topic High Megapixel Camera--Which Lenses Will Be Up to the Task? in General Discussion

High Megapixel Camera--Which Lenses Will Be Up to the Task?

bran8 — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:03:44 GMT

Canon will hopefully come out with a high megapixel camera sooner rather than later. My question is: which lenses will be capable of resolving those megapixels?

I use the 17-40L quite a bit and love the pictures I get with that lens. I also use the 24-105L lens frequently. I primarily take landscape photos so I am often shooting at f8-f11. Will these lenses be able to resolve enough detail for a 40+megapixel camera at f8-f11?

Thank you for any responses!

Re: High Megapixel Camera--Which Lenses Will Be Up to the Task?

Monito — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:22:38 GMT

Almost all lenses are very sharp around f/8 and f/11. Fret not.

Re: High Megapixel Camera--Which Lenses Will Be Up to the Task?

alain — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 01:05:15 GMT

Well, let’s have another view at the question : if your sensor does not outresolve your lens, then you have two bottlenecks : the sensor and the lens. If your sensor does outresolve your lens, you only have one bottleneck - the lens – from which you get the maximum.

So resolution-wise first of all there is no good reason not to love high definition sensors like the D800(E).

Now, note that 18MP on an APS-C is the same as ~47 MP in FF. Sony has very successful 24MP APS-C, ie ~62 MP in FF. This kind of density has been around for a while and there is no sign of good glass being outresolved here.

Therefore, in term of lens, I would not worry too much, based on the 7D density, there are many good lenses around who will deliver easily in to the ~50MP range without problem, especially if you go into fast primes (my own take is that great primes will deliver more details up to 80-100MP).

Alain