There was a time when 20 megapixels seemed like a lot. But these days with the likes of Sony throwing around 42 megapixel image sensors (not literally), it can seem like rather a small number.
However, when it comes to Olympus, at least, 20 is the number they want to stick with – for now anyway.
Speaking at Photokina 2016, Toshi Terada from Olympus Worldwide said, “At this moment, we tried to find the best balance between high resolution and noise – more than 20 megapixels and you start to lose the image quality, 20 megapixels is the best balance it could be. It could be improved in the future once we develop our technology.
“We are not keen just to chase a high number however, because total image quality is most important.”
This is not the first time we’ve heard that a megapixel count is “enough” – for some time 12 seemed to be the magic number – we’ll see how long it takes for the current position to be maintained.
Panasonic – who also use the Four Thirds sensor – also has 20MP as its highest resolution, so it’ll be interesting to see which of the two manages to break the barrier first (and whether that will then be “enough”).
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