http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/12/cano ... l-t4i-cr2/

There are also rumours about 24mp entry Nikon's turning up soon as well

Questions are:

1: Who's complaining 24mp isn't enough? (I'd love to hear that)
2: When is it going to stop?

No doubt someone will come out with "more pixels" and beat 24mp.
But I think we've reached the point of "adding more" adds little

I wish I could find that link to a lecturer who's basically said we're hitting a wall and adding more resolution won't have any real advantages for the end user.

Those of you who agree with this might care to read this article which, for me at any rate, is well argued and persuasive. I remember in the 1980s the wonder of 64k RAM and 10Mb (yes, Mb) hard disks (I actually bought one of the latter in around 1987 and it cost me £1,000!!) and whether we would ever need much more! Well, we allknow the answer to that. Personally, I'm all for higher resolution sensors and I'm sure the chip technology will improve in line with this. Bring it on!

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... grapher%29

I rarely agree with articles by Ctein or his sidekick

Saying that there are some ok points there, but from a practical perspective there is a convincing argument to ramping down the pixel race.

Barry, we just need sensors with controllable digitisation output. Then you could combine some 200Mp on the APS chip into whatever res you prefer.

In a sense it is encouraging the Canon have selected a 24Mp sensor rather than trying to outdo Sony's 24Mp APS-C offering. Everything else being equal it will probably perform as well as the A77/65 combo as the smaller sensor size will be offset by the A77/65 translucent mirror light loss. So maybe a "stalemate" will ensue around 24Mp for APS-c for a time and meanwhile FF will settle on 36Mp max for a year or two before moving to 48Mp in an effort to eliminate the lower end of the MF offerings.
Frankly, for my type of critical work (mainly Alamy), all my current cameras can do the work at increasing ISO settings as I progress up the "chain" from LX5 to A350, A700, A550, NEX-5 and finally A580. I still intend to add the NEX-7 although franky I don't really need it. As I get older I need the required quality and lens diversity in a lighter package so probably the NEX-5/7 will more or less confine the A series stuff to the cupboard most of the time.

It would be useful to be able to shoot at lower resolution for "raw" I think Canon have this option not sure I've seen it for other makers

Yes I agree I don't know what I would need a 200MP sensor for, maybe if I wanted to print out the solar system one day...at full size, it might come in handy.
Greg

Greg, if you print at 1200dpi those 200Mp make mere 10x15in print... And every A3 printer in existence can do 1200dpi. So 200Mp is simply not enough.

Agorabasta from what I understand (I could be wrong of course, I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken) 1200dpi printer output is largely meaningless in relation to the MP of an image, the printer uses dot overlay to create a particular CMYK dot colour/shade, so you can end up with a double/triple blended bleed dot that approximates the colour of the original in RGB speak, in the conversion process (printer algorithm also has to convert screen 72 or 96 PPI into printer DPI) the so called 1200dpi output may still be no more than 300dpi in real terms, if it’s lucky.
The human eye can’t resolve dots any finer than about 60 dots per inch, but what the eye can perceive is density differences, a photo printed at 300dpi looks a lot better density wise than the same one printed at 100dpi even though the eye can’t actually see the individual dots from standard viewing distance in either case.
Of course image resolution (size) as well as file type and size do matter when it comes to getting an excellent print or a not so good one at a given print size, also print settings, paper, ink and monitor calibration can influence the result.
That’s why as I’ve said before there is no visible difference in images printed on my photo printer between my 6MP camera my 10MP or 12MP cameras printed out at A4 size, at larger sizes like A3 the 10MP&12MP cameras will win for sure but I, like many people, don’t have an A3 photo printer, I wouldn’t know what to do with an A3 print anyway except maybe try framing one for the living room perhaps.
Greg
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html

Glad someone mentioned "printing" hiccup!

Yes there are some myths flying around about how someone can spot a 24mp shot printed to 10x8" and a 6mp one. Amazing fantasy stuff I would say
At big sizes you will appreciate the difference as Greg says, truth is though I doubt many are unhappy with their 12/14/16mp cameras printing wise. 24mp isn't that much more than 16mp in the real world

This is undoubtedly true in most situations Barry. The 24Mp file size only comes good for printing when you want to use a smaller share of the available pixels because of cropping requirements. The main reason I actually intend to purchase the NEX-7 is because, for my use, I can effectively use my lenses as if they have a longer focal reach than is engraved on the barrel and save weight and bulk. I can cut out at at least 50% of the pixels and still have a useful amount of pixels available.

Difference between 300/600/1200dpi printouts is clearly visible if you have enough sharp edges in a high contrast scene. Just try printing an image of a tree without foliage against an overcast sky.

Low contrast images hide the resolution differences because printing further lowers the absolute contrast in the image. And that's also the main reason why digital noise is masked in prints.

David might be able to throw some light on this, I ‘think’ what is happening is basically ‘in house’ printer embellishments and that selecting so called 1200dpi is merely increasing the number of shades in the gamut (graduations) and also greatly slowing down the print speed, where there is confusing areas of the image the printer may not do any embellishment at all as far as edge definition is concerned.
Greg

Greg, have you ever seen any CAD simulation printouts? I can imagine there are many photographs that look the same at 300/1200dpi, but it's never the case with a very detailed image.

No I don’t think I have seen any CAD simulation printouts, I used to always have a CAD program on the system for things like having to juggle the best way of cutting a sheet of ‘something’ up into a number of smaller pieces, to reduce the potential wastage had I cut it up differently.
But the printouts I did do always seemed to be of first class quality, with CAD I do believe you really need an A3 printer, but the program will happily print the same thing on two A4 sheets so you can glue them together. I remember I did detailed drawings of various dinosaurs once to make archery targets with a difference, the kill and wound zones matching to the IFAA standards, I think from memory the T-Rex target printed out on 24 A4 pages which had to be carefully cut, lined up and glued onto a cardboard backing.
Greg