Is 60MP going to be the standard for a few further generations? Is that what you would want?

[jaapv]

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Well fortunately nearly all Leica lenses, and certainly M lenses, are not flawless. We would have pretty sterile photography - it is the quality of the flaws that makes them special.

[costa43]

3 hours ago, Kiwimac said:

I’ve seen digital stabilisation used, mainly in video applications. 
 

Could that be implemented in a stills camera?

I’ve no idea to be honest but software can do a lot of amazing things nowadays. If possible and basing this comment on my very limited knowledge on the matter,  It would be a crude solution as the image would need to be cropped in real time to keep it straight. On an OVF camera especially, that is not ideal as it would mess with your framing. I have a GoPro and it does this well.

[Kiwimac]

6 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

All friends I know prefer SL3S and SL2S to SL3 and SL2. This should mean a lot. Howevere, I don't junderstand why M does not have reduced MP version. Maybe because it is lack of zoom lens? that cropping is more needed like Q?

with M-EV, I guess M-zoom might be a new offer for M camera. If so, more MP would be less attractive.

Well, I suppose it sort of does now. 
 

With the ‘triple resolution’ feature. 
 

I’ve never used it - Leica seemed very excited by it when the M11 was launched, but I can’t really see the point of it. 

[Stuart Richardson]

On 12/5/2025 at 9:19 PM, VanDooglz said:

When photographers think and talk about megapixels and cropping, the boring reality is not always acknowledged:

• Not many scenes are static enough to deflect enough photons to fill in a 50+ sensor without detectable motion blur, at least with an interesting light (not mid-day). It's basically the same limitation as the large format photographers always faced.
• Very few lenses can deliver the resolution outside the center which can take advantage of a 50+ sensor. As you crop, you're not getting the same quality of pixels as if you produced the same image natively.
• And even those lenses that CAN delvier practical resolution above 50+ can do that at just one aperture (usually f/4 or f/5.6) and only in the central 2/3 of an image. 
• Cropping shrinks the amount of captured light. 2x crop means 2x the noise (same as 0.5 dynamic range).
• File sizes, scan + trasnfer times grow linearly while area resolution grows only quadratically.
• The largest non-floorstanding printers deliver only 17" on the short side, which is 5,100 pixels at 300dpi. That is about 39MP for a 3:2 sensor.
• People overestimate the resolving power of a human eye at normal viewing distances. Do some research and you'll be surprised. Realistically this means that it's hard to find a presentation medium, other than digitally zooming to 100%, where the extra resolution will be noticed by anyone.

IMO the Goldilocks zone for pixel density on a 3:2 36mm sensor is around 40-50MP. The current 60mp sensor has already jumped the shark for general purpose photography. This is why several 60MP cameras have an option for 36MP RAW. But I love it because it allows me to digitize 6x6 film negatives with a solid 36mp output after aspect ratio cropping.

 

I largely agree with you here. 40-50mp is ideal for 35mm cameras. Certainly for the vast majority of users. 24mp is more than enough for people who don't print or rarely print, but I don't think it makes sense to tailor the highest end cameras to users who do not really need the advantages they provide. Leica's multi resolution is a good solution to that issue. They can still buy the capable camera and trim down the output to the level they care about. A few criticisms though:

1 . 17" wide printers are small, and a lot of gallery and museum work will be printed larger than 40x60cm/17x22in. That may be "big" in a home, but not in gallery or museum.

2. In a gallery or museum people don't tend to stand 2 meters away from a print and just look at it statically. Most take in the print from a distance, come up close and look at detail, move around and take it in from different distances. 

3. The quality of lenses has increased dramatically in the last ten or fifteen years. Performance once unheard of is now mundane. Lenses like the Leica APO lenses are more than capable of sharp, contrasty edge to edge results on 60mp at settings from 2.8 to f8. The Voigtlander APO Lanthars are very reasonably priced and can do the same, sometimes even better, as in the case of the 28mm APO Lanthar. 

4. In other mirrorless cameras like the SL series, stabilization, E shutters and AF have also come a very long way in terms of providing a stable, sharp platform that create very consistent results capable of translating that resolution into print. 

5. Resolution is not just about fine detail. It is also comes with improved tonality and fewer problems of aliasing and moire. More individual samples allow the bayer matrix to make better guesses as to the actual color in the scene. Things like nuances in the color of grasses and wildflowers in a field are better discriminated from the background detail, and instead of a monotone swath of color, the subtle differences are recorded. Moire in things like water or architectural detailing is minimized, and while it can be present, it is at a smaller level of detail in the image and less visible than it is in images that require more magnification. 

6. Most of the gains above apply even if your image is not taken with the sharpest modern lens or even if there is slight camera shake. You still benefit from the improved tonality. Obviously there will always be a balance between pushing the state of the art in resolution too far, as that can cut into high ISO performance. But for most people, superb performance at ISOs below 6400 or so is far more important than less noise at ISO 50,000. 

[Alberti]

More is better. 

Sure. But there are also other 'betters'. That might require a trade-off.

I have seen the Global Shutter offers of e.g. Sony - that for now is implemented on a 24.6MP sensor.

And a next Leica offer can well encompass  something like this. - So gain some, lose some. Would I worry? no.

[Einst_Stein]

The MP war is competing the tonal or color or tonal appearance and the details. High MP is surely winning the details for stationery objects, but compromized the tonal and color rendering., also lossing details for fast moving objects. 

In gallery, I found peiple ususally impressed by the content, the organization, and the way of the expression. Between the tonal/color rendering and micro details, the former is uch more important to me, but I guess it's personal, YMMV.

[Kiwimac]

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2 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

The MP war is competing the tonal or color or tonal appearance and the details. High MP is surely winning the details for stationery objects, but compromized the tonal and color rendering., also lossing details for fast moving objects. 

In gallery, I found peiple ususally impressed by the content, the organization, and the way of the expression. Between the tonal/color rendering and micro details, the former is uch more important to me, but I guess it's personal, YMMV.

On the other hand the 100MP Hasselblad X2D remains the best colour presentation I have yet seen from a consumer camera.

[LocalHero1953]

On 12/7/2025 at 1:03 AM, Kiwimac said:

I’ve seen digital stabilisation used, mainly in video applications. 
 

Could that be implemented in a stills camera?

To my understanding, no. I believe electronic stabilisation in-camera relies on realigning successive frames to eliminate jitter. The same process is used in post processing to stabilise video clips. It means that the output clip is slightly cropped from the original, depending on how much stabilisation/smoothing is required. Obviously this is not possible with single shots.

[Jon Warwick]

On 12/7/2025 at 11:24 AM, Stuart Richardson said:

I largely agree with you here. 40-50mp is ideal for 35mm cameras. Certainly for the vast majority of users. 24mp is more than enough for people who don't print or rarely print, but I don't think it makes sense to tailor the highest end cameras to users who do not really need the advantages they provide. Leica's multi resolution is a good solution to that issue. They can still buy the capable camera and trim down the output to the level they care about. A few criticisms though:

1 . 17" wide printers are small, and a lot of gallery and museum work will be printed larger than 40x60cm/17x22in. That may be "big" in a home, but not in gallery or museum.

2. In a gallery or museum people don't tend to stand 2 meters away from a print and just look at it statically. Most take in the print from a distance, come up close and look at detail, move around and take it in from different distances. 

3. The quality of lenses has increased dramatically in the last ten or fifteen years. Performance once unheard of is now mundane. Lenses like the Leica APO lenses are more than capable of sharp, contrasty edge to edge results on 60mp at settings from 2.8 to f8. The Voigtlander APO Lanthars are very reasonably priced and can do the same, sometimes even better, as in the case of the 28mm APO Lanthar. 

4. In other mirrorless cameras like the SL series, stabilization, E shutters and AF have also come a very long way in terms of providing a stable, sharp platform that create very consistent results capable of translating that resolution into print. 

5. Resolution is not just about fine detail. It is also comes with improved tonality and fewer problems of aliasing and moire. More individual samples allow the bayer matrix to make better guesses as to the actual color in the scene. Things like nuances in the color of grasses and wildflowers in a field are better discriminated from the background detail, and instead of a monotone swath of color, the subtle differences are recorded. Moire in things like water or architectural detailing is minimized, and while it can be present, it is at a smaller level of detail in the image and less visible than it is in images that require more magnification. 

6. Most of the gains above apply even if your image is not taken with the sharpest modern lens or even if there is slight camera shake. You still benefit from the improved tonality. Obviously there will always be a balance between pushing the state of the art in resolution too far, as that can cut into high ISO performance. But for most people, superb performance at ISOs below 6400 or so is far more important than less noise at ISO 50,000. 

I was trying to get my head around point 5. 
I’m guessing this only applies if the pixels are physically smaller? For example, I agree that one sees less aliasing in a 60mp full frame (say, M11) vs 24mp (M10/240).

But for a scenario where the pixel size is identical (eg, 60mp full frame vs 100mp medium format like the GFX100) I’m wondering if there would actually be differences in tonality and aliasing? 

 

Edited December 8 by Jon Warwick

[Stuart Richardson]

32 minutes ago, Jon Warwick said:

I was trying to get my head around point 5. 
I’m guessing this only applies if the pixels are physically smaller? For example, I agree that one sees less aliasing in a 60mp full frame (say, M11) vs 24mp (M10/240).

But for a scenario where the pixel size is identical (eg, 60mp full frame vs 100mp medium format like the GFX100) I’m wondering if there would actually be differences in tonality and aliasing? 

 

Assuming the sensors are the same quality and the scene is the same, the more samples the sensor can take (i.e the number of pixels), the more faithfully it can reproduce a scene. Tonality is just the relationship between tones. Sensors that record more tones are able to show more subtle variations over the image area. This is also leaving aside the bayer matrix, which improves in accuracy the larger the number of samples.
 

This is also why larger format films show better tonality than smaller ones. If the scene portrayed is the same, they have many more silver grains to record the light. There are fundamentally two main ways to increase your tonality: increase your pixel/silver grain density (i.e. more megapixels or finer grain film) or increase the total sensor size/film size. 
 

Larger pixels can lead to better dynamic range and better signal to noise ratio, so it is not the case that more resolution leads to better tonality in every case, but on balance it does in most cases. 

[fenykepesz]

vor 38 Minuten schrieb Jon Warwick:

But for a scenario where the pixel size is identical (eg, 60mp full frame vs 100mp medium format like the GFX100) I’m wondering if there would actually be differences in tonality and aliasing? 

i assume, @Jon Warwick, that will all depend on numerous co-factors such as sensor generation, the particular sensor engineering hardware specifics, camera-internal software-based algorithms applied to the raw data, and more ...  in general i would prefer if sensor and camera manufacturers applied camera-internally as little data massaging as possible, a 'philosophy' Leica appears do adhere so, because such data altering maneuvers may also be applied outside the camera during the image-post-processing phase through the various software products available nowadays.

[PhotoCruiser]

There are different believes or schools in Photography

• most perfect reproduction of the scenery using best gear like sensors, lenses and the combination of them
• best old school reproduction of the scenery using old film and digital cameras and/or old lenses
• artistic reproduction of the scenery using perfect scenery reproduction gear and later software tools to modify the photo to photographers taste.

There is not better than the other way to express ones personality/believe what looks beautiful and what not in photos, all are fine as art is a personal thing, it pleasures or not.
However, a photo shot using the most perfect reproduction gear can later be edited make it look old school, while a low reproduction quality photo is difficult to rise reproduction accuracy, at least in this moment. 

The question is how much more than 60 MP will be possible using a 35mm equivalent sensor without having too much negative side effects? 
Fuji GFX models and the Hasselblad X2D showed how to build and sell a "affordable" medium format camera while Leica does not seem to continue develop their S system and present a S4 par or better than the GFX/X2D. 

Chris

[SrMi]

15 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

The MP war is competing the tonal or color or tonal appearance and the details. High MP is surely winning the details for stationery objects, but compromized the tonal and color rendering., also lossing details for fast moving objects. 

I believe that is a myth. I have never seen any evidence of that claim to be accurate.

[SrMi]

4 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Larger pixels can lead to better dynamic range and better signal to noise ratio, so it is not the case that more resolution leads to better tonality in every case, but on balance it does in most cases. 

That is only true when you compare at the pixel level, which has no practical relevance. What matters is the quality of the final output.

[Stuart Richardson]

I agree, but it seems to have SOME relevance. For example, when companies are really pushing the envelope of what is possible with resolution, that can lead to poor performance. A good example would be mobile phone sensors. Trying to pack 40mp into a phone sensor will still lead to inferior results to a 40mp APS-C or a 40mp full frame camera. But even at the same sensor size, a lower resolution sensor can be more efficient in gathering light, and therefore have a better signal to noise ratio, which is why it might perform better at high ISO or recover shadow detail better than a higher resolution sensor, even when downsampled to the same lower resolution. This is the case with the SL2 and SL2S. Ultimately we all have to prioritize what is most important in our workflow. It does seem like the megapixel race has slowed to a crawl (the first 61mp 35mm camera was 2019), and even in the world of massive prints, there seem to be diminishing returns in pushing much beyond 60-100mp in 35mm. Many lenses struggle already at that resolution, and the cases where it would offer large visual improvement exist, but are pretty limited. Personally 40-60mp is plenty for most anything I might want to do with a 35mm camera beyond scanning. I would love to be able to make single capture scans of 4x5 and 8x10 negatives and capture most all the detail in them, but that would be pushing 200-500mp (not multishot, just single capture. Multishot just doesn't seem to be quite as good as single capture.). At that point it is all a bit ridiculous. A 5000dpi scan (enough to get all the detail from 35mm) would be 2000mp in 8x10. But the vast majority of that would just be soft grain and dust and scratches. 

[LocalHero1953]

2 hours ago, PhotoCruiser said:

There are different believes or schools in Photography

• most perfect reproduction of the scenery using best gear like sensors, lenses and the combination of them
• best old school reproduction of the scenery using old film and digital cameras and/or old lenses
• artistic reproduction of the scenery using perfect scenery reproduction gear and later software tools to modify the photo to photographers taste.

I can think of at least one other: telling a story with photography where the subject matter is more important than the image quality. I.e. photographs that are 'about' something, not 'of' something. (Photography is not just pretty pictures.) It's difficult to fit Martin Parr, Don McCullin, Alec Soth, Dorothea Lange, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Brassai.......... into one of these three categories. My guess is that for all of these the choice of camera came down to which one they were comfortable with and allowed them to take the photos they wanted. Any of the high end Nikon, Canon, Leica (etc etc), film or digital, would have given them comparable image quality. But for which of these photographers do we count the pixels? And for which of them is the power of the photograph increased by large reproduction? Give me a book of a photographer's work every time, rather than a single print, however large.

(Sorry, Chris/@PhotoCruiser, I'm not getting at you, I'm just using your post to hitch my hobbyhorse to ).

Edited December 8 by LocalHero1953

[Tailwagger]

Personally I'd rather have a camera/sensor with 25 stops of dynamic range than one with sufficient pixels to count the number of fleas on a buffalo's ass at fifty paces.

[fenykepesz]

vor 36 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

I can think of at least one other: telling a story with photography where the subject matter is more important than the image quality. I.e. photographs that are 'about' something, not 'of' something.

we are in the same boat, @LocalHero1953 - here a photo with 'story' from this morning as i was entering my institute where i saw, walking down the steps, the cleaning guy making his turn around the column in the entrance hall.  i had one second time to set a guessed distance of 5m on my lens, leave the other dials as is (2.8/250/64), and take a blind shot like in the Wild West from the level of my hips (so he wouldn't see me taking pictures).  luckily my lens wasn't blind as i remembered to take off its lid !  btw, i saw the cleaning lady in the background, which was really too dark then, just after 'developing' the photo a few minutes later, remotely on my home machine.  the photo is surely not perfect technically, but i am more then happy about my sheer luck and the story embedded in its pixels.

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Edited December 8 by fenykepesz

[Stuart Richardson]

39 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I can think of at least one other: telling a story with photography where the subject matter is more important than the image quality. I.e. photographs that are 'about' something, not 'of' something. (Photography is not just pretty pictures.) It's difficult to fit Martin Parr, Don McCullin, Alec Soth, Dorothea Lange, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Brassai.......... into one of these three categories. My guess is that for all of these the choice of camera came down to which one they were comfortable with and allowed them to take the photos they wanted. Any of the high end Nikon, Canon, Leica (etc etc), film or digital, would have given them comparable image quality. But for which of these photographers do we count the pixels? And for which of them is the power of the photograph increased by large reproduction? Give me a book of a photographer's work every time, rather than a single print, however large.

(Sorry, Chris/@PhotoCruiser, I'm not getting at you, I'm just using your post to hitch my hobbyhorse to ).

I can't help but notice that you picked all documentary photographers. And one of them (Alec) primarily works in 8x10 or with medium format digital and makes very large prints. He was a printer himself and is picky about prints. There are certainly photographers for whom the resolution is an integral part: people like Burtynsky, Mitch Epstein, Gursky, even Mary Ellen Mark's 20x24 inch polaroids etc. We all choose the tools we think we need and we like to use for our art. There are plenty of views on it. I have not met all that many great photographers who aren't picky about their gear. Not that it has to be the best, but most tend to use what they use for a reason. Not all, for sure, but most. 

Edited December 8 by Stuart Richardson

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[LocalHero1953]

35 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I can't help but notice that you picked all documentary photographers. And one of them (Alec) primarily works in 8x10 or with medium format digital and makes very large prints. He was a printer himself and is picky about prints. There are certainly photographers for whom the resolution is an integral part: people like Burtynsky, Mitch Epstein, Gursky, even Mary Ellen Mark's 20x24 inch polaroids etc. We all choose the tools we think we need and we like to use for our art. There are plenty of views on it. I have not met all that many great photographers who aren't picky about their gear. Not that it has to be the best, but most tend to use what they use for a reason. Not all, for sure, but most. 

I certainly wouldn’t disagree with you - just making the point that the three examples I responded to are not the complete story of photography. 

Although I agree that documentary and photojournalism are one branch of what I was talking about, there is a lot of story telling, emotional expression, political and social argument that don’t fit neatly into a ‘documentary’ classification.