Why Olympus 765 and 770 are not 5MP?

[joelh]

Does anyone know why the just announced Olympus Ultra-zooms, C-765 and C-770 are still stuck at 4MP? The previous two models were 4MP as well. I have been waiting for the newest models to have 5MP and now here they are still at 4MP. What gives? The Ultra-zoom offerings always seem to lag behind the other camers in number of MP. Just wondered if anyone knew of a technical reason for this lag.

Maybe its all marketing.

Thanks.

[slipe]

With an ultra zoom you need a small sensor or the lens becomes very large and expensive. They are using the 4Mp sensor to keep the size, weight and price within reason.

When someone makes a 1/2.5 sensor that is a higher Mp and isn’t off the wall in noise you will get the camera you are waiting for. Don’t hold your breath.

[poncet]

I think it's because 3MP is enough for 99.9% of the printings. 4MP is even good if you want to print in A4 size. 5MP would be better, but I don't think you're gona notice the difference anyway.

[Onyx]

With a 5MP image, it gives you enough headroom to crop (aka digitally zoom in). On the Ultra Zoom models with 10x optical zoom, you'll hardly need those extra pixels to crop away since you can zoom in optically far past the limit of most people's ability to hold the camera still.

[MartinCZ]

Originally Posted by Onyx

With a 5MP image, it gives you enough headroom to crop (aka digitally zoom in). On the Ultra Zoom models with 10x optical zoom, you'll hardly need those extra pixels to crop away since you can zoom in optically far past the limit of most people's ability to hold the camera still.

Unless you use tripod or have IS. Olympus 2100UZI just rocks
Well, sometimes the 2mp isn't enough for comfortable cropping, 4mp 'must be enough for /almost/ everyone'...

[slipe]

Originally Posted by MartinCZ

4mp 'must be enough for /almost/ everyone'...

I have a good wide format photo printer. If I frame perfectly and don’t have to crop at all I get 135 PPI for a 13 X 19 print from a 5Mp image. I can see improvement up to 180 PPI and there are new printers that have even higher resolution than mine. My printer will see improvement up to 8Mp and I am guessing the newest printers with high resolution and 2 picolitre dots would benefit from even higher. And that is if you have an EVF or use the LCD to frame the shots and do a perfect job. I seldom do a perfect job of framing, and my camera with an optical viewfinder always produce images that need a little cropping because of the 85% viewfinder coverage, and some are down as low as 79% at some zoom ranges. That is a Mp lost right off the bat.

You say you don’t have a wide format printer? Are you saying regardless of price drops you will never have a wide format printer? I think in terms of my images being with me for a long time. 5Mp isn’t enough for me.

[MartinCZ]

Originally Posted by slipe

You say you don’t have a wide format printer? Are you saying regardless of price drops you will never have a wide format printer? I think in terms of my images being with me for a long time. 5Mp isn’t enough for me.

Well, I wrote "almost everyone" and it was a quote of very well known Bill G. of MS. He said that without "almost" and the matter was 640kB of RAM (which should had been enough for everybody) :lol:

But seriously: 13x19 is very much above the needs of most amateur shooters, IMHO. How much does it cost to print this format and how many of them do you print? Most of the time 6x9 or less is enough :?: