yeah, but what if you get other bonus stuff in exchange for a BW only sensor like higher resolution, and better sensitivity, or much lower cost? If all you got extra with a BW sensor is lack of color of course nobody would want it.
----------------- J.C.O'Connell hifis...@gate.net ----------------- -----Original Message----- From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of Godfrey DiGiorgi Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 6:15 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: Would a B&W ONLY digital camera appeal to you? On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: > Let's rephrase that question: > > "Would you like a camera with two stops more sensitivity, and three or four times the resolution? Don't mix up the subject of resolution and sensitivity. A Bayer mosaic sensor with a given dimension photosite array has exactly the same spatial resolution as a non-mosaic sensor with that same set of dimensions. The only way you get more resolution is to add photosites and reduce antialiasing requirements. A Bayer mosaic sensor interpolates chrominance values per output pixel, not the spatial values of points in the scene it captures. > What if you had to give up color to get it?" > > Color doesn't come for free. In order to get color, you have to throw away a lot of light at each sensor site. If all you ever photograph are technically easy subjects like models in the studio, barns, or cats in plenty of light, then incrementally better performance isn't a big deal. If you find yourself pushing the performance envelope of your camera and having to convert to B&W, not for specific effect but because the noise is less obnoxious in B&W than in color, an added stop of performance can be worth it. Here's the deal: The key to B&W photography is that it is a non-linear capture of a color universe abstracted into a set of monochromatic tonal relationships. One of the vectors is the translation of chrominance to luminance. When we were working with B&W film, we chose films with particular spectral characteristics and then added filtration in front of the lens to tweak those spectral characteristics to match the particular end tonal relationships we wanted. For instance, red and green at the same luminance look the same when cast into monochromatic values. But to capture their perceptual/emotional difference correctly, we need to differentiate them. So we use filters that separate them (red filters makes red things brighter, green things darker, and vice versa). When we moved into the digital capture realm, B&W become a rendering exercise instead of a capture exercise ... it's dependent upon how we evaluate and translate the chrominance values into luminance, not how the sensor captures the data that we work from. We pay a small price for this in terms of putting filters on the photosites, reducing sensitivity by some amount (not two stops, given the same photosite array dimensions) to capture the whole range of spectral data, and by doing so we gain massive amounts of rendering flexibility. With a sensor that only captures monochromatic values, we're back to considering B&W at capture time ... so we have to pull out the filters again in order to adjust chrominance to luminance translation at capture time, cutting sensitivity by at least as much as the Bayer color mosaic does. I'd rather have the flexibility. I've worked with monochromatic digital capture cameras way back in the digital dark ages (1980s) and have NO interest in going back there. I want the ability to manipulate chrominance to luminance translation at rendering time, not at capture time, with a larger, more robust captured dataset. > I probably wouldn't drop the dosh on the Leica version though, even if I had Godfrey's toy budget. LOL! Sorry, the Leica isn't a toy. I don't consider it as such. A K5 or K-01 might be a toy to you ... to me the Leica M9 is a serious instrument for making photographs, as would either the K5 or K-01 be if I went to purchase them. By making that statement, you are implying a) that I have a lot of money and b) that I toss money around without discretion, Larry. I don't on either count. I studied and considered what I wanted to work with for more than a year before I came to the decision, and not lightly, that it was the Leica M9. And then I saved up the money to obtain the M9 and bought it. Now having spent the money for the camera and the lenses I want to use with it, and having spent some time to learn to use it, I can say without a doubt that if I could only have one camera, I'd sell everything else in a heartbeat. It suits me perfectly and is a tool worth every penny I've put into it. It is no toy, not to me anyway. It is just a camera, in the end, but it's price means it's not something I choose to spend money for without very careful consideration and deliberation. I have NO interest in a B&W only digital camera, at whatever price. I want to do very high quality B&W, and I don't want to be limited by a B&W only camera. G -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
