It is bemusing to see how the 1/2.33-inch sensor gets flogged like a reluctant horse, or dinosaur, in this time of imaging revolution — with camera makers still promising great image quality, in glowing superlatives, from compact cameras having the tiny sensor — when it is an open secret that the very thing that mostly crippled compact cameras in terms of their ability to pull off image of exceptional image quality is the tiny sensor.
Some say camera makers deliberately do this — cripple their compact cameras by not fitting them with a larger sensor — to prevent these cameras from cannibalising their DSLR market.
While this may holds some truth, the benefit of producing cameras with larger sensor, IMHO, far outweigh the risks.
Take the case of Panasonic, for example. Two years ago, it came up with the much-respected compact camera, the large sensor LX3. The 1/1.63-inch sensor used in the LX3 then has done a lot in shoring up Panasonic’s image as a company willing to take the risk to give consumers tools that take great pictures.
Now the consumer market is waiting in great anticipation for the upcoming LX5, a camera which, by the looks of it, build on the strength of the LX3. It has the same sensor size as the LX3 but this time, a redesign one to make it better.
The little wonders that the LX3 did in improving the perception towards Panasonic augured well for the company’s decision to go into mirrorless camera, starting with the G1, later the GH1 and then the GF series.
On the other hand, the use of 1/2.33-inch sensor in what could have been Canon’s flagship superzoom camera, the SX1 IS, did nothing to prop up the brand. Thankfully, the S90 and G11 save the day for Canon’s compact line up.
Samsung is also building its reputation as a camera maker willing to go the extra mile to dispel the notion that compact cameras are for snapshooters who know little other than to point and shoot. The EX1 is setting a new standard in the sensor-lens combination. Put in a large sensor, a 1/1.7-inch sensor, and attach a bright lens, a f1.8 nonetheless, and you have a winner.
The same formula applies to the LX5 and other, precariously low number of, premium compact cameras — get the sensor size and the lens’s f-range above the average “standard”, and everything else will fit into place.
And if you think a 1/1.63-inch sensor is sufficiently large to be the new standard in compact cameras, think of the 1/1.183-inch sensor onboard the soon-to-be released Nokia N8 smart phone. The N8 sample pictures released so far make you wonder if the many so-called compact cameras in the market today are not in danger of being rendered irrelevant by camera phones.
Consumers should now demand the phasing out of the 1/2.33-inch sensor and call on camera makers to make the 1/1.7-inch sensor a new standard in compact cameras.
I hope some of the points above do qualify as opinion, because you would have to pause and ponder an opinion and not dismiss it outright.
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