The new 50MP cameras Ok for macro?

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austrokiwi1
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The new 50MP cameras Ok for macro?

Post by austrokiwi1 »

The net is abounding with Rumours about canon and Sony producing 50MP Full frame sensors. Will these cameras be any use in macro photography or will the pixel size mean they are diffraction limited to the point of being useless?
Still learning,
Cameras' Sony A7rII, OLympus OMD-EM10II
Macro lenses: Printing nikkor 105mm, Sony FE 90mm F2.8 Macro G, Schneider Kreuznach Makro Iris 50mm , 2.8, Schnieder Kreuznach APO Componon HM 40mm F2.8 , Mamiya 645 120mm F4 Macro ( used with mirex tilt shift adapter), Olympus 135mm 4.5 bellows lens, Oly 80mm bellows lens, Olympus 60mm F2.8

Chris S.
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Re: The new 50MP cameras Ok for macro?

Post by Chris S. »

I have no doubt these cameras will be useful for macro photography. There will certainly be some situations (lens choice, aperture setting, and magnification used) where these cameras will be diffraction limited, and other situations where they won't be. But even when placed in a diffraction-limited regime, the camera will be far from useless--it's just that the sensor won't be the limiting factor.

I'm already shooting studio macro at the sort of pixel densities predicted in the Canon rumors. My Nikon D7100, with 24 megapixels, is an APS-C sized sensor. If you scaled it up to full-frame size, it would be over 56 megapixels. I took a quick look, just now, at several recent test shots. Shooting at 1x, with a Printing Nikkor 105mm set halfway between f/2.8 and f/4, the smallest details are pixelated, so I'd gladly accept even more megapixels, and expect to better resolve these details. (This is, BTW, an exceptional lens). Shooting with a 50x/0.55 Mitutoyo microscope objective, the situation is clearly reversed--I have more pixels than I need to record even the smallest details, though those pixels aren't hurting anything. Shooting with a 20x/0.28 Mitutoyo objective looks somewhere between the two. I doubt that more pixels would record additional details, though it might avoid pixelation on the smallest details.

Bring on the pixels! :D

--Chris

austrokiwi1
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Post by austrokiwi1 »

Thanks. I also have an APSc 24mp and hadn't experienced any problems so its good to know. I will look at the nikor.
Still learning,
Cameras' Sony A7rII, OLympus OMD-EM10II
Macro lenses: Printing nikkor 105mm, Sony FE 90mm F2.8 Macro G, Schneider Kreuznach Makro Iris 50mm , 2.8, Schnieder Kreuznach APO Componon HM 40mm F2.8 , Mamiya 645 120mm F4 Macro ( used with mirex tilt shift adapter), Olympus 135mm 4.5 bellows lens, Oly 80mm bellows lens, Olympus 60mm F2.8

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

I agree, bring on the pixels. See HERE for an experimental demonstration that an f/11 lens resolves enough detail to require almost 50 megapixels on an APS-C sensor. Or HERE to show stressing the resolution of a 36 megapixel D800E with a reversed Componon-S enlarger lens purchased for $110, shipping included.

--Rik

Inseewincesee
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Post by Inseewincesee »

It's true that Canon are releasing two 50mp cameras in June.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/743372 ... me-sensors

I found the newly updated Olympus OM-D E-45 II far more interesting, verging on amazing.
It has a 40mp High Resolution mode [it takes 8, 16mp shots over 1 sec, 1 pixel apart and combines them in camera] plus it has a 16,000th sec electronic shutter mode
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/943751 ... ution-mode

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

That Olympus looks very cool! Can it work without an olympus lens? I assume so since they talk about "moving the sensor" 0.5 pixels to accomplish the subpixel resolution. This seems an interesting way to effectively increase pixel count! But this still doesn't fix the diffraction problem...

Inseewincesee
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Post by Inseewincesee »

I gather so, since the way Olympus has made this thing operate is a variation of it's image stabilization system :RE: Moving the sensor itself.

What I find intriguing is that, theoretically at least [Not knowing for sure how this camera does it's business] it could solve a problem that was broached at this forum in this thread below.
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 164#101164

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Inseewincesee wrote:It has a 40mp High Resolution mode [it takes 8, 16mp shots over 1 sec, 1 pixel apart and combines them in camera]
Very interesting, especially given the price of only $1100 for the body.

This sounds like the same basic technique that is used by Hasselblad to leverage a 50 MP sensor into 200 MP images. It should work well for stacking with continuous illumination. There will be some issues with flash.

--Rik

DQE
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Post by DQE »

I see that it has some possibly new shutter vibration reduction modes, too.

dpreview.com has several mini-reviews and photos, with specs and feature lists provided by Canon:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/743372 ... me-sensors

"In support of such a high-resolution imaging sensor, the EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R cameras were designed to minimize camera shake and significantly improve stability via a reinforced chassis, baseplate and tripod lug to improve rigidity. Canon also re-designed the mirror vibration control system to help reduce mirror bounce and camera shake. To help maximize stability and minimize vibrations, Canon added a new Arbitrary Release Time Lag Setting in Mirror Lock mode in both models. In addition to the standard setting (press the shutter button once to lock the mirror, then again to release the shutter), the EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R cameras offer new setting intervals of 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, one and two seconds, releasing the shutter after the selected preset delay, allowing potential camera vibration to dissipate before shutter release."

The camera's drive modes are listed as:

Drive modes

Single
High-speed continuous
Low-speed continuous
Silent single shooting
Silent continuous shooting
Self-timer

------------------------

One wonders if these vibration reduction features and drive modes are useful and/or a significant improvement for studio macro stacking, etc.

The max ISO speed rating is approximately the same as the 5DIII, by my unreliable memory. Doesn't Nikon offer much higher ISO speed ratings for their high-resolution sensor-based cameras? One would want to compare noise levels at various ISO ratings, of course. Cranking up the indicated ISO speed rating is one thing, but obtaining acceptable image quality and low noise is often challenging.

I see that the shutter is rated for 150,000 activations. With its approximately $3800 list price, it would be even better if it had a longer rated shutter life.
Last edited by DQE on Sat Feb 07, 2015 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

Inseewincesee
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Post by Inseewincesee »

Canon haven't written in stone the final spec's of these cameras from what I understand.

The DP preview also mentioned some current idiosyncrasies with the delayed shutter release, as in the shutter button needs to be pressed twice for it to activate, one would hope that could be altered in software.

Also mentioned was that theses cameras have less dynamic range than lower MP Sony sensor equipped cameras, just how much that will show in end results won't be known until a side by side comparison is done, which I assume Sony and Nikon fans will be eager to do.

For none macros/micro photography, I don't really see the point of a 50mp DSLR, as resolution wise, apart from the Zeiss Otus, current available DSLR lenses can't resolve 36mp, let alone 50mp.

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Post by Chris S. »

Inseewincesee wrote:For none macros/micro photography, I don't really see the point of a 50mp DSLR, as resolution wise, apart from the Zeiss Otus, current available DSLR lenses can't resolve 36mp, let alone 50mp.
Can you show us the basis of this statement?

Cheers,

--Chris

Inseewincesee
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Post by Inseewincesee »

You can see test results for pretty much all available DSLR lenses at the DXO marks site.
http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses

Chris S.
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Post by Chris S. »

Inseewincesee wrote:You can see test results for pretty much all available DSLR lenses at the DXO marks site.
http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses
Inseewincesee, would you mind guiding us through how dxomarks' lens results demonstrate your point that "resolution wise, apart from the Zeiss Otus, current available DSLR lenses can't resolve 36mp"?

I don't see this point demonstrated, though this may be because dxomark seems to be having server problems at present, so data that are perhaps important are currently unavailable. This said, I've studied quite a few dxomark measurements in the past. My sense has been that dxomark tends to over-simplify complex questions into too-few numbers.

I'm tempted to take my Nikon D7100 body--which has a pixel density similar to 56 megapixels on full frame--and test the assertion. Given time, I likely will. But at the moment, I have the D7100 mounted for testing several lenses at 1x, and would rather not move it. Gut feel, I have a strong sense that my best non-macro optics will easily handle this pixel density, and then some.

Even if your point is completely correct, I still say, "Bring on the pixels!" If this happens, the Zeiss Otus will soon find itself with a great deal of company, as Nikon, Canon, and other lens makers find a ready market in selling higher-resolution lenses to owners of higher-megapixel cameras.

DSLR sales are falling--but if camera companies give us a compelling reason to upgrade our lens collection, some of us will answer the call.

Cheers,

--Chris

TheLostVertex
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Post by TheLostVertex »

Inseewincesee wrote:For none macros/micro photography, I don't really see the point of a 50mp DSLR, as resolution wise, apart from the Zeiss Otus, current available DSLR lenses can't resolve 36mp, let alone 50mp.
This is something that I hear fairly frequently.

The problem is people tend to take the number that DXO calculates for what they consider a "sharp" image and list that in "perceptual megapixels".

For Chris's sake, for instance, they list the canon 85mm 1.8's sharpness as "7P-Mpix" for a 500D and "18P-Mpix" for a 5dmk3. In their info they state: "The DxOMark score for Sharpness is based on the Perceptual Megapixel (P-Mpix) concept that weights the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) of the lens with the human visual acuity. Read more about Perceptual Megapixels."

Using this information to say that a lens can not resolve detail greater than that number is not what DXO is trying to get across. You can also notice that they test this on different bodies, and the lens's "sharpness" number changes drastically based on the camera body used. In reality, the lens's ability to resolve detail is decoupled from the detector. So we can conclude that they are actually testing the "sharpness" of a system(lens and camera).

With that in mind, we can expect lens's "sharpness" rating on DXO to increase as camera megapixels increase. Up until the point which the lens fails, or diffraction limits the system. The "sharpness" number listed on a lens is not indicative of the lens's ability to resolve detail.

Edit:Typo corrected
Last edited by TheLostVertex on Sat Feb 07, 2015 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DQE
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Post by DQE »

My personal opinion, based in part on my pre-retirement career working in the objective measurement of radiographic image quality and image quality metrics, is that the various single number image quality parameters advocated by DxO are at best oversimplifications. At worst, I believe they obscure and confuse various aspects of camera sensors, lenses, and other components of the image chain. Fortunately, single parameters are not needed, given the nice multi-dimensional computer graphics we now have.

A simple example - an imaging system's signal-to-noise ratio is a function of exposure and spatial frequency (among other things). Why convert this potentially informative 3-D data surface to a single number?

If we're to have an extended discussion of DxO's parameters, etc, we should probably start a new thread rather than diverting this one.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

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