Megapixels, megapixels and again megapixels

[kers]

...
and now comes the question again for architecture. Normal to long focal lenses do not have those problems but it gets critical for wide angle and ultra wide angle lenses ...
I would like to see an image taken inside a house or a church with strong decorated (painted) ceiling with the Canon EOS 5Ds and the new EF 11-24mm f4L zoom lens as well as with the new EF 8-15mm f4L ... be it circular or full frame fish eye
 ...

The 35mm format does seem to have a market for very expensive - and good - telelenses, but not so for normal and wide angle lenses... 
Maybe Zeiss will fill this gap ?  or Sigma ART? - but both companies also seem to neglect the corners of the frame when it concerns wideangles.
Zeiss Otus next will be a 35mm 1.4 .... very expensive no doubt, but good. ( I think they will stop the Otus serie there)
But what i need is a very good extreme wide lens. With shift if possible. f4 or 5.6 i don't mind- just made for f8 to accomplish its task.
Yes maybe Canon fills that gap to some point, but i do need also the DR from my Nikon. That makes live so much easier.

[Diego Pigozzo]

Yes ...

I'm really happy for you: I can only dream to see the day when, looking at my photos, I'll say "if only I had a better camera..."

[Rainer SLP]

Hi Pieter,

Well all the TS lenses from Canon has been tested in lenscore.org, but the question here is, what does their resolving power number define ?

 

[Rainer SLP]

I'm really happy for you: I can only dream to see the day when, looking at my photos, I'll say "if only I had a better camera..."

Right, because if a better camera resolves more detail which my lenses are able to give to the chip I guess anybodies photography will be better.

I think that there is nothing worse then expecting something on the image and you do not get it afterwards.

Now If I make well composed or not well compoesed photographs, that is not the problem of the lens or lenses and the camera or cameras, but only attributable to the idiot (me) standing behind the tool  eg. camera and lens and as always I think that the most inmportant part IMHO is the LENS which transmits what we see to the sensor, then comes the sensor ...

Sp if the consensus here is that the existing lenses nowadays can already resolve more then the sensors are able to do we still have reserve to buy bigger megapixel chips and so my question was answered. Thanks to all.

Many have high cost cameras and put cheap lenses on it. I think that can not work if you expect quality ... of course I guess one has to be able to judge the quality because if not, then anything that writes with light, is more then good enough ...

 

[kers]

Hi Pieter,

Well all the TS lenses from Canon has been tested in lenscore.org, but the question here is, what does their resolving power number define ?

 

Indeed,
I did send them an email to ask them how they come to their judgement and asked them to put it on the site. I think if you start a site like that you should inform people how things are tested and judged.
I know and have some of these lenses and their findings did not double mine in some cases. The nikkor 85mm PCE for instance does have less distortion (almost none) than then 85mm 1.4G ; still they claim it is about the same- even a bit worse.
Again you simply cannot give a judgement over a wide angle with only one number- these lenses are much more complicated than that. Even diglloyd -that really opened my eyes to some lens problems- does a bad job lately and jumps to conclusions on the bases of only a few images.. I have the Nikon 24mm PCE and it has a score on lenscore of 924 while the (at least on this forum) much higher regarded Canon ts 24mm 3.5 II lens has a score of 780.
There must be something better in the Nikkor but at the same time a lot of people claim the Canon is the better lens- i guess both are right in their own way.
I like to be the judge myself and also find it difficult -  sometimes the slightest movement on the focus ring will change the situation completely.

(Again this discussion is in a way academic since most of the images do not need optical perfection or are even degraded by it; they just need to have something that communicates in a sence that is understood; imperfection may be better in a lot of circumstances)

[BernardLanguillier]

I have the Nikon 24mm PCE and it has a score on lenscore of 924 while the (at least on this forum) much higher regarded Canon ts 24mm 3.5 II lens has a score of 780.
There must be something better in the Nikkor but at the same time a lot of people claim the Canon is the better lens- i guess both are right in their own way.

All the objective measurements I have seen indicate that the Nikkor is superior. DxO says the same.

Now, having just finished a shoot during which I used both the Nikkor 24mm f1.4 and the Otus 85mm f1.4, the difference in resolution, micro-contrast,... you name it... between the 2 lenses mounted on a D810 is painfully obvious when looking at images at 100% on screen. The Zeiss is simply in a different category. It is all the more obvious when converting images with what is in my view the best available converter, namely Iridient Developper 3.02 (in itself a good enough reason to prefer the Mac platform IMHO).

Now, does it matter that much when printing at A2 size with correct sharpening? Maybe not.

Cheers,
Bernard

[mezzoduomo]

.....the best available converter, namely Iridient Developper 3.02..

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard, Your views are always based in thoughtful analysis, so I'll ask what makes the Iridient the best in your opinion? Apologies if this has been discussed here previously...

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernard, Your views are always based in thoughtful analysis, so I'll ask what makes the Iridient the best in your opinion? Apologies if this has been discussed here previously...

What I like best about it is:
- Best demoisaicing/sharpening/noise reduction engine -> delivers extremely detailed yet nearly artifacts free images - this is the most important for me,
- Good profiles for the D810 at least,
- Ability to work in Lab space.

Now, it does lack many convenient capabilities compared to LR/C1 Pro, so I should have been more clear about the image quality focus of my comment.

Cheers,
Bernard

[mezzoduomo]

What I like best about it is:
- Best demoisaicing/sharpening/noise reduction engine -> delivers extremely detailed yet nearly artifacts free images - this is the most important for me,
- Good profiles for the D810 at least,
- Ability to work in Lab space.

Cheers,
Bernard

Much appreciated!

[kers]

hello Bernard,
About the 24mm 1.4 lens... one of those wideangle lenses where the slightest movement in focus makes a lot of difference in sharpness... i can get a f5.6 sharp image corner tot corner, but the focus has to be done very careful indeed... ( i focus with liveview @f5.6- it is the only way as i see it- i like the liveview split screen a lot but would like a third -central area)
about Irridient developer3-   i cannot get it to work for me ( yet) the sharpening tools are complicated - can you give me som starting point? I have a d810 as well.
I still find ACR the better choice at the moment.

[DeanChriss]

Funny, I was sitting in my living room on the weekend having a quiet moment with coffee and the thought struck me of how unimportant megapixels are. Of the 15 photographs I have hanging (none of which are "family" photos):

4 were made with a 5mp Minolta 7Hi (3-16x20s and an 11x14);
3 were made with a 5mp Olympus E-1 (1-11x14, 1-16x20 and a 24"x48" canvas);
3 were made with a 12mp Olympus E-30 (2-11x14s and a 16x20);
2 were made with a 36mp Nikon D800E (both 16x20s);
2 were made with a Pentax 67 (film camera - both 16x20s); and
1 was made with a Zone VI 4x5 Field camera (11x14)

Now, I do have others that are "unhung" with a slightly greater proportion of 4x5, 12mp and 36mp, but the point is, it's the content of the work and its ability to conjure up emotions and connections that counts - not the megapixels.

If the end result is mostly books and the odd large print, then camera manufacturers have already plateaued, and, one could argue, surpassed the requirements of 3/4s of people who buy their DSLRs.

I must admit to absolutely loving the detail I get with the D800E, but for most people, I doesn't matter - again it's the emotional attachment that works for them. It is usually other photographers who pixel peep the framed works and they rarely buy other photographers work.

+1. IMO artistic qualities make or break a photograph regardless of the camera used. Things like the expression on a face, the mood or drama of a scene, and the story an image tells are what grab people. Being able to distinguish every hair in the eyelashes of a gnat on someone's ear may be nice, but it doesn't contribute much to the success or failure of a photograph.

[Isaac]

Funny, I was sitting in my living room on the weekend having a quiet moment with coffee and the thought struck me of how unimportant megapixels are.

+1. IMO artistic qualities make or break a photograph regardless of the camera used.

That choice seems to be between a low resolution photo we have and a mega resolution photo we don't have.

The choice becomes interesting when we can choose between a low resolution photo we have and a mega resolution photo we have.

[langier]

Megapixels, smegapixels. Too much hand wringing and analysis, not enough getting out and making photos!

Just forget about it all, go out and shoot what you have and enjoy your photography! :-)

[NancyP]

Bernard, thanks for the comment re Iridient. I have been meaning to give it a try. I am Lightroom-centric, due to the need to learn one program reasonably well before wandering off and trying a bunch of other converters. But at this point I probably can try other converters without getting too confused.

[DeanChriss]

That choice seems to be between a low resolution photo we have and a mega resolution photo we don't have.

The choice becomes interesting when we can choose between a low resolution photo we have and a mega resolution photo we have.

I'm only saying that people, including art critics, look at a prints without loupes from reasonable distances and like them or not based solely on what they see and feel. They don't care if it was taken with a 12MP camera or a 50MP camera. They only care whether, as a friend puts it, "the image speaks to them". I can't think of any successful image that would be significantly less so if it had somewhat lower resolution and/or was printed a bit smaller. The word "successful" can mean anything between becoming truly iconic and just selling well at a neighborhood arts festival. If an image is well printed at an appropriate size I think its general success is resolution independent. Many of the most successful images in the world have fairly low resolution, and all the resolution in the world won't bring success to an otherwise unsuccessful image.

I do get your point, but the question isn't which file you or I would rather have, it's whether lack of the larger file we'd rather have will limit the success of a given image.

Megapixels, smegapixels. Too much hand wringing and analysis, not enough getting out and making photos!
Just forget about it all, go out and shoot what you have and enjoy your photography! :-)

+100

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

In a ideal wold, sensor resolution would match lens resolution. Image detail that the lens delivers but the lens cannot resolve will be turned into artefacts, that is fake detail.

So for proper rendition of an image there is a need of high resolution. How high? High enough to match the resolution of the lens. A good lens stopped down to f/8 will resolve something like 200 lp/mm, albeit at very low contrast. An excellent lens at f/5.6 will perhaps reach 400 lp/mm. So, in order to produce a correct image, we would need at last 400 lp/mm resolution. That would 1.25 microns. That would be around 550 MP on full frame.

On the other hand, fine detail contrast at 400 lp/mm will be very low, so we may get around with less resolution, say 2.5 microns. That would correspond to around 138 MP.

Now, the images here used to induce hateful comments from a few "besserwissers" on these forums. But, they are a good illustration of the issue at hand. Both images are shot with a 150 mm lens, decent lenses but nothing exceptional. One is the Sonnar 150/4 the other is Sony Alpha 70-400/4-5.6G zoom at 150 mm.

6.8 micron	3.8 Micron
18.6 MP (on full frame 135)	54 MP (on full frame 135)

Another point may be that we can buy expensive lenses for a low MP camera. We get somewhat sharper images with a lot of artefacts. Or we can use halfway decent lenses with a high resolving sensor, and get better results with less artefacts.

Optimally, we can combine a very good lens with a very good sensor, combined with a well designed optical low pass filter and get pretty optimal results ant optimal cost.

In the future, we may have high resolution sensors that give high MP images, but there may be an option to downsize them to lower resolution in camera firmware.

This image shot with four different lenses shows a lot of artefacts:

Full size: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/BernardSamples/SmallTarget/Center.png

The pictures below show the top left corner. Note that the top left image shows banding type artefacts. The reason for it is that the lens in question (Hasselblad Zeiss Planar 100/3.5) has severe astigmatism at short ranges. According to it's make, Zeiss, it is a lens intended for long distance photography.

The 120/8 is a macro lens that excels at this distance, causing a lot of artefacts. The 180/4 is optimised to work over a wide range of focusing distances according to Zeiss an yields a lot of artefacts. The Planar 80/2.8 looses some sharpness to the corners, and has less obvious artefacts.


Full image: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/BernardSamples/SmallTarget/UpperLeftCorner.png

Yeah, showing those images may cause a lot of hateful comments from those who never made this kind of experiment, I am sorry to hurt their noble feelings.

Why folks don't see these things in everyday work?

• Shooting stopped down to f/16 so diffraction reduces contrast enough to suppress these artefacts
• Using an OLP filtered camera that suppresses the colour artefacts
• Shooting objects where artefacts are less then obvious
• Not achieving optimal sharpness due to technical issues. Non tripod, camera vibrations, non optimal focus small apertures etc... Aliasing effects are only seen when resolution of the optical system exceeds the resolution of the sensor.

Best regards
Erik

[Isaac]

They only care whether, as a friend puts it, "the image speaks to them".

Perhaps the image would speak to them more, with more resolution ;-)

I can't think of any successful image that would be significantly less so if it had somewhat lower resolution and/or was printed a bit smaller.

For some values of "somewhat lower resolution", "significantly less" and "successful".

For some other values of "somewhat lower resolution" I think you can easily imagine that could make the image "significantly less" successful.

I do get your point, but the question isn't which file you or I would rather have, it's whether lack of the larger file we'd rather have will limit the success of a given image.

It depends.

Perhaps the question is -- Does Terry McDonald still use those 5mp cameras now he has a 36mp Nikon D800E?

[Jim Kasson]

I do get your point, but the question isn't which file you or I would rather have, it's whether lack of the larger file we'd rather have will limit the success of a given image.

I agree. Sometimes it does, sometimes not.

I have a Morley Baer print of Garrapata Beach. It's a contact print from an 8x10 negative. I view it from a few feet away, but I delight in getting my nose up against the glass and enjoying the details. So does almost everyone when I tell them it's a contact print.

I have a Michael Smith print of a Tuscan landscape. It's a contact print from an 8x20 (!) negative. Do people view it from a respectful distance? Not on your life.

Jim

[luxborealis]

Perhaps the question is -- Does Terry McDonald still use those 5mp cameras now he has a 36mp Nikon D800E?

Okay, I'll take the bait... Of course I don't still have my 5mp camera - that's not the point. My enjoyment of a photograph is indepependent of the sensor size. While I have a penchant for detail and gain personal enjoyment out of the level I detail I can now achieve, my photographs are not "better" because of the number of pixels present. They are just as "fuzzy" now as before, but with more detail. 

[Isaac]

When you say - "I have a penchant for detail and gain personal enjoyment out of the level I detail I can now achieve" - that suggests your enjoyment of your own photographs is not independent of the sensor size.