Compacts and high ISO, interesting article

elven

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/compactcamerahighiso/

Probably not news to a lot of people but the one thing for me that stuck out straight away was the comparison of sensor sizes diagram, I knew compacts had smaller sensors but I didn't realise just how so.

Very interesting to see the test images though. Very interesting indeed...

thebaz

yeah -- interesting stuff , didn't realise the sensors were so small -- with most p&s all bumping up there megapixels to nearly 10 , is there some reason why they can't up the size of the sensor too , comparable to SLR size .. as the extra megapixels aren't going to do much to the average user , unless they want to print larger than A4 -- or is it all a marketing stunt from canon, olympus, sony etc . Maybe i'm missing something here ...

Paulw

Interesting stuff.

I'd say the megapixels are marketing ploy. Most people tend to just print 10x15 images, the normal photos.

I'd prefer to see progress with dSLRs rather than compact cameras.

elven

It's kind of like the processor speed of a PC I think. It's at the stage now where the number doesn't really tell you anything because it's reached the limits of the technology and you need to consider other elements of the system.

There's a huge demand within the enthusiast photographer ranks for a discreet compact camera that has a fast, fixed, wide lens, no shutter lag, raw mode capability and decent high ISO performance - but none of the manufacturers want to pay attention to that market because the average non-photographer casual user are the ones who they can sell this fake technology jargon to at the moment... grr.

ladgie353

There's a huge demand within the enthusiast photographer ranks for a discreet compact camera that has a fast, fixed, wide lens, no shutter lag, raw mode capability and decent high ISO performance

Sigma have/will have one the SD1, uses the same sensor as their SLR.

L

311

What makes buying a P&S akward aswell is ,because the sensor is so small ,the aperture of the lens is also magnified.
So a 2.8 ap ,is actually 18 or 19.

Thinking about it ,that's probably why they use small sensors ,the lens is so small.

Valentia

elven wrote:

It's kind of like the processor speed of a PC I think. It's at the stage now where the number doesn't really tell you anything because it's reached the limits of the technology and you need to consider other elements of the system.

There's a huge demand within the enthusiast photographer ranks for a discreet compact camera that has a fast, fixed, wide lens, no shutter lag, raw mode capability and decent high ISO performance - but none of the manufacturers want to pay attention to that market because the average non-photographer casual user are the ones who they can sell this fake technology jargon to at the moment... grr.

Canon had one with the G6 and screwed up with the G7.

One interesting thing about the small sensor on compacts is the severe depth of field, even at small apertures. I have seen some night shots, not high ISO, that show a full street in focus at f5.6. OK maybe not that interesting.

EDIT and note to self: PLEASE READ THE PREVIOUS POST BEFORE POSTING!!:o

311

at this stage ,everyone has me on ignore:cool:

mathias

Already posted on this a couple of times , its really annoying when you see people basically getting ripped off with the megapixel count rubbish , paying up to an extra 200 for a 10mp compact when the 5mp was a better model.

daedalus2097

Paulw wrote:

Interesting stuff.

I'd say the megapixels are marketing ploy. Most people tend to just print 10x15 images, the normal photos.

I'd prefer to see progress with dSLRs rather than compact cameras.

It's always going to be the case that dSLRs will produce far better results than the compacts, but the technology is being driven much harder in the compact market because basically everyone wants a compact digital so it's a much bigger market. Megapixels isn't really a marketing ploy though - I've enlarged photos taken with compacts and when you reach about A2 size or 600mm x 420mm you can see the difference between a 5 and a 7 MP compact. Granted most people won't ever do this, but for me that's important as I take a lot of photos with a compact, quite a few of which I've printed at much more than your standard 4x6.

The sensor of course has to be small because you're using a tiny lens, so the focus area is going to be tiny. You can't enlarge the sensor because the edges will be distorted without enlarging the lens, and then you're getting into the much bulkier types without changeable lenses - in which situation an SLR is probably a better bet.

daedalus2097

Valentia wrote:

One interesting thing about the small sensor on compacts is the severe depth of field, even at small apertures. I have seen some night shots, not high ISO, that show a full street in focus at f5.6. OK maybe not that interesting.

Yeah, it's a carryover from film compacts with small lenses. I've often used Nikon compacts with macro mode switched on to introduce a shallower depth of field. It works very well (always like the compact Nikon macro lens), but AF can take a fair bit of time - especially a problem with the newer crop which seem to have lost the ability to manually focus...

thebaz

daedalus2097 wrote:

The sensor of course has to be small because you're using a tiny lens, so the focus area is going to be tiny. You can't enlarge the sensor because the edges will be distorted without enlarging the lens, and then you're getting into the much bulkier types without changeable lenses - in which situation an SLR is probably a better bet.

so i assume there is a direct correlation between the size of the lens and max size of the sensor -- but i wonder do manufactures of compacts always try to maximise the size of the sensor -- maybe they should be marketing there sensor size along with number of megapixel -- the lens size on most p & s seam to be getting smaller , along with extra unwanted megapixels on offer