scodgerott
Well-known member
That's sort of the direction that the Four Thirds system takes, I guess - although a Four Thirds sensor isn't very small, like a superzoom sensor, it's still an attempt to get maximum bang for the buck from a smaller sensor.
But then you get into the downsides of small sensors too, the main ones being reduced DR and increased noise.
You do get benefits as well, thanks to the increased "crop factor" (if you subscribe to that argument) that small sensors provide.
And the cameras themselves are splendidly compact.
I think you've summed it up there Keith. The current crop of "superzoom" cameras cannot offer the zooms they do without the small sensor. I'm not sure of the technical details, but if they started offering larger sensors, then the magnification factor would drop. My figures might be quite wrong here, but I'm sure the principle is correct. Take for example a superzoom that had a zoom equivalent of 24 - 600mm in a 35mm camera. If you doubled the size of the sensor, then the zoom would probably become the equivalent of 12-300mm in a 35mm camera. So, if you want great zooms and compact dimensions you are stuck with small sensors. The only hope of improved images with small sensors is that the technology may/will improve. By the way, I have a Panasonic FZ100 (14mp) a Panasonic FZ18. The FZ18 has an 8mp sensor and it was criticised when it came out for the "noise", so I don't know how small a sensor you need to get a cleaner picture. One thing I have noticed is that the FZ100 image has more detail when magnified (compared to the FZ18), so the larger number of megapixels does seem to have some advantages.