One thing ive never understood. Bear with me, this gets to a puzzle to the need for megapixel sensors for long FL, other than oversampling, and convienient framing as Mike has picked on me for.
It seems intuative that a larger chip with the same pixel size as a smaller chip just allows a bigger FOV, and with croping to the same FOV, would render essentially the same image quality generally.
But no, except for a few fine examples, generally, croping, or zooming in it seems does not mean the same sort of image you would get with a small chip with the same FOV as the crop. I have seen many many examples from the best that just simply dont cut it, zoomed in.
So I wonder why?. When processing a wider view, colour balance and dynamic range especially must suit the image as a whole, so the core of an object is often overexposed (ie, individual parts of the subject are not processed individually, which I guess would be very difficult to blend in with an overall pleasing result). Or, maybe, the lower QE of megapixel cams gives a different result alone.
Im not convinced at all that a bigger chip always gives a subjectively "better" or even equal
result (with the same image scale) at long focal lengths, despite the advantages of convienient framing. Croping on a small object is just a waste of money spent on the cam.
Mike, I like narrow field high QE and cheaper imaging for the same or arguably better results than a croped megacam. Bite me
.