p.2 #1 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Thanks a lot for sharing your direct experiences from real life shooting without AA filter, Steve, that's very useful.
If on the other hand some non-AA filter sensor owners (M9, S2 or Medium Format) could post examples showing the opposite, it would also be very useful to have some typical artifact occasions illustrated here.
p.2 #2 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
And I also agree that it would be very useful to get some thoughts from the tech experts, as Roger says.
After all it's going to be a rather expensive decision to make.
RRRoger wrote:
Would the tech experts please chime in, I want to hear more about moire and whether a 36MP Sensor needs a filter.
p.2 #3 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Why would you need an expert...? :-)
Take "what you know" about a 36MP sensor, and apply it to a practical scenario. As it happens, the D7000 sensor is almost EXACTLY the same pixel pitch as a 36MP FX sensor would be. The D7000 has got an AA filter. It might be slightly thicker than the one in the D5100 according to my measurements.
Now... Does the D7000 seem "unnecessarily blurry"? What circumstances do you need to get REALLY sharp shots with the D7000? Can you see aliasing / moire on the D7000 or the D5100?
As for myself, I wouldn't want to trade the AA filter for a slightly better pixel>poixel contrast. It brings so many more problems than i solves. When shooting the M9, or a medium format back in the studio, I HAVE to stop down to at least F11 to stop moire from ruining the image in most cases. I don't need that.
AND....
I think people are disregarding the maybe most important aspect about having a high resolution camera. The thing about resolution does not HAVE to be that you want to print/view the image at maximum enlargement all the time. It might also (more relevantly!) be that you want an image that conforms to the reality in front of the lens.
No Bayer-based camera comes even close to "filling the frame with detail". The M9 cheats to improve the "impression" of a detailed image by filling the frame with FALSE detail, digital artefacts.
But if you can downsample a large original, you do at some point get to the "pixel-perfect" image, an image where each and every pixel contains TRUE information of the reality in front of the lens. To get here you often have to downsample the image size to about 50-60% of the original width.
Here are two samples of the difference between true "pixel information accuracy" between a 12MP and a 36MP FX sensor.
The first one is 12MP (8.5µm pixels), at a 1:1 scale - enlarged to 200% with "nearest neighbor" to make differences more visible.
The second one is 36MP (4.7µm pixels), at a 1:1.8 scale - and then enlarged to 200% with "nearest neighbor" to make differences more visible.
Note the difference in detail and edge clarity, also the total lack of digital artifacts in the downsampled high-res image. One is clearly more a "true" 12MP imformation image than the other.
p.2 #5 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Thanks Suede, I actually hoped you would chime in on this
I have seen your explanation on the advantages of high resolution sensors before and it is indeed very useful for me since I have been a bit reluctant by the mere thought of 36Mp and a pixel pitch of just ~ 4.9 µm.
By now I am more or less calming down with regards to all these many millions of pixels that initially sounded like totally overkill for my purpose. I guess I'll end up being happy with the high resolution.
But then you say: "Now... Does the D7000 seem "unnecessarily blurry"?"
And this is exactly my doubt and my question: is the blurring filter really 'necessary' ?
I used to be very impressed by DMR images, it was back then, around 2005, I started wanting some day to get rid of the AA filter on my sensor, of course some of the DMR quality was probably also due to the excellent optics.
Since then I have followed a lot of threads on Medium Format boards on other fora and the MF shooters seem to love the lack of AA filters, but of course there are so many other variables involved here, 16 bit and what not.
Another problem is that there are often so many claims but with no 'natural sized' illustrations even on MF boards, only tiny webified ~ 1200 pixel wide samples that do not prove anything and even do not illustrate much.
So I still think it is difficult to find out what is up and down on this matter and I'm still tempted to just once owning an AA filterless camera. But I assure you, all of you, I am still listening carefully, wanting to learn more.
Sorry for being so dense, I'm definitely no tech expert
p.2 #6 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
You didn't give me the option of
"I'll let the Nikon engineers decide what works best"
There is no reason to doubt what the Nikon engineers know to work best with the particular sensor they release on the D800. I'm sure it will be well studied and a wise choice.
p.2 #7 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
rnickl wrote:
You didn't give me the option of
"I'll let the Nikon engineers decide what works best"
There is no reason to doubt what the Nikon engineers know to work best with the particular sensor they release on the D800. I'm sure it will be well studied and a wise choice.
quote <
Yes, I agree.
but the rumor is that the D800 will have the option of buying it with or without the AA filter
Question: Is less really moire or do we even need a filter at 36MP?
And, why should it cost more for Nikon to provide less?
p.2 #8 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
rnickl wrote:
You didn't give me the option of
"I'll let the Nikon engineers decide what works best"
There is no reason to doubt what the Nikon engineers know to work best with the particular sensor they release on the D800. I'm sure it will be well studied and a wise choice.
This is exactly what I would prefer: Just one version of the D800, with an AA filter that is optimized for that sensor, which would probably mean a weak AA filter so it would be quite close to having none, but still cut down most moire issues.
If Nikon indeed releases 2 versions, and if the non-AA version costs $1000 more as rumored, then I'd be afraid that the AA version will have a pretty strong filter, so as to cripple the camera and cut the resolution down significantly and not eat into the sales of the more expensive model. That way they could serve 2 price points without the need to engineer 2 different cameras.
In other words, 2 models might be worse than 1 model with a carefully designed filter: one would be overpriced and be a moire and artifact machine, the other would make soft files. I hope we won't get this.
p.2 #9 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
The AA is a needed evil because of the sensors . IF i can be corrected in processing in camera or computer and eliminate the filter YAAA!. (If it can be done without individual image attention )Your already going to be fighting the limits of many of the optics at 36mp. and matching the level of the newer optics.
THe next complaints after the release will be the noise level at 3200....
Either way I have used the Sony a900 at length and a 5DII at length. THe SOny was way better,
looking forward to using a Nikon again!!
p.2 #11 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Some interesting comparison crops from D3 and D3X shots, with and without Anti-Aliasing filter, in Thom Hogan's D3X review, can be found a bit below the middle of the review page.
A rare and illustrative comparison for this matter.
p.2 #12 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Steen DK wrote:
Some interesting comparison crops from D3 and D3X shots, with and without Anti-Aliasing filter, in Thom Hogan's D3X review, can be found a bit below the middle of the review page.
A rare and illustrative comparison for this matter.
reading the resolution section makes me think the d4 will out perform the d3x in all situations bar studio... kinda disapointed the d800 wont have the 16mp sensor.
p.2 #13 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
theSuede wrote:
Sorry about the slight difference in DoF, sample taken from another comparison regarding DoF differences between FX and DX sensors.quote<
Thanks Suede,
You fit my definition of an Expert (Someone who knows more than the average Photographer).
Now that you showed a 36MP image superior to the 12, I would like to see the difference with and without filters
p.2 #14 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Steen DK wrote:
Some interesting comparison crops from D3 and D3X shots, with and without Anti-Aliasing filter, in Thom Hogan's D3X review, can be found a bit below the middle of the review page.
Glad you mentioned where to look.
All the non filtered images looked better to my eye.
p.2 #16 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
I would be interested in a technical analysis that shows that it is impossible to take sharp pictures with a D7000.
Jan 25, 2012 at 11:27 PM
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p.2 #17 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
I think people are misunderstanding moire ... it is the interplay of two discrete patterns. It is most noticable when the two patterns are of similar spacial fequency. You can see this without a camera by playing with two pieces of screen. Even at 36MP, it will exist.
Think of it this way, if you get moire at 12mp, the same pattern will cause moire at 2x the fequency on 48MP since a quadrupling of the pixel count only doubles linear resoltuion, but it will be less noticable bacause now there is a 2x differnece in the spacial patterns. On the other hand, a subject with 2x the special fequence of the original pattern will suffer from moire strongly with a 48MP sensor.
Please, please give me my AA filter ... I hate doing PP.
p.2 #19 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Technical analysis:
Image MTF is always equal to:
Sensor MTF x Lens MTF x PP MTF
So it does not matter if the lens is "less sharp than the sensor can resolve", the resulting image will be SHARPER with a high resolution sensor than with a low resolution sensor (as long as you keep over the current production capabilities, that at the moment seem to draw a line at ~3µm pixels before showing noticeable efficiency loss with WA and F1.2-1.8 lenses).
A bad lens will always result in a WORSE result on 12MP than on 36MP, after scaling to intended magnification.
If the MTF at the 2x pixel pitch frequency of the low res senor is ~30 and the lens OTF at the same resolution is also 30, then the image MTF at 2 pixel widths will be:
0.3x0.3 = 0.09.
At the same frequency the higher res sensor will have an MTF that's about X^(1/resolution ratio) >>> 0.3^(0.6) = 0.48. You still have to multiply this with the lens OTF:
0.48x0.3 = 0.15.
Bad lens, low res sensor >>> image MTF at 30lp/mm (D3 pixel pitch) = 0.09
Bad lens, high res sensor >>> image MTF at 30lp/mm (D800 pixel pitch) = 0.15
................
But the absolutely WORST lens I have here at the moment, a Tamron 70-300VC still outresolves the D7000 sensor over a pretty large area of the image, at reasonable apertures and shutter speeds. And if I compare corners between the D3x and the D3 with the same lens, the D3x is sharper, with better detail contrast. Still blurry, but viewed at 12MP size it's better than the native 12MP image.
p.2 #20 · Would you prefer D800 with or without AA filter ?
Steen DK wrote:
Lloyd Chambers has some thoughts about t
This quote from Chambers really irks me for some reason... yeah, let's just keep jacking up the prices of lenses.
Note that the recent Zeiss designs (21/2.8, 35/1.4 and 25/2) have already become more highly corrected than predecessors, with correspondingly higher prices. I would like to see Zeiss take that approach still further, even if it meant greater cost, since owning fewer better lenses is preferable to more lesser lenses.
