[Leica] FF will require at least 350 Mpx for full resolution

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

OK, too much time now that I?m fully retired as of 10 days ago. As I 
previously posted here and in the Gallery, I was impressed by the 
improvement in resolution with the NEX7?s 24 Mpx APS-C sensor over the 
D800?s 36MPx FF sensor (and much moreso the M typ 240?s FF sensor) when all 
were used with 35mm lenses (actual zoom FL, not "35mm equivalent?, in the 
case of the NEX7). The use of a true 35mm FL with the NEX7 was the 
equivalent, in image scale on the sensor, of testing a FF sensor of 54 Mpx. 
Clearly the limits of the inherent resolution of camera lenses are far 
beyond the resolving power of sensors up to 36 Mpx. How far, I wondered.

So I shot the same scene with a Sony RX100 (20 MPx in a sensor that would be 
about 1/8th the surface area of FF if it were cut down from 4:3 to 3:2 and 
from 20 to 18 Mpx) and a Panasonic TS3 (12 Mpx, and about 1/32nd of FF if 
cut down to 3:2 and 10.7 Mpx). These are therefore like small sections of FF 
sensors of roughly 144 Mpx and 350Mpx, respectively. I shot comparison 
images as well as with a D800. I made images with the RX100 with the zoom 
set to actual FLs of 24mm and 35mm, and with the TS3 set to 23mm (its 
maximum actual FL), as confirmed in the EXIF. The D800 was used with 24 and 
35mm primes. The results are posted at:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Res+Test+Crops/

I was not surprised by the improvement from the NEX7?s 54 Mpx equivalent to 
the RX100?s 144 Mpx equivalent, but to see a further increase in detail in 
going to the TS3?s ~350 Mpx equivalent was really eye-opening. There?s not 
as much more detail in this last step as the one before, but the true case 
is masked by a lot of what looks like heavy JPEG artifact (no raw option) in 
the TS3?s image. This is puzzling, as the degree of compression here is 
quite mild (12 Mpx down to 5) and actually less than with the RX100. There 
may be more noise as well, inevitable with smaller pixels. There are 
numerous trade-offs with tiny pixels, but I would expect technological 
improvements to alleviate some of these. When one of the advantages of 
medium and larger formats is higher sensor resolution and rendition of 
detail, it seems to me that when the FF sensor pixel count gets into the 
range above 100 Mpx (assuming that will happen), we?ll have resolution and 
detail that surpass MF. Noise and dynamic range will suffer as the pixels 
shrink, but for many users I suspect that stellar resolution will trump the 
disadvantages, at least if technology keeps these to about the level they 
have now.

Regardless, I think this is a revealing demonstration of how the resolution 
of even the highest-Mpx sensor still falls far short of lens resolution. 
What will be done with/about this state of affairs will be interesting to 
see.

?howard