Megapixels

[Jared]

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I've finally gotten past the point of wanting more megapixels. I just don't. I wouldn't turn them down, but I am no longer lusting for them. I'd much rather see a wider range of lenses for the SL (even a Summarit line), an auto stop down adapter for R glass, noise performance like the Sony A7S, and a couple minor firmware mods. The number of situations where my actual photo would be improved from more megapixels is very small.

 

- Jared

[almoore]

I wouldn't need a 6x6 100mp sensor to match the output quality of a 6x6 film camera, and something like the current 44x33 sensors will come close enough (perhaps 44x44 would be ideal

I use a Sony RX1Rii pretty much exclusively in a 1:1 aspect ratio. Obviously, it has a smaller sensor than you'd like, but the combination of a very good Zeiss lens and a high resolution sensor (I think it's 28MP in 1:1 format) makes its output comparable to 6x6 film.

 

The implementation of the viewfinder masking is very slick and the viewing angle coincidentally corresponds to that of a Rolleiflex (it's a shade wider than an 80 but identical to the 75). The tilting back screen also allows you to use it at waist level like a Rolleiflex. The camera is tiny, affordable(ish) and very well built. The only downside is the absurdly bad battery life.

[Peter H]

I grew up with a Rolleicord. It was the only camera I knew until I was about 24 years old aside from my Mum's Instamatic and an old Box Brownie that I always enjoyed playing with.

 

So I'd love a dedicated square format camera. The 4:3 format of the X1D comes closest, leaving something like 37mp when cropped square. That should do it!

[IkarusJohn]

Perhaps I should try the square format on the SL.

[jmahto]

Forget megapixel... Gigapixel anyone!

I started a thread...
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/268515-resolutiongigapixel/

[ImmerDraussen]

Although I have access to two 50MP cameras, I use the SL in most cases. My personal ranking of picture quality without making 1:1 comparisons is:

1. Pentax 645z
2. Leica SL
3. Canon 5Dsr
    

I now tried to find evidence for this ranking. I took shoot with the three cameras, using the
 

• Leica 100mm APO Makro
• Pentax 120mm Makro
• Canon 100mm L Makro
   

This is the shoot showing the hole picture:

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The Leica picture is scaled up in LR to 150% to have the sieze as the other and than cropped.

Here is crop of the Leica 100mm APO Makro:
 

In the next post I show the others

​

[ImmerDraussen]

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Here is the Pentax:

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And finally the Canon




The difference is not big (the upload kills most of the rest), but it confirms my initial evaluation that medium format is helping picture quality more than just more pixels.
With the Canon its difficult to make use of the pixels

The most technical good pictures, I get from the Leica (most precise AF and perfect control of exposure)

So I´m not waiting for more pixels for the SL

[Jared]

OK, I'm confused by a couple aspects of your posted examples...

 

1) You concluded that medium forms is helping picture quality in more ways than just more pixels.  What are you seeing in the Pentax image that you don't in the Leica or the Canon?  Not telling you that you are wrong, but I'm curious what you are seeing.  

2) All three images appear to be at the same image scale, but you mentioned they were 100% crops.  How did you do that?  Did you down-sample the highest megapixel count to be equivalent to the lowest?  Up-sample the lowest to the same level as the highest?  Or did you change your subject distance so to get the detail area to cover approximately the same number of pixels in all three cases?  What you did hear affects how I would interpret your results.

[ImmerDraussen]

Hi Jared,
in the film area, I had a Leica R8 and a M6. When the digital cameras came up, I bought a DMR and was very happy with the results. When Leica decided to stop the R-camera range and not further support the DMR, I went away from Leica totally and bought Canon bodies and lenses. But even buying the 1 digit bodies and L-series lenses, the picture quality did never fully satisfy me. My main issues with the Canon are the shadows, the noise reduction removing the textures of surfaces and furs of animal always looked strange.

Six years ago, I had the chance to try a Pentax 645d on the Photokina. The picture quality instantly was what I was looking for. To took another 4 years, before I decided to get one (meanwhile the 645z).
2 years later the SL came out and I was very pleased with the image quality. As I still had Leica lenses sitting on the shelf collecting dust, I emptied my account and bought the SL. Travelling with a friend who is using Canon gear, it happens that we are shooting pictures at the same place. Of course, we a exchanging the picture. This is not a scientific comparison, but after some time a certain idea develops what the cameras can do for you.

Sorry for this long introduction, but I might explain how I did the evaluation.

The Pentax pictures seem to have natural richness of details, that don´t need an extra sharpening to look crisp. Uniform areas like the sky or painted surface area completely free of grains, but keep their natural texturing. For example, if you have grass on your pictures that starts nearby and ends far away, the structures disappear gradually. Taking the same shoot with a 22MP Canon, it appears that the camera enhances the structures a long as possible and than suddenly, if it becomes too small, decides to treat the remaining signal as noise and completely washes away everything. With the 50MP Canon the principle stays the same, but the threshold is at finer structures.

The SL is different. The first impression is that all pictures are based on rich and detailed shadows (before I was not aware of how may shades of black exist). Also details in the picture are well defined, but there is a certain grain in the SL pictures. Different from the Canon pictures, it is not disturbing. It even helps that uniform areas do not look plastic. So if I had to describe the character of the pictures, the Pentax pictures look as if no camera was involved, the Leica look like a perfect film and the Canon looks digital. All this has nothing to do with pixels counts.

As many wish to have more pixels for the SL (and M), I tried to find out, whether we really can capture more details with more MPs. Comparing the pictures made on trips with the 5Dsr and the SL gave no evidence for this. This is the reason, why I made my small experiment
 

All pictures are taken from the same position. The 120mm Pentax is a bit wider than the 100mm lenses of the FF camera (~90mm). The pictures with the SL were scaled up to 150% in LR. Now the 1:1 view shows the objects on the photo roughly in the same size. I was looking whether I can discover details on the 50MP pictures, I can´t find on the 24MP of the SL. My conclusion is that the Canon can not take any or very little advantage from two times more pixels. But I can easily discover fine structures on the Pentax picture, I can,t see on the Leica or Canon pictures.

I would be extremely curious what a Leica S would do, but it´s out of reach.


 

[Paul J]

In my testing of the Canon 5DS R, there is no denying the extra amount of detail over a 24MP 5D mk3. It's a significant amount.

 

While you have found that the SL is not far off the 50MP Canon, you will find that a 50MP SL is again a significant amount of extra detail over the 24MP SL.

 

I would hope, but well dream really, that there would be a 50MP SL-R, before we see another SL in another three years. But I don't like the chances of it.

[wildlightphoto]

I've spent the last month comparing the SL + 90-280 APO with the Sony a7II and a7rII + 280/4 APO.  There is a lot to compare but for the context of this 'Megapixels' discussion here's what I've concluded:

 

• the 90-280 APO is a spectacular lens.  If this is any indication of Leica's future SL lenses, those who are able to purchase them are in for a real treat.  Sharp, rich colors, negligible flare if any, no weird bokeh.  Just plain outstanding.
• the SL is optimized for speed.  Fast frame rates, fast AF, negligible viewfinder lag, responsive shutter action.  I suspect the optimization for speed is one of the factors that led to using a 24MP sensor.  Moving more pixels around slows a camera.
• the 90-280 APO would do very well with more pixels.  Lots more pixels.  The regular fine detail of feathers is a great stress test for aliasing and moire; the 24MP Sony a7II+280/4 APO will show some despite this camera's AA filter and the SL+90-280 APO will almost always show some.
• where the a7II+280/4 APO show aliasing and moire, the 42MP a7rII+280/4 APO shows very little (however I have not had an opportunity to test with quails in the family Odontophoridae, the most moire-prone feathers I've yet encountered).

It seems likely that since moire and aliasing when using the 280/4 APO are greatly reduced when the sensor is changed from an AA-filtered 24MP to non-AA-filtered 42MP, the 90-280 APO would benefit equally from more pixels.

[Paul J]

It translates for me also in people. Hair and clothes suffer from aliasing that more pixels solves.

[cpclee]

Interesting commentary. Thanks Doug.

[Jared]

Yes, I can understand wanting more pixels if I were a bird photographer.  Heavy cropping is not at all unusual, and the detail in feathers is prone to aliasing.  That's reasonable to me.  I've never had problems with aliasing in hair or clothing with my SL, but I rarely shoot portraits with a tripod so perhaps my technique/hand holding simply isn't good enough for such issues to appear.  

 

I'd still much rather see other improvements in the SL before they up the pixel count, even freely acknowledging that many of Leica's current lenses can capture detail the camera can't reproduce (at least on axis at optimum aperture and solid technique).

[Jared]

Hi Jared,

in the film area, I had a Leica R8 and a M6. When the digital cameras came up, I bought a DMR and was very happy with the results. When Leica decided to stop the R-camera range and not further support the DMR, I went away from Leica totally and bought Canon bodies and lenses. But even buying the 1 digit bodies and L-series lenses, the picture quality did never fully satisfy me. My main issues with the Canon are the shadows, the noise reduction removing the textures of surfaces and furs of animal always looked strange.

Six years ago, I had the chance to try a Pentax 645d on the Photokina. The picture quality instantly was what I was looking for. To took another 4 years, before I decided to get one (meanwhile the 645z).

2 years later the SL came out and I was very pleased with the image quality. As I still had Leica lenses sitting on the shelf collecting dust, I emptied my account and bought the SL. Travelling with a friend who is using Canon gear, it happens that we are shooting pictures at the same place. Of course, we a exchanging the picture. This is not a scientific comparison, but after some time a certain idea develops what the cameras can do for you.

 

Sorry for this long introduction, but I might explain how I did the evaluation.

The Pentax pictures seem to have natural richness of details, that don´t need an extra sharpening to look crisp. Uniform areas like the sky or painted surface area completely free of grains, but keep their natural texturing. For example, if you have grass on your pictures that starts nearby and ends far away, the structures disappear gradually. Taking the same shoot with a 22MP Canon, it appears that the camera enhances the structures a long as possible and than suddenly, if it becomes too small, decides to treat the remaining signal as noise and completely washes away everything. With the 50MP Canon the principle stays the same, but the threshold is at finer structures.

The SL is different. The first impression is that all pictures are based on rich and detailed shadows (before I was not aware of how may shades of black exist). Also details in the picture are well defined, but there is a certain grain in the SL pictures. Different from the Canon pictures, it is not disturbing. It even helps that uniform areas do not look plastic. So if I had to describe the character of the pictures, the Pentax pictures look as if no camera was involved, the Leica look like a perfect film and the Canon looks digital. All this has nothing to do with pixels counts.

 

As many wish to have more pixels for the SL (and M), I tried to find out, whether we really can capture more details with more MPs. Comparing the pictures made on trips with the 5Dsr and the SL gave no evidence for this. This is the reason, why I made my small experiment

 

All pictures are taken from the same position. The 120mm Pentax is a bit wider than the 100mm lenses of the FF camera (~90mm). The pictures with the SL were scaled up to 150% in LR. Now the 1:1 view shows the objects on the photo roughly in the same size. I was looking whether I can discover details on the 50MP pictures, I can´t find on the 24MP of the SL. My conclusion is that the Canon can not take any or very little advantage from two times more pixels. But I can easily discover fine structures on the Pentax picture, I can,t see on the Leica or Canon pictures.

 

I would be extremely curious what a Leica S would do, but it´s out of reach.

 

 

 

 

So, using the samples you provided for evaluating image quality... I get that you can see differences when pixel peeping.  I get that Canon's rather obtrusive handling of noise can be disappointing.  I get that you like the additional details captured in medium format and the better SNR that results from the larger pixels.  But can you tell the difference in a print?  A real world print?  Assuming you still make prints--I know lots of us don't any more.  I still make prints, and I have to look pretty hard to tell the difference between a 240ppi print and a 300ppi print, and above 300ppi it's hopeless for me.  For me, that means that 24mp is ample for anything up to 20" or so as long as I'm not cropping.  And by ample, I mean indistinguishable from perfect.  

 

As I acknowledged above, there are use cases such as birding where I would still want more pixels.  I just don't run into those use cases very often.  I would be quite happy if Leica stuck with 24mp for a long time (except that it would probably hurt the company's long term survival since not everyone buying expensive cameras would agree with me that 24mp is just fine).

 

- Jared

[helged]

I would be quite happy if Leica stuck with 24mp for a long time (except that it would probably hurt the company's long term survival since not everyone buying expensive cameras would agree with me that 24mp is just fine).

 

- Jared

Leica could, possibly, provide two bodies in the S and SL line, one with high(er) and one with 24'ish mp. This gives users the option to chose, and Leica has offerings closer to the high-res Sony, Canon and rumoured Nikon. Plus bodies that will - for sure - be compared with the new mirror-less medium formats from Hassey and Fuji.

[thighslapper]

I think the limiting issue is processing.

 

24mp was the optimum for fast VF refresh rates and 11fps ........ if they produce a Maestro 3 processor that can handle the throughput I am sure they will go to 36/42 mpx, but not before. 

[helged]

Yes - but a high-res version can also be a somewhat slower version compared to a body with a 24'ish mp sensor. Those claiming a need for a higher res sensor would then have an option. Presently, Sony, Canon, Hasselblad and Fuji (and possibly Nikon in the near future) are high up on the mp-list, not Leica. I'm not stating that higher mp-count is the ultimate goal - and I am very pleased with the present SL as well as the M246 - but I do believe that loosing customers because of 'low' mp-count is not in the interest of Leica in the long run.

[BerndReini]

Rendering always trumps technical merit in my opinion. Therefore sensor size trumps megapixel.

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