Does Canon have an answer to the Nikon D3200 in the wings?

EDL · May 5, 2012

Anyone know if Canon has any plans to release a new camera in answer to the Nikon D3200??? I'm on the verge of grabbing up a T2i in the next couple months, but if they're going to release a new camera with the 24MP range of the D3200 I might hold off.

o hey tyler · May 5, 2012

24mp isn't that different than 18mp FYI. Not enough of a reason to consider one camera over another IMHO.

jake337 · May 5, 2012

T4i coming this year?

EDL · May 5, 2012

Hmmm, but if they did come out with a 24MP and it was still priced in the entry level category like the D3200, what's wrong with that? I guess I'm still not grasping the whole MP thing.

o hey tyler · May 5, 2012

EDL said:
Hmmm, but if they did come out with a 24MP and it was still priced in the entry level category like the D3200, what's wrong with that? I guess I'm still not grasping the whole MP thing.

Nothing is wrong with that. But Megapixels don't matter as much as you think they do. I.E. 24mp is not a reason to buy a camera when the alternative is 18mp because they are so close in resolution.

gsgary · May 5, 2012

They don't have anything to answer to, this shot is 4mp

EDL · May 5, 2012

I see. I still don't get it though....it seems "right" to me that more pixels are better, it gives you more to work with....like, in macro, I can crop in on a bug's head and blow it up bigger. I dunno, gonna read up on this some more. I'm sure I'm just trying to comprehend it wrong. I guess I'm trying to compare a camera's pixels to that of a computer monitor's resolution and how it translates to clarity and picture quality.

Gotta be something to it though, otherwise camera makers wouldn't keep increasing them?

Buckster · May 5, 2012

EDL said:
I see. I still don't get it though....it seems "right" to me that more pixels are better, it gives you more to work with....like, in macro, I can crop in on a bug's head and blow it up bigger. I dunno, gonna read up on this some more. I'm sure I'm just trying to comprehend it wrong. I guess I'm trying to compare a camera's pixels to that of a computer monitor's resolution and how it translates to clarity and picture quality.

Gotta be something to it though, otherwise camera makers wouldn't keep increasing them?

Mostly they increase it because most of the buying public think more=better.

Mach0 · May 5, 2012

All of the dlsr's will be medium format in3 years.

Buckster · May 5, 2012

Mach0 said:
All of the dlsr's will be medium format in3 years.

LOL! Does that mean I'll be able to get inexpensive backs for my MF cameras finally?

TCampbell · May 6, 2012

EDL said:
I see. I still don't get it though....it seems "right" to me that more pixels are better, it gives you more to work with....like, in macro, I can crop in on a bug's head and blow it up bigger. I dunno, gonna read up on this some more. I'm sure I'm just trying to comprehend it wrong. I guess I'm trying to compare a camera's pixels to that of a computer monitor's resolution and how it translates to clarity and picture quality.

Gotta be something to it though, otherwise camera makers wouldn't keep increasing them?

I suspect they increase them because consumers will fall for it. The sensor resolution needs to at least match the resolution of the output media. Once it exceeds the output media pixels have to get averaged to reduce the resolution -- so the information is wasted. That's a slight oversimplification. If there is some "noise" in the image, the averaging of the pixels has a natural side-effect of reducing the strength of the "noise".

However, there's two more problems:

(1) the increased resolution only helps if you have the glass with high enough accutance to be able to take advantage of the resolution. In other words, unless you're buying pretty high end glass, you won't be capable of noticing the difference.

(2) there's also the problem with becoming "diffraction limited". This applies only to higher focal ratios. If you're shooting at f/2.8 through f/5.6 then being diffraction limited is not an issue. But at higher f-stops it becomes a factor in the image quality. Note that the photos won't necessarily look "worse" -- what really happens is they just fail to be capable of taking advantage of the sensor resolution -- they hit a wall where more resolution will not allow them to look better. This is a law of physics. The only way around the problem is to use a physically larger sensor (at which point you'd no longer have an APS-C camera.) And then eventually you hit the same wall for full-frame sizes... and so on.

Becoming "diffraction limited" has to do with the wave nature of light. A ray of light isn't technically a straight beam. It's a wobbly wave. It doesn't actually focus to a single point. It dances around and creates the shape of something referred to as an "Airy disk" (named for the man who discovered it.) The math for calculating the "diffraction limit" actually assumes "perfect" optics -- so optical quality isn't the problem (low optical quality would only make the problem that much worse.) But as a result, there is a minimum diameter of the point where a single "ray" of light will focus. The 18.1 sensors on Canon's T2i, T3i, 60D, and 7D already exceed the diffraction limits when shooting at high f-stops. So going to an even higher resolution just means you'll get diffraction limited at the middle f-stops instead of at the high f-stops. At this point, you can only take advantage of the extreme high resolution when (a) using very high quality glass and (b) cropping in VERY tight (or printing at very large size) and (c) shooting only with the low f-stops. All three conditions must be true. If any one of them are no longer true then the extra-high resolution is wasted.

Again... becoming "diffraction limited" doesn't mean the photos will be bad. They're still good. It's just that they're no better -- e.g. the 24 MP sensor can't create an image which is any better than the 18 MP sensor -- because a single ray of light cannot technically focus on just a single "pixel" (technically sensors don't have "pixels", they have a cluster of photo-sites arranged in a Bayer mask, but you get the idea.)

Dao · May 6, 2012

Here is what I think. Mega pixels are very important to Canon and Nikon.

In the past few years, Canon still dominant the world DSLR market. And Sony, although is not as big as Nikon in terms of market share, but it did took some of them and hurt Nikon market share especially in the low end. I think it is mainly because Canon was able to capture the low end DSLR with the better video capturing as well as the higher megapixels. In which could be what the market was looking for.

For the entry level DSLR market, I think (I could be wrong) most of them are first time DSLR users. They are mainly moving up the ladder jumping from Point and Shoot to DSLR market. (Of course, mirrorless cameras as well now). So it does not matter whether more mega pixels is better or not, it only matter if they can sell more or not. If more mega pixels is the ingredient to sell more, I am sure Nikon and Canon will continue to make them until the market change, or until they are able to make buyer change their minds.

So since Nikon response with a 24 megapixels, I am sure Canon will response. But not sure if the next entry level DSLR is 24, 21 or 18. I think the rumors said it is not going to be 24.