Do Sensors Make the Camera?

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JusSayin

Aug 21, 2014
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#1
1. Has anyone seen an actual tech report on the 6D sensor? What makes it different from the 5DIII?
2. We know Canon makes it own sensors. The 6D and other Canons have already had Electronic First Curtain Shutter. The pictures produced by Canon sensors have long made Canons the choice of some of the highest paid commercial photographers in the world such as Gilled Bensimon, Patrick Demarchelier, Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino; please note I wrote "commercial" and their success is measured by how much money they make and how many spreads they get in the most prestigeous publications. Sports photogs chose Canon at the last World Cup. More award winning pix were done with Canon at the last 3 Windland-Smith nature photography awards I saw personally at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Yet Nikon's are better because DxO says so? I don't get it.
3. The smears on the Hassleblad Lunar is that it is a dressed-up Sony. So why isn't a Nikon D810 smeared for being a dressed-up Sony?
 
#4
It depends, I guess the Nikon D800 would not be as famous if it had a crap sensor! The Sony A7S is sold on its sensor being able to work in near darkness. Most of the time it doesn't matter as long as it can deliver a reasonable photo.
 
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#5
Even if you're talking about just the camera body itself, it's more than just the sensor. It's the focus sensor, everything that goes to support the camera's fps (mirror mechanism, internal memory buffer size, memory card chips), etc.

As example, when Canon designed the 1D X to shoot 12 fps, it had a different market than Nikon had when it designed the D810 to shoot 5 fps.

When a pro photographer chooses a camera, he buys into a system which is bigger than just the camera body - it's the lenses one can mount, the flashes, etc.

Yet, I think most pro photographers could go with either manufacturers, or possibly mix a few brands (from a quick search in Google, it seems Annie Leibovitz uses cameras from several brands).
 
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#7
I am really appreciative of the replies coming in. Trying to make sense out of something to make a big purchase. Coming from a background in film with a storehouse of Nikon, Mamiya, and Sinar gear. Sinar still in use. So I know my way around a camera. Got a Canon 300D in 2003. But my studio work was with Nikon D4s and D5s when I shot 35. So my love affair with the 35/1.4 and 85/1.4 were actually addictions. I had the Nikon D90 and D7000. And used the D700 when I had a Canon 5D then 5DII. I rent D800s. At low ISOs a monster. But there is something sweet about skin tones and tonal gradations rolling off the Canon sensors that you can't measure. Then I used a 6D and 1Dx. I am so confused. My wife says its too easy to resolve. Buy nothing!
Thanks Antono. I know for a fact that Leibovitz uses Canon when she is not using Hassleblad digital. She used Nikon back with the D3 maybe 4 years ago. Her primary lens has been the 24-70/2.8. I was a bit shocked to learn
that Bensimon even used a DSLR. He was always a bit obsessed about image detail. He's using the 5DIII.
 
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#9
To answer the OP's question it is my opinion that the camera is the sum of it's parts -- you can have a great sensor but if the ergonomics suck or the camera can't track or AF worth a darn or you don't have access to a particular lens / focal length for a particular situation then you'll miss the shot.

For me, despite the better dynamic range in Nikon (Sony) sensors (for now anyhow), I like Canon ergonomics and the whole Canon system better and the "limited" dynamic range of the Canon sensor certainly hasn't prevented me from taking any pictures and printing them big (30"x20").

In terms of actual photographs, I think it is 95% photographer talent / imagination / creativity and 5% gear.
 
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#10
Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

dilbert said:
Let me rephrase the question a bit for you...

And answer that by saying that since the 5DII, I haven't seen a Canon camera with a sensor that was significantly better enough for me to want to buy it or recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...

I never owned a 5DII but I went from a 7D to a 5DIII and there was a significant jump in quality. I would agree that the 5D3 sensor is perhaps only very marginally better than the 5DII. AF system is a separate discussion from the OP's original question as is build quality, weather sealing, FPS, high ISO (all 1DX advantages). I will concede that Canon has not produced a truly revolutionary sensor in a while but rather incremental upgrades in sensor tech.
 
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#11
Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

dilbert said:
Let me rephrase the question a bit for you...

And answer that by saying that since the 5DII, I haven't seen a Canon camera with a sensor that was significantly better enough for me to want to buy it or recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...
if you recommend a camera system based upon a sensor, then i wouldn't want a hear a recommendation from you anyways.

i would look at whether or not the system fits the person, support, service, used market in the area, what they want to shoot; and recommend based upon that.

a sensor? wont' be as relevant as the above would be in 2-4 years time.
 
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#12
Tanispyre said:
I think that the number of iPhone photos that are being published are a strong indication that the sensor is far less important that the photographer.
Click to expand...

Both are important for different reasons. Yeah, you can take great photos with an iPhone under ideal conditions. Lower the light level to indoor levels and it starts to struggle. You'll almost certainly never see many published photos outdoors at night taken with an iPhone. You'll never see any significant number of published sports photos coming from an iPhone. And so on. Basically, there's nothing the photographer can do to fix the extreme motion blur of a half-second exposure.

And there are shots that simply cannot feasibly be taken with an iPhone, because it is not practical to physically place the phone close enough to the subject to get a decent shot. I mean yes, ostensibly you could build a remote shooting helicopter rig for your iPhone, but really, what's the point? Zoom lenses matter.

To answer the topic question, yes, IMO, sensors make the camera. You can work around a weak autofocus system by learning to use a manual focus lens effectively. You can work around a slow repeat rate by learning to time your shots better. You can't work around a poor quality sensor; the sensor quality fundamentally defines the quality of the resulting image. And you can't change the sensor; you're stuck with it. This means that the sensor is the single most important attribute of the camera itself. All else is secondary—important, even useful, but secondary to the quality of the sensor.

To be fair, beyond the point at which the sensor is "good enough" for a particular purpose, you do start to see diminishing returns from sensor improvement. Therefore, it is not necessarily the case that improving the sensor is more important than improving other aspects of the camera. The answer to that question depends entirely on your starting point. If you start with a lousy sensor, improving the sensor is the most important thing; if you start with a great sensor, improving it is mostly unimportant, and other factors start to dominate. But if you stick a crappy sensor in a 5D Mark III, it would be a crappy camera, whereas Canon stuck a crappy AF system in the 6D, and it's still a great camera.

If you're looking at camera systems, the availability of glass whose quality is good enough to fully take advantage of the sensor's performance is of equal importance to the quality of the sensor. And again, all else is secondary, for the same reasons.

Pedantically, I should also add that the rest of the analog image pipeline is critical for the same reason that the sensor is. For most modern cameras, the analog image pipeline is part of the sensor, but for some reason, Canon hasn't made that leap yet. So for Canon cameras, there are other parts of the camera that are just as important as the sensor, solely because they're years behind the rest of the industry in terms of the way they design their image acquisition hardware. But I digress.

And the main differences between the 5D Mark III sensor and the 6D sensor are that the 6D sensor is slightly lower resolution, and its downstream amplifier circuitry seems to have a lower and more consistent noise floor from channel to channel, resulting in less banding and dark noise. Either that or the analog signal path is better shielded from noise sources. Either way, the result is the same.
 
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#13
Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

rrcphoto said:
dilbert said:
Let me rephrase the question a bit for you...

And answer that by saying that since the 5DII, I haven't seen a Canon camera with a sensor that was significantly better enough for me to want to buy it or recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...
if you recommend a camera system based upon a sensor, then i wouldn't want a hear a recommendation from you anyways.

i would look at whether or not the system fits the person, support, service, used market in the area, what they want to shoot; and recommend based upon that.

a sensor? wont' be as relevant as the above would be in 2-4 years time.
Click to expand...

Back in 1999/2000 when Canon designed & manufactured DSLR's were just coming on the scene for thousands of dollars, I was shooting a film Canon ElanII and purchased my first digital camera in I think 2002 which was a Nikon Coolpix D5700 or something like that. The Nikon was a good little camera until it started malfunctioning and that was my first and last experience with Nikon customer service. When I ended up buying my first DSLR it was a Canon 30D. I've been with Canon ever since the ElanII and have never required any servicing on any Canon body I've owned (ElanII, 30D, 7D, 5DIII).

Sensors are important but don't miss the forest for the trees -- the whole system (lenses, bodies, reliability) is what sells a camera or at least should sell a camera.
 
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#14
@dilbert & can0nfan2379. Thank you both but it is precisely responses like this regarding the sensors that I find least helpful and harder to logically implement into purchasing decisions. For the longest time now, Canon's have been the DLSR of choice for a large proportion of the astro/night sky crowd because Canon's CR2s are not "cooked" by the sensor pipeline. It would seem that if your sensor is so darn good why do you need to manipulate the signal coming off it to the extent that it cancels out stars in the night sky. It is no secret that Sony's "raw" files are cooked.
So is this talk about Canon's sensors not being any good the result of some laboratory measurements or is it photography which is about seeing and that includes the finished print whether its on a wall or a page (but please, not on a computer screen, people).
So, please, Dilbert, what in the real world are you referring to when you criticize the Canon sensors?
And thank you again.
 
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#16
JusSayin said:
@dilbert & can0nfan2379. Thank you both but it is precisely responses like this regarding the sensors that I find least helpful and harder to logically implement into purchasing decisions. For the longest time now, Canon's have been the DLSR of choice for a large proportion of the astro/night sky crowd because Canon's CR2s are not "cooked" by the sensor pipeline. It would seem that if your sensor is so darn good why do you need to manipulate the signal coming off it to the extent that it cancels out stars in the night sky. It is no secret that Sony's "raw" files are cooked.
So is this talk about Canon's sensors not being any good the result of some laboratory measurements or is it photography which is about seeing and that includes the finished print whether its on a wall or a page (but please, not on a computer screen, people).
So, please, Dilbert, what in the real world are you referring to when you criticize the Canon sensors?
And thank you again.
Click to expand...

Best to not feed TROLLS.
 
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#17
Re: Do Sensors sell the Camera?

dilbert said:
rrcphoto said:
dilbert said:
Let me rephrase the question a bit for you...

And answer that by saying that since the 5DII, I haven't seen a Canon camera with a sensor that was significantly better enough for me to want to buy it or recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...
if you recommend a camera system based upon a sensor, then i wouldn't want a hear a recommendation from you anyways.

i would look at whether or not the system fits the person, support, service, used market in the area, what they want to shoot; and recommend based upon that.

a sensor? wont' be as relevant as the above would be in 2-4 years time.
Click to expand...

In 2-4 years time, I expect people with Sony/Nikon cameras to be taking and editing photographs that Canon people simply can't - at least not with the same level of detail and color. I fully expect Sony/Nikon cameras to have 15, if not 16, bit ADCs in 4 years time. As for the system? They'll fill that in. The vast majority of users don't need more than a handful of lenses
Click to expand...

actually what you stated is meaningless to 90% of photographers out there. but it only works your direction?

if the vast majority don't need specialized or an excellent ecosystem, they probably don't care about the sensor or what you think is important either.

I do find used markets, support services and general availability to be far more important than the "theory" you have on where things will be in 2-4 years.
 
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#18
JusSayin said:
@dgatwood. Thanks. With respects to those technical differences between the 5DIII and 6D you alluded to, could you point me to that source or white paper?
Click to expand...

I can point you to an article that demonstrates the difference in high ISO noise levels pretty easily:

http://petapixel.com/2012/12/13/canon-6d-and-5dmk3-noise-comparison-for-high-iso-long-exposures/

As for the reasons for the differences... that's mostly speculation, albeit reasonably informed speculation. :)
 
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#19
Hmmm...now we are getting a bit defensive and offensive. Sorry gents. Just looking for some verifiable information. It would appear that one who accuses another of trolling without providing anything of substance is actually the troll. Don't denigrate the forum and those who read it.
Outta here.
 
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#20
JusSayin said:
@dilbert & can0nfan2379. Thank you both but it is precisely responses like this regarding the sensors that I find least helpful and harder to logically implement into purchasing decisions.....
Click to expand...

In my opinion, being totally focused on who is currently producing the best sensor without looking at the big picture is illogical -- all of the current sensors are good, some are better. Sensor tech evolves every few years, ergonomics and glass will be around for at least a decade.

Just food for thought -- to each their own, YMMV.
 
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