{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blogposting-js","path":"/blog/bogomegapixel","result":{"data":{"mdx":{"body":"function _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsxRuntime classic */\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n  \"date\": \"2008-09-05T18:20:20.221Z\",\n  \"updated\": \"2008-09-05T18:20:20.221Z\",\n  \"type\": \"BlogPosting\",\n  \"title\": \"Far beyond the megapixel race\",\n  \"entityId\": \"04744250-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5\",\n  \"revisionId\": \"04744251-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5\",\n  \"revisionNum\": 1,\n  \"tags\": {\n    \"arts.meta.criticism\": [{\n      \"@id\": \"sharpness\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }, {\n      \"@id\": \"resolution\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }],\n    \"arts.meta.manufacturers\": [{\n      \"@id\": \"canon\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }, {\n      \"@id\": \"olympus\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }],\n    \"arts.meta.cameras\": [{\n      \"@id\": \"g9\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }, {\n      \"@id\": \"5d\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }, {\n      \"@id\": \"50d\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }, {\n      \"@id\": \"e3\",\n      \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n    }]\n  },\n  \"sidebar\": \"You want to know what I really think? I bet the Canon 50D's claims of getting one and a half more stops because of improved microlenses and noise reduction is about as credible as getting forty more horsepower in my car with a new air filter and an exhaust tip.\\n\\nI think I've already done the last model shoot in the current place... Everything's all a mess as we get things packed and ready to go ahead of time.\",\n  \"description\": \"Every time somebody bumps up the number of megapixels, there's always another set of blog posts about how useless the megapixel race is.  But I don't think they get it right all the time...  \"\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n  _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n  var components = _ref.components,\n      props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, [\"components\"]);\n\n  return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n    components: components,\n    mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n  }), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Every time somebody bumps up the number of megapixels, there\\u2019s always another set of blog posts about how useless the megapixel race is. But I don\\u2019t think they get it right all the time.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"The Bogo-megapixel\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"It helps if you invent some words to describe the universe. So I\\u2019m going to make up a term called a \\u201Cbogo-megapixel\\u201D. It\\u2019s an imaginary number that you can apply to any combination of camera, digital sensor or film, and camera and has nothing to do with the real number of megapixels you see.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"If I take two twelve megapixel cameras\\u2026 say a Canon G9 and a Canon 5D\\u2026 I will find that the 5D has significantly more bogo-megapixels than the G9, even though the number of megapixels are the same.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"But I\\u2019m not actually going to give you a real numerical definition, because then you\\u2019ll try to see that it\\u2019s a number to compare cameras on and make up a chart. Which it can\\u2019t, because you may think a camera has 10 bogo-megapixels and I may think it\\u2019s 4 bogo-megapixels and we could both be right because our priorities are different.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"Wait a minute\\u2026 didn\\u2019t this stop mattering after six megapixels?\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"There\\u2019s a common meme that there\\u2019s some magical number of megapixels that is the most you\\u2019d ever want. Maybe it\\u2019s four or six or ten or something.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"This is hogwash. If there\\u2019s a gigapixel digital camera on the market, people will buy it and find something fun to do with it. Like the Casio EX-F1.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Also remember that the size limit of an ink jet printer is primarily for marketing and desk space. Higher end people want bigger printers and will pay more. The added cost of lengthening the track the head moves on and extra plastic is fairly negligible. If we all had gigapixel cameras, we\\u2019d all want huge ink jets and we\\u2019d do silly things like covering a wall with a single snapshot.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The big thing to remember is that this is somewhat dependent upon subject matter\\u2026 which is really where the cognitive dissonance starts. For people and vacation snappyshots and things like that, you probably don\\u2019t need the resolution. For portraits, you may blur out any fine detail because nobody wants to look at pores. People don\\u2019t tend to walk right up to a print of a portrait and try to see how good the fine detail is any more than they like to take a magnifying glass to people. But for scenery, there\\u2019s always more detail to be had if you get in. Can you see the ants on the tree? Can you see the cow in the far distance?\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"This is why one person can take a 4 megapixel shot and blow it up huge and be quite happy with it and another person needs a 39 megapixel digital back to be happy at the same size. Either way, I\\u2019ve got tons of shots taken on gear that\\u2019s not as high resolution as my medium format film camera, and so it\\u2019s going to bug me forever that I won\\u2019t be able to make them as blown up as the ones I\\u2019ve got.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"But there\\u2019s a bigger problem than having the right number of megapixels.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"So here\\u2019s where the megapixel race goes wrong\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"So, back to bogo-megapixels. If you realize that the bogo-megapixel is an imaginary number used to represent the total performance, you start to understand that as you increase the camera\\u2019s ISO setting to collect more light, you are really just trading bogo-megapixels for faster shutter speeds\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"So, for compact cameras, what\\u2019s really happening is that the number of megapixels keeps going up, but the number of bogo-megapixels is about the same. This is why so many of us are disgusted. We recognize that if we\\u2019d have the number of bogo-megapixels at about the same level as the number of real megapixels, we\\u2019d fit more pictures in the same memory card, we\\u2019d be able to shoot at a slightly higher ISO, and the camera would be faster because it would be slinging less data around.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Now, what about SLR cameras?\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"Enter the Canon EOS 50D and Olympus E-3\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"We\\u2019ve crossed a barrier recently, where the latest crop-factor digital SLR cameras have sensors smaller than 4 megapixel per square centimeter. The EOS 50D is currently the first on the race to the bottom, with four and a half megapixels per square centimeter.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"There are some fairly hard limits that have been able to be pushed off with careful design. Sensor makers have spent a lot of time making better microlenses and increasing the fill factor and other advances, which means that newer generation sensors at the same level of resolution can collect more light and have less noise than before.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"But we\\u2019re also seeing manufacturers trying to avoid basic fundamental limits by cheating. You can run noise reduction algorithms on the image and make some of the noise appear to go away. It\\u2019ll even make your pictures of a gray card look clean. But if you start photographing real objects, you\\u2019ll realize that fine detail that the software can\\u2019t tell apart from noise has been smeared together.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Just out of curiosity, I went back and looked up what sensors were like back when you didn\\u2019t shudder to view things at 100% when they came out of a point and shoot camera. Remember, my A95 has about the same number of bogo-megapixels as my G7, even though the A95 has 5 megapixels and my G7 has 10\", \".\", \" Reviews of the A95 pointed out that the follow-on to the A95 had better have a bigger sensor, maybe a 2/3rds sensor, if they wanted to bump up the resolution because it was starting to get some comments about objectionable noise and a tiny dynamic range. And that\\u2019s about 13 megapixels per square centimeter. So we haven\\u2019t hit the point where the bogo-megapixels can\\u2019t go up without making the sensor bigger, at least in terms of ISO 50-100 performance.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"a\", {\n    parentName: \"p\",\n    \"href\": \"/blog/500_megapixels/\"\n  }, \"I\\u2019m repeating myself here\"), \", but, as far as I\\u2019m concerned, I\\u2019d actually be fairly happy with a digital SLR that has maybe 20 megapixels and an APS-C lens because I\\u2019d leave it set at ISO 50 or 100 and probably pair it with a tilt-shift lens and carefully consider diffraction and depth of field concerns while shooting and be able to print crisp 20x30s. Assuming you can peel my film gear out of my hands, of course. And I can guarantee that your average shooter is not going to be able to respect or understand diffraction limits well enough to actually get the necessary resolution out of it.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"So, while in the SLR form factor, the bogo-megapixels have, so far, been increasing at about the same as the number of megapixels and most cameras retain an impressive number of bogo-megapixels even at high ISOs, this is likely to come to an end. The problem is that binning and blurring are incomplete solutions to this sort of problem. You lose more bogo-megapixels faking things than doing it right while laying out the sensor.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"So, this is what the real problem is. We want it all but we can\\u2019t have it all. The majority of shooters probably will be happier with better high ISO performance than with having more megapixels. Did you realize that if you take a 6 megapixel APS-C sensor, it\\u2019s about the same pixel pitch as the Nikon D3 that is famously crisp at most ISO settings below 3200? So, while I\\u2019d probably like a 20 megapixel APS-C sensor, the vast majority of casual shooters would prefer a 6 megapixel APS-C sensor that went up to ISO 25,600.\"));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","id":"fff9d5d9-a643-5e17-b3f8-1537709e17cb","fields":{"sidebar":"<p>You want to know what I really think? I bet the Canon 50D's claims of getting one and a half more stops because of improved microlenses and noise reduction is about as credible as getting forty more horsepower in my car with a new air filter and an exhaust tip.</p>\n<p>I think I've already done the last model shoot in the current place... Everything's all a mess as we get things packed and ready to go ahead of time.</p>\n"},"frontmatter":{"date":"September 05, 2008","title":"Far beyond the megapixel race","type":"BlogPosting","description":"Every time somebody bumps up the number of megapixels, there's always another set of blog posts about how useless the megapixel race is.  But I don't think they get it right all the time...  ","sidebar":"You want to know what I really think? I bet the Canon 50D's claims of getting one and a half more stops because of improved microlenses and noise reduction is about as credible as getting forty more horsepower in my car with a new air filter and an exhaust tip.\n\nI think I've already done the last model shoot in the current place... Everything's all a mess as we get things packed and ready to go ahead of time."},"srcImages":null,"excerpt":"Every time somebody bumps up the number of megapixels, there's always another set of blog posts about how useless the megapixel race is. But I don't think they get it right all the time. The Bogo-megapixel It helps if you invent some words to describe the universe. So I'm going to make up a term…"}},"pageContext":{"id":"fff9d5d9-a643-5e17-b3f8-1537709e17cb","parent":"/blog","name":"bogomegapixel","depth":2,"title":"Far beyond the megapixel race","type":"BlogPosting","date":"2008-09-05T18:20:20.221Z","hidden":null,"breadcrumbs":[{"url":"/"},{"name":"blog","url":"/blog"},{"name":"Far beyond the megapixel race","url":"/blog/bogomegapixel"}],"excerpt":"Every time somebody bumps up the number of megapixels, there's always another set of blog posts about how useless the megapixel race is.  But I don't think they get it right all the time...  ","updated":"2008-09-05T18:20:20.221Z"}},"staticQueryHashes":["1062461325","1937434333","2193146810","2240196328","3649515864","815954065"]}