When and where will DSLR image quality plataeu?

[Petrus]

I think a square sensor is a likely evolutionary step. Take the D800/810, nikon has already built in different aspect ratios like 5x4.  A square sensor with dimensions of 36x36 would allow use of existing lens for the necessary image circle would not change.

If you draw an image circle and fit 36x24 just inside it, and then replace it with 36x36, you will notice the above does not hold water...

[Ellis Vener]

The D810 is an excellent camera, but concluding that it marks the plateau of digital camera and sensor development is akin to arguing about how many angels dancing on pin heads  a camel passing through the eye of a needle  actually sees.

[Petrus]

The D810 is an excellent camera, but concluding that it marks the plateau of digital camera and sensor development is akin to arguing about how many angels dancing on pin heads  a camel passing through the eye of a needle  actually sees.

We are not at the plateau yet, but the incline is flattening out. Like I mentioned previously it is next to impossible to improve dynamic range, because of the internal reflections in lenses, not because sensors could not be improved at least slightly. Getting more resolution is possible, but only with best lenses, and the improvement is not going to be a quantum leap, like what we have seen from 4 to 36 MPix in ten years. Making a hypothetical 300 MPix FF sensor is not going to make the same impact going from 4 to 36 MPix did, it would go mostly unnoticed by the general public.

[Torbjörn Tapani]

Maybe we _can_ make a quantum leap? (pun intended)

http://www.invisage.com/

[allegretto]

Maybe we _can_ make a quantum leap? (pun intended)

http://www.invisage.com/

looks like something that may find its way into non-phones too....!

[jjj]

The D810 is an excellent camera, but concluding that it marks the plateau of digital camera and sensor development is akin to arguing about how many angels dancing on pin heads  a camel passing through the eye of a needle  actually sees.

[jjj]

I personally would hate to be stuck with a camera the physical size of a D810. After shooting a Fuji X-E2 for close to a year I'm waiting for something like the Sony A7* series with a bit more refinement.

Indeed they are lots of ways a camera can be improved beyond just megapixels.
An EVF that will please those who currently hate them for example.

[allegretto]

If you draw an image circle and fit 36x24 just inside it, and then replace it with 36x36, you will notice the above does not hold water...

circle has shortest perimeter (circumference) for any real figure.

[Ellis Vener]

If you draw an image circle and fit 36x24 just inside it, and then replace it with 36x36, you will notice the above does not hold water...

Petrus is correct: the diagonal of a 36x36  square is 50.9117 while that of a 24x36 rectangle is 43.2666 . That 15% difference is considerable in terms of lens' image circle  Also  even with fabrication and manufacturing costs falling the fabrication costs and rejection rate to make a perfect or near perfect CMOS wafer with a 51mm diameter that isremain substantially higher than to make one with a 44mm diameter. 

On top of that  larger and heavier  camera bodies and lenses would have to made raising costs again, including R&D and tooling, and a larger and heavier overall package would also raise packaging, shipping, warehousing and delivery costs per unit; and finally a larger, heavier camera and lens combination would be harder to handhold and carry around -and push more people into choosing smaller  devices for making photographs. In short a larger camera format would be a no-win situation for both manufacturers and photographers.

What would make more sense is a camera system built around a 24x24mm or 30x30mm sensor.

[Jim Kasson]

Also  even with fabrication and manufacturing costs falling the fabrication costs and rejection rate to make a perfect or near perfect CMOS wafer with a 51mm diameter that isremain substantially higher than to make one with a 44mm diameter.  

The two most common sizes for wafers in a CMOS fab are 200 and 300 mm. Perhaps you're not talking about wafer size at all, but of chip yield? You don't need a perfect wafer to get good chips from it, but yield is affected by chip size.

Jim

[Ellis Vener]

"Perhaps you're not talking about wafer size at all, but of chip yield?"

Yes! Thank you.

[Fine_Art]

Indeed they are lots of ways a camera can be improved beyond just megapixels.
An EVF that will please those who currently hate them for example.

If you want that improved you have to say what is wrong with it, then give them [manufacturer employees reading the site] an idea of what would make it better.

[Jim Kasson]

If you want that improved you have to say what is wrong with it, then give them [manufacturer employees reading the site] an idea of what would make it better.

I'm not an EVF hater, but I'd like to see EVF's that are brighter in bright light, have a larger (and user-selectable) visual field, have less latency, have a higher refresh rate, have focus point selection by eye tracking (maybe some do that one already, but not on the cameras that I use), have enough dynamic range to show you what the image will look like with the a light source in the frame.

My guess is that the product managers at the camera companies know customers want all those things, and are beating on the poor engineers daily to design them in -- at no increase in COGS, of course.

Jim

[Fine_Art]

I'm not an EVF hater, but I'd like to see EVF's that are brighter in bright light, have a larger (and user-selectable) visual field, have less latency, have a higher refresh rate, have focus point selection by eye tracking (maybe some do that one already, but not on the cameras that I use), have enough dynamic range to show you what the image will look like with the a light source in the frame.

My guess is that the product managers at the camera companies know customers want all those things, and are beating on the poor engineers daily to design them in -- at no increase in COGS, of course.

Jim

On the first point would a moth's eye screen protector work?

[Fine_Art]

Found a screen using it.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/sharp-70in-4k-moth-eye-review
If they can put them in big tvs a tiny camera screen should be cheap.

[Glenn NK]

If you draw an image circle and fit 36x24 just inside it, and then replace it with 36x36, you will notice the above does not hold water...

Yup, geometry was my strong suit in high school, and as a structural engineer, it's still pretty good.

[Jim Kasson]

Found a screen using it.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/sharp-70in-4k-moth-eye-review
If they can put them in big tvs a tiny camera screen should be cheap.

As I understand the technology that's in the display you linked to, it reduces reflections from a screen. That's not usually a problem with EVFs, since your head pressed against the eyepiece blocks most ambient light (although the camera manufacturers could provide better cups for eyeglass wearers. What I'm talking about is how dim the display is compared to ambient light in bright sun. The displays in SLRs aren't as bright as sunny 16 light, but they're serviceable in light that bright, at least with f/2.8 or f/4 lenses. EVFs are dimmer, making it harder to adjust to the change in light level, and making any leaking around the eye cup more significant. A hat helps, but that makes it harder when you're using the rear LCD, since the EVF light sensor detects the shadow of your hat and turns off the rear LCD, at least on the cameras I have, with the exception of the M240.

Jim

[Fine_Art]

Right, I was thinking of the back screen which I always have to cup my hand over.

[Dan Wells]

How does how we display or print the images figure into this? There is a 24x60" panorama lying atop my Stylus Pro 7900 right now - a single shot from an A7r, printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber. That's a center crop (not even - most of the crop was off the top, so it wasn't truly using the sweet spot of the lens) from a 40x60" image! It's a high-detail landscape, and it looks as good as a very well-made 11x14" print from most 35mm films. A 200 lb 7900 is about as big a printer as most people are going to tolerate sharing their house with (actually, most people won't tolerate anything bigger than a 3880) - a 9900 (the next size up) is the size of a piano! The very best FF cameras can fully utilize even a 44" 9900 or iPF 8400, which is what it would have taken to print this image full frame.

In film terms, this sort of print was solidly in large-format territory. A 40x60" enlargement from 6x9 cm film at the top end of medium format was equivalent to printing 16x24" from 35mm. Yes, it was possible with the right film and the right subject, but for a high-detail landscape, you REALLY wanted to have a 4x5 negative (or, for a panoramic image, 6x17 cm).

We don't really need more pixels if we're already printing 44"!  No screen is close to using what we have - even the lab-curiosity 8k displays are only around 33 mp, and 4k displays that are more available are only 8 mp.  Any recent Micro43 camera can exceed not only the resolution, but the color and dynamic range capabilities of the best 4K TV. In my part of the country, it is nearly impossible to sell a print with a short dimension exceeding 24", because of wall space restrictions (occasionally, a gallery wrap can go bigger). The one exception is institutions - our local hospital displays some VERY large prints, but there aren't that many hospitals and such around. Places where architecture tends towards bigger walls than New England may increase opportunities in the 30x45" and 40x60" range, but such a print will nearly always be viewed from a distance, and is well within the capabilities of current cameras. No, I wouldn't push the A7r (or, presumably the D810) as far as 60x90" for close inspection, but I'd probably try it on canvas for an installation with a reasonable viewing distance, and locations that can hold a 60x90" print (or even a 36x90" crop panorama) are very rare indeed. 

There is certainly more to an image than resolution, but the best modern digital cameras spoil us there, too. We have enough dynamic range that there is REAL detail in Zone 0 and Zone X, and Zone -I (?)  and Zone XI both hold the hints of tonality that film photographers worked to find in Zones I and IX. Color has improved tremendously, to the point where no film ever gave us what we have today.

Although serious photographers have the best equipment we've ever had (Ansel Adams would have killed for an A7r and a Cambo Actus to give him movements, although his back surgeon would have cried), most pictures today are taken with cameras that are actually historically BAD. Cell phones' 4-5 stops of dynamic range, diffraction-limited resolution and terrible lenses are worse than almost any film camera ever sold. The most sophisticated iPhone is somewhere in the quality range of 110 Instamatic and Kodak Disc film formats, due to the relentless drive to make phones ever thinner - we will never beat the laws of physics!

[BernardLanguillier]

It really depends on the subject.

There are subjects for which a 60 inch print from a 36mp file feels very rough.

It may stand by itself, but when compared to a 150 megapixel files it does feel pretty low fi.

Cheers,
Bernard