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Canon has introduced the 6D, a new 20-megapixel, full-frame DSLR intended to slot into the line below the popular 5D Mark III but above the top APS-C model.
Its specs and price are roughly similar to the older but still available 5D Mark II, which it is likely to replace in Canon's lineup. Photo.net has a nice comparison chart here.
It also offers some interesting refinements, most notably built-in Wi-Fi and GPS. Those are expensive options on the 5D Mark III. For videographers, in has 1080p HD video at 30fps.
Years ago, I heard it said that Japanese companies generally only pay serious and close attention to their main Japanese rivals. So, Toyota doesn't really care what Hyundai or Chrysler are doing; it cares what Honda and Nissan are doing. Nikon and Canon have fit that stereotype pretty well for years. Although each have products—and each product has features—the opponent doesn't, they're still very much like two fighters in a ring, each eyeing the other intently.
Accordingly, the 6D is Canon's answering jab to the D600. They're both very close in size, although the Canon shaves off just enough, especially in the weight department, to kill Nikon's days-old claim that its D600 is the "smallest and lightest" full-frame DSLR. In practice they'll both be touted as "small" or "compact" for full-frame, but they're really cruiserweights, especially to anyone acclimated to mirrorless.
The Nikon promises better autofocus, and has a built-in flash for triggering slaved off-camera flash units or for fill-flash in sunlight. Neither has an articulated viewing screen.
The 6D is probably aimed anyone upgrading from an older original 5D, or for any Canon fan who's been itching to get into full-frame but holding back because of the age of the 5D Mark II and the cost of the Mark III. Or for anyone who just wants a no-nonsense, workhorse camera with the typical full-frame advantages of a relatively big, bright viewfinder and the restoration of accustomed angles of view of legacy 35mm focal lengths.
The 6D's 20 MP is close enough to the D600's 24 that pixel peepers are unlikely to detect any consistent difference, but it's certainly a wash with the Mark III's 22 MP. It's a newer sensor, said to do a little better in the lowest light.
The price on both, slated to be a little above $2k, is a disappointment to some enthusiasts, who were hoping one or the other of these new FF models would break the $1,500 barrier. Not close yet. Still, the prices of both cameras seem eminently reasonable considering the ample goodness on offer.
The Canon 6D is available for pre-order from B&H Photo, both body-only and bundled with the 24–105mm ƒ/4 IS USM L lens (a better lens than the D600's kitted lens, frankly).
Mike
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Featured Comment by Doug: "Slightly off-topic, but I found it interesting what Canon didn't introduce. There were no refreshes for Canon's aging 'enthusiast' APS-C models. The 7D is three years old, the 60D is two years old, and the sensor that they share has been surpassed by the competition. In some regards, both cameras have been surpassed by the 'lowly' Rebel T4i (650D). Does the 6D serve notice that Canon's enthusiast DSLRs will henceforth be full-frame?"
Mike replies: A interesting concept, but I doubt it, because of the 10 EF-S lenses I count in Canon's current lens lineup. (Hope I counted right.) Also, the lowest cost APS-C camera currently available is the T3i at $549, and that's a long way from the lowest cost FF.
Featured Comment by Brad Calkins: "I wonder how many of us would have guessed 10 years ago that enthusiants would someday consider a $2000+ body as 'reasonable'? :-) I know my threshold on what I'm willing to spend on a body or lens has been steadily creeping up over the years, until I finally snapped when I realized I was starting to consider spending $2100 on a body and $1500 on a lens. Hello Micro 4/3! While I'd love to have one of these FF bodies, hard to justify—for me at least!"
Mike replies: 'I feel ya,' as the cool kids say (my son hates it when I try to speak hipster). But consider also that in 2002, the very first Canon with a full-frame sensor came out (the 1Ds). It was also the first Canon with a two-digit megapixel count (11.4), and it cost $8,000. This Canon gives you nearly double the pixel count for very close to 1/4th the price. What you're willing to spend might be creeping up, but the cost of the technology has been creeping down, too.
[A tip of the hat to dpreview's "Camera Timeline" here.]
Featured [partial] Comment by Tom Bell: "I have just spent a few days on a great photography refresher in Cornwall U.K....concentrating on only using Manual mode. Wonderful. I was enjoying my Pentax K5...but my other 'student' had a Nikon D800 and the really remarkable thing to me was the viewfinder. Mine is acceptable but the FF viewfinder was like being back with my LX...and as I get older I realise that reviewers are all young, because the viewfinder difference, whilst mentioned, really does not get the attention it deserves."
Is this true? I just noticed that Amazon is listing the new Nikon D600
That would be a change from recent industry trends, to have a hot new mainstream camera available within mere days of its announcement.
And B&H Photo lists it as "In Stock" too.
I guess the D600's are here already, folks.
Mike
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Featured Comment by Dave Stewart: "Even better news for potential U.K. purchasers, as opposed to those who pre-ordered, is that the price on Amazon U.K. has dropped
The windmill I am currently tilting at is trying to get people to stop misusing the term "dynamic range" when they are talking about the exposure range of their camera. Last week I explained how real exposure ranges can be somewhat less than the dynamic range of the sensor. This week I'll explain how the exposure range can be significantly greater than the dynamic range.
Fig. 1. These four squares illustrate how a sensor responds to low levels
of light. In an imaginary world photons rain down uniformly, so any
exposure level less than one photon per pixel comes out pure black,
because you can't have fractional amounts of a photon. This also
means you can't record any intermediate gray levels between zero and
one photons or between one and two photons per pixel.
Most Internet musings on the subject of sensor behavior and image characteristics don't have anything to do with the way the real, physical world works. Most notably, almost all the discussions of exposure range, number of gray levels recorded, and so on, imagine a uniform, noiseless world that is far removed from reality. In their mythical universe, figure 1 shows what happens when you expose a sensor to very low light levels, starting with perfect blackness (zero photons per pixel) on the left, up to one photon per pixel on the right. Axiomatically, you can't subdivide photons, so everything remains pitch black until you reach a level of one photon per pixel, and then suddenly you see a signal. Similarly, although not illustrated here, the next jump in response occurs when you reach a level of two photons per pixel; 1.5 photons per pixel just doesn't mean anything.
Right?
That's a rhetorical question. You know I'm going to tell you it's wrong. And here's why.
Counting statistics. In the real world, when the exposure works out to an overall flux of one photon per pixel, we don't actually get one photon per pixel. Light doesn't come in a uniform rain of photons. One photon is only the average. What actually happens is the likelihood of any one pixel seeing some number of photons follows something called a Poisson distribution. (Wikipedia will tell you more than you probably want to know about this). In reality, equal numbers of pixels receive either one or zero photons, totalling about 75% of all pixels. About 1/5 of the pixels will see two photons. About a sixteenth will see three, and lesser fractions four or more photons.
Fig. 2. In the real world, photons arrive randomly, obeying Poisson
statistics. This figure illustrates what a 10x10 array of pixels
might see when exposed to different levels of light—0, 0.25, 0.5
and 1 photon/pixel, average.
I've illustrated this in figures 2 and 3. Figure 2 shows 10x10 cells of pixels, highly magnified, so you can see the way Poisson distributions look. For figure 3 I tiled bunches of these together so you'd see something at 100% scale, like in a real photograph, instead of much-magnified. (These illustrations will be easier to see if you click on them to open the larger versions.) The tiling's why you see fine repeating patterns in figure 3. In real life those wouldn't be there, but I wasn't about to hand draw 100,000 pixels!
Fig. 3. The same light distributions as in figure 2, but now you're
looking at 160 x 160 pixel zones, to better simulate the visual
appearance of a real photograph. Ignore any repetitive fine textures;
that's caused by me tiling the zones in figure 2 to fill the large
areas.
Overall, seen from a distance, the 0-photon and one-photon-per-pixel zones in figures 1 and 3 look very similar. No surprise, there. Figure 3 looks grainy, because there is a mix of pixels with different numbers of photons. This is one of those places where having more pixels unequivocally wins out over having fewer; the grain gets finer.
The import of this statistical noise is that you can distinguish several levels of gray between integral-photon illuminances (see last week's column). In particular it means you can record light levels below the single-photon-average threshold of the detector. Suppose you set the exposure so that there is an average of only 1/2 photon per pixel. You don't get solid black, as the armchair "experts" imagine. A plurality of pixels do indeed see no photons, but a minority see one photon, and a small fraction see two. The resulting photograph will be grainy, but on average it will appear to be a darker tone than the one-photon picture and it will be usably lighter than solid black.
Even a 1/4 photon-per-pixel exposure produces a visibly-lighter-than-black tone, although it's getting marginal. Our original "10 stop dynamic range" sensor clearly has a real, useful exposure range greater than 11 stops, as you can see my illustrations.
Even mixing in the intrinsic system noise that I discussed last time doesn't necessarily wipe this out, as figure 4 illustrates. It gets harder to see the distinct zones, but they're still visible. Again, the more pixels you have to work with, the clearer the distinctions between tones.
Fig. 4. Toss in a moderate amount of system noise and you've got an
approximation of real photography. The tones are grainy but distinct
from pure black, even at the 0.25 photons per pixel level.
So, now you know that dynamic range may happen to match exposure range. Or, it's going to be better. Or worse. And sometimes the difference will be very significant.
As I said last week, my gripe derives from the fact that we had a useful and accurate term that was widely understood, and a bunch of semi-informed neologists decided to replace it with a more techie-sounding but incorrect and inaccurate term.
There's a very simple fix to this. Just stop saying "dynamic range." You're never actually talking about that; what you are talking about and interested in is "exposure range." Just start saying that, OK? I try to always do this, and so far no one has ever written to me saying, "I don't understand what you mean by exposure range." Trust me, no one will misunderstand you.
Next time I'm going to explain to you how Raw data isn't really all that "raw."
Ctein
Columnist Ctein illumines the darkness every Wednesday on TOP.
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We were having too much fun yesterday to even get to all the other new cameras we haven't mentioned yet. And that was without even broaching the subject of the Ive One-Off. Many readers were anxious to tell me about that (and of course I do appreciate tips, even ones I don't use, and thank you, thank you for caring). Seems that Jonathan Ive, head design honcho of Apple Computer, will be designing his own version of the Leica M camera. Leica will then manufacture one (that's not a typo; I didn't leave off the "hundred" or the "thousand" by mistake) and auction it off for charity.
Fine, but one question: what does that have to do with me? I guess I like Jonathan Ive as much as the next guy—well, the next Apple user, since PC users have a glowering antipathy to all things Jobsian that don't have to do with animated toys, cars, or fish—but I wouldn't care about Ive at all if they had only built one iPhone or one iMac.
Right: Sir Jonathan Paul Ive, KBE, Senior VP of Industrial Design at Apple
The whole point of design to me is that designers work really hard to create something really nice, and then whoever employs them builds loads of them, and I can have one. At the other extreme is exclusivity, which is the idea that the fewer there are of anything the more exalted and set apart you are for owning one, and my insight is that I am eccentric enough already without trying to further distinguish myself from my fellow human beings on purpose. I have a dim idea that exclusivity is very important in haute couture (that's French for "high sewing," but it sounds better if you leave it in French—it means "fashion"). For instance to female movie stars, because it is very important to, say, Nicole Kidman that she not show up at the Oscars wearing the same dress as Katie Holmes, or whomever the Scientologists assign to Tom Cruise next. But then again, all the male movie stars essentially wear the same suit to the Oscars anyway, so even that doesn't apply. (If I went, I'd wear jeans, like my onetime acquaintance Larry McMurtry did.)
I'm feeling vaguely dizzy. This always happens when I allow my mind to flirt with the tractor beams at the edge of the vortex of pop culture's celebrity obsession.
Okay. I'm feeling wordy this morning. Verbose. Prolix.
(Warning: beyond the break, prolixity continueth. Click through at thy own risk. Oh, and there's nothing at all about the Canon 6D, either...I'll try to correct for all this misdirected effort later today.)
"Hasselbling"
-
(Wish I could take credit. Coined by Mike Chisholm, not me. This is the only other use of the term I could find [warning, shield your eyes].)
-
Mike
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Featured Comment by Mikal W. Grass: "Gross. I just went blind."
Mike replies: Made me laugh.
Featured Comment by Daniel R. Fealko: "Geesh, Mike, that warning to shield my eyes should have been in large bold font and underlined! Please, for God's sake, don't trick me like that again!"
Featured Comment by Peter S: "In case you haven't seen it, there's already a more moderately priced alternative: The Lensrentals Looney, available for only $4,500."
The antipanda M-E: The M9 re-purposed as the
"stripped-down" budget model
The Leica M
In a giant party at Photokina, Leica has announced that it will build a new camera for delivery early in 2013. It's a successor to the M9, but it's not an M10.
It's the "M."
Not only that: Leica also says that all Leica rangefinder-type cameras from now on will be called the "M." Just "M." I guess that's so that only initiates into the Secret Rites will know which model is which. (Either that, or there will never be any future models beyond the one coming in 2013. No, I suppose that isn't it.) It will be sort of like knowing the points of first editions, I guess.
I've been critical of many camera naming protocols (picking on Canon especially), so I look forward to lampooning Leica's affectations, also at some point in the future. (I laugh my evil laugh.)*
One thing this will do is completely screw up the established convention of referring to all the Leica M's—the whole line, from the M3 of 1953 to the M9—as "the Leica M."
Don't you hate it when the newsreader editorializes, and doesn't just give the news? OK, the news: The M10 (rats, no, just "M") will be along in 2013, quite possibly, and will have a 24-MP CMOS sensor made by the Belgian company CMOSIS. It will also have live view and focus peaking. That will be great for people who own R lenses, because you'll be able to slap an R lens on your M10 (rats again) and focus it. It will also accept the EVF that goes on the little fixed lens mirrorless camera of theirs, the name of which I can never remember. (X2.)
Of course, live view and focus peaking and an optional EVF also sort of takes it a lot closer to a conventional mirrorless camera and relegates the optical rangefinder, which after all is the whole raison d'être of the M concept, a whole lot closer to irrelevance—doesn't it?
Must be for the M user who is just pining to be able to make his RF camera into a passable imitation of an ordinary DSLR.
Sorry, I am being a rogue. The new features will allow options for shooters that will doubtless be very helpful and useful. (And anyway, aren't I the guy who always says you should never slam a camera until you try it?)
The new Leica M-only body will be weatherproof, too, which is great news.
The Leica M-E
Meanwhile, the M9 will continue in the lineup, more or less, but it will now be called the M-E (remember the R-E? I liked that camera. The "budget" R5). It will be a stripped down economy model that will reportedly sell for only $5,450.
OK. And how is it that someone will want a last-generation super-expensive luxury product but not mind foregoing the status of owning the good model? And who both really wants to spend $5,450 on a camera widely understood to be a status symbol but also wants to broadcast to the world the fact that he's too cheap to spend an additional $1,500? Doesn't make sense to me. Being not in the target demographic, I concede that maybe I'm not supposed to get this.
At least Porsche has the decency to charge more for its superlight 911, which has all sorts of parts taken out. That way the buyer can feel good about getting less.
The M-E sure is cool, though, with its "partial antipanda" looks. Always liked Leica antipandas. (In Leicaspeak, panda means silver with black knobs. Black with silver knobs is the anti-.)
The Leica S
Meanwhile, the Leica S2 (perfectly sensible name) got a minor upgrade and will now only be called the "S." This name crap is making me unhappy, so let's move on.
Hasselblad
...To something that makes me even more unhappy. Along with the gruesome spectacle of the decline of Kodak, we are also being forced to witness the decline of Hasselblad. Whoever and whatever Hasselblad now is—I've had to avert my gaze—those responsible have decided to put out some digital cameras clad in ultra-"luxurious" casings of rare woods and gold and so forth.
Does anyone remember the name—model, make—of Andrew Wyeth's car? (Hugh?) It was some one-off, super-deluxe, overbuilt, extremely expensive, jump-the-shark wannabee luxo cruiser that was being offered at the time as a super-status-mobile, before sinking 'neath the waves. I think Wyeth was given one, as a prize or an award, and he said he liked it because he'd park it on a hillside in the Brandywine countryside somewhere with the motor running, turn up the heater, and then sit on the roof sketching or painting while dangling his legs through the sunroof into the toasty interior to keep his toes warm. Whatever that car was—I can't remember—the new Hasselblad horrors remind me of it.
No pictures. Please.
Mike
*P.S. I think Kevin P. called it in the Comments: Somebody else probably already owned the rights to "M10," and either wouldn't sell or license it or asked too high a price.
ADDENDUM: About the car, it finally came to me: It was a Stutz Blackhawk, a luxo-frankenmobile sold from '71 through '87 that had a custom Italian body on a GM chassis and drivetrain. Jalopnik said of it that it "would make even a pimp cringe":
Evel Knievel and Lucille Ball owned one, and Elvis had three, one with red leather and interior trim of real gold. The pictures above are from an Elvis website, although this wasn't one of Elvis's cars.
I even found a picture of Andrew Wyeth with his at Chadd's Ford, being offered as a print on Ebay by a seller called sirryan:
Although you can't see it in any of these pictures they had a spare tire in a housing mounted on top of the trunklid.
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Featured Comment by Slobodan Blagojevic: "New Leica naming policy? Not new at all. Car manufactures have been doing it for decades. Camry, Accord, Passat.... Able to distinguish them only by release year. So, the new Leica M will be known as 'Leica M, model 2013,' or, affectionately, M-13?"
Mike replies: True, but there's a very strong convention of distinguishing car models by year of introduction, which the car companies go along with in the model introductions. But in your "affectionately" lies the rub: now it will likely be up to individuals to decide how to distinguish one M from another, and, most probably, different people will do it lots of different ways, like the five or six nonstandard ways people refer to or abbreviate "Micro Four-Thirds." My guess is that it will just be an added annoyance.
Featured Comment by John Robison: "Hmm, just 'M' you say. Wasn't that a famous Fritz Lang film with Peter Lorre about a child murderer? Or the head of British secret service in the Bond films? I guess somebody will bring it to Leica's attention. After all they were the company that got all bent out of shape at the 1972 Photokina when Olympus introduced the M1."
Questions from Bryan Willman: "So, would the first sane person to lay hands on a 2013-M please look through the rangefinder part and tell me:
"It could be, is implied by one or two weird sentences, that this camera has a startling advance in the rangefinder window. But there's so much nonsense about historic crap that you cannot tell. First M-mount camera I've ever seen announced without framelines listed....?!?"
Answer (to question #1) from Jonas Yip: "The framelines on the M(10) are illuminated with an LED instead of the illumination window."
Mike adds, to Slobodan: Note that just in these few comments here, we've already had "M-13," "2013-M," and "M(10)." See what I mean?
Featured Comment by Michel: "If I purchase my Hassy through one of your links will you issue a retraction? ;-)"
Mike replies: Yes.
Featured Comment by Jeff: "Well, I was considering a 5DIII to supplement my M8.2 for bad weather and use of longer lenses if the new M didn't serve those needs. And my wish list for the new M also included 2m frame lines like the M8.2, a quieter shutter sound (without the obnoxious re-cocking noise) and the Maestro processor (as in the S) for better processing than the M9. It seems I got all five wishes. That never happens when I really want some features in a new camera. They can now call it Shirley for all I care."
[Ed. Note: The following two comments came in one right after the other in the order they're presented. I didn't juxtapose them for effect.]
Featured Comment by Kenneth Tanaka: "Since I made no note of the Leica announcements earlier a fellow TOP reader asked privately what I thought of the M, knowing that I'm a Leica user.
"Frankly, on pure specs I think the M is probably a remarkable piece of engineering. No, there's nothing in it that isn't already widely available in many far less costly cameras. In fact yes, Leica is very late in offering such features in its products.
"But, jeez, pinch me. Live ttl view with focus peaking, an EVF accessory, and video in basically the same container that Cartier-Bresson (and countless other 20th century greats) used for their work? All in response to the demands of customers. How many other brands can you name that have made such an effort? How many other brands have survived to make such an effort?
"So will I buy an M? I don't know and am in no particular hurry to know. My use of Leica cameras has waned as other sharper and more versatile tools have become abundant. All that really counts is the image; the tool is only a footnote in service to that end. Nevertheless as a photographer who respects and enjoys good photographic tools I am eager to begin seeing reliable hands-on vanguard reports and perhaps even taking one for a spin.
"Aren't you?"
Featured Comment by ch: "I'm at the end of the road with Leica. I have used film Leicas for years. My MP is still my go-to film camera. I bit on the M8. Pricey, good sensor, but frankly just a pain-in-the-ass to use. Plus—it was LOUD. My film Leicas just have a quiet 'snick' when the shutter is released. The M8 had a loud mechanical snap and whir. Plus the crop factor. WTF? All that good Leica glass being wasted. And don't get me started about having to buy UV/IR filters so my pictures weren't magenta.
"Used it a year. Got some good stuff with it. But I never bonded with it. So I sold it.
"Then the M9 came out. In a weak moment, I succumbed. Rationalized the purchase because of my stash of good Leica glass. The full frame thing was nice. Incredibly good digital files—when I got the shot. But another ergonomic and usability basket case. Kept it a year. Now it is gone.
"Now the M is out. I am going to pass. Got a D800 and even though the glass can't match what Leica makes, it is less than half the price, and with 36 megapixels and some Zeiss glass on it, it will kick the M's ass around the block. Plus it is easy to use. Has a flash system. In fact, it is a full system. And I get the shot 95% of the time.
"The digital Leica is like the Morgan motor car. Beautiful in some respects, idiosyncratic in design and construction, but ultimately only appreciated fully by a few well-heeled collectors.
"But, I still love my MP with the 50 'Lux and my M3 with the Noct. I'm going to keep those along with a 35 'Cron and keep shooting film in them. While it lasts."
Difficult to give a sense of scale with an online picture; the camera
body is only 4 1/4 inches (108mm) wide. Or try this.
Amazon's Deal of the Day today is the Panasonic Lumix GF3 and 14–42mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 O.I.S. (optical image stabilization) kit lens
The GF3 is a very tiny 12-MP camera with a touch screen but no other viewfinder.
While supplies last or until midnight, whichever comes first.
Mike
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Featured Comment by Benjamin R. George: "It's worth noting that Amazon's non-deal-of-the-day price for the black Olympus E-PL1 with lens
The new Micro 4/3 Panasonic GH3 is literally
DSLR-sized, but its fans won't mind.
Pre-Photokina has brought an avalanche of new cameras this morning, most of them "refreshments"—updated versions of existing designs.
However, many of those updates are for important and popular camera models. Leading this category are the Panasonic GH3 and the Canon S110. The latter is an update of the bestselling S90/S95/S100
In my recent queries asking about which small cameras people loved best, the Panasonic GH2 came through as a particular favorite of those who use it. After a long wait, Panasonic has announced the GH3. The camera has grown, and solidifies its appeal to videographers. They became the biggest fans of the GH2 over its lifetime.
Photographer-side view of the Canon G15
Also updated is the venerable Canon G series, with the G15. This is an ancient line in the digital world, dating from the early 2000s when the category was hotly competitive. Since its reintroduction, the G-series has seemed to follow fashions rather than trying to optimize features in one camera. This time, it gains a faster lens but loses the articulated viewing screen. It's nice that this useful sole-survivor model hasn't succumbed to the advent of the larger-sensor variant, the G1X
Will the new Pen Lite inherit some of the E-M5's IQ goodness?
For its part, Olympus has updated its Pen series with the Pen E-PL5 and E-PM2. Having shot with the OM-D for a couple of months now, I can say with feeling that the best thing about it is its image quality. If the new smaller and less expensive Pens get some of that good IQ trickling down from above, it will be a very good thing.
There's some exciting news in the world of printers, too—Canon's leading consumer model the Pro-1 (review in progress) has spawned Pro-10 (pigment) and Pro-100 (dye) spinoffs. Check Imaging-Resource for the skinny.
And speaking of that, I know that our readers who are passionate about new cameras are off at the big camera review sites like Imaging-Resource and Dpreview today, which is after all as it should be. Nevertheless, I'll follow this later on (more likely tomorrow morning) with a few thoughts about the several all- or mostly-new cameras that hove into view today.
Mike
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Charlie Haden and Hank Jones at the "Come Sunday" sessions. Photo
courtesy Emarcy Records.
I love music listening—that's all I do, by intent, listen—and I've been an "audiophile" (for some definition of that contentious term) for most of my life—all of my adult life. I'm not a nut about it. Every seven to fifteen years, finances and patience permitting, I revamp my stereo system into something a bit more tolerable than it was, then I fuggedabboudit. When I lived in Woodstock in the late '90s, I actually took out a bank loan to buy a new stereo. It's that important to me.
I've been in the midst of that periodic upgrade recently, and I'm pleased to say it's been going well. I had a great room in Woodstock (best ever) and I have a bad room now, but I've been hearing better sound recently than I've ever had before.
What touched this all off is that my previous system had two sources, one old and one new: vinyl and computer USB audio. But the bare-bones approach I used—it was based around a headphone amplifier as a preamp—was limited to CD-quality resolution for the computer audio. And I wanted to experiment with HD audio.
Surprisingly, perhaps, one of the best upgrades in this whole process has been one of the cheapest. Accordingly, I have a recommendation for you, but I have to warn you, it comes at the end of this post, and it's a bit of a trek to get there...
Seller "2raccoons" is offering this postcard of the interior of a pharmacy / photography store, sent from Michigan to Vermont 102 years ago. Go to the sale page to see more closeups of the cameras and photo products on offer 102 years ago (or if you want to own the original).
(Click on image to see a larger version)
By the way, the Battle Creek Sanitarium (they coined the word) was a health and wellness retreat run by two brothers whose surname you might recognize, John Harvey Kellogg and W.K. (Will Keith) Kellogg. Health and wellness...ironic, huh? (But if you eat "natural" Kashi at your breakfast table, like we do, don't be smug—it's owned by Kellogg.)
The Sanitarium must have attracted upscale patients—the cameras in that case are much nicer than box Brownies.
Mike
(Thanks to Stan B.)
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O. Winston Link, Hotshot, Eastbound, Iaeger, West Virginia.
The plane is probably a Korean-war-era Sabre.
So would you call the following an O. Winston Link link, or just an O. Winston link? I think you could get away with the latter, because what photography buff wouldn't know who you were talking about if you just said O. Winston?
Anyway, CNN World has posted a set of pictures. (That's the Link link.) Not too well prepared for the web, perhaps—but if you're unfamiliar with Link, be sure to read Elizabeth I. Johnson's short but informative little writeup at the link. (Click "Story" if it doesn't come up when you go there.) Now there's a strobist! Though not a Strobist.
These pictures really don't cut it as tiny, pale JPEGs surrounded by visual clutter—but that's all the more reason to try to make it to the exhibit that the presentation supports, at the Link Museum (101 Shenandoah Ave., Roanoke, Va. 24016, 540/982-5465) starting November 9th.
His pictures also capture '50s Americana like a fly in amber. Like the one up top. I love his interiors—they're like microcosms.
And what does the show support? The publication of a new book of Link's remarkable and all but unique body of work. (David Plowden is the only one I know of who's come close.) The book is called O. Winston Link: Life Along the Line: A Photographic Portrait of America's Last Great Steam Railroad
Hmm. My library doesn't have a Link title. I'll be anxious to hear how the reproductions are in this book—good reproduction is as key for O. Winston as it is for Yousuf. You know who I'm talking about.
Mike
(Thanks to Deb B)
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Featured Comment by Mike Plews: "I love OWL. He was the living proof of the adage that 'anything worth doing is worth overdoing.' I too hope the quality of this book is up to snuff."
Featured Comment by Bill Mitchell: "That's my favorite small museum in the whole world."
Question from Paris: "I've always wondered how Link got the F-86 perfectly framed on the screen at the precise instant the train went by. Photoshop?"
...Answered in this Comment by Kevin Purcell: "I've wondered whether the aircraft image on the screen was captured live in one shot. I've heard it claimed that was the case and that it was just lucky timing that they got an aircraft (in the Yule documentary [mentioned in Kevin's other comment —Ed.]) but it seems not to be the case:
His timing was perfect—he wrote of being able to see only the locomotive's distant headlight coming down the tracks—but it wasn't enough. The explosion of light washed out what was on the movie screen at the moment; he had to print the image of the plane from a negative he'd made separately of that night's showing. The film, Battle Taxi, has been forgotten. But Link's picture holds up as a one-frame narrative of 20th-century transportation.
"It seems OWL really did want to make a statement about the future, the present and past of 1950s America in a single photograph."
Featured Comment by Charlie Dunton: ""The CNN piece makes it seem like this exhibit is temporary, and maybe some part tied to the new book is, but the museum has on permanent display between 250 and 300 16x20" silver prints. They are displayed in a fantastic space and there are texts for just about every print that give the backstory. I try and get here at least once a year.
"Several years ago the museum had some 16x20 estate prints of Link's work for sale at the museum (no longer available—this image was $4,000). The drive-in image was described in the brochure as his most famous. Some other facts about the image from the brochure: The movie was 'Battle Taxi,' about the Korean War. The couple are sitting in Link's car, a '52 Buick that appears in a number of other photos he made. The setup for the shot was one of his largest, requiring 42 No. 2 bulbs and 1 No. 0 (on the couple). You can see the backs of the reflectors near the train. And perhaps most interesting from a photographic perspective, the shot required two negatives—one without flash to capture the image on the movie screen, and one with flash for the overall exposure. According to the sale brochure, the two negatives were printed on a single sheet of paper from which a copy negative was made for subsequent printing.
"There is a wall-mural-size print of this in the museum with the challenge to find the five modes of transportation depicted in the image. I've never actually felt I had the answer."
...Answered in this Comment by Dennis Mook: "I had the pleasure of meeting Link, seeing and discussing his work with him long before he became popular. A very interesting man. He was a N.Y. commerical photographer by profession and did his highly technical night steam engine photography as a personal project. I hold much admiriation for his vision and his skill.
"His wife not only stole and sold his photographs, but kept him as a virtual prisoner and isolated from his friends and the public during this period. Luckily, much of his work was recovered in a storage facility in, I believe, Pennsylvania.
"About the photo you present, there are five forms of transportation shown in the photograph: airplane, train, automobile, truck and bicycle. See if you can find them all.
"I agree with you about David Plowden. I have most of his books and he captures the fast disappearing infrastructure of America like no other.
"I can highly recommend Link's two books, Steam, Steel & Stars
Featured Comment by John Camp: "I've got three Link prints, and I've always found them a little embarrassing as a guy who tends to like Modernism...there's just so much going on in all of them. It's not like you contemplate them, really; they're like walking through a room and glancing at a TV set. Notice in the above photo those little black dots along the tracks—that's the back side of the flash stands. You'll see them in most Link photos. My favorite photo of his is the one of the people in the ol' swimming hole with the train going overhead. If you go to this link and click on the photo, you can see a big version of it.
"Link, by the way, did not do limited editions, and you can buy silver prints for very reasonable prices; although some would suggest he was not a world-class printer."
So here's the backstory. In about 1972 (I'm assuming aficionados will correct any facts my bokeh [blurry] memory gets wrong), Zeiss, the #1 cameramaker in Germany (yes, sorry, Leica fans, but Leica was historically #2, Avis to Zeiss's Hertz, Pepsi to Zeiss's Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz to Zeiss's BMW, etc.), stopped making cameras. It attempted to form an alliance with a company from Japan, and first tried Asahi (now known by its brand name Pentax), where it was involved in the design of the Pentax K-mount and in the co-development of Pentax's SMC and Zeiss's T* multicoatings. But that alliance faltered, and Zeiss formed a more lasting alliance with Yashica. The two partners decided to distinguish their joint products by bestowing on them a famous old Zeiss model name, and Contax was born.
In another affiliation that would last, Yashica engaged Porsche Design, then a separate company related but not affiliated to the carmaker, to design its first Contax camera, the RTS (for Real Time System). Meanwhile, Zeiss had the responsibility for creating the lenses. For this, it reached back to the designs for its Contarex series of 35mm SLRs.
The leading cameramaker by that time was indisputably Nikon, and Nikon F lenses were vying with Germany's best in many ways. Since lens speed (maximum f-stop) at that time was still crucially important, Nikon in many focal lengths was offering fully three choices of lens speed, also segregated by quality: mid-level, middle-speed lenses for what we now call consumers; a budget level of slow lenses mostly made to be inexpensive; and the fastest lenses, into which it poured the best of its know-how and manufacturing expertise. Although fast lenses were and are more difficult to design and build than slower lenses, and, "all things being equal," will not perform as well as slower lenses, that was the age of photojournalism, when the pinnacle of the photographic profession to the world's amateurs was the dashing globe-trotting photojournalist, and pj's and other pros needed fast lenses and had the money to spend on them. So Nikon's fastest lenses were also their most expensive and in many cases their best.
This was the ground upon which Zeiss/Contax had to compete. It naturally wanted to vie with Nikon by offering superfast, super-high-quality lenses, but the people at Yashica and/or Zeiss also realized that the new marque would fail if the only lenses offered were expensive, big, and heavy. So they opted to fill in the line with a series of slow, economical alternatives.
So when I got into photography in a serious way in 1980 (another story for another day), Contax offered a large, heavy, expensive, fast glass in the 35mm moderate-wide-angle and 85mm moderate-telephoto focal lengths. I eventually bought the 85mm ƒ/2.8 Sonnar T* and the 35mm ƒ/2.8 Distagon T*.
I found them generally too slow. Note that I was shooting mostly Plus-X, a nominally ASA 125-speed film that I shot at E.I. 80. With a K2 yellow filter that cut out an additional 2/3 to 1 stop of light. (To those of you young enough to find that foreign, I felt the same way when I was young about tales of people who shot Kodachrome ASA 10. It has one nice side effect: I'm still impressed that digital cameras can shoot at ISO 1600, and don't get into the pixel-peeper wars over ultra-high ISOs.)
So next I tried the famous Planar T* 85mm ƒ/1.4. I loved it—any geek enamored of lenses could not help but be starstruck by its gleaming expanses of glass—but I discovered a curious psychological phenomenon: for the intimate, "plain" portraits that I was doing at the time, it wasn't as suitable, because I found it tended to intimidate my sitters. A young teenaged girl explained it to me succinctly: she said it made her feel "stared at," and like the camera was going to see every pore and pimple and imperfection on her face. "Like a giant eye," she said. Bingo.
The petite, unintimidating, affordable Contax 85mm Sonnar T*.
(Photo snitched from an eBay auction.*)
Lesson learned. But I still needed something a bit faster than my ƒ/2.8 Sonnar. So I figured I'd just wait for the Contax ƒ/2 middle-tier lenses to come out. It was bound to happen; Zeiss had had an 85mm ƒ/2 and 35mm ƒ/2 for the Contarexes, and Nikon had a 35mm ƒ/2 and an 85mm ƒ/2 in its by-then-current lineup of AIS Nikkors. It had been, by that time, ten or twelve years since the RTS. How long could it take? I'd just wait.
So I waited. And waited. And waited.
(As an aside, second lesson learned: never, ever, ever wait around for a vaporware lens to materialize. Make sure the camera you want has the lenses you need for your work available now—right now—such that you can buy what you need immediately and replace it easily if it's lost or stolen. Waiting and hoping for future products is a fool's errand.)
And, eventually, I began to bitch about it.
You know—the sorts of complaints we're hearing far and wide across the vast parish of the 'Net about all the new stuff introduced for this year's Photokina. The D600 doesn't have a high enough sync speed!** The RX1 is too expensive!*** The K-5II doesn't offer enough over the K-5! Etc.
I'm not immune. I've been doing the same exact thing since 1985, when I realized I needed an ƒ/2 35mm and 85mm for my Contax. Human nature. Well, geek nature, at least.
But here's the thing. You don't know just how much I bitched and moaned and kvetched and kvailed about Zeiss/Contax's failure to make a 35mm ƒ/2. I switched to Nikon in '88, and have been a brand nomad ever since, but did that stop me? No. I've complained in magazines, on forums, in lectures, here, to Contax, to Zeiss, to God in prayers—pretty much anywhere I could find an audience of one or more.
I mean, I've been so insufferable about it, such a broken record, such a pain in the ass, that if I don't buy the RX1, I fully expect a ragtag band of former Contax reps and Zeiss lens designers and Kyocera product planners to show up on my doorstep and beat the crap out of me.
So I have only one question about the Sony RX1 Carl Zeiss Sonnar 2/35 T*: will it fit on my RTS II?
Mike
Coda: I was still waiting in 2005, when Kyocera, which bought Yashica in 1978, pulled the plug on Contax. Contax had very nearly foundered on the transition to AF, and became a casualty of the digital transition. Note that it had made an earlier 35mm ƒ/2, an AF lens for the G1/G2, as well as a Leica M39-mount Zeiss-designed and -branded lens for the Zeiss Ikon. No tale's perfect.*If it's yours and you want it removed, just let me know and I'll take it down.
**Sorry, David. :-)
***Exhibit 1 (note price); Exhibit 2 (note price). I'm just sayin'.
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A few of the many product introductions in advance of Photokina so far. If the product name is linked, it can be pre-ordered. The links are to B&H Photo. Note that B&H closes for Rosh Hashanah early in the afternoon of the 16th. Many items can also be pre-ordered through Amazon.com (U.S.), Amazon U.K., Amazon Germany, or Amazon Canada. (We regret that we don't have affiliations with Amazon Italy or France.)
Ordering stuff through TOP links keeps the site going (without costing you anything, n.b.), so if you order anything through our links—now or ever—many thanks!
—The Editorial One-Man Band
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Shipping as soon as the 19th of this month in limited release, Nikon's new D600 has been widely anticipated yet still is exciting. It's Nikon's smallest and most compact full-frame DSLR yet, and features a high-definition 24.3-MP CMOS sensor and a 5.5 per second frame rate, with full video capabilities and autofocus capability that Nikon is bragging about. It also has a 100% finder. At well under two pounds and more or less the same size as the D7000, the D600 becomes the cheapest full-frame DSLR you can buy. (Well, that you can buy assuming you get your order in early or are willing to wait.) Introduced this morning. $2,100.
As we were saying about the new Fuji X-E1 the other day, this is another "Goldilocks" camera, in that it's going to hit the "just right" spot for an awful lot of Nikon photographers.
Also available in a kit with the Nikkor 24–85mm ƒ/3.5-4.5G ED VR lens, $2,600.
For those who like to be a little more cutting-edge, there's Sony's super-slick new flagship DSLR, the A99. Another high-resolution 24-MP full-frame camera, the A99 adds more up-to-the-minute styling, Sony's now well-established pellicle "translucent" non-reflex mirror (that is, it doesn't flip), and Sony's leading edge electronic viewfinder. Plus, the A99 has IBIS—in-body image stabilization—for IS with any and every lens you can attach to it. And you get an articulated viewing screen, which neither the D600 nor the D800 have. The price is heftier, however: $2,800; and Sony's FF lens line is much more limited than Nikon's, so check the lens offerings first if you're new to Sony and find yourself tempted by this lovely new body. Ships at the end of October.
Pentax has brought out a refresh of its top-of-the-APS-C-line K-5, the K-5 II, which mainly features autofocus that is claimed to be considerably improved. While this will extend the life of the popular K-5, which has a class-leading sensor and a particularly compact and ergonomic form we've extolled previously, the real news is the hot-rodded Pentax K-5 IIs, a version with the anti-aliasing filter removed for superior sharpness. Pentax is recommending this version for Raw shooters and cautioning JPEG shooters to stick with the K-5 II. $1,200 for the II and $1,300 for the "s" version; available for pre-order now, for delivery in mid-October.
Inscrutable
Almost overlooked amidst the hoopla of actual products, Carl Zeiss, sphinxlike, announced that it will make and market a line of lenses for "mirrorless system cameras" in 2013, initially concentrating on prime (single focal length) wide-angle and normal lenses. Missing, so far, is any indication of which mirrorless system the lenses will be made to fit (possibly more than one?). You are therefore hereby given license to fantasize about gorgeous premium Carl Zeiss lenses made for your mirrorless camera.
Sony NEX-6 with the new ultra-compact 16–50mm stabilized zoom.
Note mode dial on top plate.
Still shooting with a NEX-3 or NEX-5? Sony's got your upgrade for you. In yet another "just right" camera offering (sensing a theme to this season's new cameras?), Sony has flourished its magic wand and in a flash of light merged the best of the lower-level viewfinderless NEX's with its mirrorless flagship NEX-7, magically making the NEX-6 appear. Really, it's a little brother to the NEX-7, but with a more modest sensor and some functionality changes. (It's "only" 16 MP—although, when I was shooting with the 24-MP A900 and the 16-MP K-5, I concluded that 16 MP was all I really needed.) And a mode dial. (I need to make up some "Real Dials Are Better" bumper stickers.)
As a side note, I was completely turned off by the NEX form-factors until I actually held a NEX-7. It might look awkward, but it fits the hand wonderfully and the EVF falls in just the perfect place for anyone who's right-eyed. Really a nice camera to hold and use. Don't make the same mistake I did and dismiss the NEX-6 because it looks a bit ungainly. As it's very similar in size and shape to the NEX-7, it won't be, take my word.
Sony also announced three new E-series lenses along with the new Nex-6. There's a compact retractable 16–50mm (24–75mm-equivalent) ƒ/3.5–5.6 that will also come bundled with the camera as a kit lens (see top picture). It weighs a mere 4.1 ounces and has OSS (Optical SteadyShot) image stabilization built in. It will cost $350 by itself (it won't be available separately for a while yet), but Sony has priced the camera and lens kit aggressively at just under $1000.
Next is a 35mm (52.5mm-e) ƒ/1.8 prime lens: 5.5 oz., OSS, and $450; and finally a 10–18mm (15–27mm-e) ƒ/4 constant-aperture super wide angle premium zoom: 8 oz. and also featuring OSS, it will retail for $850 or so when it gets here.
Speaking of lenses, Pentax Ricoh has announced this beautemous beast, a 90mm (71mm-e) ƒ/2.8 Macro lens for the 645D camera. It features SR (Shake Reduction) image stabilization and quick shifting between manual and autofocus, and it's an AW (All-Weather) lens. $4,500, available in October.
Pentax Ricoh also announced a superzoom and a super-telephoto for the K-mount system. The former is a DA 18–270mm (27.5–415mm-e) ƒ/3.5–6.3, and the latter a DA 560mm (a whopping 859mm-e) ƒ/5.6 AW; $800 and $7,000 respectively.
Come on.
Finally, the Sony WTF RX1, which some very smart people were convinced was nothing but Photoshop trickery as late as Tuesday, is indeed—we admit, improbably—an actual, real, coming product, that you can actually buy right now for delivery a few days before Christmas Eve, or so they're telling us—if you have the requisite quirky taste in cameras as well as a spare 279,800 pennies.
Now, on to the obvious question: why does this camera exist? I can offer nothing but a few lame guesses. For instance, maybe Sony wanted an answering jab to Fuji's X100; or maybe it wanted to flex its figurative bicep at the other cameramakers by creating the world's smallest full-frame digital camera by far. Or both. Or maybe someone very powerful at Sony said, "what I want is...." Or maybe it's just that the photo gods are smiling. I have no idea. But in any event, one of these will arrive at Chez TOP for a stay of a week or three just as soon as they start shipping to customers, so you can look forward to plenty more fun then.
Mike
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Featured Comment by Dennis: "You missed the single most important aspect of the NEX-6. Yes, it's like a NEX-7 (with a built in EVF), only with 16 MP and a lower price ($850 versus $1200). But best of all, Sony listened and ditched the Ericsson-designed scroll-til-you-drop menu system in favor of the 'quick navi' system that it has used on Alpha bodies (and which recently made its way to the RX100 and now the RX1). It loses tri-navi, but I'd take the NEX-6 over the NEX-7 even if they were priced identically."
Featured Comment by Craig Lee: "It is a good time to be a photography hobbyist."
Our friend Peter Turnley* is being featured at the Lens blog of the New York Times website today, along with a nice article by Jesse Newman. (At the link, be sure to click the "Full Screen" tab to view the pictures.)
The article itself appears in conjunction with a new show in Paris, "La Condition Humaine" (The Human Condition), at the Galerie Agathe Gaillard, the 12 Sept, 3 rue du Pont Louis-Philippe, Paris 75004. The exhibit will be up for one month.
I'm pleased that so many TOP readers own orginal signed Turnley prints (and that some of those who attended Peter's Paris workshops also know Agathe).
Mike
*Whose pictures of 9/11 are here, apropos the anniversary yesterday.
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Featured Comment by Jlsalvignol: "I must confess that I discovered Pete photos in TOP prints sales. I had already noticed the rigor of its perfect framing, although they are still of a great lightness. I could not imagine how it is also an implacable witness to our time. The photos of Pete combine beautifully a great elegance with sometimes the harshest realism. And they always avoids the compassionate exhibitionism that often dominates the contemporary aesthetic."
[Ed. Note: I have not edited this comment's grammar because I feel it has an integrity and a dignity that might go missing if it were rendered in S.E. Sometimes, one can feel the original language "standing behind" imperfect translations, which imparts to the ideas a freshness they might not have if they were more idiomatic and conventionally proper. That said, try reading the comment again....]
By Ctein
OK, here I go tilting at windmills again. It's just that this one bugs me. Well, they all bug me. Well, but this time I'm really justified being bugged.
Yeah, but I always think that.
Never mind. I've got the donkey, I've got the lance, and I'm riding with both. For truth, justice, and Dulcinea!
Ninety-nine percent (conservatively) of the folks talking and writing about digital photography are misusing the term "dynamic range." They should be talking about exposure range. The two are not the same thing; they can differ by several stops. Both are entirely acceptable terms; in fact, exposure range was well established in traditional photography before some people with a little (as in "a dangerous thing") technical knowledge decided it would be cooler to call it dynamic range. They were wrong. Dynamic range is a preexisting term in electronics and it means something different. Replacing an accurate, understood, established, and entirely adequate term with an incorrect and inaccurate one does not strike me as a service to the craft.
So, let the lecture begin. There may be a quiz tomorrow.
Dynamic range is the range of signal that a sensor can record. As a thought experiment, let's imagine an ideal, noiseless monochrome sensor that converts each incoming photon to a photoelectron, and where each pixel can hold 1000 photoelectrons. Then its dynamic range is 1000:1 because the smallest signal it can record is one electron and the largest is 1000. That's 2 to the 10th power or 10 stops (or 60 power dB, if you're into that kind of thing). You'll find that information in the technical spec sheet from the sensor manufacturer.
That does not mean the exposure range, the range of brightnesses that can be captured in a single exposure, is 10 stops. It's likely to be considerably different, for a whole number of reasons. Real-world noise intrinsic to the sensor+camera system may reduce the exposure range below the sensor dynamic range. Photon counting statistics, which we'll get to next column, increases the exposure range to more than the dynamic range. We'll get to that next week (so hold your questions, please).
So, intrinsic noise. What are we talking about? Real sensors and cameras don't have zero noise, although they get surprisingly close under the right conditions. Some of the noise is constant but some depends on how many photons the sensor collects, some depends on temperature, and some on how long the exposure is. It's complicated
What impact does this noise have? One effect is that it means you can record smaller differences in brightness than an "ideal" analysis says you should, e.g., intermediate levels between one-photon-per-pixel and two-photon illuminances. I covered that at length in the column "Noise is Your Friend."
Seemingly paradoxically, noise also reduces the number of grey levels you can meaningfully distinguish. This paper by Emil Martinec of the University of Chicago analyzes that most beautifully. The text may not be for the mathematically faint-of-heart, but the illustrations are understandable.
(An aside: If you're thinking all this further trashes the arguments of the "expose-to-the-right" crowd, as if I hadn't done that sufficiently already, you'd be right.)
Noise also has another effect that interests us more at the moment—it reduces the contrast in the shadows, and that can affect usable exposure range. In our ideal, frictionless world, black is black and each photon is detected by the sensor proportionately to the signal. The top row of this illustration illustrates that:
Illustration © Ctein 2012
Adding a small amount of system noise to the record, though, disproportionately affects the smallest signal levels, that is, the darkest tones. In rows two and three of the illustration above, I've added small but increasing amounts of noise to the signal. The eight-photon-per-pixel zone doesn't change very much but the lesser-exposed zones get progressively lighter, with the greatest difference being visible at the black end of the scale. While the noise hasn't made any difference, directly, in the exposure range of the camera at the dark end of the scale it has drastically lowered the contrast.
Add enough noise and you get something like the fourth row, where you've lost any meaningful distinction between pure black and a one photon per pixel exposure. In principle the difference is measurable, and the more pixels you have (the finer the grain) the easier it will be to make out that difference. But practically speaking, there isn't much to work with.
(Side note: deciding what constitutes the darkest usable tonal difference is one of the vexing parts of measuring exposure ranges. It's not like at the white end of the scale, where there is a clear boundary when you saturate the sensor. At the dark end of the scale, the researcher has to make a judgment call right at the beginning about what tonal difference is considered meaningful.)
At low ISOs, with short exposures and moderate temperatures, system noise doesn't have a very big impact on exposure range. Go to long exposures and high ISOs and it's easy to see the effects. When you open up such Raw photographs in Adobe Camera Raw, it may even tell you that there is no black clipping at all even though you can look at the photograph and see there is no subject detail in the shadows whatsoever. The overall noise level is high enough that you don't have any true black pixels, even those pixels that received no light exposure whatsoever.
No simple answer
In the real world, it gets much more complicated than that. Sensors aren't 100% efficient, and on-sensor noise can actually improve photon capture efficiency under certain circumstances. Color muddles this substantially, which is why I limited these thought experiments to a monochrome sensor. Moreover, sensors don't have to be purely linear in their behavior, where the stored charge is directly proportional to the amount of light. Currently, I think (I could be wrong) that all ordinary cameras do have roughly linear sensors, but there are a number of specialized cameras that don't, and NASA and other astronomical researchers have designed specialized sensors with considerably more than a 20-stop range for their work (and they're not achieving that by storing several million photoelectrons per pixel).
So, what's the simple answer? Well that's the problem! There isn't one. The electronic characteristics of the sensor and the camera can have significant effects on the actual exposure range realized in the world, and the kind and magnitude of those effects depends on the circumstances of the exposures. There are many, many engineering rules of thumb that get used for estimating the relationship between dynamic range and exposure range, but there's no universal rule like, "multiply the dynamic range by 0.95 to get the exposure range."
Things get even more interesting when we include the way light works in the real world instead of in some people's imaginations. The real exposure range of the sensor turns out to be significantly greater than its dynamic range. That will be the topic of next week's column.
Ctein
Don Ctein de la Daly City mounts his faithful donkey and goes at the windmills on Wednesdays at TOP.
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