From Sept 7th's 4/3 Rumors' site:

Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. We'll have to see what they do with this sensor to improve its low-light capability. Making pixels smaller is not a good start for that.

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

The pixel race has begon. We can't stop it. Even when you don't need it. It's marketing, it's improving techniques. All the electronic stuff we buy this year is old fashioned next year.

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I would rather have a 12mb sensor with improved high ISO performance.

I was listening to an interesting podcast from This Week in Photo yesterday where someone was comparing the Canon 22mb sensor against the Leaf 22mb sensor for the Hasselblad and the difference came out in 2-3 stops better dynamic range for the medium format sensor thanks to the larger pixels. They captured more light.

I agree Herman upgrading can be fruitless unless there is a very significant sensor improvement.

Problem is too much Pixel peeping by users, m43 is already excellent for normal needs.

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Unless they do something to change the shape of the pixels or do something to redesign the sensor lens, simply adding more pixels may just lead to more noise which they will have to damp with the firmware. That may or may not lead to mushy noise reduction.

What I read is that it is a 12mpxl sensor which should reduce noise and they have added to that 6 mpxls of IR sensitive pixels (sensor cells) which will allow them bragging rights of 18 mpxls. total. As I understand it the IR sensors will do their job in low light situations by making some sort of duplicate image and the noise reduction program will interpolate the two images to reduce noise while retaining high resolution in the final image.

True or not? We'll have to wait for Photokina 2010.

Megapixels are the biggest marketing ploy of the century. I'm not shooting posters, 12 mp is more then enough, unless your printing big.

But the camera manufacturers know that the ignorant amateur market (and that's where they make their money, not from the pro market) will eat up more megapixels like it was candy.

I wonder how much this will be. Then come next Summer a new one will come out with 20 megapixels.
1000 mp won't make you a better photographer or improve your images.

I recall just 5 years ago some very big name Magnum photographers were using 5mp cameras to shoot wars.

I'm in the process of looking for a GH1 and a couple more lenses. Then after that, I'm not reading any more message boards to discuss camera models and I'm not looking at more "new and improved" cameras for at least 3 years.
I have better things to do, like taking pictures. Sorry for the rant, I had to get that off my chest :)

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“if you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice” ~Noam Chomsky

Agree with everyone so far, and I'm glad to see no one's posted "yay more megapixels is better" or something along those lines ;-) I'd be very interested to see the lowlight performance of the GH2, I trust Panasonic know what they're doing, they wouldnt give 18megapixels and give us very poor lowlight performance would they? ;-)

The LX5's new sensor tech. (according to Panny) gives around 1/3 better lowlight performance over the LX3, lets see if this can be applied or be bettered in M4/3rds ;-)

I just wonder if Panny will go back-lit?

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Vince

Comments or contructive feedback is very welcome and will be very appreciated

Had: Panasonic G1 + 14-140mm + 20mm

Visit my Flickr here

Jonkobeck,

I came to the same conclusion. i never had a need to have the first new toy on the block. Most of my digital cameras are computing wunderkinds. But all I do, whether a manual RF like the M8 or full featured DSLR like the D300 is to set up my shot, focus, compose and shoot in Raw. Not much different than I did 40 years ago with film except digital is odorless, less messy and a lot quicker in order to get to a decent print.

What the H--l, I have a great digital RF (Leica M8) and a Nikon D300 plus assorted other nice quality cameras. All I need now is a competent small high quality traveling hand held digital that can also use my legacy high quality lenses (Leica and Nikon). The GF1 is priced right since a new model is coming out. So I ordered one at deep discount with the EVF and it arrives tomorrow. Let the others pay top dollar for the GF2 or whatever it's called. Since it is not my prime camera, but mainly for travel, I'll be happy with the "poor old" GF1 with only 14 mpxls. Ha!

Jim

yay, more megapixels! =)

In all seriousness, this was bound to happen. And to be honest, as long as they didn't make it WORSE in the noise/DR category, I'm fine with it. I don't need it, but them 21MP 5D files got lots of detail.

But, I would have much rather have everyone stay at 12MP and give me say... a 2 stop improvement at ISO1600 and more DR so I don't easily blow out highlights. Until then, I'll hang on to my GF1. In fact, I'll probably hang on to it till it breaks on me =)