Are megapixel counts really a meaningful measure of a pro camera's quality? Do pro photographers really want more megapixels? I think not. And initial tests of the new kid on the block, Leica's digital back, designed by Imacon, provides evidence confirming my point of view.

"I will take a better looking image over anything else any day," writes commercial photographer Guy Mancuso about the new Leica 10MP product on Rob Galbraith's photo forum. "To me the Leica is much better and what I will start delivering to my clients. All along before I even started this I thought the Canon [1DsII] would kill it. So wrong. That 10 versus 16 megapixels is the biggest joke I have seen. It just did not play out to any major advantage. It is the quality of those meagapixels that count, not the quantity."

Mancuso continued: "Also I should add to this that two other working pros, Jan Brittensen and Chuck Jones, came to the same conclusions as myself through their own testing ... We all are keeping the DMR and building a system around it."

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There are two fundamental factors that limit quality in today's SLR digital camera images, compared with digital backs. And, no, I'm not talking about resolution, although the backs have that in spades.

Digital SLRs such as Canon's 1DsII and Nikon's D2x have lower sharpness than some backs because of the low-pass (antialiasing) filter mounted in front of the sensor. You can dial up sharpness in postproduction with Photoshop's USM, but native sharpness is always preferable to computer manipulation.

Also, digital backs traditionally have at least a couple more bits of dynamic range than SLRs, because they encode each channel more finely. In practice, this means that an image taken with a back will render more details in the shadows (the groom's black velvet jacket) without blowing out the highlights (the bride's dress).

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Now comes the Leica Digital Module R (DMR). The DMR is not a complete camera, just an add-on that clips to the back of any existing Leica SLR model R8 or R9. You can see a picture of the device here, and imagery captured with it can be downloaded here.

What makes Leica's DMR interesting is not only the cachet of the Leica name, but also that it was co-designed by scanner- and digital back-manufacturer Imacon. Consequently, the DMR has an extended dynamic range and no antialias filter. Anti alias filtering is handled by software.

Indeed Leica's new 10MP digital back module, although it was necessarily developed on a shoestring budget and released so late that it is technically outdated, still seems to be giving serious and unexpected competition to Canon's 16 megapixel flagship. Imagery allowing the comparison of both cameras can be viewed in an extended test by commercial photographer Guy Mancuso, appearing on the Fred Miranda forums.

So, as I was lucky enough last week to meet with a delegation from Canon Inc's headquarters, I put the question of quantity versus quality to Canon's Mr. Tsunemasa Ohara, Deputy Senior Manager of Canon's Camera Development Center.

"Without giving any information on Canon's forthcoming products," Ohara said, "we always think much about the quality of the pixels as this leads us eventually to the quality of the picture. We listen to the feedback."

I just hope that Canon is doing a lot of listening. Quite a few of their clients believe, as I do, that with respect to image quality Canon's current flagship 1DsII has taken a step back in image quality from its extraordinary predecessor, the Canon 1Ds.

Canon, if you are listening, please, can we have better quality rather than more quantity? Edmund Ronald has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, and he is currently on a sabbatical as a photographer in Paris.

Edmund Ronald's blog can be found at www.monitor-calibration.net.

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