I find the descent of photography to number crunching to be soul destroying. I have yet to see a digital image I actually like the look of - for me it is an entirely different aesthetic, one that just doest do it for me, no matter what the numbers say.
Saludos, Antonio On 22 Aug 2007, at 18:01, Sauerwald Mark wrote:
As an engineer who makes his living in the semiconductor industry, I would agree with some of your statements, but disagree with others. We in the semiconductor industry have been continually wondering if Moores Law would hold for another generation - since 1964 it has (Moores Law is an empirical observation that the number of transistors that we can put on one chip doubles every 18-24 months). There are limits - as pixels get smaller, noise increases. As pixels get smaller they have less light gathering capability. I also have confidence that we are far from the physical limits to improving on the size/noise/sensitivity of the sensor elements themselves. What I suspect will happen is that they will continue to build larger resolution sensors, even if it means less efficient pixels, and will compensate with image processing that will generate the image pixels by processing a number of physical pixels. This will allow the marketing guys to go crazy, advertizing 50 gazillion pixels, and will shift much of the burden of the image quality from the more analog sensitive sensor elements to the more cost effective digital processing. Already we are in a realm where very few people actually store their images in RAW, there is almost always some sort of processing that takes place between sensor and storage. If nothing else, the most common technology uses different color sensors in an array and then uses digital processing to generate a final RGB image with equal numbers of R, G and B pixels (most sensors do not have equal numbers of sensors for each of the primary colours). One thing that does baffle me is the drive to make sensors which are the same size and aspect ratio as 35mm film - does anybody really like that 3:2 aspect ratio? It makes lens design less efficient than a square or near square sensor, and does not generally result in a pleasing image. If I were to design a digital camera from scratch, I would use a square sensor, and have the ability to do in-camera cropping to generate 4x5 aspect ratio vertical or horizontal shots, as well as square images for those who like to keep things more balanced. --- Jim Brick <jim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:====================================================================== =======================================Pixels cannot be made any smaller than they currently are being made. The smaller the pixel, the more noise. five square microns is about the limit for a quality photograph. P&S cameras have smaller pixels in order to pack in the consumer hyped 'magapixels'. But as you know, P&S cameras are noisy at higher ISOs. The best sensors have from seven to nine square microns per pixel. Each pixel requires a capacitance (electron bucket) in order to capture the electrons that the light intensity has allowed through the photo diode junction. The smaller the pixel, the smaller the electron bucket. The smaller the bucket, the less dynamic range the pixel has. This is why ALL professional level digital cameras and backs typically use pixels around nine microns square. This gives them large enough electron buckets to capture an extended dynamic range which has the side effect of greatly reducing noise, which has the side effect of allowing superb photographs to be taken at ISO 1600 and higher. ALL of the visualized increase in digital camera image quality has been provided by software/firmware engineers. Just look at what Genuine Fractals can do. You don't need a 39mp digital back to produce 30x40 prints. A good DSLR, properly used, and the resulting file pumped up via CS3 or Genuine Fractals, will give you a result that looks as good as the o/p of a H3D. Of course H3D O/P could be pumped up to mural size. But it's all 'software', NOT hardware. To increase the megapixel output, think interpolation. The five to nine micron pixel size is a wall that probably will not be torn down with current technology. Just as optical microscopes hit the wall decades ago, a new technology had to be invented, the SEM, in order to be able to look at smaller stuff. The same with digital sensors. A new technology will have to be invented in order for an image sensor to ever approach the physical data capabilities of film. With millions of software engineers working on image data, the need may never come. Just look at what software produces with MRI data. Creating an image out of random oscillating atoms. :-) Jim PS... they make sensors with one square micron pixels. They basically are graphic devices. Black or white. Nothing in between. At 11:49 PM 8/21/2007 -0700, Richard Schiff wrote:In theory, as technology gets better and better itshould bepossible to get the resolving power of an 8X10 intoa 24X36 inchdetector... the problem is that optical science hasa long way to goto get optics to match the detectors....To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.______________________________________________________________________ ______________Ready for the edge of your seat?Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/====================================================================== ======================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
