03-29-2012, 10:33 AM
pRICE cUBE wrote:
Seems like Nikon is playing the megapixel game along with Sony. Strange as they used to be the conservative MP company. As I have stated before, I am not a big fan of increased MP past 16mp on aps-c sized cameras. You can mask noise but you can't hide the results of sharpness loss due to diffraction. I guess they will keep cramming them in there.
You didn't have to be clairvoyant to predict this. In fact I did predict it. Well, I predicted that the D400 would have 24MP. Since, Nikon typically uses the best available Sony sensor across its entire range of DX cameras it makes sense that the next Nikon DX release would have 24MP. For better or worst, Nikon is relying on Sony for its sensors. I don't know to what degree there is co-development, or whether Nikon just takes what Sony gives it, but it is the nature of the beast. Whatever DX sensor is Sony's latest/greatest, you can be sure that Nikon will employ it in its next generation DX cameras.
This symbiotic relationship exists in the FX market as well. The D800 sensor has Sony Exmor written all over it. The dynamic range performance is the big give away (look at the DXOMark measurements to see the pattern). Exmor is the sensor technology that allows photographers to extract unprecedented levels of detail from deep shadows. The D4 sensor doesn't appear to be an Exmor-based sensor; however, I suspect that at minimum Sony provided some input into the D4 sensor design.
What's interesting--at least to me--is that Sony let Nikon use the 36MP Exmor sensor in the D800 first. I'm not even sure that there is even a rumor of a Sony full-frame camera using this sensor. It makes me wonder whether Sony is giving up the FF market (there just isn't as much potential profit for Sony in that segment as there is in DX), or whether there is an agreement between the two giant camera makers that gives Sony priority in the DX market and Nikon priority in the FX market.
Oh, back to the 24MP sensor in the D3200. It is almost certainly the same sensor as the one in the NEX-7. That camera's IQ is excellent, but it's not a huge improvement over the 16MP NEX-5n's IQ. Unless Sony and/or Nikon have added some "secret sauce" to the NEX-7 sensor, the NEX-7 IQ is about what we should expect from the D3200 and other DX cameras that Nikon is rumored to be releasing soon.