Resolving power of lenses

[USM]

It is actually 46/3 mega pixel. So in fact it is less then 18MP. Their Pixel are stacked one on top of the other. Their pixel density is much lesser then the current 5D2.

I know lah but the marketing of this camera may not be so. It is stated clearly a 46mp camera. Only those who understand technicalities of a camera will think otherwise. Laymen on the street won't.

Anyway, isn't that a news from Canon about its 120mp sensor development?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1008/10083101canonlargestsensor.asp

 

[ManWearPants]

I know lah but the marketing of this camera may not be so. It is stated clearly a 46mp camera. Only those who understand technicalities of a camera will think otherwise. Laymen on the street won't.

Anyway, isn't that a news from Canon about its 120mp sensor development?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1008/10083101canonlargestsensor.asp

And the Foveon sensor is without AA filters. So I think more players may be attempting to move towards AA-less sensor if they can sort out the moire issue.

I guess the 120MP will be used probably in specialized industry such as medical, military or space exploration. It may be some time before it is available to consumer masses.

 

[TonyT]

Hi guys,

IMHO, I don't think this is anything to worry about.

Let me take one previous example to explain where I am coming from:

One of the sharpest zoom lens even in today's standards, 70-200mm F4 non IS was introduced in 1999. Which camera was introduced in that year? D30! A 3 mpx camera!! Canon 1Ds (11mpx) was introduced in 2002 and 5D (12mpx) was introduced in 2005. 70-200mm F4 performed perfectly on those 2 cameras, and still no complains on today's 5D2 (2009, 21mpx).

You see the picture is a good lens 10 years ago could still perform perfectly 10 years later. MPX has grown from 3 to 21mpx. That's 7 times more!

Therefore, without much knowledge of resolution power of lenses, this is the way I look at TS question:

Lenses generally have alot more resolution power than cameras/sensors. Today's lenses will keep performing for a long time on future cameras for many many years. Nothing to worry!

Anyway, just my 2cents!

 

[2100]

It is actually 46/3 mega pixel. So in fact it is less then 18MP. Their Pixel are stacked one on top of the other. Their pixel density is much lesser then the current 5D2.

Bro, do check out what the Foveon sensor can *really do*, and what the real performance in reality is for that "< 18MP" sensor. It is not as simple as you have errorneously deduced. (Check out the Sigma forum)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjUlJU6SKEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9cpFn2uOuU

In reality it is more like 30MP.

 

[ManWearPants]

Lenses generally have alot more resolution power than cameras/sensors. Today's lenses will keep performing for a long time on future cameras for many many years. Nothing to worry!

No one is worrying about anything. This thread is just for discussion due to a remark made in canon rumours as seen in the first post. Good point made on the 70-200f4.

Bro, do check out what the Foveon sensor can *really do*, and what the real performance in reality is for that "< 18MP" sensor. It is not as simple as you have errorneously deduced. (Check out the Sigma forum)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjUlJU6SKEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9cpFn2uOuU

In reality it is more like 30MP.

Yes, the Foveon sensor is amazing. The ability to capture colour information in every pixel without the need to interpolate and without the presence of AA filter is a very strong point. Too bad it is only available in SD mount. Who would think of changing their lenses to SD mount at this point of time?

 

[lightning]

Bro, do check out what the Foveon sensor can *really do*, and what the real performance in reality is for that "< 18MP" sensor. It is not as simple as you have errorneously deduced. (Check out the Sigma forum)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjUlJU6SKEU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9cpFn2uOuU

In reality it is more like 30MP.

I will not deny the quality of the sensor, it is definitely a nice design. But sensor is just one part of the equation of a good and capable camera. I might consider that camera if it can use other lenses other then those made by Sigma, and also if I shoot purely in studio or landscape.

 

[2100]

I will not deny the quality of the sensor, it is definitely a nice design. But sensor is just one part of the equation of a good and capable camera. I might consider that camera if it can use other lenses other then those made by Sigma, and also if I shoot purely in studio or landscape.

Not to worry, coz Canon/Nikon would want something similar to be at the forefront as well. This SD-1 will affect the industry as a whole.

Nikon once said they will not be caught in the MP race and focus on image quality. Well they are/were wrong (and I'm in the Nikon camp). Nobody will pay 2k for a 12MP camera next year, excld the D3 series for more specialised use. And in 2012, same fate will happen to the D3, 2k for it won't be good. They were saying the same thing for the D2H....

 

[nightpiper]

... But this action would have deviated from the film days when a good lens can last you a lifetime. Now a good lens can only last you as long as the next leap in megapixels.

I dun think u can compare like this. For film, there's no real resolution to talk about, juz chemicals. Comparing say a Kodachrome vs a Fujichrome of yesterday, a good lens will perform juz as good with either film.

Semiconductor sensor is a very different tech. My analogy of this wud be kerosene lamp vs Edison electric bulb. Both gives out light but diff tech behind, other than light intensity can be measured (final o/p pic), they have nothing much in common except both use heating of filament to produce light (similar to light hitting sensor or film to produce image).

 

[newuser]

No one is worrying about anything. This thread is just for discussion due to a remark made in canon rumours as seen in the first post. Good point made on the 70-200f4.




Yes, the Foveon sensor is amazing. The ability to capture colour information in every pixel without the need to interpolate and without the presence of AA filter is a very strong point. Too bad it is only available in SD mount. Who would think of changing their lenses to SD mount at this point of time?

Actually their mount is called SA mount.

There are actually ways to modify the Sigma bodies to EF, just that IS won't work, I think.

 

[ST1100]

Where true sharpness is concerned, the weakest link by far in the system is the photographer. Specifically, the handholding technique. i'm going out on a limb and say that using the 1/focal-length shutter speed rule, a handheld SLR shot (any focal length) is limited to 6-8 mpix of real information at best. The exception being the those shot in the thousandths of a second at f8-f16 in bright sunny conditions. But how often do you shoot those?

What this translates to is that unless your photography involves a lot of tripod work (or you have no heartbeat, hence no handshake), it would not make any difference in the least after the 1st 10 mpix. The lens developments that *do* affect your photography would be mircocontrast, flare and distortion control, bokeh, focusing speed, lens build... among other things.

Discussing the resolving power of lenses is like discussing the top speed of the cars you're going to buy and drive in Singapore. Fun way to kill time but you've got to be an idiot to buy a 300km/h car for Singapore roads.

 

[mynameisgreg]

I think higher resolving power of lenses is only required if you want to take full advantage of the higher resolution of sensors.

of course you cant just compare the resolution of the lens to the resolution of the sensor but generally, the bottleneck will lie with the lens if the sensor out resolves it. hence you will get better performance than if you were using a sensor which did not outresolve the lens.

 

[Anthony Lee]

Where true sharpness is concerned, the weakest link by far in the system is the photographer. Specifically, the handholding technique. i'm going out on a limb and say that using the 1/focal-length shutter speed rule, a handheld SLR shot (any focal length) is limited to 6-8 mpix of real information at best. The exception being the those shot in the thousandths of a second at f8-f16 in bright sunny conditions. But how often do you shoot those?

What this translates to is that unless your photography involves a lot of tripod work (or you have no heartbeat, hence no handshake), it would not make any difference in the least after the 1st 10 mpix. The lens developments that *do* affect your photography would be mircocontrast, flare and distortion control, bokeh, focusing speed, lens build... among other things.

Discussing the resolving power of lenses is like discussing the top speed of the cars you're going to buy and drive in Singapore. Fun way to kill time but you've got to be an idiot to buy a 300km/h car for Singapore roads.

I agree with you that sharpness of a photo is in how it was taken. It reminded me years ago when I had to conduct laboratory tests on the resolving power of microfilm camera lenses. The best we could get on 35mm black and white microfilm based on ISO resolution test charts were at best, 240 lines pair per mm at the center and 180-200 at the corners. These were mainly done on precision fixed planetary cameras using Zeiss lenses at 36X reduction filming AO test charts. Based on such resolution, it will take a sensor of at least 50mp to out resolve the lens and that was about 30 years ago. If someone were to hand hold such a system for such test, imagine what percentage of the lens resolving one can achieve.

 

[henry soh]

hi, I don't think there is a mathematical equation between the resolving power of lenses and the imaging sensor to give an ideal IQ. The imaging sensor is backward compatible to accept any lenses more than a decade old and work fine. The reason for high MP may be to provide
better video IQ. Any further improvements to lenses would result in heavier weights and sizes
to the lenses. The solution to this is to made cropped sensors (2X) and smaller lenses with lesser weight and sizes to work with for photographers to carry about easily anywhere.
As it is now, the trend is lighter weight in both cameras and lenses.

 

[nuanda]

How do people film video on HD and for big screen


What is so different about those lenses ?

 

[lightning]

How do people film video on HD and for big screen


What is so different about those lenses ?

You watch it from a distance

You don't get to pixel peep!:bsmilie:

 

[2evans]

Here's another article on this topic, http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml

 

[nuanda]

You watch it from a distance

You don't get to pixel peep!:bsmilie:

Whaddaya mean can't pixel peep, you know GV Max screen how big! :bsmilie:

 

[ManWearPants]

How do people film video on HD and for big screen


What is so different about those lenses ?

probably something like this.

 

[deathrequiem]

hi guys newbie here

your discussions very cheem but it make me think about a few questions.

nikon vs canon, from what i see in the entry level and mid range bodies, nikon sensor mp is usually lesser than their canon counterparts. assuming the kit lenses are of the same quality, does this mean that the nikon will be sharper?

my question is, for the same given lens and 2 different mp sensor, lets say 18-55mm IS kit and canon 15mp and 18mp sensor, just basing on the megapixel count alone(do not take into account image processing engine digic 3 digic 4 etc and all the other features different cameras have), does this mean my iq will be worser on the 18mp sensor?

thanks guys!

 

[weixing]

Hi,

hi guys newbie here

your discussions very cheem but it make me think about a few questions.

nikon vs canon, from what i see in the entry level and mid range bodies, nikon sensor mp is usually lesser than their canon counterparts. assuming the kit lenses are of the same quality, does this mean that the nikon will be sharper?

my question is, for the same given lens and 2 different mp sensor, lets say 18-55mm IS kit and canon 15mp and 18mp sensor, just basing on the megapixel count alone(do not take into account image processing engine digic 3 digic 4 etc and all the other features different cameras have), does this mean my iq will be worser on the 18mp sensor?

thanks guys!

IMHO, the lesser mp sensor should "look sharper" if everything else been equal, but the higher mp sensor will show more details if the lens able to resolve it. For example, a straight line draw by a pen might show as a sharp straight line in a lesser mp sensor, but on a higher mp sensor, it's might "look not sharp" due to the fact that the higher mp sensor will show the line as a thicker line and any imperfect edges (details) that might exist.

Anyway, IMHO, this only happen if you look at 100% crop, so if you don't look at 100% crop, there shouldn't be much different.

Have a nice day.