Assuming perfect lenses it doesn't improve that much. I can say right now my lenses and the K20D sensor are better than my technique will show.

On 5/20/2012 1:50 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
On May 20, 2012, at 9:56 AM, Boris Liberman wrote:

I remember a long time ago, before digital kicked in, an article on the web 
that maintained that by shooting hand-held most of alleged advantages of 
low-sensitivity high-res film and big MTF rating lenses are negated.

You appear to support the idea that this thesis is still valid.
It would be interesting to see how much difference hand held versus tripod 
makes with studio flash, or with speedlight.

Final conclusion: for my work, K-5 isn't going to help much, if at
all. Jury is still out on if D800E would really shake my world either.
I need to investigate further -- probably rent one. I do have an
acquaintance with one; maybe I can borrow that.
At ISO 100  I'm not sure much anything will make a bid difference.  I'm sure 
that someone good with math could look at the MTF of different lenses, 
translate that into resolution at APS or 24x36 sensor sizes , and come up with 
a maximum effective resolution for that lens.  One of the things that Kennyboy 
said that seemed to make sense on his site is that one of the biggest advantage 
of larger sensor sizes (or larger film) is that the lens doesn't have to be as 
sharp to have a sharper final image.  He didn't mention whether it costs more 
for a full frame lens with 100 lines per mm resolution than it does for an aps 
lens with 140 lines per mm (or whatever the typical is).

Note that when I'm working in the studio, the ultimate, best, resolution is not 
my number one goal.  I'm concerned with lighting, composition, maybe depth of 
field as an artistic element, or to make focusing less critical, and I'm just 
assuming that things will be sharp enough.  I didn't even check to see what 
lens I used for the shots you asked for.   However, it's my general feeling 
that pretty much any lens in the f/10 to f/16 range is working in it's sweet 
spot, and if you are looking at just sharpness it may be tough to tell a kit 
lens from an FA77.


I am thinking that the only true IQ advantage of K-5 above its peers (K20D or 
K-7) is that of sensor dynamic range (and 14-bit RAW too). It simply allows you 
for more flexibility when you set up your light or when you process your images 
afterwards. If this is of little importance to you then indeed from pure IQ 
point of view K-5 does not offer anything on top of, say K20D.
If you are always going to use flash, and they're going to throw enough photons 
that you can always use base ISO, the advantages of the K-5 versus the K20 are 
more along the lines of focus speed, bigger viewfinder, how it fits in your 
hand, buffer size, ability to use Live View on the tripod for manual focusing 
on static images, a focus assist light and so forth.

If I were an even bigger geek than I am, it would be fun to set up a test, 
using multiple cameras, lenses, tripods, lights and test the resolving power of 
different setups and see what it takes to get the ultimate sharpness in the 
studio.  However, since I do have a life outside of photography, I just don't 
see myself having the time and resources to do such a test.


--
Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est







--
Don't lose heart!  They might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a 
lengthily search.


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