Trying out the 5D
- Thread starter JonnyGLC
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Why do you full frame users keep doing this to me?
I Hate you all.
The photos posted above could easily have been taken with a 40D or 350D for that matter. I doubt you would see the difference in those photos unless you had the original RAWs.
Full frame doesn't automatically make photos better. A 40D and 5D are pretty similar in output, as is A Nikon D90 and a Nikon D3 at ISO 200.
The only reason I want a D700 is so i can buy the infamous Nikon 14-24 2.8 at its full 14mm glory. Otherwise a D90 would do...
Thanks for this post mate. Its made me less sad. It makes me hope somewhere down the line I can upgrade to a d700. I would still have my Nikkon lenses.
I was wondering if you knew why the D700 decided to go with such a modest pixel count, when Canon have bought out the big guns with the 5D MK 2. Btw, is that lens more than £1000? sounds pricey
I know full well that a 40D could give similar results.
Doesn't stop me wanting FF though
Thanks for this post mate. Its made me less sad. It makes me hope somewhere down the line I can upgrade to a d700. I would still have my Nikkon lenses.
I was wondering if you knew why the D700 decided to go with such a modest pixel count, when Canon have bought out the big guns with the 5D MK 2. Btw, is that lens more than £1000? sounds pricey
Nikon wanted a sensor with a revolutionary noise performance at high ISOs, and the y succeeded - many pro Canon photographers jumped ship and used a Nikon D3 at the olympics.
The D700 uses the same sensor. A good 12Mp image is enough to print to A1 size. And Diffraction limitation will still occur on a full frame sensor. And the actual resolution will be limited by the resolving power of the lens before the sensor resolution at anything other 10MP. Very, very few lenses can resolve 20MP of detail. A few of the highest quality primes, say the 300 2.8 when shooting at 2.8 etc. e.g., the 50mm 1.8 prime lens probably only has about 10mp of resolution.
With the 5Dmk2 most photos out of it wont have anywhere near 21MP of resolution, even if the size size is 21MP.
Nikon now posses a 24.5MP sensor which produces acceptable noise. This will end up in a lower priced FF nikon DSLR soon.
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Once you go full frame you'll wont go back.
Soldato
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Full frame has many plus features but the main once for me are the comfortable useage of the viewfinder. It is afterall the eyes of the shot.
Also, the 50mm prime is a brilliant focal length to use on full frame. I find its too zoomed/cropped out on 1.6x bodies.
Also, the 50mm prime is a brilliant focal length to use on full frame. I find its too zoomed/cropped out on 1.6x bodies.
Some interesting thoughts.
Anandtech wouldn't seem to agree though based upon this:
http://www.anandtech.com/digitalcameras/showdoc.aspx?i=3470&p=3
Yes it's only a quick evaluation between a 5D and a 5D2, but they certainly seemed to think that the additional resolution helped IQ, despite using a 50mm F1.4, which is a lens that can be bought for not much over £200.
More to the point, you're suggesting that for most users that an A900, D3x, 5D2, 1DSmk2 and 1DSmk3 might aswell not bother, which I'm a little dubious about.
Scaling that back, with the reduced sensor size on a crop camera, by your logic, sensors with more than 8mp (extrapolating your thoughts) would also be pointless.
Kenrockwell talks about this stuff, on the 5DmkII he says 5mp is amazing, but the full resolution isn't much cop. Though he relates this to the interpolation alogorithims. Do you guys have any resources on this kind of stuff. I am not going to buy a FF camera, just would like to read up and get the best of what I have.
I agree, FWIW. For my usage I'd rather have a lower pixel density (and therefore better low light performance) at the cost of resolution. 8-10MP on APS-C is fine for me, and given the choice between a D3 and a D3x (ignoring price) I'd go with the D3 every time.
Were I a studio photographer regularly printing at billboard size and always shooting under artificial light at low ISO, my answer would be the complete opposite.
Do most users fit the latter criteria? I'd be very surprised if they did...
yes, anything above 7MP on a crop sensor is diffraction limited at f/11 and green light wavelength - 7 MP is the max theoretical resolution at that setting, even the best carl zeiss wont help. That is the laws of physics. A 100Mp crops sensor will still only capture the ~7Mp of resolution
Not even Canon can break the laws of physics.
The 5dmk2 gives better images because it has a better sensor, not because the sensor is 21Mp. It would give even better images if the sensor was only 6MP!
Hence the use of medum format for landscape work.
Here is a thorough explanation of the physics:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml
Look at Table 3 and the description>
A British landscape scene shot at standard f/11 with a super sharp zeiss prime will have a maxium theoretical resolution of 16MP. 5 wasted MP on the canons 5dmk2/1dsmk3.
For a crops sensor, 7Mp is the max... and a mere 4MP on a 4/3rds system.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml
Look at Table 3 and the description>
A British landscape scene shot at standard f/11 with a super sharp zeiss prime will have a maxium theoretical resolution of 16MP. 5 wasted MP on the canons 5dmk2/1dsmk3.
For a crops sensor, 7Mp is the max... and a mere 4MP on a 4/3rds system.
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So why have manufacturers designed superfluously able sensors? - pre-emption for later, more advanced lenses, or is it just show boating?
Show boating for the most part.
As I said, the diffraction limit has nothing to do with current sensor design, it is merely a limitation of the wavelength of visible light and the physics of diffraction. The Only way to rectify this situation is to have a bigger sensor with bigger lenses, hence the need for medium format.
But things are different at larger apertures (look at the link), in thewory it would be possible to capture hundreds of MP. The problem here is as the apperture increases the Dof decreases and anywhere out of focus has an inherently low resolution. A f/1.4 image will have potentially very high resolution in a very, very small area of focus, and very lowest resolution elsewhere. This is the precise reason why the human eye has very high resolution sensing in the centre of vision in the immediate area of focus, but low resolution elsewhere.
The only small caveat is that a 24MP sensor only captures 12MP of green, 6MP red and 6 MP blue. The colors for each pixel are interpolated from neighbors. However the luminance resolution is much nearer the 24MP. So perhaps you might gain a small amount of colour accuracy with a higher resolution sensor. The fuji fovean sensor record RGB at each pixel, some say this is why the fuji photos have the best colour and is the wedding photographers choice.
This effect is very small though.
Even if you could photograph higher resolution images, how many people print larger than A1? probably no one on ocuk...
What I would prefer to see is much higher sensitivities with incredibly low noise, while keeping the resolution down to 12MP max. the D3 started in this direction. I hope the D4 continues, maybe 3 stops sensitivity boost above the D3..... Think of the possibilities! You can more or less make any VR or IS, in lens or on sensor, obsolete. Simply crank the ISO to 12800 and get the same noise as ISO 400 on a D3......... thzat would be a dream.
Lower resolution also allow much higher dynamic range and other subtle image quality improvements.
The foveon sensor you are on about is a sigma based sensor. Claimed to be 14mp which is actually all three colour layers added together so the total number of pm out of the camera is merely 14mp / 3 = 4.6mp. The wedding photographers choice is the fuji super CCD with S and R photosites to extend the dynamic range. The fuji sensor is still based on an interpolation of true colour method similar to the bayer sensors.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0301/03012202fujisuperccdsr.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092210fujifilmexr.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0301/03012202fujisuperccdsr.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092210fujifilmexr.asp