Actually I find the advice in the first line of the article a bit misleading since apart from one sentence about 'the Pancam's lenses M there are two, which provides stereo imaging capability are crafted more finely than anything you'd probably want to plunk down a Visa for', there is no other info about the lenses that were used in the Pancam.
Instead, it went on to talk about CCD sensor size being the most important factor -
'A Sony DSC-F717, with a street price of around $600, has 5.2 million sensors (or 5 megapixels) on a chip that is 8.8 by 6.6 millimeters (or .35 by .26 inches). The Pancam has just a million sensors spread across a chip that's 12 by 12 millimeters nearly a half-inch square.
Each tiny Pancam sensor, measured in microns, is nearly four times as big as those on the Sony.'
And that the smaller pixels have an effect on image quality because they are less light sensitive.
So the morale of the article might be that it's better to buy cameras with larger CCDs for the same sensor count and hence larger sensor sizes than small CCDs with larger sensor counts. Talking about the F828, you think? :dunno: