How much better will digital get?

[BJL]

Ray and Bob,

   I agree that most of the price difference between Leica and more mainsteam but good quality lenses is related to economies of scale, plus perhaps the labor costs of satisfying customers who will only accept a lens that has been hand assembled and inspected in Europe or the USA rather than say Asia (Japan is off-limits for many lens snobs, let alone China.)

Probably the bottom line on possible price/quality is indicated by the lowest price for a decent lens of a certain type when there are competitive third party options. Given that the third party makers generally do not quite meet the quality of the camera maker's lenses (particularly as far build quality) my best guess is that fully matching the overall quality of a good lens from a major camera maker inherently costs a bit more than such third party lenses.

[Ray]

China has an advantage when the labor content of a product is significant. When the product is manufactured and assembled by machinery they don't compete as well.

I thought just about everything is manufactured and assembled by machinery nowadays, Bob. Multinationals often set up business in China to get the best of both worlds; a new factory with the latest technology plus a low wage, hard working, often highly skilled workforce.

We ship iron ore, wool and energy to China. They ship back low priced manufactured goods. We have a trade imbalance of several A$ billion that's in their favour.

[John Camp]

What if you were to take x number of your satellite's highest-res photos and then applied some kind of sampling software to come up with a most probable licence number? If they managed to distinguish three grapefruits on a contrasting background, then a license plate might not be entirely out of the question. License plate numbers and letters are almost by definition set up to be easily distinguishable, and each letter/number is a significant fraction of the visual size of a grapefruit.

You would also have non-photographic data to add to your observation: the car is in California and the letters and numbers seen to be right for California; so you scan the California license data base on the most probably numbers and find that of your fifty best guesses, only one is on a readily-distinguishable Hummer...  

JC

[Jonathan Wienke]

Most web photo forums have frequent discussions of whether to buy now or wait for better equipment, lower prices, etc. We then get the usual inane "buy now and prepare top spend big bucks to upgrade because that's the way the world is gonna work" or "relax and enjoy what you've got, it's good enough, and besides, a really good photographer can take great photos with 1mp Kodaks and a stick like Ansel Adams did."

But there are reasons (I have a couple, think of your own) for owning really good equipment right now; and also reasons for waiting, if the wait is short (less than a year.) So here's the question: Are the top line affordable cameras -- say the Canon 1DsMII -- good enough in producing 13x19 prints, that it's going to be a long time before newer cameras can produce better 13x19 prints? I don't want a discussion of technique, etc., so let's just say, prints of a photographic target under a variety of lighting conditions. Will there be massive improvements in dynamic range, or color quality, or light sensitivity, or noise control? Or are we now talking about small incremental changes? I read Reichmann's piece comparing the 1DsMII to the P25, and I wonder, if you are working with an Epson 4000, are you going to see a practical difference at 13x19? Will you ever? I understand that if you built a billion megapixal chip you could make a billboard that would be sharp under a loupe, but what will people finally settle upon as a practical optimum, where the critical factors become lens quality and ergonomics rather than bigger chips? Are we there now? Will be there soon?

I want to buy a camera now that I can work with, and settle on, for a long time, without giving up much in the way of print quality. Like everybody else, I think about price, but that's not as  critical as the other considerations. I own a ton of Nikon equipment, but I'm getting very tired of waiting for Nikon to produce a camera that will match other camera's finest 13x19s. Right now I'm working with 2 Kodaks, and the good photos are fine, but the cameras have limits, especially in low light, and frankly, the ergonomics drive me crazy. I'm willing to make the switch to Canon, but I'd be less willing if I were convinced that the 1DsMII is just another one-year temporary waypost on the way to a real camera.

JC

A Mark I 1Ds can make very nice prints up to 24x36, something that no one is going to look at and be unfavorably impressed. 13x19 is no problem; the 1Ds can deliver most of what most printers are capable of putting on paper. There's still some room for improvement in prints that size, but not major, earth-shattering ones. Handling and high ISO performance of the 1Ds are not as good as the 1Ds-MkII, but still significantly better than anything on the Nikon side of the fence. Resolution is good enough to challenge many of the finest lenses available for the format. And they're going for less than $4000 used on EBay.

I currently own the 1Ds and 1D-MkII. I wouldn't mind having a 1Ds-MkII, but the reality is that the classic 1Ds/1D-MkII combo is more than capable of meeting my clients' needs, and until I start having clients complain about what I deliver, keeping up with the Joneses is not sensible financially. So I'm going to keep what I've got unless I fall into a bunch of extra cash.

If you didn't have a bunch of Nikon glass, the 1Ds-MkII would be a solid long-term choice; a 1Ds or 1D-MkII would be solid alternatives if you're on a budget, depending on what you shoot. Since you've got a bunch of Nikon gear, it may be worthwhile to wait for the D2X ship before deciding whether to switch systems or not. But I'm not convinced it's going to be a Canon-killer.

[RobertJ]

If Mamiya hits a home run with their ZD it will be a milestone ... a pivotal event ... because perhaps it will make someone else believe that  Canon can indeed be challenged.  But  think of all the things that MUST come together.  They have to match or exceed Canon on all the points.  From resolution to iso to build quality.  A bigger chip alone will not do it.

I have to agree with you on this one.  

For some reason, I could care less about the Mamiya ZD now.  It'll be like buying a slow version of Canon's future 1Ds2 replacement, (since the ZD is 1.5fps, with a 50-400 ISO range only).  But then again, these are tools.  The ZD would be a great landscape tool.  The Canon would be a do-it-all kind of tool, with equal, or better resolution, faster frame rates, and a full range of ISO capabilities.

My main point: We've already seen the 1Ds2 beat the 16mp Kodak Pro back, so why won't the next Canon beat the Mamiya ZD, or even the P25?  Who knows?  Maybe it will.  I realize the 24x36 sensor has it's limits in megapixels.  Maybe once 35mm reaches 22mp, things will slow down a bit, and Medium Format will begin to develop more rapidly.

T-1000

[Ray]

Digital sensors in conjunction with in-camera noise reduction systems are gradually getting better. But there's no substitute for a good lens. The apparent quality variability between lenses of the same model and price, as reported on this site and others, is a disgrace. The precision of computer assisted manufacturing processes should be able to address this issue. I don't know why this is not happening. There's very little literature on the subject that's readily available and I confess I don't understand the problems.

[didger]

The 'sites per area' issue is most likely going to be limited by noise and ISO issues.  And if those limits can be significantly pushed then half-frame cameras will start to replace full-frames and the MF digital back market really will be eaten up by full-frames.

Sorry, but this is absolutely false unless vastly better lenses can be made than what seems to be possible today.  The 1dsMKII already has far more resolution than most lenses (esp. wide) can match.  The fact is that today's best ultrawide lenses are not as good as those old Zeiss and Leica designs and there is no particular reason (except blind optimism) to think that there's any lens miracles in store any time soon.  

Even in the very unlikely event that miracle lens technologies are around the corner, there's still the problem that extremely high density sensors will result in extremely limited DOF if you want to see that extreme resolution at any but exactly in the middle focus.  You don't have the option of increasing DOF with smaller apertures either because then you lose that extreme resolution due to diffraction.  There's only one way that effective real life meaningful resolution can go beyond 1dsMKII level and that's with bigger sensors.  In fact, 1dsMKII is already beyond optimal efficiency.  You only get anything close to maximum benefit from all those pixels if you're using a world class lens (only available at all from 35mm on up) at optimal aperture (about f8) and without much DOF required.

If you want substantially higher than 1ds resolution without a lot of lens quality limitations, severe DOF constraints, and severe aperture constraints there's no alternatives except larger sensors.  The laws of physics related to optical issues and the realities of lens design and manufacturing are not as easy to deal with as just creating a lot of hype and marketing razzle-dazzle to convince us that more and more sensor site density is worth spending a bunch more money every year or two.  If only physics and engineering limitations were as easy to control as consumer opinions and unreasoned ignorant faith.  More is not always better, except, of course for the shareholders.

[BJL]

A few comments

a) From the low end of compact digicams, I read an interestng interview with someone from Sony on trends in that market; one observation was that lots of customers are realizing that "they do not need 5MP", so probably a lot of digicam emphasis wil go in other directions: even smaller, HDTV quality video, whatever. Of course, the pixel race continues for other digicam customers; the ones who also crave amplifiers with 0.0001% THD.
I expect that at various higher market levels, the same will happen; seking other ways to differentiate DSLRs beyond mere pixel count upsizing; I hope that dynamic range becomes a bigger DSLR marketing point.

 didger, you say again that the only way out of the jaws of too little DOF or too much diffraction is larger formats, even after I refuted it and pointed out that there is NO WAY out of that dilemma once pixel counts get too high. If you wish to continue making this claim in favor of larger formats, please offer some arguments or evidence for it.
(To repeat, using any given effective aperture diameter and focus distance gives fixed proportions between image size, circle of confusion sizes and diffraction spot size, regardless of focal length. So on prints with the subject appearing at a given size, you get the same degree of blurring from both diffraction and OOF effects.)

c) I expect that electronic sensors can improve to the point that lenses are the dominant determinant of image sharpness, contrast and such; in analogy to digital audio, high end digital imaging will probably use "oversampling" to avoid moire and such. Then, the best MF lenses will likely have the ultimate advantage over smaller formats in terms of image sharpness (roughly measured by MTF at a given "lines per picture height" or by angular resolution, to allow for the smaller enlargement needed from a larger format).

d) It was interesting to read Kev Raber of Phase 1 say that "Medium format systems and even present DSLR system will keep their price points."

That is a trend I have seen with higher end products; certain markets (e.g. MF studio photographers) seem to have acceptable price points, and one strategy is to keep product lines at various such price points while improving quality.

[Bobtrips]

Seems to me there's some powerful resolving going on in the Pro I's glass.  Is there something about smaller lenses that makes them better?  (Or am I lost in space?)

Lenses that cover a small image circle are much more easily made to resolve more lp/mm. The bigger the image circle, the harder it is to maintain a decent MTF at higher lp/mm. The Pro/1's lens resolves more lp/mm at 50% MTF than the EF 135/2L, but it would vignette like crap in front of a 1Ds sensor.

Well, duh.    

Thanks for the conformation that smaller is easier.  But did you read the rest of the post?  

Give a bit of thought to a 16 meg/120 mm sq sensor or a 32 meg/240 mm sq sensor and the smaller lenses that it would take to service them.

[Sfleming]

Howard,

I think Fatali got a bad rap.  It was a great idea really.  He just didn't think it through.  Actually I would like to do it myself.  Perhaps not on and in a National monument however.

When I try it I will use large cast iron pots as the fire pits instead of disposable aluminum turkey roasting pans.

Anyway, foolish ventures aside,  the guy does make some great prints even IF he's always 'waiting for the light'.

[BobMcCarthy]

Consider a really small pixel that can absorb only 1000 photons to maximum well capacity. Square root of a thousand is 32. Photonic noise is 3.2% of the signal. A big difference.

I'm a little confused. Is 3% relevant? With one single f-stop being 100% more light (photons) or 50% less light (photons) is 3% meaningful?

I'm of the sense, that the future is at the pixel level. From photographs put out by the companies, the light collecting area is a small percentage of the pixel area. Is there a future technology that can improve this? I'll bet there is.

Also, can less noisy amplication allow the pixel to perform well at lower light levels. This permits the opportunity of reducing pixel size with the same performance. Did Sony come up with a breakthrough and share it with Nikon. Are Fuji's R pixels (it may be the other one- well anyway the small one) clean enough to be used as the principle light collecting device. maybe not now but coming soon.

The hard to grasp concept is the pixel is only a data sample, vs. film which is analog and continuous capture. Lots of dead space between pixel capture area (silicon).

So if we're  reassempling and interprelating data points how does chip (vs. film) size matter anymore. I don't see the relationship between size and output as we had with film where the enlargement reduction of the larger negative was the principle advantage of going large. Tri-X was Tri-X whether 35MM or MF or 4x5. But the final print looked distinctly different when printed at the same size.

Software improvements can work with the data to improve color and resolution. Oversampling worked with digital music, is there an equivalent for the visual arts. Probably.

So, to me, it means, I must think in terms of good data. This leads me to the conclusion that pixel quality supported by lens quality are the two principle factors determining our future.

I bought a Nikon Coolpix 880 (7 megapixel I think) for a walking about camera. I have a shot from northern NM that looks the full equal of my 20D and D70. I did put it on a tripod, used the lens better aperature, had pretty light, and the subject was pleasing. Little tiny pixels, noisy for sure as higher ISO, crappy electronic viewfinder, but in a narrow element it worked as well as anything at that pixel quantity. Now no one uses it that way, the vast majority of shooters (including the spouse unit) use this camera P&S (why I like the new anti-shake) as do my digital artists in reference gathering.

Back to the point, Its now all about collecting data and chip area is no longer the critical determinant as it was in film. I think long term LF is dead, and that MF will become view cameras (aka sinar F3) for the movements that the view camera allows. hand held cameras over 10 mpxl's are capable of doing most everything other than giant prints and even then for some subjects do fine.

[didger]

smaller sensors; smaller, lighter, cheaper, and easier to build lenses.

'Fraid not. That would only be true if the resolution didn't need to be increased to match the smaller sensor sites.  Increasing the resolution of the sensor means to take decent advantage of that the lenses need to be correspondingly improved in resolution.  That means tighter design specifications, tighter manufacturing procedures, much less tolerance for error anywhere in the process and finally much tighter quality control and also much better build so things don't start to shift after the lens leaves the factory.  Since build and sample variation problems are already huge with present day lenses and most of them are inadequate to take anywhere near full advantage of a 1dsMKII, there's little hope for much better lenses than that right around the corner.

This thread has indicated some remarkable possibilities for radical sensor quality improvements and increased sensor site densities, but without improvements in lens technology, this is a bit pointless beyond a certain point; a point that has already been exceeded with 1dsMKII.

Anyone one know of any really cool ways that lenses can be improved enough and be realistically manufactured?  Please keep in mind that no present day ultrawides (expept maybe Leica) are nearly as good as old Zeiss lenses.  We need lenses very much better than that.  Who's going to make them, and how, and is there anything under way?  Canon released 1dsMKII with nothing whatsoever in the way of improved lenses, especially the sorely deficient ultrawides.

[RobertJ]

This thread is BOOMING with info.  It'll be funny to look at this thread in about 3-5 years, and see how accurate our predictions for the future were.

T-1000

[John Camp]

I confess I don't understand most of the more technical talk here, but answer a couple of questions for me.
1. Some depth-of-field problems are solved by shift lenses. There are also back shifts on most LF cameras. One of the problems with back shifts in 35mm cameras, as I understand it, is that in using roll film, there were inherent engineering problems regarding film (differing amounts of tightness of the film, different sprocket efficiencies, reflectivity, etc.) Now we have a flat solid "film" base in the sensor; we also have electronic view finders. Wouldn't it be fairly simple (conceptually, at least) to create a moveable back for 35mm that would resolve a lot of DOF problems?
2. I love the sampling idea (sampling the photosites and then sorting noise from actual photon responses by comparing two or more frames.) We already have high-speed cameras and lenses, called movie cameras. We also have multiple shot MF cameras. So there's no problem with the concept. Electronic exposures could be much faster than mechanical ones, so why couldn't we have, say, a 3-shot 1DsMIII that shoots 3 1/500 of a second shots quickly enough that you wouldn't get blur, and then create the photo with statistical analysis of photo-site returns? You might have to set up some rules for the three-shot mode -- camera mounted on a tripod, say -- but it could be an extremely useful mode for certain kinds of photography.

JC

[BJL]

Someone mentioned image stabilization; my hope is doing it in a teleconverter; one IS TC for use with all lenses. I think that it could be a "1x" TC if you just want the stabilization.

Olympus has some stabilization patents that involve moving a thin, isolated lens element at the back of the lens assembly, so it seems possible to put this thin moving lens instead at the front of a TC.

[BobMcCarthy]

I just reread the entire thread. Whew, lots of interesting dialog here. This community is so much different than the one on DPreview. A real breath of fresh air..and very informative.

I'm trying to envision the next generation of camera as per the original thread header. I'm going to play Nostradomas, feel free to disagree or ignore.

1) Much technology from the past will be carried forward.

-35mm form factor -  
-optical viewfinder
-35mm lens technology
-metering technology
-autofocus
-antishake/stabilization

all the above incrementally improved

2) new technology from the coming era

-sensor technology - pixel tech will continue to evolve. Since the strength of the semiconductor industry is getting more with less, denser pixel technology will be the emphasis. Bigger sensors will just be flat out expensive - maybe forever. Can they survive the cost curve when smaller sensors will improve in output quality and be far cheaper, somewhat do the the massive run rates and corresponding cost reduction that infers. The sensor will stabilize at the size that provides the most economic return for the companys.

-sensor data - built into the camera will be a vastly more powerful processor that will adjust (warn) the photographer that the exposure is out of range of the sensor and possibly correct or prevent incorrect exposure unless over-ridden. Possible automatic multiple images to overcome dynamic range exceeding sensor capture range. Fractel processing within the capture to increase apparent resolution of the raw image. Faster(better) processing of exposure i.e. I can see a version of Photoshop allowing curves/level adjustment within the camera and available immediately post exposure.

I can see the output size (print size) being camera selected and the file size being adjusted by internal uprezzing with the available data.

Lens optimization - A version of DXO build into the camera that knows the strengths and weaknesses of each lens and adjusts accordingly.

I predict that cameras will stabilize in the 12-17 mpxl range, which is the outer limits of current lens (and probably future)  technology and is more than enough for 95+% of all needs. Future changes will be focused on cost (price) reduction and will fracture camera offerings into smaller micromarket units. i.e. still life, action, landscape, fashion, etc.

Canon and Nikon will lead the way. Canon's breakthrough was CMOS with very low noise. Nikon will show us next month (maybe) if smaller and lower cost pixels can replace or at least equal larger pixels. It should be interesting.

Me, I'm going to buy the ubercamera I just described in this post as well as a mini view camera (6x7), with a fast and capable scanning back when Betterlight decides to make it available.

Bob

[Jonathan Wienke]

Realistically there can't be $10 worth of material in a lens.  Some glass, some metal.  A bit of paint.  (OK, I don't really don't know about the $10 figure, but it can't be much.)

Yeah, right. And a Pentium CPU has 5 cents worth of silicon (melted sand) in it. What a rip-off...

[Ben Rubinstein]

Do you ever remember anyone complaining about some Canon Ls weren't that good back in the days of film?

Yeh, but in those days people were not making their comparisons at billboard size magnification, neither were they expecting a 35mm camera to act as a 6X9 or even 4X5.
If people would only let 35mm lenses be 35mm lenses....

When I started shooting weddings with a 10D, I noticed that my sigma 28-70 EX f2.8 was noticeably softer than my 17-40L. It bothered me for a  few minutes until I stopped and thought.
In the past when I was shooting on film, I was very happy with the prints made with this lens, they were definitely good enough or better. Infact I have a 18X12" print on my wall taken with the lens and I had never complained about a lack of sharpness. So why was it bothering me now?
Needless to say, I'm still happy with the prints made with this lens. It's good enough!

[BJL]

In my opinion, Canon may be at a disavantage in the bigger than 35mm camera market.

In a strange sense Canon is at an obvious disadvantage in the bigger than 24x36mm market, but it hardly matters since they are not in that market all and I see not the slightest reason to think that they are interested in it either, or need to be.

Canon and Nikon have been immensely successful for decades while ignoring larger formats, and digital is moving the distribution of format sizes down, or at least not up, so why on earth would such companies start to care about upsizing now?

[Ray]

Deleted by poster.