brainiac Offline Image Upload: On
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Kit Laughlin wrote:
You use the word "scientific" as though it explains everything, or something. As someone who has a Master's degree in science, plus five year's fully funded Ph.D. research into the relationship between multiple causes in complex systems (in logic and environmental science), I can assert with some authority that claiming 'scientific' as an authority for any position is baseless. Assumptions need to be stated, methodologies explained (and weighed against competing methodologies), and so on, to even *begin* this process.
Rudolpho wrote:
You have not even attempted to argue, discuss, or dialogue about WHY you think noise-per-image is the correct metric over noise-per-pixel or noise-per-inch. You have simply stated it, and repeated it, and added that you're right but some people don't understand it. That line of argument has zero... repeat, zero... validity.
That seems like a reasonable proposition; at least there is something to argue about. Personally, I think your reasoning, and your test, is fundamentally flawed. Nothing personal; just my opinion.
I used the word scientific to denote lack of bias in a comparison. I do not mean lack of bias in the observer, but lack of bias in the test itself. An unscientific test of the speed of two 100 yard runners would be to give one a 30 yard head start, and declare the first one over the finish line to be the faster. That is precisely what is happening when you compare per pixel noise in 100% crops from a 21 megapixel image and a 12 megapixel image, and therefore the comparison is unscientific. It is biased towards the lower megapixel file, because you are examining per pixel noise from a less magnified (i.e. physically smaller) image. When you come to printing the image from both cameras at any given size, the pixels from the camera with more pixels will be smaller than those from the other. For instance, for a 20x30 cm print, each 1Ds3 pixel fills 0.00285 square millimetres, whereas each D700 pixel fills 0.00497 square millimetres. If you compare pixels from the two cameras in 100% crops you are failing to take into account that for any given print, the pixels from the 12 megapixel crop would be considerably bigger. The more you enlarge noise, the more disruptive it appears to be, so to view crops at the same enlargement (i.e. 100%) you are handicapping the file which needs less enlargement.
Why is per image noise more important than per pixel noise? Because Cameras are for making images, not for recording and excising fixed numbers of pixels. Per pixel noise is quantifiably 4/7 as important in a 21 megapixel file than in a 12 megapixel file. That is, a D3 pixel needs to suffer from 4/7 times the noise of a 1Ds3 pixel in order for the picture itself to look as noise-free.
That's why comparison of 100% crops from two cameras always handicap the higher resolving camera, precisely in proportion to the ratio of megapixels between the two cameras.
Edited by brainiac on Sep 02, 2008 at 03:21 PM GMT
Edited on Sep 02, 2008 at 03:21 PM
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