> If you say so, Jim. I prefer quantity, really.
>> It's not the QUANTITY of the MPs, it's the QUALITY!
To a certain point. It is more a matter of the "output" than anything
else. If the output is web display, either on zone-10 or through your
favorite social media site, then 5MP is certainly going to be adequate
most of the time. If your maximum output is 11x14" or A3, then again,
the 5MP will be sufficient. Beyond that size, it's more subject-matter
sensitive. I've got a LOT larger than that on occasion, but it really
gets hairy.
As a general rule, a whole lot less processing is required on E-1
images than most anything else. I'll compare the E-1 with the 6D, but
you can find similar comparatives with other brands/models too. My
knowledge of the E-1 sensor is though extensive research and digging
through the Kodak spec sheets on the sensors and other Kodak design
notes. It is also based on information gathered from published
articles on the Phase One CMOS sensor.
The E-1's Kodak Sensor has a "thicker" more "pure" color filter array.
The luminance value is derived (not just from the green pixels as was
generally thought 10 years ago) from a four pixel merge. (three
pixels--one single green, one single blue and one single red, from
conventional sensors--not two greens). The smoothness of luminance is
balanced from four pixels, not three--with proper Olympus processing,
the balance is not 1R+1G+1B+1G, but something more like
1R+1B+((1G+1G)/2). The exact formula has, no my knowledge, ever been
made public).
In contrast (pun intended), the 6D sensor has a much less dense color
filter array and each pixel is more luminance sensitive and less color
sensitive. The colors information is derived through the subtraction
of the luminance information and then calculated through the
three-pixel merge before being added back in to the processed pixel's
RGB value. Again, just like the Olympus information, there is a lot of
secret sauce in Canon, as well as ACR's converter engines.
To simplify the comparison a bit more, the E-1 file is essentially
converted with luminance applied to the colors. The 6D file is
converted with colors applied to the luminance. In other words, the 6D
file is a colorized B&W image.
>From a post processing perspective, the E-1 file takes more work to
get the luminance right, but the 6D file takes more work to get the
colors right. The E-1 files are lovely in the middle brightness
ranges, but a huge pain in the highlights. The 6D has a couple stops
more luminance range to work from, but you have to crank the living
daylights out of the saturation to get it to where the E-1 is
natively.
This is also why Moose's red poppies turned pink and shimmery white in
the highlights. A distinct flaw in the E-1 design. You have to
underexpose by two stops to keep that from happening.
AG Schnozz
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