Megapixel Recap

I woke this morning to discover that my post about megapixel madness was up to 344 comments on the Reddit “technology” page, as well as generating a lot of talk at The Consumerist. It seems to have struck a nerve.

There’s nothing like having 20,000 people suddenly read your words to make you panic, “could I have explained that a little better?” Let me say a couple of things more clearly:

• Yes, some people DO need more megapixels

Anyone who makes unusually large prints, or who routinely crops out small areas of the frame, does benefit from higher megapixel counts. However, those pixels are only useful if they can add sharp, noise-free information.

The typical point & shoot CCD would fit on top of a pencil eraser. There are fundamental limits on how much detail you can wring out of them. So, the giant-print-making, ruthlessly-cropping photographer really needs to shop for an “enthusiast” camera model—one with a larger sensor chip.

• Diffraction sets theoretical limits on image detail

Many more people viewed the “Swindle” post than read my explanation of diffraction. The key point is that even if you have a lens that is well-designed and flawless, light waves will not focus to a perfect point. The small, blurred “Airy disks” set a theoretical limit on how much actual detail a lens can resolve.

Up to a point, “oversampling” a blurry image with denser pixel spacing can be useful. But today’s point & shoots have clearly crossed the line where the pixels are MUCH smaller than the Airy disk, and squeezing in more pixels accomplishes nothing.

Plus, making pixels tinier actually worsens image quality in other respects. Marketing compact cameras by boasting higher megapixel counts is simply dishonest.

• Higher-quality lenses can’t fix this

Better lenses are preferable to bad ones; but diffraction puts a ceiling on what even the best lens can do (yes, even one with a German brand-name on it).

To get greater true image detail, the entire camera must scale up in size. This makes the Airy disks a smaller fraction of the sensor dimensions.

• Tiny pixels are low-quality pixels

A pixel that intercepts less light is handicapped from the start. Its weaker signal is closer to the noise floor of the read-out electronics. There’s more random brightness variations between adjacent pixels. Each pixel reaches saturation more quickly—blowing out the highlights to a featureless white.

I’m aware of the theory that higher-resolving but noisier pixels are okay, because in any real-world output, several pixels get blended together. But I’ve seen enough photos with weird “grit” in what ought to be clean blue skies to be suspicious of this.

First, random pixel fluctuations interact in strange ways with the color demosaicing algorithm. Distracting color speckles and rainbowing seem apparent at scales much larger than the individual pixels.

Second, the camera’s noise-reduction algorithm can add its own unnatural artifacts—obscuring true detail with weird daubs of waxy color. (This was the problem highlighted in my example photo.) It’s better to have less noise from the start.

• Many compacts perform much better than this one
  

That’s true. But isn’t reading an exaggerated polemic much more fun?

Let me be clear that my complaint is about TINY CHIP point & shoots. The new micro Four Thirds cameras (which I am following closely) were created specifically to address the shortcomings of small-sensor cameras, while remaining pocketable. But they cost a lot, at least so far.

Mainly, my complaint is about honesty. Camera makers are slapping big “14 megapixel” stickers onto cameras with tiny chips.

I just want people to understand that—as The Consumerist headlined it—these are “Marketing Lies.”

The Great Megapixel Swindle: An Example

So, you’ve probably gotten the idea: I’m a bit outraged about ridiculous megapixel inflation in point & shoot cameras. But Is this just some theoretical problem? Or does it really make for bad pictures?

My apologies that I haven’t yet given an illustration of what I’m talking about. So let’s take a look at the image below:

100% crop from typical point & shoot

Whoa, dreamy! What on earth is going on here? Have I mistakenly substituted a Matisse painting by accident? Is this an image from Photoshop’s “watercolor” filter?

Not at all. This is a 100% crop from a typical compact-camera snapshot. We’re seeing about 4% of the total frame. The original image is here.

(I should be clear that I don’t know the photographer; and I am only singling out this image as being typical for its camera type. This source conveniently includes both the fullsize image and the EXIF data, below the image.)

What’s horrifying is that this photo (as we learn from the EXIF) was taken in what ought to be the ideal situation for a digital compact: Bright sunlight, with the sensitivity setting at a moderate ISO 100.

There is no issue of camera shake, as the shutter speed is 1/500 second. The f/4.6 aperture is within one f/stop of the widest possible (at that focal length), to reduce diffraction.

Yet the image looks JUST TERRIBLE.

Okay, let’s name names here. This photo was taken with an inexpensive camera from Olympus: the FE-26.

Olympus FE-26, a typical P&S

So, is Olympus just the crappiest manufacturer ever? Well, I will concede that the lens on this camera seems to be particularly poor. Look at that crazy color fringing!

But when it comes to the smudgy lack of detail, the problem is the same as with every other compact camera today—too many pixels.

The FE-26 is a “12 megapixel” model (actually it’s more like 11.8 Mp) using a 1/2.33″ sensor. This means each pixel is about 1.5 microns wide. When pixels are that small, the random difference in photon counts between adjacent pixels can add quite a bit of noise to the image. To solve this, the camera’s processor chip applies a noise-suppressing algorithm, which unfortunately smears out all the fine detail and texture in the scene.

Admittedly, different camera companies can be more or less clever about their noise-reduction processing. This one looks especially bad, but it nicely illustrates the kinds of artifacts that can result.

But what’s clear is that the surplus megapixels of this camera are certainly not delivering additional image detail. And as you increase the ISO or stop down the lens, quality will only get worse.

As I discussed last time, 1.5 micron pixels are always going to struggle with diffraction blur. The theoretical minimum size for a light spot focused by an f/3.7 lens is 5 microns. Stopping down the lens makes the diffraction blur larger.

You can be certain that somewhere within Olympus, engineers are quite aware of the noise and diffraction problems caused by tiny pixels. But the marketing department steamrollers on, demanding that every year the megapixel spec keeps going up. Olympus’s new FE-47 has 1.4 micron pixels—50 Mp per square centimeter.

This is madness. Higher megapixel numbers are a swindle. They make pictures worse. Stop.

EDIT: Hello to all the new visitors, via The Consumerist, Reddit,  Lifehacker, Fark, etc!  I’ve add a few clarifications to this original post in a followup one.

And check out all the other “megapixel madness” posts, too.

Diffraction and Fraud in Digicams

There is a great article at cambridgeincolour.com about the role diffraction plays in digital-camera resolution.

The issue is that at microscopic scales, the wavelike nature of light makes it act in a slightly “squishy” way. Points of light brought to focus by a lens are smeared out by a certain irreducible amount—even if all lens aberrations are perfectly corrected.

Instead of a sharp pinpoint, light is actually focused into a fuzzy bulls-eye pattern. Its bright center is named the Airy disk, after the British scientist who first described it.

Interestingly, the diameter of the Airy disk is unaffected by lens focal length, or image size; it depends only on the f/ratio of the lens. As you stop down the aperture, a bigger fraction of the light fans outwards from its intended path, and so the wider the Airy disk blur becomes.

With lens aberrations, the opposite is true: they create the most blur at widest apertures. On stopping down, sharpness improves.

So most film-camera lenses give their sharpest images at the middle of the f/stop range—the “sweet spot” where the combined effects from diffraction and lens aberrations are lowest. That’s one way to interpret the old photography rule, “f/8 and be there.”

Anyway, it’s easy to figure out the Airy disk size. The diameter in microns is about 1.35 times the f/number (using the green wavelength our eyes see most brightly). So, for example, the Airy disk at f/4 is 5.4 microns across.

The shocking thing few camera-buyers realize is that these fuzzy blobs are often larger than the individual pixels in a digital camera sensor.

Pixels much smaller than the Airy Disk add no detail

The problem is most egregious in the world of point & shoots. Everyone seems to want the highest possible megapixels, in a camera the size of a deck of cards. There’s no way to do this without making each pixel extremely tiny. While the pixels in a good DSLR sensor might be 5 microns wide, the latest megapixel-mad point & shoots shrink each one to 1.5 microns or less. You start to see the problem.

We need to be a little careful about relating Airy disk size to pixel size, though. Sensor pixels have a Bayer pattern of color filters over them; and the final RGB image pixels are the result of a demosaicing algorithm. Also, every digital camera applies some amount of sharpening. This can, to some extent, counteract the diffraction blur.

But you can’t generate detail that was never recorded to begin with.

My assumption is simply that when the Airy disk fully covers four sensor pixels (as shown above), you have reached the point where diffraction makes additional pixels useless—no additional detail can be extracted. (This is a more generous criteria than many other folks’ reckoning.)

Let’s consider a typical point & shoot. Although its lens might open to f/2.8 at the widest zoom setting, at a “normal” focal length the maximum aperture is more like f/3.7. At this f/stop, the Airy disk is 5 microns across; it would fully illuminate four pixels of 1.7 micron width.

So how many megapixels could you get, if a single pixel is 1.7 microns?

Take a typical P&S chip size of 5.9 x 4.4 mm (a size better known by the cryptic designation 1/2.3″). At 3470 x 2603 pixels, you’d have a 9 megapixel camera.

Adding more pixels will not capture more detail. Neither will improved chip technology—we’ve hit a fundamental limit of optics.

Remember, this is all at the lens’s widest aperture (i.e., the one giving the poorest lens performance). As you stop down from there, the diffraction just gets worse.

Yet today’s models continue their mad race to ever-higher megapixel counts. Ten, twelve—now even 14 Mp are being sold.

This is where I start using the word “fraud.” Customers are being sold on these higher numbers with the implication it will make their photos better. This is simply a lie. All the higher megapixels deliver is needlessly bloated file sizes.

People forget that “full” HDTV is only 2 megapixels (1920 x 1080). Or that a 6 Mp camera can make a fine 8″ x 10″ print. A camera with 2 micron pixels is just about the limit, in allowing you to stop down the lens at all. That means staying under 7 Mp, given typical point & shoot chip dimensions.

And the more important point is this: Shoppers shouldn’t give their money to companies who lie to them.

Leica Lens Adapter for NX10?

When Samsung introduced its new NX10 “EVIL” camera, it also created a new NX lensmount standard. (Samsung couldn’t use Micro Four-Thirds lenses, since the NX10’s APS-C sensor requires an image circle 6.5mm larger.)

One of my immediate questions was, could Leica lenses be adapted to the NX mount?

First, a little background:

The Micro Four-Thirds standard set itself the goal of producing DSLR-quality cameras, but in a smaller body.

Thus, µ4/3 is based on a lensmount with an unusually short flange focal distance (aka “register”) of only about 20mm. Because virtually all other camera mounts use longer flange distances, it’s possible to mount a huge variety of lenses to a µ4/3 body, using an appropriate adapter.

Adapters won’t communicate aperture or stop down the lens (except in the case of “original” Four-Thirds lenses). So everything must be done in manual mode. But otherwise, the only limitation is whether some clever machinist has decided there’s enough of a market to crank out a few adapters for some really obscure mount (Alpa, anyone?)

Some of the most revered lenses ever made are ones using Leica’s bayonet M mount—or its predecessor, the 39mm Leica thread mount (“LTM” to its friends). Over the decades, many other interesting Japanese and Russian lens brands have adopted the same mount standards.

Like µ4/3, rangefinder film cameras also have a mirrorless body, and a shallow lens register. But even in the case of LTM or M bayonet lenses, a µ4/3 mount leaves plenty of room for an adapter that maintains infinity focus.With Leica’s own digital camera offerings costing a bit of money, many Leica-mount lens owners are grateful to have another digital alternative—even one with a limiting 2x crop factor.

So could rangefinder lenses work on an NX?

Samsung NX10 from DPReview.com

What I’ve attempted to do above (click to enlarge) is to estimate the diameter of the lens throat, scaling from the stated dimensions of the NX10 sensor. With the unknown perspective distortion here, 39.8mm is the maximum possible diameter—it might be smaller.

The quoted flange distance of the new NX mount is 25.5mm. The Leica M bayonet is 27.8mm. That sounds like good news, right? A whole 2.3mm to spare?

Unfortunately, No.  The tabs of the M bayonet extend behind the flange by almost 7mm, and are 43.5mm in diameter. Thus they would collide with the inner throat of the NX mount. Doesn’t look like an M-mount adapter is going to happen. (Or, not one that can focus at infinity, anyway.)

Okay, what about 39mm LTM lenses?

The flange distance of LTM is 28.8mm, so we’re safe there. And the threads of an LTM lens truly are 39mm in diameter—maybe more like 38.8mm. They extend about 4.1mm behind the flange.

With the uncertainty of my NX diameter estimate, this is cutting it awfully close—but it’s just possible LTM lenses could squeak into the NX mount.

At the back of an LTM lens, there’s also a protruding inner barrel. On a film body this makes contact with the rangefinder cam, and extends about 7.5mm behind the flange (when the lens is focused to infinity). Will this run afoul of the electrical contacts in the NX mount? Hard to say, until someone can get their hands on a body to try it.

So, sorry to all you Leica M fans. With its 1.5x crop factor, the Samsung sensor could have been an appealing alternative to µ4/3. But it ain’t happening.

I don’t own any M-mount lenses. But I do have some interesting LTM ones I’d enjoy trying on digital. How about that Jupiter-9, which becomes 130e at f/2.0?

I’ve already taken a few swipes at this first Samsung NX model. And if the lens mount really can’t accept LTM adapters, it’ll be very hard to win me back.

No Way to Cheat the Laws of Physics

Today I noticed that Pop Photo magazine had added its confirmation to my own informal impressions: The Panasonic GF1, which has otherwise set the digital-photography world aflame, is just not that impressive at high ISOs.

Their review called the GF1’s ISO 800 “barely acceptable.” This jibes with my impressions, from looking hard at a few GF1 high-ISO JPEGs. In the shadows I see the defect I’ve come to call “ink blotching”—hard-edged areas of pure black. I’m very sensitized to this defect, and find it quite distracting. The GF1’s images also seem to give a lot of maze-like texture in darker areas that ought to be smooth.

Panasonic GF1

Since the entire point of “small camera large sensor” bodies is improved low-light performance, this is incredibly frustrating. As I’ve said before, having usable ISO-800 JPEGs is non-negotiable for me. And I’m reluctantly concluding that Micro Four-Thirds, with its inherently smaller pixels, might always be borderline for this.

In fairness, some µ4/3 bodies seem to do a better job. I came across a seemingly-dramatic comparison between the GF1 and the older, more video-oriented GH1. (Unfortunately I can find zero information about the test conditions.) And, if you believe the rumors, a new and improved batch of µ4/3 cameras may be a mere few months away. Could some breakthrough technical fix improve the high-ISO noise performance?

I just came across an exceptionally detailed look at how digital sensors work. And, unfortunately, for fundamental physical reasons, small pixels will always suck. (Take a moment to look through that article, because it’s deeply useful in understanding the issues.)

I had always assumed that circuit noise, or pixel-to-pixel sensitivity variations, were the major contributors to digital-sensor noise. This would be an optimistic viewpoint, because if so, some newer technology might reduce the problems. But that’s not correct.

The basic source of sensor noise is that photons are sprinkled at random across the pixel grid, and end up filling different pixel wells with uneven amounts of charge. Simply put, the only way to lessen the random variability between neighboring pixels is to make each photosite larger, so its greater area intercepts more photons.

On top of that, photons must travel a certain average distance in the silicon substrate before this kicks out an electron. For the yellow-green light our eyes are most sensitive to, it’s about 3.3 microns. When you jam a bunch of 1.5-micron-wide pixels together, as happens in today’s latest point-n-shoots—what happens? It’s likely that the electron ends up in the wrong pixel bin; so the claimed higher resolution is simply bogus from the start.

Also note that the smaller the pixels, the wider the f/stop where the camera reaches diffraction-limited resolution. Sometimes this limit is wider than the actual maximum f/stop of the lens! Which means, again: The claimed megapixel resolution is bogus.

Now admittedly, we do not all need the astounding low-light capabilities of the Nikon D3S, with its 8.5 micron pixels. But it’s clear that pixels smaller than about 6 microns are always going to be somewhat crippled: In high-ISO noise, in dynamic range, and in usable f/stop selections.

So what does that mean for camera design? For different sensor sizes, 6 micron pixels equates to the following megapixel counts:

• Medium Format 33.1 x 44.2mm (5,517 x 7,367) — 40.6 Mp
• Full-frame 24 x 36mm (4000 x 6000) — 24 Mp
• APS-C 1.5x crop (2,633 x 3,933) — 10.4 Mp
• Micro Four-Thirds (2,250 x 3000) — 6.8 Mp
• Typical 1/2.3″ point-n-shoot (770 x 1028) — 0.8 Mp

It’s interesting that in the camera marketplace today, most actual medium format offerings are more conservative than 40 Mp. And current full-frame models have only reached the 24 Mp level quite recently. Not coincidentally, the market for both categories is largely professionals—who are swayed less by marketing, and more by actual photographic results.

But the marketplace for APS-C “cropped format” DSLRs has already overshot the megapixel count which, ultimately, would have  been desirable. However the move from 10 to 12 MP cameras has been modest enough that any drop in performance (on theoretical grounds) so far has been balanced by improvements in sensor design, and in the processor power available for noise reduction.

However the picture for Micro Four-Thirds is not so rosy. This format could have been a winner, if cameramakers had been brave enough stay under 10 megapixels. But no doubt they feared a marketing disaster if they tried to sell a $900+ camera without the “expected” specs for that price.

About point-and-shoots, we can simply say: They’re junk.

“35mm Equivalents”: A Plea For Clarity

There’s one bit of digicam terminology that has always driven me batty: quoting lens focal lengths in terms of “35mm equivalents.”

I understand the reasons for it. But I always felt that in the end, these numbers just confuse everyone—because they are fictional.

The true optical focal length of a lens is an absolute quantity—it does not care what size or shape of imager you stick behind it. But for a particular lens focal length, the larger the sensor or film format, the wider the photo’s angle of view. Not too surprising, if you think about it.

With the rise of digital cameras, we left a familiar world where almost everyone used the 24 x 36 mm format of 35mm film. In came a plethora of new sensor sizes, differing even within the model lines of a single camera manufacturer. Almost no one knew the actual dimensions of their sensors, or how a true f.l. number would relate to that.

So how were we supposed to compare numbers for how “wide-angley” or “telephotoish” different lenses were?

One sensible idea would have been to stop right then and introduce a new industry-wide standard: Expressing lens coverage in degrees.

Let’s say you considered the angle diagonally from corner to corner of the frame: In that case a decent wide-angle would be 75°, a standard lens about 50°, and a moderate telephoto about 20°. Nice, simple-to-remember numbers. Doesn’t matter what the actual sensor size is.

But instead, the industry punted. With photographers already rattled by the film-to-digital transition, camera companies tried to soothe jangled nerves by recycling the numbering system people were most familiar with.

But there are several problems with this.

For DSLRs with less-than-full-frame sensors, do you mean 35mm equivalents on a sensor with a 1.6x crop factor (Canon), or 1.5x (Nikon and several others)—or some other oddball like the 1.3x Canon EOS-1D?

Or what about a digital camera that has a 3:4 aspect ratio, versus the 2:3 of 35mm film? Do you base equivalence on the diagonal measure, or on the height of the image? Depends whether you crop to make traditional 4×5 and 8×10 prints, or view shots onscreen in their native proportions.

Also, quoting equivalent focal lengths makes for some very clumsy wording: Shooting with a 21mm lens (equivalent to 32mm on 35mm film), Rusty moved closer to the model. How many times can we jam “mm” into the same sentence?

So now people have even started dropping the “35mm equivalent” qualifier. And that’s when the real confusion begins. Without that, the quoted number is actually incorrect (it is not the true optical focal length), and “millimeters” is being used in a new and meaningless way.

However, even someone as cranky as me must eventually cede to reality. I accept that it’s too late now to turn back the clock, and get everyone thinking in degrees (however accurate and sensible that would have been). The “35mm equivalent” is here to stay.

But can I propose something much more modest? Please? Lose the “mm.”

Just use “e.” Instead of 32mm equivalent, make it 32e.

You save some typing; it’s immediately clear that you mean equivalent and not true focal length; and you aren’t perverting the meaning of our faithful friend, the millimeter.

People seem perfectly happy learning new tech terms like 1080p and 3G;  lets make “e” the new convention for expressing lens coverage.

Of course, optics for more technically-minded photographers could carry dual labeling, e.g. 21mm/32e. A third-party lens adapted for several DSLR systems would need a different “e” number for each different crop factor; but compared to swapping a whole lens mount, adding this number somewhere on the barrel seems trivial.

I’m not holding my breath. But I think photographers, both new and old, would find it much less confusing than the horrible system we’re using now.

Megastupidity Marches On

The madness of the CES convention in Las Vegas this week is spilling over into the camera world, with manufacturers spewing forth a torrent of pointless point-n-shoots.

They are all kind of like these ones. Which is to say, completely lame and gutless reworkings of a camera type inherently crippled by deep flaws.

This newest generation actually is making matters worse, with its suicidal march towards ever-higher megapixels. It appears this market segment is now heading towards 14 Mp as the default—frantically trying to persuade consumers that they’re some improvement over everyone’s now-ubiquitous phone cam.

Most point-and-shoots are based on extremely tiny sensor chips—smaller than your pinky nail, typically. Jamming in more pixels can only be done by making each pixel smaller—thus intercepting less light for a given exposure setting. You can crank up the volume on the fainter signal, but the result is ugly speckles across the image.

Many of last year’s cameras already topped 40 megapixels per square cm; these new ones may hit 50. So we can expect atrocious noise at anything higher than base ISO; or else weird smudgy artifacts from the camera’s desperate noise-reduction processing.

To put this in context, the last compact camera that had any sort of reputation for good low-light performance was Fujifilm’s F31. It bravely held to 6 megapixels, and only 14 Mp/sq. cm. And let’s not even speak of Nikon’s flagship pro DSLR’s, at only 1.3 Mp/sq. cm—built to the standard photojournalists demand.

Of course the other horror of point-n-shoots is the slavish requirement for a zoom lens—even when this immediately causes a penalty of about two f/stops in maximum aperture. The typical P&S zoom opens to about f/3.5 at the wide-angle setting, but only f/5.6 when fully zoomed in. This means for anything other than bright outdoor shots, you’re doomed to the horrible glare of on-camera flash—the same light that makes you look so attractive in your driver’s license photo.

These cameras can’t do much to stop down their lenses, either. Tiny sensors imply midget focal lengths; and so their smaller f/stops begin to stray into pinhole territory. This means diffraction quickly sets in, blurring the image by even more than the spacing between pixels. Thus your precious 14 megapixels is actually a fraud—as you get no more detail than a 4 Mp camera would have yielded. Of course, your memory card and hard disk will fill up all the same with the larger, pointlessly bloated file sizes.

So, yawn, yuck, feh, bleagh, and fie on you, cameramakers. You’re pushing lies and deceptions and it’s time to stop.

Unworldly

Considering how old I am, it’s a bit of a problem that I continue to find the world so alienating. You’d think I’d have gotten over it by now. But I find most aspects of our culture excessively noisy, vulgar, unreflective, competitive, anti-intellectual, and badly designed. And I feel like we are hurtling heedlessly towards some frightening meltdown.

But being someone who shrinks from this world is not, generally speaking, appealing. Doubt and caution are not attractive traits.

Instinctively we are all drawn to those who project confidence and optimism, who can create an aura that answers are simple and achievable. We call this charisma.

The pull we feel for this trait must come from our social-primate ancestry: Groups motivated by an appealing leader probably survived better. Unfortunately it also makes people vulnerable to religious cults, political demagogues, and forceful egomaniacs in general. “Naysayers” can’t compete—even when their nays are accurate and needed.

Optimism may be a useful delusion; but it interferes with making difficult, necessary choices. Evolution favors the oblivious, right up until the edge of the cliff.

NX-10 by Samsung: Eh

After almost as many leaks as the Apple tablet, Samsung finally announced its new NX-10 pseudo-DSLR. The most complete first look is at dpreview.com.

This is an “EVIL” camera (electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens), rather than an SLR with optical reflex viewing. It’s also, as near as I can tell, pretty worthless. (At least from the point of view of my priorities.)

The big excitement about this camera is that it boasts a full APS-C sensor (suspected to be the same as in the Pentax K-7). This is larger than the the sensor used by Olympus and Panasonic’s micro Four-Thirds bodies: The NX’s image diagonal is 28.4mm, versus 21.6mm for µ4/3.  As with micro Four-Thirds, the lack of a mirror box gives a shallower body depth than conventional DSLRs.

Hence, an NX body cannot use anyone else’s lenses, at least directly. Only new Samsung-branded lenses will fit (with only three announced so far).

The kit zoom shown is, as usual, too large and too slow.  I admit Samsung’s new 30mm pancake is appealingly petite; although an f/2.0 max aperture is more “tolerable” than exciting. (That lens-body combo does not provide shake reduction.)

But why did they insist on stuffing 14.6 megapixels into this thing? Occasions when normal civilians require more than 10 megapixels are vanishingly rare. Even the astoundingly good, $2400 (body only), full-frame Nikon D700 gets along swimmingly with only 12 Mp.

The only rationale for building larger-sensored cameras is to improve high-ISO performance. But as you cram in more pixels, each one must become smaller—intercepting less light. Crank up the gain to compensate, and you get ugly noise. Even clever processing can only partially smooth over the damage.

And based on the preview NX-10 shots here, blotchy, colored noise in the shadow areas starts to become noticeable around ISO 800. (Admittedly those shots are from a pre-production sample.)

Another disappointment is the faux-SLR body styling. It seems to have been directly lifted from the Panasonic G1, the least appealing of the current µ4/3 offerings.  Compared to Pentax or Olympus’s smallest DSLRs, the NX-10 has only a modest size advantage. And there’s certainly little original style-appeal to it’s blobby shape. (I am not the greatest fan of Olympus’s retro “digital Pen” styling; but it certainly got people’s attention.)

In my view, the only rationale for sacrificing reflex viewing is to get a camera that’s really small.

Otherwise, you must compare the NX-10 to something like the Pentax K-x DSLR (ironically, Pentax is Samsung’s sometime-partner in camera projects). That gets great high-ISO results with a 12.4 Mp sensor; an SLR viewfinder never gets laggy and grainy in low light; overall performance is likely snappier—and hey—it’s cheaper! Size-wise, the Samsung is indeed much flatter than the K-x; but the height and width are surprisingly close.

I guess one bright spot about this story is that it will keep the camera world talking for another few months—reminding shoppers that “large sensors are good.” If that generates more demand for this camera segment as a whole, we’ll get more choices, and maybe (fingers crossed) better prices. But we’re still not there yet.

Still A Digital Refusenik

I have another blog called Silverbased.org, where I talk about the pleasures of film photography. I do understand the convenience of digital images; but for a variety of aesthetic and practical reasons I’ve spent a few years buying up vintage film gear instead, and rather enjoying it.

But the embarrassing truth is, I’ve been spending a lot of time obsessing about digital cameras lately—feverishly reading the review and rumors sites. Will I buy one? We’re not quite there yet, but perhaps getting closer.

I shoot with available light where possible (and I particularly loathe on-camera flash). My minimum requirement is for a camera which can shoot at ISO 800 without apologies. I have little interest in zooms; it’s far more important for me to have a lens faster than f/2.0.  I refuse to pay real money for a camera much bulkier and heavier than my well-used Olympus OM-2 film bodies. Pricewise, my pain threshold is probably about $800 for the body plus one suitable fast lens.

Conventional wisdom is that anyone who is a serious manly-man about digital photography shoots raw; then toils perfecting the conversion settings of each shot. To me, this is nonsense. The whole point of digital cameras is convenience; the out-of-camera JPEGs need to be excellent and immediately usable.

Unfortunately, there never has been, and there still is not, a camera that meets all these seemingly-unexceptional criteria.

An obvious camera for me to look at is the Panasonic Lumix GF1. Its 20mm f/1.7 pancake option is tremendously appealing, and the body size is quite acceptable. I’m also intrigued by the option to stick weird older film lenses onto the body via adapters. But I’m lukewarm about the native 3:4 aspect ratio. There is a 2:3 crop option, but this makes the effective sensor size even smaller.

More seriously, I have not been that impressed with the GF1 low-light samples I’ve seen. The JPEGs seem to have a lot of “wormy” artifacts; and the $900 price tag seems out of line for the capabilities, compared to mainstream DSLRs.

Meanwhile, the Pentax K-x has been getting some praise lately, with dpreview.com saying, “its high ISO JPEGs are possibly the best of all current DSLRs with an APS-C size sensor.” (And the samples appear to show a perfectly usable ISO 1600.) It is also one of the smaller true DSLRs on the market—although compromised by a blobby handgrip, which somehow all we retro 35mm shooters mysteriously survive without.

Reviewers praise the K-x’s $550 street price as a very strong value versus Canon & Nikon’s “upper entry level” models. However this price includes the kit zoom (the K-x does not seem to be available as a body only), which has the typical worthless f/3.5-5.6 max aperture. Hence, the cost of an additional lens becomes mandatory.

Pentax has a rather quirky assortment of APS-specific prime lenses, which I appreciate in principle. But inexplicably, there’s no “thrifty 50” (f/1.8 at a sub-$200 price) as competing brands offer. Also inexplicably missing is any f/2.0 or better lens in the 25-35mm range—the focal lengths that translate to “normal” coverage on the smaller APS-C sensor. Your sole option there is Sigma’s 30mm f/1.4—admittedly an intriguing lens, aside from its $440 pricetag, and dimensions that dwarf fast normals from the film era.

The rumor mill has been speculating that further Micro Four-Thirds bodies will emerge from Panasonic and Olympus soon, sometime before spring. Right now the GF1 is getting pretty close, but the cost-to-high-ISO-quality ratio hasn’t quite arrived.

So, I guess I need to wait a few months longer, to see if µ4/3 can deliver a breakthrough. Failing that, I’ll take a hard look at the K-x, and maybe suck it up to buy one of the soulless plastic-lump DSLRs I’ve mocked for so long.

I have no regrets about waiting so long. When Canon introduced the first sub-$1000 DSLR, it was a mere six years ago. And you can bet virtually all of those original Digital Rebels been retired by now. In that same period I probably spent less money scooping up dozens of entertaining film cameras at bargain prices. But maybe soon…