[lytrytyr]

I have a face built for about 2 MP.

In many jurisdictions, they are required to pixellate your face to around 36 P anyway!

[Winder]

I can see the advantage of 36MP on a FF in that you don't need an AA filter at that resolution. Hitting the 50MP number is basically taking a 24MP APS-C sensor and going FF. Its going to take a huge amount for processing/battery power and buffer to have any speed.

There is a creative advantage in that you can crop like crazy and still have a good print. You really don't need a mid range optical zoom since you can crop the 55mm to the FoV of an 85mm and still have a 20MP+ image.

I personally don't have a need for 50MP. The 24MP sensor in the A7m2 has been awesome. I primarily photograph people and the resolution of the A7m2 has been more than enough.

[mrNewt]

Didn't we had similar discussion with 16 vs 24 on the crop cameras?
I'm sure someone will find the benefit of 50, but it might take a few years to iron out the technology properly for it.

In the mean time, I am happy with the 24 sensor on the m2. Even with the AA filter, the images tend to be sharp enough!
Don't think I will need more for a while...


Overexposed on purpose - slight color and wb changes.

[osv]

given plenty of D800 users found their techniques struggled with 36mp, is this thing going to be a tripod-only affair?

i don't have any problems hand-holding a 36mp camera, and i don't understand how anyone could have an issue with it... if there are hand tremors or whatever, just speed up the shutter a bit.

remember that you have the benefits of downrezzing to compensate... it improves every single pq parameter, including iso noise.

if this new sensor uses bsi technology, it's going to rock the photography world

[Clavius]

given plenty of D800 users found their techniques struggled with 36mp, is this thing going to be a tripod-only affair?

I've heard that's because of the weight, not the mp's. So there shouldn't be an issue with the tiny A7-line there. But I still don't see the benefit of 50mp's either.

[Digitalis]

I still don't see the benefit of 50mp's either.

Bragging rights?

[Clavius]

Bragging rights?

Must be. I have more lenses then I dare to admit, but I only have a couple that make use of the 36mp. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that those will make it to 50mp.

I wish they stopped the MP-war and turned it into a dynamic-range-war instead. That would be of ever so much more use to so many more people. Maybe there should be a numerical indicator for dynamic range as well to fuel bragging rights in that area. (Or does it already exist?)

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Last edited by Clavius; 01-29-2015 at 01:11 AM.

[rawr]

If Sony can fit 50MP in FF, that means at some stage 50MP FF will be available to other brands like Nikon - and Pentax (?).

Since Canon are said to be releasing a 50MP FF soon too, I certainly can't see Nikon skipping out of this race.

[Digitalis]

Canon are said to be releasing a 50MP FF soon too

Only 4 Canon EF lenses can handle that kind of resolution and none of them are wider than 50mm.

All this overreaching for resolution is only going to demonstrate how much common 35mm lenses suck.

[cooltouch]

The problem which such high megapixel cameras is that buffer size and frame rates tend to be poor.

Sadly, it appears that, at least in the case of the Sony A7 series, even 24 megapixels is more than the A7 can handle and get a decent frame rate out of. A few months ago, all set to buy an A7r, I visited my local camera shop, hoping to try one out before I bought it. Well, they didn't have the "r" version, just the A7. Tell you what, I wasn't impressed with the viewfinder image, first of all, I couldn't tell when an object had been brought into obvious sharp focus. It was clearly not as good as a good optical vf. But what really was the deal breaker for me was the abysmally slow frame rate. And the camera blacked out between frames, so I wasn't even able to track the action. Geez, on my weakass Canon 10.1mp XS, with its abysmally slow frame rate, at least the mirror was down between frames so I could track the action. And to think that the A7's frame rate was low, imagine what the A7r's must be (I don't happen to know offhand -- I haven't looked it up). So when I was shown this poor level of performance on the A7, all thoughts of buying an A7r were suddenly out the window for me -- because much of my shooting is done with fast moving subjects.

So instead I bought a NEX 7 with its 10fps rate and the same number of megapixels as the A7. One thing's likely anyway -- for me, at least -- even if they were able to improve the frame rate on the 50mp models, chances are I wouldn't be able to afford one anyway.

To those folks who question the need for so many megapixels, one obvious answer is cropping. Even at 24 mp, I've found the difference over my old 10mp camera to be very useful when it comes to cropping. So far, I haven't run into lens resolution issues yet, but them I'm talking about "only" 24 mp. At 36mp, one is reaching close to the theoretical limit of a 35mm image's information content. (calculated to be 38mp at 100 lppm), but given also the resolution limits of most excellent optics to seldom be higher than 60-70 lppm, we've already reached their optical limits with 16mp sensors -- or very close to it (70lppm = 16.9mp). Perhaps this was the thinking behind Nikon's release of their retro Df. And when you consider that Nikon's flagship model, the D4S, also sports only a 16mp sensor, then perhaps we really shouldn't get all that caught up in pixel counting, anyway.

But alas, I suspect pixel counts are a lot like horsepower figures in cars -- when it comes to selling 'em, the more, the better..

[Clavius]

True, I can confirm that the A7R surely isn't a "spray and pray"-photocamera.

But alas, I suspect pixel counts are a lot like horsepower figures in cars -- when it comes to selling 'em, the more, the better..

Best analogy possible in this context!

[Rondec]

The whole megapixel thing is hard because technically you do get some bump in resolution in the right circumstances. Those probably include photos shots at low iso, with good light, stabilization or fast shutter speed and excellent glass. The reality is in most situations, you don't actually see a bump in resolution after a certain point. As I said above, in most photos, I don't see a big difference between the k5 II sensor (16 megapixels) and K3 sensor (24 megapixels).

All other things being equal, I want to see more dynamic range and high iso capability.

[normhead]

This is good news. If nothing else, it will put pressure on the whole tool chain to improve; camera chips, firmware, processing software. So then I can finally have Lightroom that doesn't freeze processing K5II RAW files.

You might be imagining benefits that will never materialize. If you light room freezes with a 16 Mp file, image with a 50, you'll have time to eat your lunch.

[vonBaloney]

Isn't a 50mp full-frame basically equivalent to a 24mp APS-C, i.e. same-sized pixels? (Because "crop mode" on a full-frame gets you roughly half resolution, right?) So if we can handle it with the K-3, why not on a bigger sensor?

[mrNewt]

Time to upgrade your computers guys