The 40-Megapixel Showdown

Photo courtesy quesabesde.com

The Spanish site Quesabesde has published an unusual camera comparo—two cameras that share nothing in common except that they both have sensors with ~40 megapixels: the Pentax 645D and the Nokia 808 PureView.

Although the comparo is in Spanish, you can get quite a lot from the illustrations....

Mike
(Thanks to Iñaki Arbelaiz)

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Joe Boris: "I'm sure someone has posted a drag race between a VW Beetle and a Ferrari somewhere on the web as well, but why waste your readers' valuable time directing them to it? Jeez, Mike...?"

Reply from Ray: "Because it's cool."

Comments

[David Bostedo]

It may not be great, but you can also use some free translation on it for the English speakers out there :

http://fets5.freetranslation.com/?sequence=core&language=Spanish/English&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quesabesde.com%2Fnoticias%2Fnokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp%2C1_8958&username=&password=

[g carvajal]

i would like to see a comparison with the nokia 808 and my hasselblad 501c.
Or the Pentax 645D and my hasselblad 500cm.

[Arthur]

Thank you for that beautiful translation. I'm going to make this line the basis for a body of work.

beyond the logic
you differentiate.
as for depth of field,
and perspective

I think it means the Nokia is diffraction limited...
Somebody compare the 6mp output from this to say, a Nikon D70. That would be pretty interesting too.

[Jon Shiu]

Google Translate can also translate to English:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1043%26bih%3D529%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=wAMXUOLKBsipqQHzuoDYBQ&ved=0CEQQ7gEwAA">http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1043%26bih%3D529%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=wAMXUOLKBsipqQHzuoDYBQ&ved=0CEQQ7gEwAA">http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/nokia-808-pureview-pentax-645-comparativa-40-mp,1_8958%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1043%26bih%3D529%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=wAMXUOLKBsipqQHzuoDYBQ&ved=0CEQQ7gEwAA

[John Camp]

A question for the knowledgeable:

These things look sort of comparable, with all the advantage to the MF, but the objects in the images are not shown to the same size. if they were, wouldn't the Nokia shots look even worse?

[Earl Dunbar]

Well if I had a 645D I certainly wouldn't be trading it in for a Nokia. The Nokia files look positively ugly.

[Nick]

Call quality on the Pentax is abysmal.

[CMP]

It looks like the Pentax has better image quality, but the Nokia has better telephone reception, so I think it's even.

[Steve Jacob]

Did someone need to prove this? Or were they having a slow day?

[z zaletel]

Why only shoot 40 when you could shoot 80?

[Alan Farthing]

Dpreview have just reviewed the Pureview:-

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/07/30/nokia-808-pureview-review

There are too many "views"!

[Rodolfo Canet]

Don't worry about translation: as a Spaniard I can tell you that the text is practically void of content. Comparing the shots is enough.

[Kosch]

The camera I have available is the one I want reviewed. My E-3 makes me money on location, but I take the majority of my shared pics with my iPhone.
I lust after a MF digital; realistically though, I want something pocketable and available.
Screw the comparisons. I would prefer a 28 page DPR type review on the 808 and if they need to do a comparison review, compare the 808 with something else that fits in my pocket.

[ctein]

Dear JC,

The objects don't appear the same size because they didn't have a 28mm (equiv.) lens for the Pentax, to match the lens in the Nokia. In fact, if they had, the Nokia would have looked relatively better, not worse, because the Pentax photos would have shown less subject detail (the subject magnification being lower on the sensor).

It would not make any sense to enlarge the Nokia photos differently to match the subject sizes in the two photos.

pax / Ctein

[Roy]

Running Google Chrome as a browser has the advantage that it always offers foreign language translation automatically. And the translations are surprisingly good.
That Pentax is one ugly lump though.
Roy

[Tim Parkin]

Be nice if they'd bothered with focal lengths that were almost the same....

[Svein-Frode]

All jokes aside, what the Nokia 808 really tells us is that the megapixel race is far from over. It has just begun. The micro sensor technology used in mobile phones is far more advanced than the ones used in professional cameras. It is just prohibitively expensive to use that technology in larger sensor today, but give it a few years... Still it escapes my imagination as to what these huge image files are to be used for. How many billboards does the average professional photographer produce in a year?

[Robin P]

The Pentax is a good, useable camera.
The Nokia is impractical as a camera and (not running Android) impractical as a phone - with all that we expect from a "phone" these days.

[toto]

The Nokia shots look better than I expected.

[Joe Boris]

I'm sure someone has posted a drag race between a VW Beetle and a Ferrari somewhere on the web as well, but why waste your readers' valuable time directing them to it? Jeez, Mike...?

[Ed Hawco]

Typo alert:

"...two cameras that share [only] nothing in common except.."

Cut [only]. No need to publish this comment.
:-)

[Mathew Hargreaves]

I have the Pentax 645D and you can disable the ringtone and the vibration function so you are not pestered by the outer world. I like to concentrate on the most important function the camera offers.

The Nokia images look distorted. My 2003 Canon 300D takes better images at 6.3 m-pixels.

[Henk Coetzee]

Thanks Rodolfo. I started on the freetranslate version and got as far as:

"To a side of the quadrilateral, the Pentax 645D, a half an armada format camera with a powerful one CCD of 40 million points. Who is worthy adversary for similar mastodon?

I'm sold. I'm certainly not sure what I'm sold on, but I want one of these.

[Mike Johnston]

"Be nice if they'd bothered with focal lengths that were almost the same...."

It's not a question of bothering. There ARE no matching focal lengths.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

"Still it escapes my imagination as to what these huge image files are to be used for. How many billboards does the average professional photographer produce in a year?"

Svein-Frode,
It's my understanding that Nokia is using it to substitute for a zoom lens. They couldn't figure out how to attach a zoom lens to a camera, so they decided to give the sensor far too many pixels so the user could "virtual zoom" to his or her heart's content. It's a different way of thinking about image magnification.

Mike

[Timothy]

Mike: "It's not a question of bothering. There ARE no matching focal lengths."

There is an FA series 35mm for the 645. Isn't that "close enough" FOV equivalent?

[Svein-Frode]

Mike, I wasn't thinking about the Nokia, but large files in general, but thanks for the explenation anyway.

[Speed]

A useful comparison would be between the Nokia and any current phone. This is just silly.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Dear Henk, The 645D with a lens on it is a huge weight. I generally shoot handheld and a half hour shoot is tiring on the arms. But the pictures can be fabulous. Think of it as a 50's style main frame computer versus a thin notebook style. Weight and power in the old school of computing. And $11K to get you started. Thank God it does not need a concrete floor to support it.

[Benjamin R. George]

It appears that there's a film-era 35mm for Pentax 645. That focal length would come much closer to matching the field of view of the Nokia. I presume it's out of production, but it's not like all the old ones were destroyed, so it's not quite fair to say that there are no matching focal lengths.

[Zvonimir MW Tosic]

Photography is obviously becoming dumb and purposeless when we start to believe the real value of things is not in the original brilliance of purpose of their creation, but in the endless dissection, disintegration of the original purpose, and in our desperate search for the lowest common denominator between the two to equalise the totality of values and uniquenesses of their existence.
A barbaric mindset indeed.

[Randolph]

This is not using the Nokia in its area of strength. It after all isn't a tool for landscape and architectural photography. I wonder how it would do for wedding and event photography?

Just don't make it the primary camera!