[jonby]

resolution you can't use -- because of the limits of bayer sensors and current lens resolution in concert. pictures would be sized right back down to be sharp again.

There are many valid arguments for putting a 24MP rather than 36MP sensor in a full frame camera, but claiming that 36MP does not offer any significant real-world resolution advantage over 24MP is clearly inaccurate, as can be seen by comparing examples from both in numerous places on the web. Pursuing this argument is not helping your case.

nikon's 16Mp D4 series and canon's 18Mp 1D series are at the top of sports and event photography and still in production with new bodies recently introduced

Yes, because sports and events (and press) photographers prioritise speed, robustness and other characteristics over resolution. For photographers working in many other areas, including professional areas, the reverse is true. Product photography is just one area where resolution is valued over those attributes. The one professional product photographer I know uses a D810. I wonder why?

[spinach]

there are two dslrs over 24Mp and neither's demonstrated anything beyond what the rest can do.

also, sports, events and press are professional areas, they can't reverse from themselves. be specific when talking about professionals, it's not an amorphous and homogenous field. do pet, portrait and forensic photographers need resolution at the expense of speed and robustness? what are the needs of real estate and architectural photographers, in comparison? fashion? medical? helps to specify -- i do portrait -- anything over 10Mp is overkill and ISO is almost never above 800.

as to why your product photographer friend uses a d810 -- it's half the price of a d4s

[osv]

there are two dslrs over 24Mp and neither's demonstrated anything beyond what the rest can do.

mtf testing proves otherwise, every single time.

so do the pq benefits from downrezzing, and the conveniences of cropping... every single time.

[jonby]

as to why your product photographer friend uses a d810 -- it's half the price of a d4s

That's one possibility. Another is that the extra resolving power of the D810 is more useful when shooting static objects in a studio than an 11fps burst rate, full environmental sealing and tank-like construction.

[jackassp]

It will be fascinating to see which of the Pentax lenses currently available will resolve well enough to be useful with a 36MP sensor...

[Gimbal]

It will be fascinating to see which of the Pentax lenses currently available will resolve well enough to be useful with a 36MP sensor...

My guess is, all of them.

[philbaum]

It will be fascinating to see which of the Pentax lenses currently available will resolve well enough to be useful with a 36MP sensor...

All of them. They've been resolving 16mp on crop cameras such as the K5 series. The 16mp density of pixels on a crop camera is equal to the 36mp density on a FF camera.

[Kunzite]

Any lens useful on a 24MP sensor will be at least as useful on a 36MP sensor. Only with the worst of them you won't see any difference (while comparing/printing at the same size), but we're talking about Pentax here - none of their lenses is that bad.

[jsherman999]

My guess is, all of them.

I have a Super Tak 20mm f/4.5 I got on eBay that has a front element evenly clouded by circular cleaning marks. I think a former owner polished it with an abrasive cleaner or some brillo-type pad or something equally idiotic.

That lens may have trouble resolving more on 36MP. Every other lens Pentax makes and probably has made, as long as they're in-spec, will resolve more on 36MP. How much more depends on the lens.

.

[jonby]

There's a big difference between how well a lens resolves in the centre compared to how well it resolves as you move towards the edges. I'm sure it's true to say that most lenses will have enough resolution in the centre to benefit from the jump from 24 to 36MP, but whether you'll see any benefit towards the edges will vary far more between lenses, I think. Most lenses I ever used on my K10D, with a 10MP sensor, resolved less detail at the edges than in the centre - and that's with the worst parts cropped off for APS-C. It's hard to believe that those same lenses will benefit much at the edges from going to 36MP. How much this will bother you will depend on the kind of work you do, I guess. The higher resolution is certainly going to increase differences between centre and edge if you print big enough.

That's no reason not to go to 36MP, of course, and I'm sure the new crop of FF lenses will show a step up in optical quality across a large portion of the image circle.

[jackassp]

All of them. They've been resolving 16mp on crop cameras such as the K5 series. The 16mp density of pixels on a crop camera is equal to the 36mp density on a FF camera.

It's not the central resolution I'm concerned about, that will be fine. It's the edge resolution, an FF sensor is bigger, the edge and corner resolution has already been shown elsewhere to be reduced for the following lenses FA 70 limited, DA 40 Limited, FA* 200 limited, FA43 Limited. Try reading the threads here about which lenses will work on an FF camera...

[AtitG]

A 36mp ff with a 20-24mp low rez RAW mode would be nice.

[Clavius]

I think the discussion if lenses will resolve to a certain amount of MP is moot, because eventually all lenses will be outresolved by sensors. (Unless scientists develop some new material.) Much like in the film days. We didn't care about the resolving power of our film either for the same reason, we were only interested in the characteristics of our lenses. I'm actually looking forward to that.

[philbaum]

Actually, the amount of MP that lenses will resolve is a minor concern to me these days. I'm far more concerned about my creative skill in being worthy of the "tools" available. I was helping a painter in the gallery i work at. He needed some cards to display. Because he helped sell several of my items, i thought it was the least i could do. So i took shots of some of his paintings with my Sony Nex6 at 16mp. Not as good a camera in some respects as my K3 but it was amazing to me how good these handheld shots were when i got them home. Printed the cards he wanted and he was delighted.

So as we continue to push camera mfrs to get better products, its good to keep it in mind that most of the cameras available these days are quite proficient already. We keep insisting that we need this or that in a camera. Well, our cameras are already so far ahead of the brush or pencil that our painting peers are using. Yet even with these primitive tools, painted compositions are generally worth far more than our technically amazing photographs. There's probably a message in that somewhere :-))

[Clavius]

Actually, the amount of MP that lenses will resolve is a minor concern to me these days. I'm far more concerned about my creative skill in being worthy of the "tools" available. I was helping a painter in the gallery i work at. He needed some cards to display. Because he helped sell several of my items, i thought it was the least i could do. So i took shots of some of his paintings with my Sony Nex6 at 16mp. Not as good a camera in some respects as my K3 but it was amazing to me how good these handheld shots were when i got them home. Printed the cards he wanted and he was delighted.

So as we continue to push camera mfrs to get better products, its good to keep it in mind that most of the cameras available these days are quite proficient already. We keep insisting that we need this or that in a camera. Well, our cameras are already so far ahead of the brush or pencil that our painting peers are using. Yet even with these primitive tools, painted compositions are generally worth far more than our technically amazing photographs. There's probably a message in that somewhere :-))

Exactly, most cameras outperform us. Me anyway. Unless we don't have the camera with us. If they're not there cameras fail miserably. That's why portability is THE major oppertunity for improvement.