120mp sensor --> do we really need all those mp?

[shadowfox]

Gary,

I need 120 Mpixel cameras.

So those who can afford to buy them would flock to the store and sell their perfectly nice and lightly used D750 or A7 on craiglist for pennies.

😀

 

[rscheffler]

I might one day pick up a 36mp sensor camera, but only if that camera has a 24f2 lens..I am lazy.. One camera one lens, crop up to about 75 fov.

It will do that, just better.

I don't see this as misguided development by Canon. Back ~10 years ago they showed a prototype ~50MP sensor, then in ~2010 a ~100MP sensor. Now it's a 120MP sensor while 50MP is just starting to come online. It's just one way of stating they are forward looking and developing tech as they see fit. Increasing MP number is logical, just as hard drive manufacturers keep releasing larger and larger drives. And with the increased pace of technology developments, I doubt we'll be waiting 10 years to break 100MP

I agree I can get by just fine with 24Mp right now, but higher MP just adds one more option. 100MP or 50MP oversampling scaled down to ~24MP will look better than native 24MP capture.

 

[MikeAUS]

The war is over, long live the revolution 🙂

 

[emraphoto]

Horses for courses I suppose. One can certainly claim overkill and indeed, for most of the folks who will purchase, this may ring true. There will be others who put the 50 mega pickles to work effectively.

I would think though, that a camera like this would need a serious re-think of your processing power and how diligent you are with using/organizing drives. For most serious design firms, ad agencies etc. this would already be well developed.

 

[ruby.monkey]

Canon claims that this new prototype sensor is geared toward use in video production, monitoring, aviation, and space applications.

*We* might not need it, but I very much doubt Canon has us in mind. I dare say there are those out there for whom a sensor like this would be just the ticket.

What would be interesting is to see if any technology from this trickles down to Canon's more consumer-oriented cameras.

 

[Solinar]

Drum scanned large format 4x5 and 6x9 medium format film already produce huge files.

Of course, what Canon is planning to do will not be for the go to device for your typical street shooter - but at the very least, I do see some use by the scientific community.

 

[John E Earley]

With that many mp, am I more likely to have some good ones?

 

[f.hayek]

There must be a tipping point for MP # and available optics. Depending on the format, it makes most sense to down-sample with existing lenses. 120>>50?

Results would be exquisite.

 

[Photog9000]

I did a shoot for a local real estate developer using a pair of Nikon D2H bodies, 4.1MP, and his advertising agency took one image, cropped it so only the middle was used, and blew it up to approximately 6 feet x 15 feet for use on a billboard. From a normal viewing distance for a billboard, the image looked great. So it all depends on the amount of detail your client wants, how much, if any, cropping, and final output size. But this is just my opinion. I did not expect any of the images I took with my D2H bodies to be used at that size and was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out.