| Author |
The Megapixel Myth |
mriley
Joined: Oct 03, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: UK
PM |
My one wish for christmas this year is.......... that camera/phone companys will stop using the number of megapixels a phone has as the camera quality "rating"
Its clear that they do this as they always mention this, never mentioning the sensor or other bits of the camera firmware, it gives us the impression 2mp is 1 star , 3 is 2 stars , 5 is 3 star, 8 is 4 and 12 megapixels apparently give u incredible pic quality.. but is this really correct?
If u think about it, you only need loads of megapixels if you are going to make big prints of your photos, i would saw that very few people actualy make large prints of their pictures. The camera companies give the message that the more mp the better the quality and sharpness, but the sharpness of pictures depends a lot more on the skill of the user than the # of megapixels. But the companies make you believe a 7 mp camera is better than a 5 mp one, but there are many examples where the lower megapixel camera comes out sharper and more detailed.. A camera’s lens, circuitry and sensor — not to mention your mastery of lighting, composition and the camera’s controls — are far more important factors.
My advice when looking for a new camera/cam phone is not to care much about the # of mp but to view sample pictures taken by the phone which havent been taken by phone companies to advertise their product.
If you think this is a lie.. then ask google 
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Mr Miyagi
Joined: Mar 28, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: UK
PM |
Totally agree with you. It's true what u said. |
Bonovox
Joined: Apr 13, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
Yes i agree too. Where will the mega pixel race end? Will it be now at 12 mega pixels or 14? You dont see many dedicated compact digital cameras around with much more than that. Surely 12 on a phone is now enough and even 5 to 8 is enough for me on a phone. I also can see stores selling phones with high mega pixels to customers who dont really know any different. They will say more mega pixels is better to get a sale. Very wrong. Surely with such tiny lenses and sensors such huge mega pixels can produce more noise? I have 2 dedicated digital cameras one is a Canon 5 mega pixel knock around one and the other a Sony 8.1 mega pixel camera. The Canon produces sharper shots than the higher Sony at 8 mega pixels. Honestly. The Sony tends to be a little soft but thats down to lens i guess. But a 5 mega pixel camera is more than enough for most people.
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[ This Message was edited by: Bonovox on 2009-10-25 01:49 ] |
hihihans
Joined: Mar 15, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: Netherlands
PM |
I think most people know about this but think that 12mp gives more sharpness / detail on a photo (10X15cm) than a 5mp does. I (said it before) had a 1.2mp Canon that beats a lot of 5mp cams.
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skblakee
Joined: May 07, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: St.Kitts, West Indies
PM |
Don't worry guys, it has to end very soon as no one is really interested in a 25 mega pixel camera phone. Since many are at twelve MP now the only real new improvements that will probably grab potential buyers attention is to make camera phones compete with dedicated cameras. That is where we will start seeing action.
We might also see improvements on the Samsung omnia HD's video recording where one could actually record and play HD videos that are made for putting on DVD's etc. and then playing full screen on HD tv's with ease and without loss of quality.
Really, do we expect to see a  Satio II next year a 14 or 15 or 16 MP camera? It has to end somewhere and I believe that we are fast approaching that end.
My wish for Christmas is a 21 MP camera phone with windows 7, 64 GB of memory, 2 GB of Ram, HD video recording, wireless N and a box of corn flakes.
 Galaxy Note III with 64gb micro SD Visit St.Kitts in the Caribbean. Beautiful little place. iPad Air 16GB |
masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
PM |
the thing is that your average consumer does think that more pixels is better and the companies use that as a selling point
however, here is an interesting article on the subject of this topic that happens to describe the Satio as flawed, and discusses how pixel density affects quality, especially at low light due to the small size of the sensor required to fit into camera phones (and compact cameras) when compared to DSLR's etc
so I do wonder if companies like Sony and Samsung will continue to try to produce higher resolution sensors for mobile phones given that the quality will actually reduce now, unless mobile phone manufacturers are happy to install larger sensors to maintain that quality
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hihihans
Joined: Mar 15, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: Netherlands
PM |
 just saw a Nikon add, camera with build in beamer.
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mriley
Joined: Oct 03, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: UK
PM |
exactly, more densely packed pixels on a sensor chip means more heat, which can introduce speckles into low-light shots, this is certainly the case here where 'less is more' in term of image quality. phone companys are just cramming too many high tech sensors into one tiny mobile, they need to find a good balance.
Personally i dont find the iphone/satio appealing. too big , phones are meant to be small and sleek but these are just big chunky and fat
[ This Message was edited by: mriley on 2009-10-25 00:45 ] |
alexlt
Joined: Jun 05, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: A Valley in Peru
PM |
My thoughts exactly:
Extracted from Samsung M8910 Pixon12 review from GSMArena:
Monitoring the user feedback of our two Pixon12 previews we noticed an interesting trend among the active photo critics on the web - somehow it became very fashionable to claim that the megapixel count is hardly that of an advantage. You know - that it's all about the quality of lens and stuff. While this is undoubtedly true in theory and in practice with some dedicated digital cameras, it is not quite so with the cameraphones.
The truth is that more than often manufacturers purchase in bulk the entire camera modules, including the lens, the sensor and some of the processing hardware. Then, all they do is tune the output by tweaking the processing settings.
That's the reason why the 12MP camera modules come with higher quality lens than the 8MP ones, which in turn most of the time outdo the 5MP modules and so on. Having tested our fair share of cameraphones we can safely conclude that it is extremely rare for a lower-resolution cameraphone to produce better photos quality than a higher-res one. So, in fact the megapixels mean something. Well, maybe not as much as the marketing tries to convince us but they do have an impact.
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Bonovox
Joined: Apr 13, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
Higher mega pixels are normally for DSLR with massive removable lenses. Camera phones with huge lenses like would just be silly
Phone?? What phone?? |
mriley
Joined: Oct 03, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: UK
PM |
On 2009-10-25 02:13:47, alexlt wrote:
My thoughts exactly:
Extracted from Samsung M8910 Pixon12 review from GSMArena:
Monitoring the user feedback of our two Pixon12 previews we noticed an interesting trend among the active photo critics on the web - somehow it became very fashionable to claim that the megapixel count is hardly that of an advantage. You know - that it's all about the quality of lens and stuff. While this is undoubtedly true in theory and in practice with some dedicated digital cameras, it is not quite so with the cameraphones.
The truth is that more than often manufacturers purchase in bulk the entire camera modules, including the lens, the sensor and some of the processing hardware. Then, all they do is tune the output by tweaking the processing settings.
That's the reason why the 12MP camera modules come with higher quality lens than the 8MP ones, which in turn most of the time outdo the 5MP modules and so on. Having tested our fair share of cameraphones we can safely conclude that it is extremely rare for a lower-resolution cameraphone to produce better photos quality than a higher-res one. So, in fact the megapixels mean something. Well, maybe not as much as the marketing tries to convince us but they do have an impact.
But the improved quality isnt down to the megapixels.. its down to the improved sensor. You say "higher quality lenses" than 8/5/3 mp sensor, people confuse the sensors on DSLR and camera-phones, the sensor in phones is much much smaller, so in order to have more mp the sensor has to be packed densly with megapixels.. this isnt quality this is just reducing the phones ability to recieve lighting, decresing performance and over heating decresing low light performance, they are just ignoring advice and delivering to the mass market who believe that the more megapixels the better the quality even on a tiny screen, but thats complete nonsense |
alexlt
Joined: Jun 05, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: A Valley in Peru
PM |
@mriley: Me?? I didn't write anything 
I agree completly with the useless megapixel race, but in my litlle and limited experience with digital camera and cameraphones, I agree with GSMArena when they say the more megapixeles the phone cameras have, the more quality they produce, as Satio and Pixon 12 outperform any other 8Mp phones I'm sure it has nothing to do with megapixeles, but with lenses, better sensors and software enhacements developed. So everytime a phone company increases megapixeles, they don't do just that, they increase overall quality ...
And I'm regular consumer and amateur photographer, so I don't really need a DSLR camera, just one which can take good pics in most enviroments, without too much tuning for settings. I certainly don't buy a cameraphone just for the megapixel count, but I do if it has good quality (which in cameraphone terms means it's comparable to medium digital cameras). I do rather see optical zoom, HD video recording and more powerful xenon and LED flashes, but as I see it these features will be in future camera phones sooner rather than later, which is good for all us techies
Cheers
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
On 2009-10-24 23:07:49, mriley wrote:
...My advice... is... to view sample pictures taken by the phone which havent been taken by phone companies to advertise their product...
I agreed with everything up until you said this.
Professional photographers know how to get the best out of the limited spec of a camphone and as such provide a better benchmark than the N95 owner who uploaded a picture of his big toe to Esato.
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2009-10-25 02:07 ] |
mriley
Joined: Oct 03, 2009
Posts: > 500
From: UK
PM |
but the phone comapanies will show u the best of the photos with the best conditions and wont show u its weaknesses, such as in satio low light, they are selling the product, they are biast |
Bonovox
Joined: Apr 13, 2008
Posts: > 500
PM |
Your average consumer would not have the critical eye some others do like professionals. They wont notice anything bad in a photo when viewed on a pc. Thats why the average consumer will buy will believe it. They dont have the same eye for detail some of us have.
Phone?? What phone?? |
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Posted: 2009-10-24 23:07
