When will the law of diminishing returns kick in?

Cadwell wrote:
The fight for more megapixels will go on and on for a while yet. Why? Marketing. "More megapixels = better", yeah?

It's the same as "digital zoom" on camcorders. I've got one that claims "1000x digital zoom" or something like that. It's as much use as a chocolate teapot, you get a couple of very large pixels on screen and that's about it... but it's a number that the public can compare. I can look down on the chap next to me who only has 300x digital zoom

More megapixels = better sales

Some of you guys seem to be going off at a tangent. We haven't yet got to the stage, and maybe never will, where manufacturers are producing cameras with higher megapixels that do not resolve more detail than previous models with fewer megapixels. Within a given format, so far, the more pixels the better. The 8 megapixel P&S such as the Sony F828 and Minolta A2 produce better image quality than previous 5 megapixel models. And the A2 is also a better camera in other respects with it's image stabilisation and general handling.

It's true that many, even enthusiatic amateurs might not have a printer larger than A3+. So how many pixels do you need to produce an A3+ size print at a recommended 300ppi without interpolation. According to my calculation, around 20-22MP, and that's without any cropping.

Why some of you guys seem to be so derisive of high megapixel counts beats me. Is the D60 not better than the D30? Is the 20D not better than the 10D? Is the 1D mark ll not better than the 1D? Will the 1Ds mark ll not be better than the 1Ds?

You should really apply the law of diminishing return to lenses.

Thanks for the newsflash.

For me, it's still important. I'd rather have a 20 mp image than a 4 mp, even if it's full frame 35 mm sensor.

size isn't everything .. it's quality (less noise) that counts ..

At some point when you get past the megapixel issue, ther soon comes the need to process these monster files. I think along with the pixel count an advance in the compression and storage methods is going to have to occur. How many folks can zip through a few hundred 22MP frames for post processing purposes?

I did notice the new 1Ds is using the CR2 format raw file....thank god! Those TIF files were killer slow to process.

Scott

Yep....been there done that.... got the name on the list for the Mk2....

I think storage technology is advancing way faster than digital camera technology, so storage will never be an issue for still pictures.

I have over 1TB on my home machine now, and that's only about $600 in hard drives nowadays. That's enough for over 100,000 20D Raw files. Even if we get to 100 Megapixels tomorrow, we'd be able to store about 10,000 RAW (or 50,000 JPEGs) on $600 in hard drives. At ~40MB/sec read rate, even a 22 MP image would only take a fraction of a second to read in, too.

I agree with you. You can put together a 1 terabyte hard drive array on your personal computer for $400 at the current prices (11/2/2004). That price will be cut in half every year (or every six months, more like it) going forward pretty much.

I think the MP race will slow down when we start approaching 35mm film (for full frame sensors) in information capacity. I read somewhere that would be about 30-35MP. After that, the best 35mm lenses cannot resolve any more. Then they'll start layering on the megapixels for each color like the Foveon sensors, so we'll have 100MP sensors, but with 33 MP of constituent colors...or something like that. 8)

You have about as much luck stopping the MP race as you have stopping the GHz (gigahertz) race in computers. A 3 GHz machine is not always faster than a 2 Ghz or even a really decked out 1.7 GHz machine. It is based on so many other factors...including processor pipelines, cache, bus design, memory speed, etc. , etc. But do expect to see 4 GHz computers next year and 5GHz by Christmas next year...and so on and so forth.

Where will the madness end?

At some point the larger the mp, the slower the shooting unless you have cameras with enormous buffers. Then you will need to store the images on really big compact flash cards. Then you will need super computers to not only upload pictures in a less than a few seconds per image but you will need trilobytes of storage for the large files.

The diminishing returns concept begins when you have to buy ALL new equipment every year just to keep up with the competition. (not only cameras but computers, memory, storage, flash cards, etc, etc.

At some point we will need to decide what is an acceptable photographic image and stay at a plateau for a while. Otherwise photography will price itself out of business. You can only charge so much for a photograph and if you keep upping the ante on photographic tools you will spend more than you make real fast.

Lou

I wonder about the same thing too.

Technology is moving so fast.......before you know it, you'll have a 100 MB jpeg file!!!

But this is progress...........and we must adapt.

Ro1

I found this interesting article on photo.net:

http://www.photo.net …bobatkins/full_​frame.html

Thought you guys might like to read it. Also this article by Mike Johnston:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/​sm-oct-24-04.shtml

and Micheal Reichmann's reply:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/​sm-oct-24-04.shtml#re

I agree with Bob Atkins (first article) and Michael Reichmann

Pradeep,

thanks for the links!

OT: Is that Pavitr Prabhakar in your Avatar?

Best regards,
Andy