[LRflex] Re: Another Question....Another annoying

Recently, you wrote:

> Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:20:01 -0800
> From: David Young <telyt@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> The very smallest, low resolution sensors generally do not use
> low-pass (AA) filters as they are not capable of  building a moire
> pattern.  That being said, every sub-Medium Format sensor of
> sufficient size to be affected by the Moire problem has a low pass
> filter in front of it. This means nearly all of them. No matter where
> made, or by whom.  The ONLY exceptions, so far, are the DMR and the
> M8.
>
Almost so...

The first cameras that I know of not to use AA filters were the Kodak 14mp
full-frame sensor models. Those got roundly trashed by the "digi-camerati"
who felt that Moiré was a problem to be avoided at all costs. To this day,
photographers appear to fall into two camps on this issue, and most of the
discussions that I see regarding Moiré are rather unbalanced.

> I find this whole concept most interesting, for the DMR has a Moire
> Filter built into the firmware.  If you see the problem on the LCD,
> you flip on the filter and re-shoot.  (A very MF [read: studio] way
> of working which owes its existence to the DMR's Imacon
> heritage.)  However, in thousands of DMR shots, I have only ever
> suffered a Moire pattern once.  Curiously, I only once suffered a
> Moire pattern in my thousands of shots with the Canon 20D, which has
> a Low-pass filter.  In fact, the Moire problem is so small, in actual
> use, that the M8 has deleted the  Moire filter function from it's
> firmware, preferring to treat it, if necessary, in post processing
> software.  (My favourite Raw converter, Silkypix, has an excellent
> "Geometric Noise" (Moire) filter built in, but I've never had to use
> it.)
>
I suspect that the frequency of Moiré problems will be related to what one
shoots. When shooting nature, wildlife, etc., the likelihood of the image
containing geometric symmetry is pretty low, whereas shooting architecture
pretty much guarantees it. In my opinion, if shooting architecture, one
should use film anyway.  ;-)

Neil



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