Digital BW, The Print

On Mar 12, 2012, at 5:24 PM, Bob Frost wrote:

> > I've had a D700 for a couple of years now, and I'm in the camp that would 
> > prefer to see an update with around 16 to 20 megapixels.
> 
> The D800 allows you to take 4 sizes of raw images - 36, 30, 24, and 15MP.

Yes, but by going for the high rez design, the other resolutions are compromised in the sensitivity they could have had; they can still profit from the pixel averaging in terms of color, but the dynamic range, sensitivity, and low noise that could have been gained by larger sensors is pretty much lost; a bit of noise reduction may be gained in downsampling, but the other advantages are simply lost. Thats part of the compromise, the same way that the compromise of making it a color camera loses detail that could have been gained for B&W if it were a B&W-only camera.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager


Datacolor
5 Princess Road
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, USA
609.924.2189
www.datacolor.com

Phone: 207.685.9248
Mobile: 207.312.0448
Fax: 207.685.4455
Email:  cdtobie@...
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