Why not make the sensor larger?

Victek wrote:
It seems like the biggest weakness of mid-priced cameras is noise/iso issues
due to small sensors. Well, why don't the manufacturers use a larger
sensor?

Because it costs a lot more.

How much larger would it have to be to eliminate the worst of the
noise and provide a useful iso range?

The average consumer doesn't care about noise and ISO range. Or, at
least, not enough to pay a lot for it.

--
Ray Fischer

In article , david-
says...

Even more disappointing that
Olympus with their "half-size" 4/3 system didn't offer half-sized cameras
and lenses.

The E400 is very small (for a DSLR). The lenses are also smaller: a
200mm lens on the E400 corresponds to a 400mm lens on a full frame DSLR
(same angle of view).
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E3X0, E4X0 and E5X0 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

Rich wrote:
[]
Not to split hairs but Olympus's E-410 is the smallest and I believe
the lightest DSLR on the market.
It's new kit lenses are also probably the smallest and lightest in
their class and far better optically than the likes of Canon, for
e.g. The costly Olympus lenses are the pro lenses that run $1000 or
more, but you can buy prosumer lenses from them for around $399-
$900.00.

Thanks, Rich, that is encouraging. What would be the weight and cost of
an Olympus outfit covering up to about 400mm telephoto with image
stabilisation? Don't see any image stabilised lenses. 18-180mm
f/3.5-f/6.3 making a total package around 900g?

David

Victek wrote:
[]
How much of the noise in current compact super-zoom cameras is caused
by pushing the number of megapixels? Instead of constantly increasing
megapixel count the industry should actually be moving in the opposite
direction. There must be an optimal noise to megapixel balance for a
given sensor size that would also yield better low light performance
and better picture quality over all, but it seems that no one can get
off the megapixel pony g.

Yes, something like 4 - 5MP for the 1/2.5-inch sensor. Still good for
enlargements up to, say, A4 size (or 8 x 10 inches).

David

John Sheehy wrote:
[]
Your belief is an illusion, IMO. I have never seen any evidence to
support better imaging from bigger pixels. Bigger *SENSORS*, yes.

/Different/ imaging, if not /better/ imaging. The nature of the subject,
the display used, and the preferences of the viewer, will help determine
if a sharper but noisier image is "better" than a more blurred, less noisy
image.

David

Pete wrote:
[]
An APS-C P&S would certainly be an interesting product, but it surely
couldn't provide the same lens specs as a small-sensor digicam
without the size, weight and cost going up astronomically.

Already been done, and failed in the market:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscr1/

My relatively ancient Pana FZ10 provides f/2.8 over its full 12X
35-432mm zoom range (35mm equiv), and will macro down to 2 inches. If
there is an APS-C lens that will do that, I'd guess it costs well
into 4 figures and needs a mule to carry it.

Pete

The size and weight of the telephoto extender for that Sony was gross!

David

Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , david-
says...

Even more disappointing that
Olympus with their "half-size" 4/3 system didn't offer half-sized
cameras and lenses.

The E400 is very small (for a DSLR). The lenses are also smaller: a
200mm lens on the E400 corresponds to a 400mm lens on a full frame
DSLR (same angle of view).

It's a good sign, Alfred. However, I didn't see an image stabilised lens
in their consumer range. Does the E4xx have in-body IS?

David

On Jun 14, 3:42 am, "David J Taylor" -this-
bit.nor-this-part.co.uk wrote:
Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , david-
says...

Even more disappointing that
Olympus with their "half-size" 4/3 system didn't offer half-sized
cameras and lenses.

The E400 is very small (for a DSLR). The lenses are also smaller: a
200mm lens on the E400 corresponds to a 400mm lens on a full frame
DSLR (same angle of view).

It's a good sign, Alfred. However, I didn't see an image stabilised lens
in their consumer range. Does the E4xx have in-body IS?

David

No, only the E-510. Which is still relatively compact camera.

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:40:28 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

The size and weight of the telephoto extender for that Sony was gross!

If the WA and telephoto adapters I saw in Sony Style were for the
DSC-R1, the prices were even grosser. One of them, IIRC, was about
the same price I paid for my D50 body. The other was significantly
more expensive than my Fuji S5100. I hope I was mistaken, as it
would have brought the cost of the R1 with both lens adapters, after
tax, to nearly $2000.

ASAAR wrote:

snip

In one respect I'd agree with John. Pixel sizes aren't generally
advertised or known by prospective camera buyers, but the sensor
size is usually included in manual spec's and reviews. Given that,
you probably wouldn't be too far off assuming that for a given
number of megapixels, the cameras having larger sensors would
produce better images and have better high ISO performance.

That's one reson why I chose to buy the Fuji S9500. It had the largest
sensor (1/1.6") of any of the ultrazooms avialable at the time.

Fuji do seem to have been avoiding getting caught up in the megapixel
race as much as other manufacturers, which might be why the S6000 /
S6500 and the F30 series (6MP on 1/1.7" IIRC) have a reputation for
having the best noise at high ISO performance of any compacts. Shame
they don't do image stabilisation as well.