[oxidized]

They actually will resolve more on a high-MP sensor than a lower-MP sensor. We're a long way from 'sensors outresolving lenses.'

Great. I guess Zeiss wasted their R&D money on the Otus when its apparently unnecessary. They will resolve more, but my question is how justifiable is it. The increase in sharpness may be marginal at best (if even). Besides a lot of Pentax users want full frame so they can use their old "legacy" glass. Those lenses certainly would not resolve the sensor. To get it to be "sharp" might have to down sample anyways. All you are left is noisier sensor and more expensive sensor with larger files that take more HD space and are harder to process. Hmmm. And yes more MP "all else equal" - (meaning same sensor size, same generation ie. tech level etc.) means more noise. Now when you start to compare different generations sensors this rule no longer holds.

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Last edited by oxidized; 02-21-2014 at 10:46 PM.

[pinholecam]

The 36MP does have more noise.. how much more varies in the reviews. But there are other advantages to the 24mp besides iso noise. I think a 30mp would be a cool compromise.

Its a trade-off between what 36mp and 24mp can give.
36mp will not be as forgiving on lenses (usually CA and edges) and technique an real world usage issues (eg. shifting subjects; hand shake).
Its also more expensive (thats how it stands now), larger file size; requires a faster system to process/post-process.
Indirectly, it also means more expensive lenses that keep up with the camera resolution (up to the edges) from wide open.

But it does have benefits as mentioned by Jay.

24mp does not fare better than the 36mp exmor for noise AFAIK.


For the sake of playing around with old lenses, storage space, PC upgrade,poor technique, I selfishly vote for 24mp

I could buy a Pentax FF as an adult toy if I choose to, but I believe, to be brutally honest, it would be a waste of money for me to buy a Pentax FF. I'm not good enough to need it and I'd be better off buying better lenses and shooting more instead. Actually I'd be better off buying nothing and just shooting more instead.
.

Wise words, but CBA and "someone elses is BIGGER/NEWER than mine!" is always a big problem and fuels the need for the next shiny thing,

Lenses are the key, I think, lenses of real quality. A few nice but standard-issue zooms and a nifty-fifty won'cut cut it. Everyone else has those too. The sensor tech is relatively straightforward, but top glass is the real challenge for Ricoh; else why buy their brands rather than the usual suspects?

FA ltd + some new nice small form factor quality built lenses - Smashing!
Pentax is so darn close imo...they just need to come up with the camera (Now).
Certainly better than Sony's FF attempt with the Alpha7/r (which lenses are few, poor FL coverage, full of issues for the price - maybe except the FE55)

A K3 sized FF, with K3 like features + Pentax lenses is a viable option against the competition.

Not necessarily. At their sweet spot yes, but wide open and at high apertures especially (the limiteds have big diffraction problem) they would not resolve the high pixel sensor. You end up spending more money on higher pixel density sensor, you are not using the pixels and yet you need more processing power and lots of had disks to store your pics. In my honest opinion, unless you are going to print big (and I mean wall size big) you dont need 36mp. And if you go for the 36 mp you better find yourself at F4-F7 all the time or have a zeiss otus. Otherwise you are wasting your time/money.

If the lenses work on K5, K3, they work on a 36mp FF.
The catch to that statement will be the edges which may not be as good (usually legacy WA/UWA lenses) or some nice/characterful lenses (imho generally the Russian lenses).
CA is also an issue from my experience with A7 (24mp) and 5D (12mp; the most wonderful FF camera because its so forgiving ).
I don't see as much of it (if at all) compared to my K5 and K30.


Some work flow may benefit from 36mp (eg. down sampling ).
I don't need that advantage for cropping 36mp, as I'd be happy enough with the 24mp crop to aps-c which is 10mp, smaller but pretty fine for most purposes.

As can be seen for the votes, its not a big swing from one over the other.
Actually, even if they did come out with a 36mp FF, I'd just get it (maybe grumble a bit at first though.... )

[jsherman999]

Besides a lot of Pentax users want full frame so they can use their old "legacy" glass. Those lenses certainly would not resolve the sensor. To get it to be "sharp" might have to down sample anyways.

I think you're working from a base of misinformation, here. Every lens, when used on a higher-MP sensor, will resolve more than it did on a lower-res sensor. It would have to be truly bad to not do so. How much more it resolves depends on the ultimate sharpness of the lens.

There are going to be some older zooms that will not do well at most display sizes. There are even a few older primes that may not (thinking Takumar 20mm, a few more) that won't either, and there will be some lenses that look OK but not at 100%. But the fact remains - if you like it at 16MP aps-c, you'll like it at 36MP FF. Probably more, because the lens takes on some neat characteristics it lost in the move to crop format.

It's also important to point out that the 'bad' lenses on 36MP don't magically resolve more on less MP, it's just that their faults were masked by a lack of resolution in the first place. They don't really look worse than before in that respect, and in fact even they will resolve slightly more detail than before.

I guess Zeiss wasted their R&D money on the Otus when its apparently unnecessary.

Zeiss feels it's their mandate to make the world's sharpest production lens, and maybe it is their mandate, but that doesn't mean that the Zeiss it replaces can't resolve enough on 36MP... in fact that older Zeiss is resoundingly sharp. Zeiss made the Otus for bragging rights, and because there are people who like to say they own it and are wiling to pay for it, not because it's required to get sharp images

And yes more MP "all else equal" - (meaning same sensor size, same generation ie. tech level etc.) means more noise.

It absolutely does not have to mean that. Please see the DxOMark charts I posted earlier proving that. And, refer to this link for a reason why that's so.

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(EDIT: Below is response to pinholecam, above is to oxidized - not sure why the forum software concatenated my quoted responses.)

---------- Post added 02-22-14 at 08:39 AM ----------

Its a trade-off between what 36mp and 24mp can give.
36mp will not be as forgiving on lenses (usually CA and edges) and technique an real world usage issues (eg. shifting subjects; hand shake).

It's important to note that 24MP (or any MP) does not magically resolve details that you miss at 36MP because of hand shake. You lose the details at 24 MP too with the same amount of handshake, it's just that the handshake blur delta is masked by the lack of resolution in the first place.

This is one of the myths folks carry with them without thinking about it - they sometmes think that their handshake will make the 36MP images look bad, but somehow the same level of handshake on 24MP (or 16, 12 etc) doesn't matter, and they just magically see all the details at 24MP because it's 'more forgiving'. (they are imagining something that's not physically possible, in other words.)

.

Its also more expensive (thats how it stands now), larger file size; requires a faster system to process/post-process.

True, and legit complaints IMO.

For the sake of playing around with old lenses, storage space, PC upgrade,poor technique, I selfishly vote for 24mp

It would be such a miss for Pentax to choose 24MP at this point! Please, people wish for progress, wish for future-proofing, wish for more shooting satisfaction 36MP (and more) would bring!


.

[FrankC]

I choose the 36mp for mainly the same reasons that have been posted (crop capabilities and larger print size). Additionally, I think if you're trying to compete with other artists in specific genres like landscape photography, then having more MP can put you at an advantage.

Some have expressed concerns regarding the larger file sizes so I thought I'd share my experiences.

For what it's worth, my current camera has 40MP. I've got more than 3,300+ saved images (almost all are RAW DNG) and LR adds another 7,000 files for processing info (which surprised the beejeesus out of me), all on disk which takes up 161GB. Files from the 645D can be as small as 35MB or as large as 70MB or around those figures. In Lightroom4 when I am in library mode and using my the scroll wheel to choose the next image to view, my computer takes anywhere from 7-14 seconds for the "Loading" sign with the circular marching ants to go away. During this time, LR is generating a thumbnail, so the next time I scroll to that image, LR will open it up instantly. I never experience any kind of lag in LR4 while processing an image. The image is updated the instant I move a slider.

For anyone who may care, I built my own computer instead of going through Dell, for example. Here's the specs on my rig:
Asus P5E3 Deluxe Mother board (775 chip set)
Intel Quad Core 2.6GHz CPU
6GB RAM
EVGA 570 Graphics Card with 1GB of DDR4 memory.
Samsung 128GB SSD drive (for OS, programs and as a scratch disk in CS6).
Windows 7 64 Bit - Upgrading to a 64-bit OS doubled the speed of Photoshop and all other 64-bit programs.

[traderdrew]

A lot of the best landscape photos I have ever seen have been done with the D800. I overheard two bird photographers talking about that camera the other day. They said if it was just two frames per second faster, their other FF cameras wouldn't sell. I don't know how true that is but it tells me how much the Nikon bird photographers like it.

[DeadJohn]

It would be such a miss for Pentax to choose 24MP at this point! Please, people wish for progress, wish for future-proofing, wish for more shooting satisfaction 36MP (and more) would bring!

ISO improvements are progress; increased mp is not the only way to make progress. If Ricoh had a 24mp camera that allowed handheld night photography (unlikely) while 36mp needed a tripod it would be great progress. The difference between 24 and 36 is usually not very noticeable. 36 allows slightly higher resolution while 24 slightly less noise. Either one is good.

[Parry]

ISO improvements are progress; increased mp is not the only way to make progress. If Ricoh had a 24mp camera that allowed handheld night photography (unlikely) while 36mp needed a tripod it would be great progress. The difference between 24 and 36 is usually not very noticeable. 36 allows slightly higher resolution while 24 slightly less noise. Either one is good.

Pentax/Ricoh are constrained by the sensors manufactured by third parties, Sony or Toshiba et.al. If there is a Pentax FF in the next year or so, then it'll be using the 24mp Sony sensor he A7 uses now, most likely.

Wouldn't be a bad thing so long as the K-mount and present registry distance is retained. Not sure on SR, but I do hear those who would like to keep this feature.

[jogiba]

I voted 24mp because I like night photography. My vote is conditional on getting a noticeable noise and DR improvement; if it's only a 1/3 EV improvement then I will take 36mp instead.

Camera Sensor Ratings by DxOMark - DxOMark

[jsherman999]

ISO improvements are progress; increased mp is not the only way to make progress. If Ricoh had a 24mp camera that allowed handheld night photography (unlikely) while 36mp needed a tripod it would be great progress.

Agreed, but then you're talking about an imaginary 24MP sensor. It's possible Sony could come out with a new one that had a full stop over the 36MP Exmor, but I don't know if I'd bet on something like that any time soon. And then when it does appear, there's no guarantee that a 36MP (or 54MP) version is going to show more noise at the same display sizes (same situation we have now, in other words, one sensor gen removed.)

The difference between 24 and 36 is usually not very noticeable.

True.

... while 24 slightly less noise. .

I'm beating a sick and dying horse here, but this ^^ is not necessarily true

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---------- Post added 02-22-14 at 02:26 PM ----------

A lot of the best landscape photos I have ever seen have been done with the D800. I overheard two bird photographers talking about that camera the other day. They said if it was just two frames per second faster, their other FF cameras wouldn't sell. I don't know how true that is but it tells me how much the Nikon bird photographers like it.

The scuttlebut is that the D4 16MP was chosen to allow faster throughput to keep the FPS high enough to sell it as a 'sport shooter' and compete with the Canon top models, as well as to distinguish it from the D800. The D4x is going to (probably) have the D800E sensor and 2 more FPS than the D800e (6.) Personally I'd like to see a new sensor based on the pixel tech used in the D4/Df just scaled up in MP, but that's probably going to be the D5.

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[jppp]

I guess 36 Mp would be logical, although I'd be happy with 24 Mp as well:
- 12 Mp Q7
- 16 Mp K-500 APS-C
- 16 Mp K-50 APS-C
- 24 Mp K-3 APS-C
- 36 Mp FF
- 50 Mp 645D v 2.0
That would be a complete set with a model for all levels of photography. The K-500 could be ditched to make the whole line-up weather sealed - except of course the Q7 for which that's not relevant. So, I'll be looking forward to Photokina and the release of the new Pentax FF ;D

[dansamy]

I guess 36 Mp would be logical, although I'd be happy with 24 Mp as well:
- 12 Mp Q7
- 16 Mp K-500 APS-C
- 16 Mp K-50 APS-C
- 24 Mp K-3 APS-C
- 36 Mp FF
- 50 Mp 645D v 2.0
That would be a complete set with a model for all levels of photography. The K-500 could be ditched to make the whole line-up weather sealed - except of course the Q7 for which that's not relevant. So, I'll be looking forward to Photokina and the release of the new Pentax FF ;D

I really like your sound, logical reasoning here. It just makes sense.

[Kerrowdown]

I'm going with the old adage... bigger is better.

Bring it on with those MP's

[ElJamoquio]

Yup. No concerns about higher MP, even though my hard disks are filling up.

[dtmateojr]

24Mp is better for landscape photography. 36mp is better if you shoot mostly with your lens wide open (assuming that your lens is also sharp wide open). The cropping potential of a 36mp sensor is immaterial when you stop down to f11 or lower because of diffraction. You could just blow up your 24mp image in photoshop to a 36mp equivalent and then crop. It's the "same".

Same principle between 16mp K5 and 24mp K3...that's why I'm not getting a K3 but saving for a second K5IIs because I shoot landscapes.

[osv]

24Mp is better for landscape photography. 36mp is better if you shoot mostly with your lens wide open (assuming that your lens is also sharp wide open). The cropping potential of a 36mp sensor is immaterial when you stop down to f11 or lower because of diffraction. You could just blow up your 24mp image in photoshop to a 36mp equivalent and then crop. It's the "same".

there is no law that says that you have to shoot landscapes at f11 or smaller, and even if there was, the losses due to diffraction would affect *all* sensor sizes, not just the 36mp sensor... i'd much rather have 36mp of diffraction loss to work with, than 24mp of diffraction loss.

bottom line, 24mp cripples your ability to crop the photo, which can be a complete deal killer no matter what kind of shooting you do.

there is only one serious advantage to a crop sensor, and depending on the cameras in question, that advantage is where a crop sensor shoots thru the center of the lens, which avoids field curvature on the sides of the glass.

field curvature is a huge problem when shooting infinity landscapes with the a7r(also d800/d800e), and most 35mm wide angle lenses... but oddly enough, it's much less of an issue with the 24mp full-frame sensor on the a7 camera.

here are a couple of examples of what happens when shooting at f11 and smaller, vs. f8... it all depends on the glass, of course, but as you can see from the sigma 24mm f2.8 photo, what little resolution you gain at f11/f16 on the sides is lost in the center... *be sure and view the photos in full-screen mode* :

Shooting with wide angle lenses on the Sony a7R