by
Rusty » Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:20 pm
OK, I'm going to jump in and show my ignorance
But, not knowing what I am talking about has
never prevented me from "expounding" ... often at length
Way, way, way back in my "film days" I decided that
negative size is king. I owned a camera that used 120 roll film and progressed to a 35mm camera; I had the opportunity to borrow a 4x5 camera for a weekend.
Without getting into a discussion of how good or bad a photographer I was at the time, let's just say that there was no question that
I got the absolutely best quality prints out of the biggest negatives!
Here's my ignorance kicking in ... I have to believe that if I have a choice between using:
Canon G10 - sensor size = 7.6 x 5.7 mm
my Nikon D80 - sensor size = 23.6 x 15.8 mm
Nikon D700 - sensor size = 36 x 23.9 mm
or the Hasselbald H3DII-50 - sensor size 36 x 48 mm
.....well, of course the Hassie
(with a sensor made by Kodak - don't knock Kodak you snobs) is better. Why? Is it because the Hassie is 50mp? (woo hoo). No, my simplistic reasoning says the Hassie is better because it's negative is bigger. You don't have to enlarge the Hasselblad image as much to make a print (of whaterve size) as you do the others.
If you do the math and calculate the area of my D80 sensor and relate that to 10.2Mp and then calculate the area of the Hassie sensor and relate that to 50MP ... wow, the numbers are about the same (27,355 pixels per sq mm vs. 28,935 for the Hassie). So, then you jump to the conclusion -- 50Mp isn't a big deal, it has to be that much because the sensor is bigger; the 50Mp Hassie is no better than my 10Mp Nikon.
Ah -- my sensor is (I think) CCD and the Hassie is (I think) CMOS. But, my attitude is -- Who Cares?
Big negatives are good!
Smaller negatives are not as good!
Rusty