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Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 5th 07, 09:28 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Rich
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Posts: 718
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp

  #2  
Old November 5th 07, 11:29 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
David J Taylor[_4_]
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Posts: 1,151
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

Rich wrote:
Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp


I keep my Panasonic at ISO 100 where the quality is best. On the other
hand, my DSLR will produce excellent quality results at ISO 1600.
Different cameras for different needs.

Cheers,
David


  #3  
Old November 6th 07, 12:06 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet
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Posts: 63
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

As far as image quality and noise go I think your right. They aren't going
to be able to keep cramming more resolution on the current tiny sensors.
However, what we might see is improvements to the other parts of the camera.
Higher quality lenses, better metering, better and faster focusing and
things like that. We might see some of the non-sensor technologies used in
dSLR's show up on point and shoots.

This is until they come up with a new sensor technology that will allow them
to increase the resolution on small sensors.

Personally, I think they just need to forget about making things small,
smaller, smallest and start putting dSLR sized sensors and build point and
shoot cameras around them even with them being bigger. There will always be
the tiny crappy point and shoots for those that care more about camera size
than picture quality, but I think there is a large market for those that
want dSLR image quality without the dSLR (meaning interchangable lenses). I
would love a Panasonic FZ30 with a dSLR sensor even if the camera doubled in
size to do it. I hate interchangable lenses and would drop my Pentax K10D in
a heart beat for such a camera.

The Spider

  #4  
Old November 6th 07, 01:33 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
AAvK
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Posts: 243
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL


"The Spider" wrote in message ...

As far as image quality and noise go I think your right. They aren't going to be able to keep cramming more resolution on the
current tiny sensors. However, what we might see is improvements to the other parts of the camera. Higher quality lenses, better
metering, better and faster focusing and things like that. We might see some of the non-sensor technologies used in dSLR's show up
on point and shoots.

This is until they come up with a new sensor technology that will allow them to increase the resolution on small sensors.

Personally, I think they just need to forget about making things small, smaller, smallest and start putting dSLR sized sensors and
build point and shoot cameras around them even with them being bigger. There will always be the tiny crappy point and shoots for
those that care more about camera size than picture quality, but I think there is a large market for those that want dSLR image
quality without the dSLR (meaning interchangable lenses). I would love a Panasonic FZ30 with a dSLR sensor even if the camera
doubled in size to do it. I hate interchangable lenses and would drop my Pentax K10D in a heart beat for such a camera.

The Spider




I think a P&S is a P&S, hence I feel it's OK to use a smaller sensor. But as they are
I do think the sensors are too small. I use the Fujifilm s6000fd (as the world knows
by now) in which the sensor is a measly 1/1.7... good grief. TG it is only 6.3 MPs
and does produce great quality images, and genuine low noise at high ISO settings.

However I would be much happier if the sensor were at least 4/3 in size, with larger
pixels which accept more color (and the same 6.3 MPs), famous and desireable in
older D-SLRs from canon and Nikon.

The 4/3 chip is a size that is midway between P&S sizes and APS-C sizes which can
be seen on dpreview.com, it's the best idea. But if the camera is a D-SLR, the sizes
should be APS-C and up. Sigma will be dawning a new P&S with an APS-C Foveon
chip sometime soon, but it will have a single focal length lens which equates 28mm.

--
Giant_Alex
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

  #5  
Old November 6th 07, 05:12 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
Henry
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Posts: 7
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL


"Rich" wrote in message
ps.com...
Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp



It's impossible not to agree with you - those images are simply awful. I
used to have an E20, which compared to those was a Leica.

I still can't understand why cameras like the Olympus 8080 (which was
supposed to have excellent image quality) were dropped in favour of these
new cams..How can it be 'consumer demand'? - those who are knowledgeable
would urge against small sensors crammed with more pixels, and those who
don't know/don't care are hardly likely to have expressed any sort of
preference one way or the other.

So the decision to market these things must be squarely down to the camera
companies themselves - one can perhaps understand why gadget makers like
Casio would produce 'feature packed' (but ultimately useless) novelty
cameras, but why did the 'real' camera manufacturing companies join in this
foolishness? How can optical specialists like Olympus and Pentax churn
these things out and not be ashamed?


  #6  
Old November 6th 07, 05:47 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
timeOday
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Posts: 225
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

Rich wrote:
Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp


Yikes! The sad thing is, that isn't a shirt-pocket camera either, but a
rather bulky, dare I say dSLR-inspired, "compact" camera.
  #7  
Old November 6th 07, 09:48 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
Ron Hunter
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Posts: 4,064
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

Rich wrote:
Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp

P&S cameras have improved greatly, even though sensor sizes remain
small. I don't think we are near the limit for what technology can do
with the small sensors, even when they continue to make each element
smaller. Yes, a larger sensor, at whatever technology level, would make
a better image, but would increase cost. I am sure a lot of thought
goes into the decision-making at the camera manufacturer's design facility.
  #8  
Old November 6th 07, 09:25 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Rich
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Posts: 718
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

On Nov 6, 1:16 pm, Scott W wrote:
Rich wrote:
Terrible, terrible. You see where ultrazooms have taken formerly
acceptable flagship P&Ss? Old 3-5x zoomed P&S's with 2/3" sensors
were 10x better than this horror. Imagine if they had stuck with
them, and kept improving the processing?


http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...Z18/page14.asp


Most of what you post if crap, but in this case I have to mostly agree.
If they can sell a DSLR with a sensor that has a 28mm diagonal sensor
for just over $500 the cost of using a sensor with a 14mm diagonal
should be be high at all. But the norm seems to be about half that with
most current P&S camera using a sensor with a diagonal just over 7mm.

I would think there would be a market for a P&S camera with a sensor
size in the range of 10-15mm, clearly the camera makers don't believe
that this would be a very large market.

Scott


Marketing whores killed the quality P&S. They convinced people there
was some value in superlong zooms and idiotic megapixel counts which
cannot be made to support decent sized sensors without high cost. For
instance, a 2/3" sensor camera with integrated 10x zoom would likely
cost $1000 today, even if cheaply made, while a Nikon D40 and 18-200mm
zoom can be had for about $800.00...

  #9  
Old November 6th 07, 10:17 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Alan Meyer
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Posts: 105
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

On Nov 5, 11:12 pm, "Henry" wrote:
...
I still can't understand why cameras like the Olympus 8080 (which was
supposed to have excellent image quality) were dropped in favour of these
new cams..How can it be 'consumer demand'? - those who are knowledgeable
would urge against small sensors crammed with more pixels, and those who
don't know/don't care are hardly likely to have expressed any sort of
preference one way or the other.

So the decision to market these things must be squarely down to the camera
companies themselves ...


I would guess that the average consumer only knows a few quantitative
measures about cameras:

Number of megapixels
Size of zoom range
Size of the LCD display on the back
Price.

Those are what the camera companies seem to have to compete on.

So my guess is that the companies grit their teeth, hold their noses,
and come out with cameras that compromise quality to get big numbers
on the first three for a small number on the fourth.

Alan

  #10  
Old November 6th 07, 10:43 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Alan Meyer
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Posts: 105
Default Point & shoots, no improvement as long as sensors stay SMALL

On Nov 6, 1:16 pm, Scott W wrote:
...
I would think there would be a market for a P&S camera with a sensor
size in the range of 10-15mm, clearly the camera makers don't believe
that this would be a very large market.


Remember, as the sensor size increases, so must the lens size
and cost to get the same f/stop and zoom range. If you're trying
to make a small and low priced camera, it's a problem.

Alan

 




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