Quote Originally Posted by Colinz View Post
..... DP review has added mp/cm2 to the camera specs and the claim has been that the lower this figure is the better the image. So the D3 has 1.4 and the 50D has 4.5 which relates inversely to the cropped image figures you have posted.

What I have found interesting with my FZ28 is that at what is called extended optical zoom set a 3mp ie cropping the sensor, the image is noticeably sharper than the same image at 10mp cropped to the same size. So most of my shots are taken using the cropped sensor.
Exactly!!(but not exactly too!)

Define 'better image' ?

Some want resolution, other want zero noise, and as alluded too in the other thread there are different feathers for different birds(or something like that)

Better images is usually taken to mean better quality of pixel data, and therefore light.

A P&S at 12Mp is no match for a D3, in terms of sheer quality of image when printed large.

If you never print(as I have never seem to have done, but will one day!) this is moot.
You'd never really worry about it.

But if you want the image printed(reasonably large, like an A4 or bigger) you wil see a small improvement in image quality of the D3 over the P&S. As the print gets bigger you see it more vividly.

You can also do a whole lot more(editing) with those larger pixels!!
Here's the point of having those bigger pixels, even though there's less of them!

Each pixel can be stretched to a higher point of processing brightness/darkness/sharpening/color saturation before the quality of that piece of data starts to deteriorate.
Remember each pixel is just a teeny amount of data. But that data had to be captured and converted from a light source(analogue). The better that source of analogue info, the better the ability to process it to the nth degree.

of course technology also increases vastly over time, so you 2Mp camera from years gone by, is still not going to produce as good a quality as a current higher resolution camera can!

And that brings us to another point often brought up(and I think we're going off topic now). As technology improves there's a tendency to want to upgrade to a better camera. Lenses stay static, and take many more years to improve upon, compared to a camera body. Get a great lens that allows you to capture great images from the outset, and it seems to improve the technological durability of your camera body too!
Remember if the quality of the incoming data is good(with good lenses) then the quality of the data you output(regardless of the amount of processing your do) is going to be better too.

Sorry to go OT with that, but it is an important aspect to consider when the topic revolves around resolution.

Hope that makes sense Colin.

It really looks as though the APS-C sensor seems to have reached a saturation point.
DPR's summary of the 50D was something along the lines that it can have worse quality compared to the 40D. Does that imply that 12 or 13 or 14Mp is the realistic limit for an APS-C sensor.
FF still has a long way to go in terms of pixel density, and the issue that's going to play an important role in that arena is one of storage and movement of the impending vast amounts of data from the coming of the 50Mp DSLR!!