8 Megapixels are nothing, 10 on the way from Sharp

Sharp has announced that they have created a 10 megapixel CCD sensor for consumer digital cameras, but you might not want to get too excited about it yet. According to TG Daily, Chris Chute, Senior Analyst for IDC reported to them that the tiny sensor is just 7.17 mm x 5.31 mm and will deliver images of resolution 3766 x 2801 pixels. This probably won’t improve picture quality, though. The problem is that we can’t overcome physics. As more pixels are crammed into a smaller space then there is less light to hit each pixel. This new Sharp CCD has a total sensor space of 38 square millimeters while a high end Canon or Nikon camera has a sensor space of 864 square millimeters.

Despite the lack of a performance boost, the reason that new sensors are made and put into products is simply for competitive advantage. People seem to care about more megapixels and shelf space at stores is in limited supply, so manufacturers increase the megapixels to make a splash. If the companies don’t keep increasing their technical specifications they lose shelf space. Megapixels are relied upon to boost the market, but since we are getting numb to advances, advances are demanded by dealers even more quickly.

If you are unconvinced and feel you need the 10 megapixels of this new sensor there is no word yet as to how long you will have to wait, or how soon you will be disappointed. Sharp was eager to announce this to combat Samsung’s 8.0 megapixel phone announced earlier this morning, the competition will never end.