On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:19:29 -0500, Rich wrote:

charles wrote in
:

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:29:32 -0700 (PDT), Rich
wrote:

On Sep 21, 4:58*pm, James Nagler wrote:
On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:26:04 +0100, Bruce
wrote:
To those who believe the megapixel race has ended ...

... you're WRONG!

There have been some very exciting announcements of new photo
equipment in advance of Photokina, and there are probably one or
two surprises still to come. *There have been new point and shoot
digicams, new superzooms, new high quality compact digicams
(including three with optical viewfinders), several new SLRs and a
selection of mirrorless cameras from Sony, Samsung and Panasonic.

But one trend is very clear, and that is that the megapixel race is
far from over. * Notable announcements include the Leaf 80 MP
digital back for medium format cameras, Sigma's 46 MP SD-1 DSLR,
Nikon's 16 MP D7000 and the Pentax K-5, also with 16 MP. *The pace
of increase in MP may have slowed slightly, but there is no sign of
it levelling off.

There have also been some interesting studies where higher pixel
densities offset any effects from increased noise in the smaller
photosites. Since the base level noise is averaged throughout many
smaller photosites the noise disappears and the content's details
become more visible.

There *is* a free-lunch that disobeys the laws of troll's-physics.

Smaller photosites does not automatically equate to lesser image
quality,

It depends on sensor characteristics and processing but yes, smaller
pixels on the whole means lower image quality. Physics rules.


Would the converse be true, that larger pixels mean better pictures.
One pixel per camera would seem to be the limit then, best possible
picture achievable.

Obviously (does this really have to be stated?) there is a crossover of
lines on a graph where pixel count and pixel size meet at an idealized
point, based on what produces the best combination of resolution and
image quality for a given subject.


Obviously. Where is the best spot?

An old company called Kodak, maybe some remember them, had a nomograph
for close-up photography, they called it "depth of detail"