Show Posts
31
EOS Bodies / Re: Any thoughts on how the 5d3 will compare on dxo mark to the Nikon D800?
« on: March 27, 2012, 09:22:57 AM »
I sincerely don't get the fuss about 12/13/14 stops of DR. From what I've read, both D800 and 5D3 use 14-bit ADCs.
With 14-bit ADCs, anything above ~10 stops is pretty much useless. An EV 10 stops from saturation (value 16383) registers as value 15 (without taking noise into account). That leaves a grand total of 15 luminance values to represent *all* the extra DR above that, and specifically 8 values for the next stop of DR.
Now, if the cameras happen to use 16-bit ADCs, then they've got two extra stops of usable DR.
IMO SNR at 18% is far more important as far as IQ goes.
With 14-bit ADCs, anything above ~10 stops is pretty much useless. An EV 10 stops from saturation (value 16383) registers as value 15 (without taking noise into account). That leaves a grand total of 15 luminance values to represent *all* the extra DR above that, and specifically 8 values for the next stop of DR.
Now, if the cameras happen to use 16-bit ADCs, then they've got two extra stops of usable DR.
IMO SNR at 18% is far more important as far as IQ goes.