The End of the Megapixel Race

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Karl Blessing
Kurtis

Mar. 13, 2006

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Moving Beyond Megapixels

Some manufacturers have started to get smart, or perhaps just more honest, in their pursuit of capturing the consumer's attention. Some, such as Sony, have even gone as far as educating consumers about the benefits of using larger sensors, something that would never occur to the average consumer.

These days many camera manufacturers utilize name recognition as a marketing tool with regards to the types of lenses that they use in their cameras. While this is nothing new, some of the offerings have started to take a more professional-oriented approach. For example, Panasonic has been aggressively advertising Leica lenses on their consumer models. Canon has integrated "L-grade" glass in their prosumer models. Leica and Canon L glass is the type of thing normally associated with professional single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, not affordable point-n-shoots. You can even find consumer-grade cameras with optical image stabilization in them, again a feature normally reserved for professional equipment. These types of improvements go a long way to bring true value to digital cameras. Rather than just ticking off the ol' megapixel checkbox, manufacturers are starting to get creative and put a little more thought into creating quality equipment.

There are also a number of small attributes that have been changed over the last couple of years. Most of them have nothing to do with megapixels, zoom, speed or otherwise. Image quality has become more important to manufacturers, specifically at higher ISO levels, and there have also been efforts to make digital cameras more efficient. Many recent offerings are pushing ease-of-use and the ability to interact with other devices such as printers, computers, and televisions. There are even some that change the way you transfer digital images. Here are some examples from some of the leading companies...

Sony

Smart-Zoom
Smart-Zoom is Sony's new approach to an old feature (digital zoom). In general, most well-informed consumers these days are aware of how digital zoom can negatively affect image quality... My personal recommendation has always been to ignore digital zoom altogether, because there's really nothing good about it. Instead of me cropping and up-scaling an image in post processing, the camera will do it for me so I don't have a good quality version of the image? Gee, thanks. So what is Sony doing to make a camera with digital zoom seem more attractive? Smart-Zoom will limit the amount of digital zoom that can be performed based on the resolution you're shooting at. This is a clever approach, since it is the same thing as shooting normally then cropping on the computer for the best results. Sony has made it easier for consumers who wouldn't know where to start. Digital zoom normally works by cropping an area of the image and stretching it to match the normal resolution of the camera, producing a lower quality blocky image. However, Sony has restricted the size of the final image to correspond to the amount of digital zoom used. This prevents over-interpolation that significantly reduces image quality. In the end, it's really a smart crop and interpolate tool rather than a zoom tool, since it just restricts the amount of interpolation you can choose at a given resolution. For more information, see Sony's explanation of Smart-Zoom.

The Sony R1
This particular camera is one of the first fixed-lens digital cameras to feature a large APS-C size sensor. Most consumer digital cameras use small 2/3" size sensors which result in higher noise, higher distortion, and softer images. The APS-C size sensor, which is most commonly found in digital SLRs, is roughly two and a half times larger and results in a sharper, less noisy image. It's also a sign that Sony's marketing department understands that some consumers may be wise enough to understand that a larger sensor will contribute more to image quality than a high number of megapixels alone. Sony has spent some of their marketing dollars to educate consumers on this topic to help get them interested in the R1. You can be sure that other companies will be keeping a close eye on the R1 and the reaction it elicits with consumers. It would be great to see larger sensors become more common in consumer-grade cameras in the future.

Kodak

While fixed focal length digital cameras have been around for a while, they have mostly tended to be cheap and relatively poor quality, generally marketed towards budget consumers. Most people normally wouldn't want to pay much for a camera with no zoom (or only digital zoom), as they'd rather get a camera with optical zoom if they're going to spend more. However, it is difficult to create a lens that extends the range from ultra-wide to a decent telefocal range without compromising quality. Fixed focal length lens, or "primes," can be made smaller and sharper than a comparatively priced zoom lens, but most manufactures don't take advantage of this fact in the consumer space and just use very cheap glass.

So what does Kodak do to make such a camera stick out? They have made an ultra compact camera with not one, but two lenses. Taking advantage of the benefits that primes have to offer, the top lens is an ultra-wide (23mm) prime. Meanwhile, the bottom lens is a more traditional 39-117mm (3x optical) zoom. This allows users to take ultra-wide shots without sacrificing size or quality when normally incorporated into the zoom lens. I should note that Kodak's marketing is worded in a confusing way. Basically this camera offers a 5x range total (from 23-117mm), but you can only actually zoom between 39-117mm, by way of the 3x optical zoom lens. Most offerings incorporating ultrawide focal lengths in their zoom lens usually have to make the lens larger to cover the range without distortion. This is an interesting approach because while it offers a true optical zoom with very good range coverage, the camera remains very compact in size.

Canon

Canon has already had an S1 IS and S2 IS in the past, and they continue to incorporate features from their professional line of cameras into their smaller consumer digitals. The Canon S3 IS, just released at this year's PMA, is a perfect example. As the name indicates it does have optical image stabilization, however the S3 IS also incorporates USM (Ultra Sonic Motor), a focusing motor with near-instant and near-silent ring-type focus. USM is something normally found in Canon's higher-end SLR lenses. Additionally, Canon has incorporated UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) glass elements into the lens. UD glass helps to correct for chromatic aberrations, or "purple fringing," and is also usually only found in high-end lenses. Incorporating features normally found in their professional line of equipment is one way that Canon is adding value to attract consumers who have grown tired of the megapixel race.

I should note that Canon isn't the only manufacturer offering optical image stabilization. Panasonic in the Asian market has been offering it on their ultra-compacts and standard consumer digitals for a while, and Kodak has recently begun offering it as well in both the Asian and US markets.

Nikon

While some manufactures such as Canon (with their Powershot SD430) and Kodak (with their Easyshare One) are also offering cameras with wireless functionality (Bluetooth or WiFi), Nikon was one of the first manufacturers to catch my eyes with this feature on their recent Coolpix P2. Previously, when you wanted to get an image off your digital camera you either hooked up the camera via USB or you inserted your memory card into a card reader. Now you have the option of transferring your images wirelessly over your home or office WiFi network. This makes it quite easy to transfer your digital images without any extra equipment, cable clutter on your desk, or problems with card reader compatibility.

Foveon

While Foveon's X3 direct image sensor has been around for a couple years, it has not yet been incorporated into many cameras. It is quite unique in that it records light in a way which is similar to film. Most digital cameras use a mosaic filter which is basically a checkerboard of red, green, and blue filters which record one color next to another. By contrast, the X3 uses three layers of sensors (a red, green, and blue) to capture the primary colors in the exact same pixel space. The result is a very sharp, low-noise image. The technology is quite innovative but it is not without disadvantages. Although the sensor ordinarily doesn't introduce much noise, there are issues with noise at long exposures as documented in a technology preview at DPReview. However, this may improve in future generations of Foveon's sensor.

It's worth mentioning that the X3's true resolution is lower than most other cameras. As a result, they have to fight the megapixel myth of "bigger is better' more than anyone. The largest sensor utilizing the X3 technology is roughly 10.2 megapixels, but you must understand that is the total number of recording pixels. This is counting the number of pixels on each of the three sensors, meaning that your effective resolution is really only a third of the total pixels. So the native resolution per physical pixel is only 3.4 megapixels. Due to the way the sensor is laid out and the fact that there is complete color information at every pixel location, up-scaling an image captured by the X3 sensor does not seriously reduce quality. This is to say that while the sensor is really only a 3 megapixel sensor, when up scaled it still has as much (or more) sharpness than a traditional 6 to 10 megapixel CCD sensor. For some more information on Foveon's unique sensor technology, check out their website.

. . . . .
As illustrated above, manufactures are beginning to offer lots of features (and good ones, at that) intead of just more megapixels and higher zooms. If professional-grade components and features, wireless connectivity, or even giving you more lens than you can shake a stick at still isn't enough, be sure to watch out for even more innovative features in the future.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Moving Beyond Megapixels
Page 3: The Future of Photography? / Closing Thoughts

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