Megapixel cramming

Garbz · Dec 2, 2008

Jerry we have always had to trade off ISO vs megapixels. This is something NASA did. Ever wonder why those high tec rovers on the Mars have a 1mpx camera in them? I personally thing on the consumer / prosumer level what is happening now is a good compromise. We have two cameras so people can decide do they want high ISO performance or high megapixels.

You can do this in post. Noise is averaged. If you have 4x as many pixels just take a 4x average of the surrounding pictures. Reduce the resolution and volah 4x lower noise.

Alex_B · Dec 2, 2008

Garbz said:
Ever wonder why those high tec rovers on the Mars have a 1mpx camera in them?

Because data transfer from Mars to Earth is a PITA?

skieur · Dec 2, 2008

McQueen278 said:
It has been established that there is a limit to how many pixels are feasible in a point and shoot, so what will that ceiling be in the DSLR market?

Obviously no ceiling at all, since I have read that they have developed the technology for a gigapixel camera chip.

skieur

Village Idiot · Dec 2, 2008

skieur said:
Obviously no ceiling at all, since I have read that they have developed the technology for a gigapixel camera chip.

skieur

That's housed in a van.

tsaraleksi · Dec 2, 2008

Garbz said:
Jerry we have always had to trade off ISO vs megapixels. This is something NASA did. Ever wonder why those high tec rovers on the Mars have a 1mpx camera in them? I personally thing on the consumer / prosumer level what is happening now is a good compromise. We have two cameras so people can decide do they want high ISO performance or high megapixels.

You can do this in post. Noise is averaged. If you have 4x as many pixels just take a 4x average of the surrounding pictures. Reduce the resolution and volah 4x lower noise.

Bingo-- you can just size down the image, and boom, you have lower noise. I'd rather a higher megapixel camera that I can do this with than a lower megapixel camera that doesn't have a high resolution option.

skieur · Dec 2, 2008

Village Idiot said:
That's housed in a van.

Nope. Same sized chip just a different approach to layering.

skieur

Garbz · Dec 3, 2008

Alex_B said:
Because data transfer from Mars to Earth is a PITA?

:lmao: That's a good one given the large panoramas they send back.

Actually makes you think really. It takes ages to burst data back and forward. It would be a pain transferring an image.

keith204 · Dec 3, 2008

Overread said:
One bonus for more MP in a camera (as I have said elswhere) is that you can crop a photo more and yet still print to a decent size without quality problems. In journalistic, wildilfe, sports and other areas where the photographer is not in full control of the scene there are times when they can't get the shot right in the camera. Maybe they can't move closer or they don't have time to change to that longer telephoto lens - or maybe they left it at home because its too heavy.

Either way there is a support for more MP = however like many others I would like move developments in other areas - high clean ISO capacity with retention of detail; greater dynamic range and other features as well.

Last night I had a vertical photo, cropped it to a landscape, and still had a 10mp photo. Pretty nice to be able to do that.

ISO 6400

pez · Dec 3, 2008

What sensors do all night before a big test?

Village Idiot · Dec 3, 2008

pez said:
What sensors do all night before a big test?

Congratulations! You've just won The Most Pointless Post of the Day Award for December 3, 2008!

Keep up the good work. :popcorn:

Ed: Oops. It's the 3rd

sabbath999 · Dec 3, 2008

Village Idiot said:
Congratulations! You've just won The Most Pointless Post of the Day Award for December 2, 2008!

Keep up the good work.

Dang it, I was hoping to win that one today... well, there is always tomorrow.

McQueen278 · Dec 3, 2008

keith204 said:
Last night I had a vertical photo, cropped it to a landscape, and still had a 10mp photo. Pretty nice to be able to do that.

ISO 6400

Well the 5D MkII clearly isn't worse than the 5D! Dang! Nice photo by the way.

djacobox372 · Dec 3, 2008

prodigy2k7 said:
Well their excuse is that the space between each pixel is smaller and so there really is no loss, each pixel gets the same amount of light, or maybe even more, even though there are more pixels. Also, to some people (like studio photography, they use low ISOs anyway because they have their own lighting. There are some who do need the large MP, which of course isn't for the average person, which is also why it cost so much. Its not for the average photographer.

I don't believe it... more pixels = more spaces; and hence the overall imaging area is bound to be smaller. Think of if this way: the only way to have 100% coverage with pixels is to have one pixel... the more pixels you add the less sensitive to light the sensor because of all the space between the pixels.

prodigy2k7 · Dec 3, 2008

djacobox372 said:
I don't believe it... more pixels = more spaces; and hence the overall imaging area is bound to be smaller. Think of if this way: the only way to have 100% coverage with pixels is to have one pixel... the more pixels you add the less sensitive to light the sensor because of all the space between the pixels.

If there is less space between the pixels, you can add more pixels without changing the size of each pixel and thus getting a higher resolution without decreasing the size of each pixel. How many pixels isn't everything.

Samriel · Dec 3, 2008

If processing and date storage develops at the same rate as the megapixels (as it seems to be doing), and the higher MP values don't compromise camera performance too much (ISO, fps), I see no problem with the camera makers continuing to make cameras with higher MP values. It's always nice to be able to print billboards, even though you probably never will do it. Long live the megapixels... as long as quad-cores and heaps of RAM memory and TBs of HDDs, Blu-Ray discs etc stay affordable.