Jman13
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 p.9 #20 · Switched entirely to Micro4/3 | |
Bifurcator wrote:
 , I did didn't I... 
Jman, a 7 year old 8mpx APS-H ccd compared to a 6 month old 16mpx cmos camera... Oky doky - I'm sure it does.
Yes, I'm comparing to old cameras, and there's a reason for that. I firmly am of the mind that there is, for what I shoot, seriously diminishing returns in sensor and and image quality improvement since about 2006 with the 5D and 1Ds II. Are modern sensors better? Yup. They are, especially in low light. Can I see a difference at the print sizes I use? Nope...except in very low light.
I am an amateur...I don't shoot professionally, and I don't shoot sports. The majority of my work that gets blown up 'large' is generally at ISO 800 or below, and at the print sizes I print at (Generally 10x15 inches, but occasionally to 20x30 or so), you simply can't see a difference at any reasonable viewing distance. I have a 20x30 on my wall that is a slightly cropped image from my original Digital Rebel...it's a 5 MP image (including the crop), and if you get up close to it, you can see that there isn't a ton of fine detail, but it still looks decent even up close, and it looks fantastic at a normal viewing distance of about 2-3 feet. I also, on the opposite wall in the same room, have a 20x30 from my 1Ds II, uncropped, in its full 16MP glory at ISO 100....and if you get close to it, sure, you can see the difference. At a normal viewing distance? Nope. You know who goes up close to see detail? Photographers. Everyone who visits our house looks at both, and gravitates instantly to the DRebel shot, because in this case, it's the better photograph.
At ISO 1600 and below, at 10x15", I can't see noise in a print from my GH2. It's just not visible to the eye. Hang one next to my 1Ds II, or heck, even a 5D II shot, and I'm not going to see a difference. Print them both to 24x36 and get up close? Sure, I'll see a difference, but I don't print that large, and I don't really care if I can tell a difference at 6 inches at that size...I care if I can tell the difference at 2 feet at that size, and I just can't in the vast majority of shooting situations. If I'm in a landscape or architecture situation where dynamic range is a problem, I'll shoot an HDR and the playing field is level. With HDR Efex Pro, I can actually get pretty realistic HDRs, so it's not like the DR thing isn't a problem when I've got real contrast situations.
If I were a working professional, providing large fine art prints, or needed fast continuous AF and exceptional ISO 3200 and ISO 6400...yes, I'd be shooting likely with a 5D II and 1D IV. But, I'm not, and so why lug around so much weight, getting worse single shot AF, worse manual focus accuracy for a little better image quality I'm almost certain never to see, considering it's likely going to end up at 10x15 or 8x12", or on my website?
Do you know what I shoot at ISO 1600-ISO 6400? Candid portraits of family primarily. You know what? The absolute largest I print those is 8x12. Noise isn't an issue at that size...and the vast majority get reduced to web size or printed at 4x6...where noise is completely invisible with the GH2 even at very high ISO.
As to a point and shoot? They tend to fall apart at image sizes above 8x10 in my experience, and higher ISO shooting falls apart at around ISO 400, and there's no ultra-wide capability, no real macro capabilty, no shallow DOF capability, etc. m4/3 provides me with the smallest package possible to get the IQ I need with the capabilities I need. It is not for everyone...it's not for the working pro who needs every ounce of image quality they can get to be competitive; it's not for the ultra- low light shooter who would be better served by the latest and greatest, and it's not for the sports shooter or event photographer that needs fast and accurate continuous AF. While Single shot AF in the GH2/G3 is the fastest in the market (with perhaps the E-P3 in there too now), CDAF still lags PDAF in continuous AF speed and accuracy.
What, it's like you haven't been here at all in the past year or two?  You know that's untrue - so why did you say that? But in a thread about technical merits yes, I talk about technical merit - of course. Du'oh!
Perhaps that was unfair of me, though I did look through your last two months of posts and your website trying to find examples of your work, and the macros from two months ago and one odd picture of a crab were pretty much all I found outside of gear threads, but it's unfair to lump you in according to just that...I don't know your sharing to shooting habits, and I didn't look back further than that and perhaps jumped the gun...I apologize.
Edited on Aug 11, 2011 at 05:05 AM · View previous versions
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Sensor size is directly related to DR and noise - this can be calculated mathematically. Most (85%) of my processing has to do with just exactly those two things. Dynamic Range (DR) where I need to bring up the shadows and rescue any blown out brights. Noise is increased both by doing those two things and by using a smaller sensor - and most here already know about noise removal and selective noise removal I hope. So as I see it there's not much room for opinions on this. It just is... Sure, if someone has really low standards or are unable to distinguish DR tone curve differences then that person might not be able to directly understand and experience the edit-time to sensor-size ratio... But I sure can! 