I can understand why one would think a camera with a higher megapixel count would do better than a lower megapixel count. That's because megapixels denote a camera's resolution, with a megapixel being approximately 1 million pixels. It's not hard to know that in theory, a camera with a resolution of 21 million pixels will resolve more detail than a camera with 12 million pixels. It's part of the reason why people seem to think 21MP is undoubtedly better than 12MP.
However, this is a basic fundamental judgement error people often make. Cameras are not always about one parameter (in this case, resolution or megapixel count). Instead, they're more about multiple factors such as;
- Lens quality: The quality of the lens denotes how sharp an image could be, especially around corners, and good quality lenses will have less artifacts such as fringing and chromatic aberrations.
- Sensor size: The actual size of the camera's image sensor.
- Pixel size: The actual size of each individual photodiode. This relates to MP count and sensor size
- DSP: Known as a digital signal processor, this is the stuff that makes the automatic wizardry in your camera work.
- Processing: How a camera processes a RAW file from the sensor into a compressed JPG matters since techniques differ from manufacturer to manufacturer.
- Aperture f-stop: Denotes how big an aperture is in relation to a camera's focal length. Do note that an aperture of f/1.8 is not universally similar since it differs in relation to the focal length of a camera.
- Stabilization: Helps stabilize a shot in order to reduce blurriness or increase exposure times in non-ideal lighting environments. Can either be optical or digital.
These aren't everything that makes a camera, but they're among the most critical.
Now, back to this.
flyingkytez said:
Tomorrow is going to be the blood moon and many will be trying to take a picture of it. With LG's 16MP camera, you can zoom in and take a cropped photo with some decent detail. With a 12MP camera, you're not gonna get anything, just a blurry image. Any thoughts on this? Seems like people want to defend the 12MP sensors but I don't get why they are using less megapixels nowadays. Even a dual telephoto lens can't help.
Another good example is if you're in a meeting and trying to take a picture of the white board with notes on it, the photo will be too blurry on a 12MP camera, hence a 16MP camera can capture detail from further distances.
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Let's take the V30's 16MP main camera and dissect it for a bit.
The V30's main camera sensor is an Exmor IMX351, a backside-illuminated CMOS image sensor with an effective resolution of approximately 16MP on a 4:3 aspect ratio. On paper, that sounds fine, but here's the kicker. The sensor size is among the smallest on any flagship , at a mere 1/3.1", and as a result, the sensor size is probably the smallest, at 1 micron. For comparison, the iPhone X is around 1.22 microns, the Huawei Mate10 is 1.25 microns on its main camera, and the Pixel 2 XL, Galaxy Note8, HTC U11 and a Moto G5+ pack 1.4 micron pixels and have the largest sensors in this lot (1/2.6" vs 1/2.9" on the Huawei, 1/3" on the iPhone and 1/3.1" on the V30).
At first glance, that doesn't seem too big right? Like what does pixel and sensor size have to do? Well,
quite a lot actually, moreso than megapixels.
The job of a photodiode is to capture light and resolve that light info into digital data that can be processed by the DSP into a suitable JPEG (although one can skip the JPEG processing if one wants to edit the RAW files in Lightroom). Here's where the problem lies. Smaller photodiodes are less capable of sensing light, and when they're packed so closely together, there is a tendency for them to "bounce around" or crosstalk, sometimes causing patches of weird color noise that you see in some RAW shots taken in very low light. While this problem isn't as noticeable in daylight, the smaller photodiode size also means they're more likely to be "flooded" with patches of higher exposures in contrast to lower ones. Which is why you sometimes see blowouts in highlights, mainly due to the photodiodes' limited ability to resolve detail. It also bears mentioning that because they're less capable of sensing light, the ISO would have to be jacked up as well, increasing luminance noise.
So in your particular case, I'd wager that the 16MP sensor wouldn't immediately be a clear victor, mostly because the noise-reduction has to work extra hard to curb some of the increased noise levels due to the smaller photodiodes caused by a combination of a higher resolution on a smaller sensor. The f/1.6 aperture can help but it serves more to balance out the drawbacks. If anything, the output probably won't be much different from that produced by a U11 or Note8.
Reason why most of the OEMs seem to have stuck with 12MP is because on the limited size on sensors, 12MP offers a good balance of detail, noise, dynamic range and luminance. It's also why companies have stopped chasing for more pixels and have instead looked to either dual-camera solutions or increasingly sophisticated post-processing techniques via computational means, with a famous example being Google's HDR+, popularized by the Pixels and recently made their way onto more phones with the help of XDA.
It's also worth noting that this isn't a problem on actual cameras due to their actual size. They pack massive sensors, so it is possible to cram in a ton of pixels without compromising on the actual shot. I'm not kidding when I say a Sony Alpha a7R Mark III is better at actual photo output than a Pixel 2 XL almost solely due to its sensor since it is bigger, has a higher resolution all while packing in significantly larger pixels. cameras don't share this luxury due to limited space, so it's always a balancing act.
TL;DR version: MP doesn't matter as much now. That 16MP moon shot probably wouldn't look much different on a Pixel 2 XL.Well, this post is going to be a long one. So sit back, relax and grab a cuppa because you're about to learn something you probably haven't seen before.I can understand why one would think a camera with a higher megapixel count would do better than a lower megapixel count. That's because megapixels denote a camera's resolution, with a megapixel being approximately 1 million pixels. It's not hard to know that in theory, a camera with a resolution of 21 million pixels will resolve more detail than a camera with 12 million pixels. It's part of the reason why people seem to think 21MP is undoubtedly better than 12MP.However, this is a basic fundamental judgement error people often make. Cameras are not always about one parameter (in this case, resolution or megapixel count). Instead, they're more about multiple factors such as;These aren't everything that makes a camera, but they're among the most critical.Now, back to this.Let's take the V30's 16MP main camera and dissect it for a bit.The V30's main camera sensor is an Exmor IMX351, a backside-illuminated CMOS image sensor with an effective resolution of approximately 16MP on a 4:3 aspect ratio. On paper, that sounds fine, but here's the kicker. The sensor size is among the smallest on any flagship , at a mere 1/3.1", and as a result, the sensor size is probably the smallest, at 1 micron. For comparison, the iPhone X is around 1.22 microns, the Huawei Mate10 is 1.25 microns on its main camera, and the Pixel 2 XL, Galaxy Note8, HTC U11 and a Moto G5+ pack 1.4 micron pixels and have the largest sensors in this lot (1/2.6" vs 1/2.9" on the Huawei, 1/3" on the iPhone and 1/3.1" on the V30).At first glance, that doesn't seem too big right? Like what does pixel and sensor size have to do? Well,The job of a photodiode is to capture light and resolve that light info into digital data that can be processed by the DSP into a suitable JPEG (although one can skip the JPEG processing if one wants to edit the RAW files in Lightroom). Here's where the problem lies. Smaller photodiodes are less capable of sensing light, and when they're packed so closely together, there is a tendency for them to "bounce around" or crosstalk, sometimes causing patches of weird color noise that you see in some RAW shots taken in very low light. While this problem isn't as noticeable in daylight, the smaller photodiode size also means they're more likely to be "flooded" with patches of higher exposures in contrast to lower ones. Which is why you sometimes see blowouts in highlights, mainly due to the photodiodes' limited ability to resolve detail. It also bears mentioning that because they're less capable of sensing light, the ISO would have to be jacked up as well, increasing luminance noise.So in your particular case, I'd wager that the 16MP sensor wouldn't immediately be a clear victor, mostly because the noise-reduction has to work extra hard to curb some of the increased noise levels due to the smaller photodiodes caused by a combination of a higher resolution on a smaller sensor. The f/1.6 aperture can help but it serves more to balance out the drawbacks. If anything, the output probably won't be much different from that produced by a U11 or Note8.Reason why most of the OEMs seem to have stuck with 12MP is because on the limited size on sensors, 12MP offers a good balance of detail, noise, dynamic range and luminance. It's also why companies have stopped chasing for more pixels and have instead looked to either dual-camera solutions or increasingly sophisticated post-processing techniques via computational means, with a famous example being Google's HDR+, popularized by the Pixels and recently made their way onto more phones with the help of XDA.It's also worth noting that this isn't a problem on actual cameras due to their actual size. They pack massive sensors, so it is possible to cram in a ton of pixels without compromising on the actual shot. I'm not kidding when I say a Sony Alpha a7R Mark III is better at actual photo output than a Pixel 2 XL almost solely due to its sensor since it is bigger, has a higher resolution all while packing in significantly larger pixels. cameras don't share this luxury due to limited space, so it's always a balancing act.
Pengwuino said:
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What's the scoops? What's the lowdown PF! TELL MEEEEEEE
I'm late to the party, but since my camera is in the shop I've actually gotten some work done :)
Anyhow, there's some excellent comments already. From my perspective, pixel count is useless at the first or even second approximation. What is *far* more important is the sensor size and pixel size- the first is well defined, the second less so. Because we are considering the sensor characteristics, let's first simplify to 'perfect imaging' and a monochrome sensor.
Keeping the print size constant, increasing the sensor size will provide better quality images. Thus, a poster-size print from a cell camera is silly, from a 35mm sensor borderline silly, but looks good from a medium format (2" x 3") and great from a large-format negative. This is because less magnification is needed to get to the final print. There are other benefits to larger image formats: decreased depth of field, for example. In the extreme, large format cameras (technical or view cameras) give you complete freedom to locate and orient the plane of best focus. When reasonably priced medium format digital backs come out, I'm getting one.
Larger pixels are beneficial for low-light imaging, but don't have the best spatial resolution. Thus, camera phones can get away with 1-micron pixels (since there's a ton of light at daytime), while my EMCCD camera has 15 micron sized pixels. Pixel count has been increasing over time because the manufacturers have improved the electronic noise characteristics of the amplifiers, thus allowing the pixel size to decrease while keeping amplifier noise to acceptable levels. Obviously, pixel size and pixel count are related...
The twist is that color sensors are totally different from monochrome sensors due to the Bayer filter- the idea of 'pixel size' is greatly complicated. As others mention, even the notion of pixel count is questionable for sensors with a Bayer filter.
In terms of lens performance, the smaller the sensor size, the smaller and more easily corrected the lens. Discussing 'resolution limits' of a lens is fairly straightforward, but the Bayer filter complicates the reality- as a rule of thumb, the lens is matched to the sensor size, not the pixel size. While the tiny lens on a camera works great with the tiny sensor, trying to use that lens with a 35mm format sensor is folly. Likewise, using a Schneider super angulon lens with a 35mm sensor is a waste of good glass. I have seen lots of claims that operating lenses at f-numbers less than 5.6 means the overall image is limited by the pixel size not lens performance, and that may be true- except for depth of field considerations.
In the end, for me, the primary consideration (other than price) is sensor size. Larger sensors give me wider fields of view and more room to crop. As for what is the 'best camera', the best camera for you is the one you use all the time. Saying "you don't need anything more than X pixels" is a lot like saying "you don't need more than 64 kB of RAM"- if you are old enough to remember *that*.
I'm late to the party, but since my camera is in the shop I've actually gotten some work done :)Anyhow, there's some excellent comments already. From my perspective, pixel count is useless at the first or even second approximation. What is *far* more important is the sensor size and pixel size- the first is well defined, the second less so. Because we are considering the sensor characteristics, let's first simplify to 'perfect imaging' and a monochrome sensor.Keeping the print size constant, increasing the sensor size will provide better quality images. Thus, a poster-size print from a cell camera is silly, from a 35mm sensor borderline silly, but looks good from a medium format (2" x 3") and great from a large-format negative. This is because less magnification is needed to get to the final print. There are other benefits to larger image formats: decreased depth of field, for example. In the extreme, large format cameras (technical or view cameras) give you complete freedom to locate and orient the plane of best focus. When reasonably priced medium format digital backs come out, I'm getting one.Larger pixels are beneficial for low-light imaging, but don't have the best spatial resolution. Thus, camera phones can get away with 1-micron pixels (since there's a ton of light at daytime), while my EMCCD camera has 15 micron sized pixels. Pixel count has been increasing over time because the manufacturers have improved the electronic noise characteristics of the amplifiers, thus allowing the pixel size to decrease while keeping amplifier noise to acceptable levels. Obviously, pixel size and pixel count are related...The twist is that color sensors are totally different from monochrome sensors due to the Bayer filter- the idea of 'pixel size' is greatly complicated. As others mention, even the notion of pixel count is questionable for sensors with a Bayer filter.In terms of lens performance, the smaller the sensor size, the smaller and more easily corrected the lens. Discussing 'resolution limits' of a lens is fairly straightforward, but the Bayer filter complicates the reality- as a rule of thumb, the lens is matched to the sensor size, not the pixel size. While the tiny lens on a camera works great with the tiny sensor, trying to use that lens with a 35mm format sensor is folly. Likewise, using a Schneider super angulon lens with a 35mm sensor is a waste of good glass. I have seen lots of claims that operating lenses at f-numbers less than 5.6 means the overall image is limited by the pixel size not lens performance, and that may be true- except for depth of field considerations.In the end, for me, the primary consideration (other than price) is sensor size. Larger sensors give me wider fields of view and more room to crop. As for what is the 'best camera', the best camera for you is the one you use all the time. Saying "you don't need anything more than X pixels" is a lot like saying "you don't need more than 64 kB of RAM"- if you are old enough to remember *that*.
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