You need to double the MP count to increase the resolution by a noticeable amount.
Resolution depends on the linear pixel account, the resolution for a 22.3mp 5D MK III on the long side of the image is 5760 pixels. For a 50.6 MP 5Ds, its 8688, which is a 51% increase. To double the resolution, you would need a 88.47 MP sensor.
Resolution depends on the linear pixel account, the resolution for a 22.3mp 5D MK III on the long side of the image is 5760 pixels. For a 50.6 MP 5Ds, its 8688, which is a 51% increase. To double the resolution, you would need a 88.47 MP sensor.
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dilbert said:
Speaking of panoramas, I have to assume that people making Gigapan images would love to use a 100MP sensor.
I remember reading about one 360 degree image that took multiple days to shoot because they were using a 600mm lens with a 7D to get a the highest image quality possible at that time. A 5Ds would have given slightly superior results while finishing 2.6 times faster. Increase resolution even more and they could use a 300f2.8 and significantly reduce shooting time.
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j-nord said:
Well fine
I guess the way we share photos is just very different, I didn't even consider that. I still think you're being optimistic as to how high most people's standards are regarding what is acceptable cropping. Remember, you said "for a lot of people" - this I disagree on. I think most people's standards are lower than those of many of us here in these forums - clearly we are the kind of people who pay more attention to technical minutiae. Most people just take pics and view or share them and that's it.(PS - doesn't viewing from a greater distance diminish the effect of more detail? A computer display is viewed fairly close, but tvs and projected images tend to be much further away. Just a thought).
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drmikeinpdx
Celebrating 20 years of model photography!
pwp said:
Those who call for more pixels must not shoot many images. File storage is already an issue for those of us who are active shooters, and since I first picked up a 5D Classic, I have yet to find a scene that required more megapixels than what my current body would deliver. I think the limiting factor is noise.
Personally, if I wanted to buy a 5D4 to replace my beloved 5D3, I'd prefer a small decrease in pixels, hopefully in exchange for more dynamic range and less noise.
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Sure, you will have people at every extreme from super high res pixel peepers to people who are happy to view pixelated, stretched out images. My question to you is, how long before tablets are 4K? 5 years? Less? 2k images are fine when a standard viewing device is 2k. When standards change, so will a lot of photographers. I'd also like to think that people who have several thousand $ invested in camera gear and a lot of time invested in photography, care how their images are viewed/consumed/shared.scyrene said:Well fine
(PS - doesn't viewing from a greater distance diminish the effect of more detail? A computer display is viewed fairly close, but tvs and projected images tend to be much further away. Just a thought).
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j-nord said:
And those people have zero influence on how their images are viewed. Wedding photos viewed on 7" tablets or 50" TV screens, neither of which are colour calibrated - the former show little detail the latter are viewed from far enough away it may as well be a 13" laptop screen. Add to that the tiny images on social networking sites.
All viewed by people who don't give a crap about how much detail they can see in a landscape or a bride's wedding dress. The photo either grabs them emotionally or it doesn't - the former they linger, the latter they move on with a simple click.
I hate to be cynical about this but it is an unfortunate truth that I see in both photography and hifi. A good picture, like good music overrides the medium and those who obsess about the 'best possible tool' do so for personal ego more than for the viewer's benefit. And anyone who argues otherwise only needs answer the question 'if perfect image quality is the most important thing why aren't you shooting medium format'.
What higher resolution images give the photographer is greater flexibility in how they process it.
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