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#1 |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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I have a little question here that no one (so far ) has been able to answer satisfactorily. It involves the ability of a digital camera to operate in low light conditions. From what I gather a camera with a 1/2.5" 3 MP sensor will have better low light capabilities than a 1/2.5" 6MP camera, due to the larger pixel size on the sensor; everything else being equal. Now, if I were to bump down the resolution on the6 MP camera to 3MP, would I now have the same low light capabilities as the 3 MP? I remember reading the specs of some cameras that, when shooting in low light conditions, do so (automatically) ata lower resolution. This got me wondering. Anybody have any thoughts on the matter? ...Willy.
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#2 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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The photosites on the sensor don't get any bigger, so I don't think you could expect better low-light performance. The signal still has to be amplified as much (per photosite) as if you used the full 6 MP.
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#3 | |
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Tom LaPrise wrote:
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#4 | |
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sneakyweasel wrote:
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#5 |
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[a "photosite" is the part of the sensor which is sensitive to light. 1 photosite is not equal to one pixel. But the sensor surface is covered with photosites and logic is used to merge the data from all of them to produce the image. In fact, a photosite is sensitive to a section of the color spectrum (red, green, or blue).]
I'd generally agree with the comments above. If the camera does nothing other than use 3MP-worth of pixels, then it wouldn't be better. If they do some tricks like merging the results of different pixels in some funky way, that might work. It wouldn't be as good, as you'd still have all the inherent problems that come from smaller photosites. Eric |
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#6 |
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The reasonyou can pushsome cameras to higher ISO numbers when resolution is decreased is simple - at low resolution, noise isn't as visible . Unfortunately, neither is anything else.
Theonly way to determine 'light-gathering' ability is bya camera's (or lense's)speed, measured by it's maximum aperture. Adjusting resolution has no effect. |
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#7 | |
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toshi43 wrote:
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#8 | ||
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BillDrew wrote:
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#9 | |
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toshi43 wrote:
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I have done some experiments, and given that a gray card does not produce a delta fucntion histogram, the results are pretty much as outlined. |
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