At 12:02 28/01/03, Paul wrote: >Digital's contrast range is the ratio of the clipping level to the noise >level. That's bigger than 7 stops. My DiMage 7 is more like 9, meaning that >the amount of noise I see on the 12-bit digital output is about three bits >or less. From what I've read, the 35mm CCDs are much quieter still.
I have got not argument with this. The medium is capable of recording more than fits on the available brightness range of paper. But digital cameras have to process the image somehow to get presentable contrast on paper. If they print a whole 9 or 12 stops on paper it looks too low contrast, no punch. Even if they record as much range as negative film, the fact is that they do not display, or make available all this info, while the film does keep it all. Just as nobody prints all the info stored on a neg because the result is appallingly washed out low contrast, no digital camera that I have heard of outputs the unadulterated full brightness range photo. People would be returning them in droves. So they do clever things to pick which range we want to see, and output that instead, just as a photo processor does with negs. What I am after is a digital camera that has an option to output the full range it is capable of recording, even if that is low contrast. Julian Canberra, Australia Satellite maps of fire situation Canberra and Snowy Montains http://members.austarmetro.com.au/~julian/cbfires/fires.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body