I don't think you understand what trend analysis are, since you are complaining of not being able to buy now what is predicted in the future.
Speaking of discontinuities, I think array cameras will become popular with phones and eat its way up towards high end compact cameras with fixed lenses.
---------- Post added 03-04-16 at 03:52 PM ----------
Originally posted by xandos Let me see if I understood you correctly. You are stating that you could have a similar-sized or even smaller lens on a larger format camera and get similar performance to a smaller sensor system with a larger lens. Okay, I never thought about it like that, but it makes sense. You then state that FF lenses don't have to be bigger, but that customers are simply more demanding. This is where the arguments gets a bit trickier. Of course, to some degree you are right, the customers that are willing to invest more do so only to get better performance.
Yes, I think you understand it correctly. People will upgrade camera sensor size at a higher rate then upgrading lens (exposure) qualities. For instance medium formats are often limited to around f/2,8 for primes and f/4 for zooms. "Worse" aperture numbers then usual in smaller formats.
Quote: In general people don't look at it this way. Basically people don't want lenses that are significantly outperformed by the sensor. Lenses that do that are seen as being bad lenses. Cameras with bigger sensors and a bigger pixel-count do need better engineered lenses to match the bigger sensor with a higher pixel count.
There is two things here. Larger sensors "give" shorter DoF and less noise, well, thats at least the general understanding I see floating around the web. But the sensor size its not the true cause of these effects. Its the larger aperture diameter. When using longer focal lengths to achieve a certain field of view on a larger sensor, and keeping the same aperture number, that means the aperture diameter gets bigger. This is the true cause of the shallower depth of field and more light gathering ability (less noise at a given f-number). Lens resolution is a different thing. Its not related to the aperture number or diameter as the noise levels are. In very general term, resolution is far more dependent on the sensor. If we compare DXOmark Perceived megapixels or line pair per mm and multiply by the sensor dimensions its very clear that bigger sensors in general give better resolution then smaller ones, when they are coupled with optics in the same quality class, or weight or price class if you will. In other words, you are likely getting better system resolution from a 200$200 gram lens on a full frame camera then you are getting with a 400$ 400 gram lens on a m43 camera or a 1000$ 1 kg lens on a 1/2" sensor camera. Resolution fanatics would benefit from choosing larger sensors, even if they choose to upgrade to proportionally more expensive optics. Short DoF fanatics will benefit from choosing larger sensors both because it enables larger aperture diameters and because they can get the same aperture diameter at a lower cost. Noise fanatics will benefit from larger sensors if they don't downgrade the aperture number more then the change in sensor sizes. Witch also means they could get the same noise levels with a cheaper lens, so they only shift money from the lens budged to the camera budget.
Quote: I personally found your post slightly confusing because of the tricky ways in which the word 'resolution' can be used. Usually resolution is indicated as number of pixels per area. However, in the linked example, the pixel-pitch of the sensor was huge. The amount of pixels and the field of view was the same between the huge sensor with the pinhole lens and the 35mm-format 50mm f/38 camera and lens. So in the conventional way of using the word resolution, the resolution between these two hypothetical cameras is different. However, as the cameras have the same number of pixels and the same field of view, this might indicate that we should use another type of resolution, where we simply divide number of pixels by the area-of-view (for example as a fraction of the surface of a sphere). Using that as a definition for resolution, the resolution of the two different systems becomes the same, and your statement that a large sensor with smaller optics can perform the same as bigger optics with a smaller sensor is valid.
I'm sorry for the confusing part. I use the word resolution as a description of the level of details, for the total system, camera with lens included.
Quote: When we now go back to FF vs ASPC, we should note that often (although not always), the FF camera will have a higher megapixel count. For two lenses giving the same field of view, the requirements on the FF lens will be higher if it is to match the full-frame resolution.
To match the sensor megapixel count or per area resolution yes. But that is often irrelevant to the final product on paper. In my mind its the final product resolution that matters. Line pairs per image height or with.
Quote: The last point in your post is interesting to think about: having budget systems with worse optics and better sensors as the prices of sensors become lower compared to lenses. I guess it would make perfect sense for that to happen, limited of course by the size of cameras people are happy to put up with. I think most people (those which need huge glass excluded) will always prefer to get the same performance out of a system that is easier to carry around, so there will be some compromise. Anyway, thanks for the interesting post!
Yes absolutely!
Thanks for putting it much more clearly then I did. English is not my native language so I struggle a bit with formulation of explanations.
Quote: Disclaimer: I do not understand lens design, and do not know what extra difficulties present themselves when optimizing for corner sharpness for a lens with a larger sensor and the same flange-to-rear-element distance. I suspect that the simplified reasoning used above and in the link might break down there.
That goes for me too. I don't know much about lens designs although I would love to learn. Most of what I write on this topic is gathered from different databases and other sources of resolution, lens databases, camera databases with price history, physics of the basic principles of sensor sizes, apertures, focal lengths and so on. And of course my understanding of what other photographers want and willingness to pay.