Apologies to Pentax - Correction?

Question

I've been saying, "I just can not believe that 10 MP on a smaller 1/2.5" sensor (Pentax A20) will be better than 10 MP on a 1/1.8" sensor (Canon SD900) that is nearly twice as large." for a couple of months now. I got the sensor size for the Pentax from dpreviews.com - a trusted site. I just noticed tonight in the PopPhoto review that the Pentax A20 has the same size 1/1.8" sensor as the Canon SD900. I verified this at the B&H site, although this was the source for the info published by PopPhoto. I went to www.pentaximaging.com to verify the information, but they no longer list the A20 as it has been replaced by the A30. The A30 does indeed have a 1/1.8" sensor.

I'll send a correction note to dpreview.com right now.

fhotoace, I actually picked this up while answering the same question you answered about the A20 vs. the S7. When I noticed the asker had posed the question twice and had zero answers on his older question, I chose to answer that one instead of "compete" with your obvious BEST ANSWER to his question. Honor among thieves. :-)

Answer 1

Actually it's not about the sensor so much as how you make the image work. That short lived experiment with the Sigma CMOS DSLR which they put up against the Kodak 12 MP back and proved photographically that MP isn't always as important as how you make the digital composite.

The same thing if you compare the Nikon vs the Canon. Nikon chose to smooth dither and Canon chose to edge sharpen.

What you get is a trade off of accutance vs color purity and saturation.

There's also the color methods and as I recall Nikon uses a method somewhat contrary to the Beyer method used by a lot of camera makers.