Sensor MP limit

[danielyamseng]

At 15mp the 50D stated to show the crop sensor limit.

Anyone has idea what's the sensor limit in term of megapfor 1.3 crop and the full frame body?

[tzalman]

The pixel density of the 50D on a full-frame sensor would mean 38 Mp. I wouldn't bet that that is the limit, however.

[eb314]

There are new materials in development that are thought to eventually extend the 'limit' beyond what's achievable with current materials.

There's actually a thread about it here http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=608597

[pietzcker]

Question is - limit for what? If you use current P&S cameras' pixel size (14 MP on a fingernail-size sensor) and expand that to full frame (assuming you could get all the circuitry around those pixels) you'd end up with hundreds of MP, probably...but what SLR lens would be able to resolve well enough for that kind of pixel size?

edit - just did the calculation: Applying the pixel pitch of the Panasonic FX150's sensor (14.7 MP on a 1/1.72" sensor e. g. 43.3 mm²) to full frame (864 mm²) yields 293.3 megapixels. Nice.

[NeoTokyo]

Who knows where things may go with Sensors and lenses and materials used.

The next logical step to me is a Foveon X3 style sensor that records RBG data on the same pixel site (But three layers deep.) But who knows if canon will ever use that.

Limits are there to be broken. :)

[ultimakf7]

Question is - limit for what? If you use current P&S cameras' pixel size (14 MP on a fingernail-size sensor) and expand that to full frame (assuming you could get all the circuitry around those pixels) you'd end up with hundreds of MP, probably...but what SLR lens would be able to resolve well enough for that kind of pixel size?

edit - just did the calculation: Applying the pixel pitch of the Panasonic FX150's sensor (14.7 MP on a 1/1.72" sensor e. g. 43.3 mm²) to full frame (864 mm²) yields 293.3 megapixels. Nice.


That's 293 MP of a garbage photo and wasted space if the processor can't handle the large file size, noise reduction, and burst of photos, IMHO.

[Mike V]

The limit of what? Lenses?

Stills lenses could be much better using existing technology, but they would cost more.

Look at the new Nikon zooms.

[Lowner]

Who was daft enough to claim it as a limit? Thats like standing on scaffolding and putting your head in that rope noose that just hanging next to you.

There is only one truism: "Everything changes".

[René Damkot]

Fun read here. (http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml)

[Ob Com]

What is understood to be the MP equivilant of 35mm film resolution? Have we equaled or exceeded it?

[ultimakf7]

Fun read here. (http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml)
If you can call reading a doctoral dissertation fun... :lol:
That article practically requires you to have a PhD to read...

[pietzcker]

What is understood to be the MP equivilant of 35mm film resolution? Have we equaled or exceeded it?

Well, in the article René provided a link to, Zeiss states that Kodak Royal Gold resolves 200 lp/mm which would be 72,000*48,000 = around 3 GP... (way beyond the theoretical resolution capacity of a perfect f1.0 lens, if I understand Table 2 in that article correctly).

[basroil]

If you can call reading a doctoral dissertation fun... :lol:
That article practically requires you to have a PhD to read...

Not at all. Anyone with basic college level calculus derived physics can do it ;) But seriously, it's not that hard for the dozens of engineers on the forum...

And it is a very thorough examination of diffraction for pixel by pixel calculations, since the digital medium means that there are well defined boundaries when resolving points.

What is understood to be the MP equivilant of 35mm film resolution? Have we equaled or exceeded it?

What ISO/grain size? A good ISO100 film will have about 22mp of "useful" information, after which anything scanned could be just as easily interpolated. ISO1600 film usually has as little as 4mp of information. So, for low ISOs, the majority of full frame cameras on the market (5 to 3) are still well under the estimated information density of film, while at iso1600 all of the ff cameras have MORE resolution than film. Back to the information density though, cameras like the d300, 50d, k20d, and more, have much higher densities than film at all levels where they overlap with film (iso 25 and 50 film might have grain small enough to beat it, but those cameras max at iso100 anyway, so comparing them would be pointless)

[Ob Com]

thanks

[clickcanon40]

Technology grows, you know they wont just stop. They have to find a "revolutionary way" to build high MP sensors and then we will have gigapixel 1.6x cameras

[Longwatcher]

I will let someone do the math, but the wavelength of light is 750nm and smaller, given you start losing red at smaller then 700nm, I think that pretty well defines the smallest detector you can make that is actually detecting the light itself.

It becomes theoretically possible to detect the presence of the photon instead of the photon itself, so it could get smaller (in theory) but it gets really hard to figure out colors at that point.

[Lowner]

Longwatcher,

Your "Save the model.............." reminds me of the classic line from F1:

Team principle to English driver after a VERY expensive crash "The car will cost us £2 million to rebuild. You on the other hand get fixed free on the National Health".

[Familiaphoto]

There is no limit, the question is where does quality begin to fall off to unacceptable standards as a result of the increase in pixel count. With the release of the 50D many said that already began to occur.

[maxblack]

Technology grows, you know they wont just stop. They have to find a "revolutionary way" to build high MP sensors and then we will have gigapixel 1.6x cameras

Have fun opening and PP'ing those files! :):D:lol:

[clickcanon40]

The limit is 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,0 00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000.324 MP

[AngryCorgi]

Actually, under this theory, the best FF sensor (36mm x 24mm) will record approximately 1,650MP (approximately 650MP on a cropped sensor) Now, the very best lenses have serious issues with photosite densities of approx. 1/13 that (650/50), so the real question is, what is the limiting factor of the glass?

[Lowner]

I see that nanotech research is being done, aimed directly at improving sensors.