[troenaas]

Re: K3 rumor thread II: the rumoring... 40 MP via sensor shift?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

I haven't seen any reference to this on PF.

[Na Horuk]

I remember reading some posts that this feature could be possible in the Pentax system, but nothing about the next camera actually having it. Who knows, it seems a little too big a step for Pentax, but it would be interesting. Crushing Nikon in the MP race would be fun.

[konraDarnok]

Every time Pentax releases a body, there's talk of wild new features never before seen, and every time they release a competent but conservative camera. However, Ricoh is not the old Pentax, and their previous effort was the GRX, so I do expect something out of the ordinary.

[rawr]

Hmmmm. No need for such fanciness. All Pentax need to do in APS-C is a 24MP Nikon D7100 clone. With improved AF, dual card slots etc to match, wrapped in a strong, compact and WR Pentax body. The D7100 DxOMark scores better than K-5IIs, so there seems little penalty with the extra MP.

[Vylen]

40MP via sensor shift would be good for studio photography and landscapes. Nice way to try eat into the MF market.

[Clavius]

Wohow! That would make a very interesting camera out of a very late and boring D7100 catch-up clone. It would surely make the difference between: "Meh, I'll skip this one. Maybe when the price drops." and "Quick quick! Where can I pre-order?!?" It fits so very neatly in the Pentax idea of very portable with high IQ.

[troenaas]

It seems like RIcoh has done it before:

Re: K3 rumor thread II: the rumoring... 40 MP via sensor shift?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

[mamethot]

I think there is much much more to be extracted from the sensor information just by using appropriate software. It wouldn't surprise me if one day we would have to calibrate the camera/lens combo for each of our lenses to obtain sharper, cleaner images. While I do not necessarily believe much of all these rumours threads, I still believe that over time we'll see better and better images and thus the FF unicorn becoming less and less necessary...

[Mistral75]

Ricoh RDC-7:

"Starting with its high resolution 3.34MP CCD for capturing JPEG or uncompressed TIFF stills, the camera can also create ultra-sharp images or images equivalent to 7MP using Ricoh's Image Enhancement Technology, a unique on-board image processing system."

Ricoh's new 3.34 and 2.14 megapixel digicams: Digital Photography Review



See also http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/support/brochure/pdf/rdc7.pdf

[mecrox]

Hmmmm. No need for such fanciness. All Pentax need to do in APS-C is a 24MP Nikon D7100 clone. With improved AF, dual card slots etc to match, wrapped in a strong, compact and WR Pentax body. The D7100 DxOMark scores better than K-5IIs, so there seems little penalty with the extra MP.

There is if Ricoh's market research (assuming they do market research) suggests, for example, that folks are fed up with big, heavy FF cameras and would trade down to a smaller format if the quality was there; or, conversely, that without fanciness on APS-C, folks will slowly but surely trade up to another brand's FF. Fanciness also gives Ricoh a reason to charge top-dollar in a sector whose prices are under pressure at the top end. Anyway, we'll see or, er, not. Best not to believe anything till the product is there and officially announced if ever it is.

In any case, for some the real factors are in the lenses as I think you or maybe another recently said. If you want wide-angles sharp across the frame (and without too much distortion) and stellar DOF control at longer focal lengths, then APS-C has a problem while FF looks pretty attractive.

[Clavius]

Hmmmm. No need for such fanciness. All Pentax need to do in APS-C is a 24MP Nikon D7100 clone. With improved AF, dual card slots etc to match, wrapped in a strong, compact and WR Pentax body. The D7100 DxOMark scores better than K-5IIs, so there seems little penalty with the extra MP.

Wouldn't a (very) late D7100 clone be the apitomy of playing catch-up?

Using the SR to such an advantage would be very innovative. Something the other two big ones can't play catch up to anytime soon. Sony would be able to though...

I did previously see a rumor about a new Pentax crop camera that meets the IQ of MF. So this rumor may just be more real then we dare to think. [Trying to find that rumor.]

[Digitalis]

remember reading some posts that this feature could be possible in the Pentax system

Falk Lumo and I discussed an implementation of a system similar to Hasselblad's Piezo drive that is used in the multishot digital backs to give 200MP+ resolution from a 50MP sensor. It is possible for a Pentax DSLR to do this with the electromagnetic IS system. However, this feature may be problematic when used with lenses that have APS-C specific imaging circles - the DA15mm f/4 springs to mind.

Luminous Landscape reviewed an early camera equipped with this technology ( H3DII Multishot) and they found that shifting the 50MP sensor by one pixel each direction really didn't give a significant improvement over the state of the art (at the time) phase one P65+ single shot back. Needless to say that a tripod is mandatory for the use of this technique.

[konraDarnok]

Needless to say that a tripod is mandatory for the use of this technique.

Maybe. There's plenty of processing power these days, and whether the sensor moves or not, this is essentially image stacking. Astrophotographers have been doing it for years to increase resolution and dynamic range, and the results they can achieve are nothing short of a astounding.

I have my doubts this rumor has any validity, but if it does, it really wouldn't even require sensor shift. Software can orientate all the shots and merge all the data.

[Digitalis]

Astrophotographers have been doing it for years to increase resolution and dynamic range

I think you are missing the point here, Astrophotographers typically do very, very long exposures on a moving platform to compensate for the rotation of the earth, with their lenses trying to resolve objects through 100Km of atmospheric gases.

Astrophotography is considerably more complicated than what most photographers do during the daylight hours.

Software can orientate all the shots and merge all the data.

ohh sure who needs hardware when software can solve everything.

/sarcasm.

[Clavius]

I don't think THAT much processing power or software is needed at all. I imagine that the sensor would move in the same preset direction each time. So software doesn't need to find corresponding points and warp and stitch those together. It just needs to combine multiple images the same way each and every time. That seems like very limited processing.

Yes, a tripod would be mandatory? So? Aren't our cameras married to tripods anyway? This would finally be a reason to use SR!