Do you think technology will advance enough for... (low light; noise reduction)

prodigy2k7

No longer a newbie, moving up!
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
1,668
Reaction score
22
Location
California, USA
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
Do you think in the future, pixel size wont matter much? Where my XTi can use ISO 6400 with same performance of Nikon D3?

I dont like to use ISO 800 or higher on my XTi, its pretty bad...

When do you think there will be a time (if ever?) that smaller pixels can some how gather a higher percentage of the light available?

Just a thought, could be an interesting discussion IMO.

Thanks :)
 
The day that an XTI will compare to a D3 in low noise? Not in this lifetime.

As far as technology... its a never stopping process. There are already technologies that are available that can take a users to uber clean 6-digit ISO settings... but is it available to the masses? Not yet.

Like *EVERY* technology out there, they release it out in trickles and small spurts so that they can sell more units to more people over a longer time. If they released a 100mp camera tomorrow that could take ISO 256,000 as clean as a D3x at ISO 100... they would sell TONS fewer than if they released 20 interim models over 5 years, each slowly leading up to this.

Intel does the same. I was living in Texas and visited the Intel main offices in Dallas in 2002, I have a non-disclosure hanging over my head, but let me say that I saw fully functioning SINGLE CPU units that make your average 16 CPU processors look like turtles. They also mentioned to me that it was coming out likely sometime in 2020-2025, and at least 15-25 slower variants before that.

Car manufacturers do the same... right now, even in this dying economy, GM and Ford know what models are coming out in 4-5 years... it's already designed, penned and set in concrete. The only thing that they do not know is volume.

Camera technology is no different in this manner.
 
Last edited:
yah Jerry summed it up.
The budget cameras are always going to be hobbled and canon do this quite strongly too - but even at the 1D end of the scale the upgrades are slow. Its mostly defined by the market leader as to what the standard is and for a long time that was canon (first IS etc..) however Nikon have pushed things recently so it will be interesting to see how canon (and the other makers) react to this.

It also seems as if quite a few newer companies are jumping onto the DSLR bandwagon and trying to hack out their own turf - electronic viewfinders and other little differences are creeping in.
 
I dunno guys, give it 8-10 years then I think the entry level DSLR's will at least equal, if not better, the D3 in terms of hi ISO image quality. Look how far things have come in the last 10 years.

Of course the future entry level cameras will be hobbled, but they'll be hobbled in terms of the future high end cameras.

The biggest question I have at the moment is about the future of the crop sensor. IMHO I think that buying DX (or canons equivalent) lenses might be a mistake as Nikon, and I believe Canon, already have at least 2 camera models featuring full frame sensors. It's inevitable that that the full frame sensor will find its way into the midrange cameras, and maybe even entry level eventually.
 
I must say - for printing - I don't like the canon 1.6 crop sensor.
Online images look fine, but in print they seem way too wide as a general rule - ok for landscape or portrates of horses (long face ;)) but in general it just seems too long
 
I dunno guys, give it 8-10 years then I think the entry level DSLR's will at least equal, if not better, the D3 in terms of hi ISO image quality. Look how far things have come in the last 10 years.

I agree, in 10 years or so entry-level DSLRs will have quality at least equal to the D3, but by then the D11 or whatever it will be called, will far surpass that, it will be a 45MP camera capable of 64,000 ISO.
 
hmm I don't know about the MPs though - at the moment the camera sensors of 20MP (and less) are outresolving current lenses - so I think a cap will be the advance of lens technologies - which is considerably slower than the advance of digital cameras.
This might be a good thing for us as it should force camera makers to look at other things to improve on the cameras whilst they update lenses - like getting more dynamic range and better high ISO values (without losing sharpness).
 
hmm I don't know about the MPs though - at the moment the camera sensors of 20MP (and less) are outresolving current lenses - so I think a cap will be the advance of lens technologies - which is considerably slower than the advance of digital cameras.
This might be a good thing for us as it should force camera makers to look at other things to improve on the cameras whilst they update lenses - like getting more dynamic range and better high ISO values (without losing sharpness).

Software within the camera will overcome lens issues, at least until some other method of refracting light is used instead of glass.

What I would really like is a pixel-less sensor, continuous tones with the image written as a vector file.

I can dream - right? :D
 
The future of ISO sensitivity can be summed up IMO in two words: black silicone

While still years away from commercial use, it was discovered by accident and is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than a traditional silicon wafer.

As with anything else, when it makes its debut, it will only be in high end cameras. But hey, I remember a day when only high end cards had A/C, or ABS or even air bags. :)

Black Silicon: Black Silicon Discovery Could Change Digital Photography, Night Vision Forever

With the accidental discovery of "black silicon," Harvard physicists may have very well changed the digital photography, solar power and night vision industries forever. What is black silicon, you say? Well, it's just as it sounds. Black silicon. It's what this revolutionary new material does that's important, starting with light sensitivity. Early indications show black silicon is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than a traditional silicon wafer.

To create the special silicon, Harvard physicist Eric Mazur shined a super powerful laser onto a silicon wafer. The laser's output briefly matches all the energy produced by the sun falling onto the Earth's entire surface at a given moment in time. To spice the experiment up, he also had researchers apply sulfur hexafluoride, which the semiconductor industry uses to make etchings in silicon for circuitry. Seriously, he did this just for kicks and to secure more funding for an old project.

“I got tired of metals and was worrying that my Army funding would dry up,” he said. “I wrote the new direction into a research proposal without thinking much about it — I just wrote it in; I don’t know why," he said.

The new experiment made the silicon black to the naked eye. Under an electron microscope, however, the dark sheen was revealed to be thousands, if not millions, of tiny spikes. As we said above, those spikes had an amazing effect on the light sensitivity of the wafer. Mazur said the material also absorbs about twice as much visible light as traditional silicon, and can detect infrared light that is invisible to today's silicon detectors.

And there's no change to the manufacturing process, Mazur said, so existing semiconductor facilities can create black silicon without much additional effort or, more importantly, money.
 
I must say - for printing - I don't like the canon 1.6 crop sensor.
Online images look fine, but in print they seem way too wide as a general rule - ok for landscape or portrates of horses (long face ;)) but in general it just seems too long

:scratch: I don't get this comment. Canon's APS sensor and full frame sensor have the same aspect ratios (3:2).
 
sshh I don't have full frame to complain about ;)
 
Engineers and scientists CAN build amazing technology today (such as JerryPH's Intel CPU example), but selling it as consumer products is another thing.

There's laboratory computers capable of unbelievable power, vehicles that can run for thousands of miles without a drop of gasoline, and probably cameras with much more dynamic range than anything else made before.

However, to sell technologies as consumer products, they must be able to manufacture these things at reasonable costs (even factoring in economy of scale), and sometimes (and most likely) re-tool manufacturing plants. Also, products must be able to operate under a range of conditions of the weather to usability. And they must be durable enough to last atleast up to or beyond the warranty. Additionally, marketing breakthrough technologies is a big task. There's been many vehicles that were beyond their time, but didn't sell.

So as a result of these factors, we get products that are released in stages over time.
 
don't underestimate the power of the marketing devision - if you ever have a look at the firmwire hacks out for many lower level cameras you can see that even with existing technologies things are held back from the original design in order to promote the sale of higher profit products.
I do not doubt that things are held back form us - partly as you say manufacturing processes and resources often have to be changed and prepared - but also because the marketing devision have their hand in things
 

Most reactions

Back
Top