[wildman]

Given the pace of sensor improvement in the last few year I'm most surprised at how marginal the improvement is over the k5.
Given the resources of Nikon and the time they had to take advantage of sensor development since the K5 I'm not impressed.
I would have expected that they would have at least halved the low light ISO performance difference between the D600 and the K5 with the D5200 to about 2000 or so.
My guess is that they could have but made a market decision not to allow their $800 camera to compete against their $2000 camera.

As it is all they are doing is competing against the likes of the K5 II in both price and performance.
Perhaps shrewd marketing but not something I'm going to lose sleep over so far as I'm concerned.

I'm waiting for an APS-C Full Frame killer. Just as the D800's are now MF killers.
Eventually it can and will be done - perhaps by Pentax?

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Last edited by wildman; 01-20-2013 at 05:56 AM.

[Winder]

Given the pace of sensor improvement in the last few year I'm most surprised at how marginal the improvement is over the k5.

Pace of sensor improvement? Which sensor are you referring to? Other than changing the color array and removing the AA filter I haven't seen any great improvement in sensors over the last few years. We have probably seen more improvement in the image processing than in sensors.

My guess is that they could have but made a market decision not to allow their $800 camera to compete against their $2000 camera.

That is probably the case.

As it is all they are doing is competing against the likes of the K5 II in both price and performance.

What camera is the D5200 designed to compete against? It looks like the D5200 is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

[philbaum]

Pace of sensor improvement? Which sensor are you referring to? Other than changing the color array and removing the AA filter I haven't seen any great improvement in sensors over the last few years. We have probably seen more improvement in the image processing than in sensors.

I agree, the exmor sensors are wonderful but haven't changed much. I now have two, one in my K5 and one in my Nex5n. I'm not a fan of statements about how human technology will conquer all physical challenges. Sometimes, we reach a limit of physics or materials or just economics, and thats all we're going to get out of that technology area. We may be there with sensors now, no way to know for sure.

I think the next field of improvement in cameras is going to be with their operation and functionality and accessories. For years we relied on mp and sensors to sort cameras as good or average ones. Now i think its time to look at other ways to improve and streamline camera operation. For one thing, why can't they put a second microchip in the camera to provide more onboard memory and processing. Secondly, i'm still awed by Sony's "anti-motion blur" mode, where you press the shutter, and the camera takes 6 shots in succession and stacks them. You end up, usually, with a shot thats crisp and eliminates blur, e.g. i once took a shot of a downtown street with a person walking across the sidewalk. The ABM mode took the shot of the person in the first frame and then eliminated that person in the successive 5 frames. But anyway, one ends up with a tight picture, very little noise, and its all done in the camera with a coupla seconds processing time. Unfortunately, it pumps out a jpeg at the end and not a RAW file. I've heard that the Sony Alpha DSLRs have a better implementation - but don't know the details.

So i think you get my point, the manufacturers need to work on better flash systems, more processing power within the body, double SD card slots, etc. Why pour all the money into sensor design if we're only going to get minor improvements??? Someone posted the other day about incorporating ISO 25 and 50 in a camera, which would help reduce the need for ND filters to blur water movement. Why don't we get more advanced features - probably because all the money is poured into sensor design. My rant for the day.

[wildman]

Which sensor are you referring to?

The difference in ISO performance between my old K20 and the K5.
If this difference is not the result of improvements in the sensor than what does account for it?

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Last edited by wildman; 01-21-2013 at 04:27 AM.

[Winder]

The difference in ISO performance between my old K20 and the K5.
If this difference is not the result of improvements in the sensor than what does account for it?

OK. When you said "last few years" I was thinking about 3 years. The K-20 is 5 or so years old. In 5 years if you compare the K-5 sensor to what is new on the market you will probably see the same degree of improvement.

The new 24MP sensor is 50% bigger (more MPs) than the 16MP. For print work this will mean that noise "grain" will appear much finer even if the S/N ratio is the same. RAW processor also work better with higher MP sensors when all else is equal. Higher resolution makes it easier for the RAW processor to tell the difference between noise and detail. So even if the DxO mark scores and graphs are identical, the higher MP sensor would deliver higher quality images for final output.

[normhead]

I'm starting to look forward to a Pentax 24 MP sensor. It's starting to look like there's about a 300 LW/PH improvement using the larger sensor. That's enough to bring and APS-c camera close enough to a D600 to completely ignore it in the upgrade path. But it's still not going to catch a D800. Just buying a 24 MP body that makes every one of your lenses better is a no brainer. Pentax image processing on the K-5 is top notch. It will be interesting to see if they can do their noise reduction magic on a 24 MP sensor.