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#21 | |
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NR = noise reduction, which takes out some of the grain from a digital photo at higher ISO settings. It can also have the effect of softening a photo making it look fake/plastic depending on how strong NR is. |
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#22 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Armidale, New South Wales, Australia
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Thanks Mark. Much appreciated.
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Bernice Olympus SP590 UZ, TCON-17, MCON-40 Mark Nikon D 5100 |
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#23 |
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: UK
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Interesting thread - I wish you could persuade all posters to include EXIF information. The new HS10 thread, which I'm following owng to an imminent purchase, is a classic example and it's driving me mad. There are very few HS10 samples around and the handful posted on this site don't give even basic details.
What prompted me to join in is the discussion about monitors. The best way to view any picture on a screen is to use an old fashioned CRT screen. This is because, unlike flat screens the dots on a CRT bleed into each other which is more akin to a printed photograph. Graphics designers were the last stalwarts using CRTs for this very reason but even they seem to have ditched them in favour of LCD and plasma screens (probably the accountants telling them to save energy!) The problem is that any and all parts of the finalising process lead to differing, and sometimes widely differing, results. Unfortunately there is just no perfect solution that fits all circumstances and all users. And, at the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and producing a picture for technical disection is not the same as producing one as a piece of artwork. Sadly, I bet that not 5% of users calibrate their monitors so it's debatable whether or not any comments about colour rendition, at least, have any bearing on reality. Dave |
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#24 | |||
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#25 | |
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I do agree about the video adaptor - it's the weak link. CRTs themselves, though, are analogue devices, hence the truer colour rendition, assuming an appropriate colour profile is used. And how many web uses know the colour profile of the input device, to which they should be matching their screen? Digital audio sounds OK to most of us because we can't discern the discrete changes but we are somewhat more sensitive to digitised visual input. The reason the colours in a CRT bleed is because when a phosphor dot glows it spreads its light across to neigbouring dots. The shadow mask will reduce the effect so that it is almost imperceptable, but almost is still not quite the same as not-at-all. Also, despite the refractive index if the front glass being as good as it can be there are still internal reflections which add to the effect. LCDs, particularly cheaper ones and those that are set up with interpolated instead their natural resolution also suffer from aliasing effects. How any web users have top-of-the-range monitors anyway? The point is that I question the validity of some technical discussions about the quality of an image posted on the web, particular in regard to colour. In photgraphic terms it's a relatively crappy medium. But popular ![]() |
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#26 | |
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So the accountants for the landlord don't tell the tenants to save electricity; they tell the landlord to raise the rents.
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#27 |
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I take exact opposite view. I believe 100 percent crop is the worst way to judge picture quality for most shooting. A 100 percent crop represents a gigantic print size that will almost never be used. A 40 percent crop, at most, is more realistic in terms of family pictures and that equalizes out a lot of cameras. My point is that for the vast number of casual shooters intending to simply enjoy the shot, you do not need to spend the kind of money required to get a good 100 percent crop. Your example picture is very good at the size you posted. Are you really going to enjoy a picture of an eyeball? This is truely posted with all due respect. I just don't get the 100 percent crop theory of judging cameras. I own a DSLR, but it is used primarily for low light and fast FPS. Instead of relying on crop, I zoom or get closer. At 8x10 with post processing, you can put some point and shoot high ISO shots against some very expensive cameras and not tell the difference. I just don't like to see people spend a lot of money to get way more camera than they need based on a 100 percent crop judgment.
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#28 | |
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However, the bulk of this thread has been about comparing image quality between cameras under various conditions. You correctly point out that for practical purposes, it's often impossible to see the difference. But if you can't see the difference you can't do a comparison. I have owned 5 digicams since 2002, and am still regularly involved with images from another 3, which I purchased for family members. Those three, plus three of mine are still in regular use. Each has its good and bad points, which is why they're all used. All of them produce good results that are generally 'fit for purpose', and the cameras should be judged against each other according to that purpose. In many instances it would be difficult to judge among them. BUT, most of this thread is about the image quality aspect of "camera quality". If you can't see see the difference you can't make a comparison. Occasionally I want to make an 18x12 print from an artistically slightly cropped frame, to hang on my or someone else's wall. If I wish to compare quality between cameras, clearly I then need to to compare things that are different. Therefore it's necessary to inspect the image at a magnification that shows the differences. Hence the "100% crop". Once an image has been resized, using whatever algorithm, the original relation between adjacent pixels has gone for good, and can't be meaningfully compared any more. Hence the 100% crop of the original file straight from the camera. As for the "get closer" or "zoom in more" comment, wouldn't it be lovely if we always had the luxury of being able to do that? I often find I can't. |
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#29 |
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Thanks for this thread. My Canon SD4000/300HS takes pictures that look great when zoomed out. But when you zoom to 100%, you really notice how it lacks detail one would find even in older cameras in the same series.
pboerger says that a 100% crop represents a gigantic size that will never be used. As someone who will crop images to get only the part/detail I want, I disagree. Being able to crop the image to focus on the detail I want to highlight is a very relevant use case, at least to me. |
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#30 | |
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