Ian.Dobinson wrote:
I dont know why everyone gets so hung up about 100% crops. Surely the best test of IQ is to see the result printed out for full effect (unless you want to make a poster of the smallest part of your image)
+1
Comparing 100% crops of versions of photographs shot in different sensor formats and with different photosite densities is fraught with problematic variables.
Here is one example: When the 5D II first was released I started seeing posts that breathlessly proclaimed, \"I compared 100% crops from my 5D and my 5D II and the 5D is sharper than the 5DII!\" Well, of course the camera with fewer photosites looks sharper at 100% - you are looking at a smaller area of the photograph in the example with more photosites! This simply proves that \"flaws\" in lens performance are easier to see when you look at them more closely... ;-)
But if you compare prints (at large enough sizes to make the differences apparent) made with photographs from the two cameras (as suggested by Ian) you will discover that the 5DII can produce greater resolution.
The situation is even worse if you compare 100% crops from crop and full frame samples.
It is almost universally true - and pretty much impossible to argue against in a credible way - that the larger the format the more \"quality\" the photograph can potentially provide. Does that mean you should always use the largest possible format? Of course not. For one thing - and there are other \"things\" as well - unless you reproduce the photograph at fairly large sizes there is a good chance that you won\'t see any difference. There is no question that a 8 x 10 LF film photograph can hold more detail than the best cropped sensor DSLR can capture - but if you compare photos from both in jpg web renditions the differences will be completely lost.
Ian.Dobinson wrote:
I dont know why everyone gets so hung up about 100% crops. Surely the best test of IQ is to see the result printed out for full effect (unless you want to make a poster of the smallest part of your image)
+1
Comparing 100% crops of versions of photographs shot in different sensor formats and with different photosite densities is fraught with problematic variables.
Here is one example: When the 5D II first was released I started seeing posts that breathlessly proclaimed, \"I compared 100% crops from my 5D and my 5D II and the 5D is sharper than the 5DII!\" Well, of course the camera with fewer photosites looks sharper at 100% - you are looking at a smaller area of the photograph in the example with more photosites!
But if you compare prints (at large enough sizes to make the differences apparent) made with photographs from the two cameras (as suggested by Ian) you will discover that the 5DII can produce greater resolution.
The situation is even worse if you compare 100% crops from crop and full frame samples.
It is almost universally true - and pretty much impossible to argue against in a credible way - that the larger the format the more \"quality\" the photograph can potentially provide. Does that mean you should always use the largest possible format? Of course not. For one thing - and there are other \"things\" as well - unless you reproduce the photograph at fairly large sizes there is a good chance that you won\'t see any difference. There is no question that a 8 x 10 LF film photograph can hold more detail than the best cropped sensor DSLR can capture - but if you compare photos from both in jpg web renditions the differences will be completely lost.
Dan
Jun 10, 2009 at 02:12 PM
Previous versions of danmitchell's message #7175795 « Proof of Full Frame IQ vs Crop? »
